Summer 2003

The Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering will soon have facilities that match its growing stature on campus when it moves into new offices, laboratories and meeting/conference rooms in space formerly occupied by the Moench Hall Auditorium.

The $1.8 million renovation project was provided by funds raised from the Board of Trustees and the Lilly Endowment’s special matching gift program.  The opening of Hatfield Hall theater last fall freed up the former Moench Hall space for this academic project.

“We going from the basement (of Logan Library) to the penthouse,” said Cary Laxer, CSSE department chair.  Offices are scheduled to be moved in July.

The 8,207-square-foot space will have 14 faculty offices, two laboratories each with 24 computer workstations, four senior thesis workstation areas, student project meeting areas, a conference, a computer systems administrator’s office and a copy room

All of the labs and offices are equipped for wireless and hardwire computer connections.

The CSSE department had only one lab with 17 computer workstations and 10 faculty offices in the Logan Library.

The old office area in the library will be renovated for the Army ROTC Department and an expansion of the Learning center.  Future plans call to renovate former Army ROTC Department offices on the top floor of Moench Hall for additional office space and student laboratory areas.

 “The new space allows for our department to be one cohesive educational unit, instead of having faculty offices scattered through the basement and students crammed into one small computer lab,” Laxer said.  The department’s basement space cover only 3,950 square feet.

The renovation will heighten the department’s campus profile and help build on the department’s strong relationship with the computer engineering and mathematics departments.

Computer science now is Rose-Hulman’s fourth largest academic major, with 220 students enrolled during the fall quarter of the 2002-03 school year.  A new major in software engineering will begin this fall.