ACM’s Learning Commons will showcase its services at two open house events from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Mar. 22 and 23. All are welcome to attend. Food, giveaways, and information tables will be available. Allied Health students are shown studying in a newly created collaboration room.
COLLEGE UNVEILS NEW LEARNING COMMONS:
Mar. 22 and 23 Learning Commons Open Houses Planned at Allegany College of Maryland
CUMBERLAND, Md. (Mar. 2, 2022) – Allegany College of Maryland’s Learning Commons will showcase its services at two open house events from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Mar. 22 and 23. All are welcome to attend. Food, giveaways, and information tables will be available.
Transition to Learning Commons.
ACM began its transition to a Learning Commons in 2020 with the hire of Julie Rando as the inaugural director of Learning Commons. Rando and a team of librarians, library assistants, testing and tutoring coordinators, and staff started with a simple question: What best serves our students, community members, and faculty right now?
They identified ways to create a more active learning environment and broadcast their services to students and community patrons. In time, the merger of the College Library, Testing Lab, and Tutoring Labs occurred. (ACM offers in-person Math Study Lab, the Reading and Writing Center or RAWC, a Science Study Lab, a Computer Science Lab, and study labs at the ACM Bedford County Campus.) In the College Library, increased collaboration spaces, comfortable seating, study booths, and technology charging areas were added. Shelves were lowered to increase visibility and open up the space, and staff offices were shifted to make room for the labs and services that were moved from other buildings on campus.
“A Place to Do Stuff.”
The Learning Commons philosophy, originated in 2008 by David Loertscher, Carol Koechlin, and Sandi Zwaan, is championed by educators and scholars like Joyce Valenza, a Milken Educator and Library of Congress American Memory Fellow who teaches library and information science in Rutgers’s School of Communication and Information Science. Valenza proposes the idea of transitioning libraries into active places where “to do stuff, not simply places to get stuff” – a belief shared by ACM’s administration and Rando and her team.
Positive Reception.
The new Learning Commons space at ACM became fully operational at the beginning of the 2021-2022 academic year following the move of the Testing Lab. To date, the reception from ACM students has been overwhelmingly positive.
Connect for Information.
More information about the Learning Commons event is available at https://bit.ly/3qamBNr or by calling 301-784-5268 or emailing jrando@allegany.edu. More about Allegany College of Maryland’s Learning Commons is available at www.allegany.edu/learning-commons.
