Chiang-Elghanayan Center for Innovation and Collaboration
The Chiang-Elghanayan Center for Innovation and Collaboration is home to Blair's technology and fine arts departments and the building's open-architecture, technology-rich academic center is unlike any other campus facility. With classes in everything from robotics to ceramics throughout the day, and club meetings and community gatherings in the evenings and on weekends, the Chiang-Elghanayan Center’s well-equipped classrooms and flexible, comfortable meeting spaces are constantly abuzz.
Below, several students and teachers to share their experiences in the Chiang-Elghanayan Center, a venue designed to inspire creativity and facilitate hands-on, collaborative learning. Their impressions give the entire Blair community a view into the activities taking place within the Chiang-Elghanayan Center's glass-walled spaces—and a glimpse at how these activities continue to build on the best of Blair’s academic and community traditions.
"The Chiang-Elghanayan Center is awesome. I love how the glass walls let you see outside the classrooms and how they let people peek in as they walk by—it will be great for prospective students, as they will be able to easily see what we're doing in class!
- CIC-photo quote
- postClassPurple
I teach film and animation, meaning and media and graphic arts in the Chiang-Elghanayan Center’s media lab, which is very well equipped for all of these courses. The green screen room/recording studio is an excellent resource for student filmmakers.
- CIC-photo quote
- postClassYellow
Digital fabrication equipment is new to us at Blair, so organizing and setting up our materials and tools has occupied much of my first week in the Chiang-Elghanayan Center. I have also dedicated many hours to training students and faculty in the concepts of design and use of equipment so that they can work independently.
- CIC-photo quote
- postClassOrange
This is a really cool building. It's the perfect place to study because there's plenty of room, we can talk and eat, and there are places to meet with a group or just work on your own. The first night I had Chiang-Elghanayan Center manager duty, almost 100 kids signed in to study, and they used every area of the facility, from the art studio on the third floor to the maker space in the basement.
- CIC-photo quote
- postClassGreen
My ceramics and sculpture students got their hands a little messy during their first week in the Chiang-Elghanayan Center, but I front-loaded some technology instruction, too, to help them begin thinking about how they might use the 3D printer, laser cutter and vinyl cutter to enhance their pottery and sculpture projects. We used the software packages I researched during the Faculty Summer Institute and learned more about the capabilities of our new technology as we worked.
- CIC-photo quote
- postClassPurple
In addition to debugging some of the Chiang-Elghanayan Center's new equipment and software, I had the pleasure of kicking off my AP computer science and artificial intelligence courses in a dedicated and well-equipped technology classroom, as well as engaging with kids during evening duty as they acclimate to the new facility and explore how they might use it for curricular and co-curricular projects.
- CIC-photo quote
- postClassGreen
Even before the school year started, Chiang-Elghanayan Center student managers came to me with a great plan for open houses. They wanted to get as many community members as possible into the Chiang-Elghanayan Center right away, to help everyone feel comfortable there and learn their way around.
- CIC-photo quote
- postClassYellow
Although I don't have any classes in the Chiang-Elghanayan Center, I volunteered to be a student manager because I'm excited about the prospect of the new building. As soon as it opened, we took a tour with [Head of School] Mr. Fortunato, who explained that our job is to learn how to use all the equipment in the maker space and throughout the building so we can help others. Safety is our first priority.
- CIC-photo quote
- postClassPurple
Everything in the technology classroom is high tech! The projector is like those I've seen in college classrooms, and it is amazing that we have that technology in high school. I'm used to taking technology classes in the basement of Timken Library. In the Chiang-Elghanayan Center, the classroom is wide open and has a very different feeling—much freer and lighter. We can really observe what our classmates are doing, no matter where we are in the room.
- CIC-photo quote
- postClassOrange
The openness of the robotics classroom is especially profound because people will actually be able to see the progress robotics students are making. I took robotics last year and want to stay involved this year with a project of my own. As a Chiang-Elghanayan Center student manager on Friday nights, I hope to make that happen.
- CIC-photo quote
- postClassYellow
The Chiang-Elghanayan Center Comes to Life: A Photo Gallery
A Closer Look: Inside the New Building
The Chiang-Elghanayan Center for Innovation and Collaboration brings the Blair community together in myriad ways, every day of the week. When students and teachers gather for a Skeptics lecture in the Forum, an evening seminar in a conference room, or an art or technology class in any of the well-equipped classrooms, connections, learning and deeper relationships result.
Peter G. Curran, Head of School
This is the first academic space at Blair that is open, where you can literally walk into the midst of intellectual discourse. The Chiang-Elghanayan Center for Innovation and Collaboration emphasizes what we've always said about learning at Blair: that it extends beyond the walls of the classroom. The creation of classrooms without walls and classrooms with transparent walls is a visual representation of what is happening intellectually.
Nathan Molteni, Dean of Academics
The Chiang-Elghanayan Center for Innovation and Collaboration is everything we are at Blair. Its glass-walled and light-filled spaces promote teamwork and allow all the more for the development of the relationships on which we pride ourselves.
MARIANNE LIEBERMAN ’79, Blair Trustee & Task Force Committee Member
Chiang-Elghanayan Center News
L1NKUP, as described by John, is a smart wristband that is programmed into Blair’s door locking system and payment function. The wristband, made of rubber and plastic, is durable and waterproof so it can be worn 24/7
Blair’s Alumni Roundtable series continues this week when Trustee Keith Rauschenbach ’76, executive vice president at TIAA, and Michael McDonald ’97, director of corporate development at Molex LLC, visit campus on January 16 and January 17, respectively.
Every Friday night, 13 Blair students and three Blair faculty members gather in the Chiang-Elghanayan Center for Innovation and Collaboration over pizza and snacks to examine what it feels like to belong, both in the Blair community and beyond, and what students can do to promote that feeling among others.
Thanks to the exceptional support of loyal alumni K. Thomas Elghanayan ’62 and Frederick Elghanayan ’66, Blair’s dynamic academic hub is newly co-named the Chiang-Elghanayan Center for Innovation and Collaboration.
More than 20 Blair freshmen through seniors have taken advantage of a unique opportunity to dive deep into human rights issues this year by joining a project- and inquiry-based seminar that launched in late September.
Although it is used by a wide range of classes during the academic day, the Chiang-Elghanayan Center’s maker space is open to the entire Blair community for use in the afternoons, evenings and on weekends. Student projects run the gamut from simple T-shirts produced by the dye sublimation system to complex design projects that begin on a computer and come to life using 3D printers, the laser engraving system or the vinyl cutter.
Blair Academy is pleased to welcome Dr. Benjamin Schwartz P’21 to the Society of Skeptics on October 9. Dr. Schwartz is a specialist in gynecologic oncology and minimally invasive surgery, and his Skeptics presentation, which begins at 7 p.m. in the Chiang-Elghanayan Center for Innovation and Collaboration, will focus on his experience with the daVinci® Surgical System and how robotic surgery is shaping the future of healthcare.
Several teachers and administrators enrolled in two sessions of Blair’s Summer Faculty Institute, which aimed to restructure two longstanding classes at Blair—chemistry and western civilization—as well as design a new introductory science research course and explore additional areas of growth for Blair’s science department.
More than 50 faculty members, administrators and technology office staff from private secondary schools across the United States traveled to Blairstown in mid-June for the annual edAccess Conference, a four-day, peer-led program that focuses on how technology can best support teaching and learning.
Classics teacher Christopher Sheppard’s Latin 4 class has taken advantage of the technology and modern studio space in the Chiang-Elghanayan Center for Innovation and Collaboration for a project rooted in past millennia: the translation and analysis of ancient texts.