News

The Student Hall for Exploration and Development (SHED) and the renovated Wallace Library will reopen in less than a year. Work has begun to schedule the fall semester classes that will be held for the first time in the SHED complex, and Joe Loffredo, RIT associate vice president for Academic Affairs and registrar, is leading the effort to assign the classrooms in Wallace Library.

Members of the RIT Board of Trustees and President Munson recently took a walking tour of the Student Hall for Exploration and Development (SHED). The $120 million complex stretches from Wallace Library to Monroe Hall and will include the Brooks H. Bower Maker Showcase, the Sklarsky Glass Box Theater, and music and dance studios. The SHED’s focus on hands-on learning extends to the 27 new classrooms—five extra-large learning spaces designed for active learning and 22 regular-sized flexible classrooms in the renovated Wallace Library. 

The Student Hall for Exploration and Development (SHED) will look like nothing else on the RIT campus when construction ends next year.

A room in Slaughter Hall seats 150 students and is meant to simulate the learning spaces in the Student Hall for Exploration and Development (SHED) that will hold classes next fall. The Slaughter classroom, dubbed the “betaSHED,” combines three rooms to give professors and students a preview of the large-scale learning environment.

Construction on the Student Hall for Exploration and Development (SHED) involves hundreds of people and thousands of details, and Mark Williams, RIT principal for construction management, keeps track of it all.

RIT alumnus and trustee Brooks Bower ’74 (printing) has made a gift to the multi-use complex under construction that will showcase the university as a place for technology, the arts, and design.

RIT has named Erica Haskell professor and inaugural director of the university’s new School of Performing Arts. Haskell comes to RIT from the University of New Haven. She was selected as school director following a nationwide search and will begin her new role on July 1.

Construction on the Student Hall for Exploration and Development (the SHED) this summer will begin to move beyond the complex to the surrounding area.

Walking into the extra-large classrooms in the Student Hall for Exploration and Development (the SHED) will be a new experience for students and faculty alike when the multi-use complex opens its doors in fall 2023. Faculty can preview the new learning environment during the 2022-2023 academic year by teaching in a large-capacity learning space designed to simulate the new active learning spaces in the SHED.

While the SHED takes shape at the heart of the RIT campus, working groups are filling in the details of what will go inside the building.

The largest construction project on the RIT campus in more than 50 years remains on track to open in fall 2023. When complete, the Student Hall for Exploration and Development (SHED) will cover more than 120,000 square feet of new construction as well as more than 83,000 square feet of renovations in two existing buildings.

New chairs for the 27 classrooms in the Student Hall for Exploration and Development and in Wallace Library will be on display in the Fireside Lounge this week. Students are invited to sample the different furniture until Feb. 4.