Renovation as Innovation: Transforming a Campus Symbol and a Campus Culture

In an effort to completely transform both teaching spaces and pedagogical orientation, a multi-stage project that tied professional development efforts for faculty and administrators to a redesign of existing classroom facilities was initiated. The goal was to simultaneously transform learning and spaces for learning in order to change the cultural paradigm that affected both the concept of being a teaching institution and the sustainability of the campus. In this article, the authors describe the most significant lesson learned from these multistage renovation projects--to achieve the goal of a learner-centred curriculum, changing the physical spaces is a necessary condition, but not a sufficient one. As noted at the beginning of this article, the "idea" of the university cannot be changed without considering the "physical" presence; likewise, the "physical" presence cannot be changed without vigilant attention to the "idea" of the university. Changing a culture requires buy-in, engagement, and intellectual investment, which, in this case, was gained through the process of ongoing assessment and professional development. The point of assessment was not solely to assure feedback as they proceeded through the stages of this project; the ongoing assessment empowered the different constituents and individuals, involved them in the process, and most importantly, sparked a campus-wide discussion, not just about space, but about learning and what it means to be a learning-centred campus.