The newly refurbished Beatrice Howe Humanities Lab in Boyer 135 functions as a creative space for teaching and learning, and a center for collaborative humanities projects carried out by the Center for Public Humanities.
The room is outfitted with 11 Lenovo Tiny PCs, 3 Lenovo Towers, and an iMac. The Lenovo machines are loaded with Windows 10 and standard Microsoft Office software as well as specialized programs for editing, mapping, and creating such as ArcGIS, SketchUp, Agisoft PhotoScan, and ABBYY FineReader 12 Pro. The space serves as the lab and meeting place for the Digital Harrisburg Working Group. Students in history, politics, and computer science have used the machines to create GIS maps of the city of Harrisburg in the 19th and 20th centuries, process oral history recordings, and build websites.
The flexible furniture arrangement makes the room an ideal space to deliver dynamic courses that involve collaborative projects or peer review, such as digital history or writing-intensive classes. Students can use a wireless connection via Epson iProjection to project their desktops or laptops to the main screen in the room.
The lab is also used by the Public Humanities Fellows in the late afternoons and evenings, who hold seminar-style discussions, and plan out their individual and collaborative projects.