Huntsman Hall Classrooms

We’ve talked about where you might eat, take a break, study and entertain VIP visitors in our new Huntsman Hall but we haven’t talked about where our students will go to class.

While the classrooms on the 2nd floor that were renovated in 2008 are far better than what we had previously, we were not able to build start-of-the-art classrooms at that time. The main reason is that the ceiling heights in the George S. Eccles Business Building are insufficient to build a modern, tiered, business school classroom. The ceiling heights will accommodate modern, flat, flexible classrooms.

Because of the ceiling height issue, we plan to build tiered classrooms in the new Huntsman Hall. We want to have a very open and engaging environment with our tiered classrooms. These classrooms will seat either 80 or 50 students. We have discovered that a good tiered classroom has two aisles that make it easier for teachers to interact with the students. See the attached photo of a modern, state-of-the-art (except for the blackboards!) tiered classroom in Wharton’s Huntsman Hall.

We plan to convert most, if not all, of the classrooms in the Eccles Building to flat classrooms. As discussed in previous blogs, we will take some of the things we have tested in our experimental classroom and make them part of our new classrooms, including movable desks and chairs, and white boards and projection on multiple walls. These classrooms will seat about 40 students.

This new building is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to design ideal classrooms. In pursuit of ideal classroom design, we have visited several other business schools, and have engaged our faculty, students and administrators. We are looking forward to the impact these new classrooms will bring to education in the Huntsman School of Business.

- Ken Snyder