South Quad Complex Opens at Long Beach City College

Well, I'm not seeing a report at the Long Beach Press-Telegram, although I expect they'll have a story there soon. My school's paper, the Viking, had an item in November, "South Quad to Open Over Winter Break." I was on campus yesterday, at the copy shop, to get my course syllabi ready for next week. After that I visited the South Quad building for the first time. I have a new office. My college division has been relocated across the street. This the view of the building from the pedestrian overpass above Carson Street, looking east:

Walking up to the second floor, look at the lovely center lawn area below. The college financed the building with a $176 million bond measure passed by the voters in 2002. The early word was that the facility was going to be ready by late 2006. I was not involved with the planning committees, but the college changed contractors after a year or two (I heard stories of wasteful spending). And over the last couple of years department faculty kept getting news that we we're "moving," only to hear of delays and pushbacks. It's been a long time coming:

Here's my office. Nameplates haven't been mounted yet. And I don't mind posting a picture of my office number. It's public information, and my partisan enemies know where I am, obviously; and I have no persecution complex:

I'm quite pleased as I walk in to see my desk and workspace. I'd been having some problems with my desktop PC last year, and I put in a request with academic computing for an overhaul. This was in November, so the chief technologist suggested he'd simply have a new system ready to go for me when we moved across the street. And there it is. Processor speed is really fast and the Internet connection is a snap. I was having problems with Flash Player error-warnings, which were causing pages to close. Hopefully that's not going to be too bad. I do a lot of blogging at work during office hours:

You can see more of my office below. I received an e-mail today about some bookshelves that've been delayed. There might be some kind of fitted bookstand or hutch to go over that cabinet/bookshelf here. At right is the end of my workstation, which has that overhead shelf as well. I have a lot of books and journals packed away in those boxes, in addition to a lot of old administrative files, official records and grades from previous semesters, and curriculum materials (exams, handouts, etc.). I hope everything fits:

Walking back out into the hall, looking right, here's a little open study area. I can envision students hanging out in here, looking for professors, and taking makeup exams. I'll have nice set of tables outside the office to meet with groups of students for brief study sessions:

Here's the view looking left out my office door:

I took a picture while seated at my desk, but the windows don't open from the inside (for security reasons), and thus I couldn't get a good shot. So, I walked back outside to snap a picture of my view across Carson Street. That's the college's main administration building straight ahead:

I'm getting ready to leave now, but first I want to check out the classrooms. I'm guessing the political science classes are downstairs, since I can't get into the second floor rooms. I'm standing in the back of the classroom here, facing the front whiteboard. Desks are picked up off the floor:

Here's the instructor's work station. I'm not pleased with the window-shades. It's about 4:00pm, and the late-afternoon sun is going to make it a little bright in there for some students. I won't normally be teaching at that time, but it's something to consider in terms of classroom design and teaching efficacy:

Walking back to the east parking lot, I snap a photo looking back up toward my office location. The grass area is like a ponding basin for drainage. It's really nice out here. I'm excited:

These two rabbits were a little skittish. We don't usually seen them on this side of Carson. They've set up a little "cave" under that cement overhang. We had a portable building out on this side of campus, and demolition was just finishing up. Not sure where the rabbits were living, in any case, although we have lots of them around:

I didn't take photos of myself, since this was the day after my BCS freelance blogging, and I was still plumb tuckered out. (I do like this photo of me, however.) I'm hungry, so I stopped for a snack at 7-11:

I'll take some pics of me in my crib later ...