The Haslam Building’s facilities will also include five videoconference classrooms with technology capable to complete three concurrent videoconferences, Valentine said.

The Ready for the World Conference Room will allow students to videoconference with other students across the nation and the world, reflecting the “international flavor and emphasis of the college,” Valentine said.

The Electronic Collaboration Room contains a new technology system called Thunder, which was created by Poly Vision. Thunder boasts electronic flip chart capability, which allows many people to brainstorm together. Only 50 to 100 Thunder rooms exist across the nation, Valentine said.

There is one computer lab in the building, which will contain 20 Macintosh computers, Valentine said. These Macs will have the capability to switch from a Mac to a Windows operating system, allowing students to choose.

All classrooms will also be equipped with extensive security features. Students’ cards will be coordinated with the security system to allow access to assigned team rooms. Professors will be able to call facilities maintenance, campus security, 911 through a help desk and tech support. A control station in the technology support group will be manned while classes are taking place, Valentine said. There are also special access codes required to sign on to the TeamSpot software in each team room, making each team room a secure environment, Neubert said.

Valentine said the university also has an experimental classroom on the first floor of the building. Roehr is hopeful that other colleges in the university will be able to use similar technologies in their classrooms.

“I think (other colleges) could easily use a good bit of this when they get to know it and see what they like about it,” Roehr said.

With the original program document for the Haslam Building dating back to January 2000, these resources have long been in the works. Decisions about technology were put off as long as possible, with final decisions being made in July 2007, Valentine said.

“Technology is going to change over time, but we are in a good place for this technology to last for longer than a couple years,” Valentine said.

The technological advancements made in the Haslam Business Building are a result of private donations, the majority of which were made by Bill A. Haslam II, Valentine said. Ladd offered facts, figures and plans for future funding.

“The college is investing about $5 to 6 million on the technology in the new building,” Ladd said. “Almost all of that is directed toward the classrooms and team rooms. We are also working on a $15 million endowment to keep the building and technology up-to-date.”

The state-of-the-art facilities and technological capabilities available in the new Haslam Building were all developed with students in mind. Valentine spoke of his vision concerning the philosophy behind the building.

“We wanted to create a building where the students would want to stay, and so you see the courtyard — a beautiful place — we have all the team rooms, we have a place for students to congregate,” Valentine said. “The whole idea of a campus within the campus, we wanted to do that.”