KLC: Elon's newest learning hub

By Madison Taylor 

Samantha Eastman discovered her favorite study spot on her first day of class. The first-year student from Falls Church, Virginia, explored Carol Grotnes Belk Library only three days after moving in on campus. As she wandered from floor to floor and room to room, she saw the perfect place on the second floor. She went through a mental checklist. Comfortable seating? Check. Privacy? Check. Power outlets? Check. A dynamic view for those times when a little distraction from reading is required? Check. “I love this space,” she says. “The design allows for collaboration between groups of people. This is going to be one of my favorite spots to study.”

Unknown to Eastman, she had discovered a space on Elon’s campus not many students had visited yet when she found the Koenigsberger Learning Center, a new 11,000-square-foot, two-story addition on the east side of Belk Library. Perched on seating located under a large picture window that overlooks the Inman Admissions Welcome Center and the Moseley Center, Eastman has a perfect view of the quad. “I can look up and see things outside then go right back to my work,” she says. “This provides all the things I’m looking for in a study space.”

Joan Ruelle, dean of the library, and Becky Olive-Taylor, executive director of the Koenigsberger Learning Center and director of Academic Advising, both smile at Eastman’s reaction. It’s what they hoped to accomplish when planning the construction, renovation and addition of the learning center to the library. The result from this partnership is a one-stop site incorporated into Belk Library that reimagines how college students study and how they access academic services and resources. 

The center is now home to the Academic Advising, Learning Assistance and Disability Resources programs. It includes improved offices for academic advising; two multi-purpose meeting/seminar rooms; an assistive technology lab; a large first-floor classroom; and dozens of sites scattered throughout where students can work in groups or individually at high-top tables, booths or easy chairs. In addition, 5,000 square feet of space in Belk Library was renovated to improve the flow between the old and new buildings. A periodicals area with shelves was removed and stored at another site on campus to connect the second floor study areas. The former tutoring office on the first floor of Belk is now a research center and meeting space. “We rearranged a lot of furniture to accommodate the various ways students study,” Ruelle says. “We created a collaborative study space.” 

Dreaming of a learning commons

The groundwork for the Koenigsberger Learning Center was laid a few years ago. Elon is committed to a central library, Ruelle says. A renovation of Belk Library’s first floor in 2014 reflected the greater physical and operational integration of the Writing Excellence Initiative, as well as consolidation of key academic expertise—research, writing, technology and tutoring—in one convenient location. Since the Writing Center and peer tutoring services were already in the library, the focus then shifted to partner with academic advising and disabilities resources, which were located then in Duke Building. It was about this time that Olive-Taylor and her team started dreaming about an even bigger integration of services as they worked on a five-year plan. So when a donor who shared that vision came along, Ruelle adds, “We were able to make a strong case that this is a place where all students can get their work done, no matter what that work is.” 

​Inspired by the idea of enabling the success of all students, Elon parents Robert and Dilek Koenigsberger P’17 made the dream a reality with a game-changing $5 million gift to build the learning center and establish an endowment that will fund its annual operations, including adding new staff positions and technology resources. It was their goal to help students take advantage of everything Elon has to offer. “Our family has benefited and has been enriched by Elon and its culture of partnership, humility and gratitude. Elon is not simply a university, but rather a lifelong community,” Robert Koenigsberger said during a Sept. 28 dedication ceremony. “This building is indeed spectacular. However, most inspiring of all is Elon’s courage and wisdom to place the KLC in the heart of campus attached to Belk Library. This permits convenient, seamless access to all these essential programs.”

Ruelle and Olive-Taylor both call the combined Belk Library and Koenigsberger Learning Center a “learning commons,” but there is little common about it in higher education. While a small number of university libraries offer similar services in one site, the strong collaboration among all the partners at Elon—the KLC, the library, Teaching and Learning Technologies and the Center for Writing Excellence—is unusual. “Joan is incredibly progressive and student-centered in the ways libraries offer support,” Olive-Taylor says. “There are libraries that would put up roadblocks to the idea of shared space, but Joan embraced the idea from the start.” 

Student-centered services

One consistent theme with the learning center addition is improving students’ access to resources and services. Belk Library is among the most visited places on campus—it received roughly 315,000 visits last year, with the highest amount of traffic between 4:30 p.m. and midnight. Belk Library is open 143 hours a week, and around the clock five days a week. The library also noted almost 4,500 visits between 2 a.m. and 7 a.m.

Ruelle and Olive-Taylor want to make sure the library’s space is maximized to meet the needs of all students and at the times most needed. In planning the learning commons, the pair emphasized the value of “permeable space,” sites that can be shared across time by different students. On the second floor, a hallway area with 18 private testing spaces connects Belk Library to the Koenigsberger Learning Center. During the daytime, the rooms are used for private testing of students with learning disabilities and the Belk Library doorway is locked. After 5 p.m., the learning center’s doorway to the corridor is locked and the Belk Library door opened so students can use the rooms as individual study space. Offering a diversity of spaces, Ruelle says, gives students flexibility to choose to work in the space that is most comfortable and conducive to their work, whether they are meeting with their academic adviser, a librarian or a writing consultant. “We wanted seamless flow between the spaces and to minimize barriers and delineations between services,” she adds.

Privacy for students with disabilities is a high priority. Disabilities services is located on the second floor as is the assistive technology lab. The door to the lab is locked and only accessible with a swipe card. The lab contains computers, hardware and software designed to help students with not only learning disabilities but vision or mobility issues. The tools include specialized keyboards, mice and LiveScribe pens as well as software designed to address a range of needs. These include magnification software, screen readers and powerful text-to-speech tools, among others. There will also be tools in the lab with the capability to convert inaccessible documents to alternative formats. An endowment funded by Richard and Gail Morris and their son, James ’19, will help provide regular updates or additions to these learning enhancement tools in the future.

​The offices for learning assistance and academic advising are also on the second floor. Large meeting spaces with detachable white boards are on both the first and second floor. Dozens of study tables, nooks and chairs are scattered throughout. Tutors and advisers can meet students in their office or at any site in the building. “I’ve been pleased, and a little surprised, to see how quickly the Academic Advising Center and Disabilities Resources have been incorporated into the day-to-day activities of Belk Library,” says Jim Donathan, associate director of Academic Advising and director of Academic Support. “I’ve found myself advising students and then walking with them to Disabilities Resources, the Writing Center or the Learning Assistance space to show how convenient those services are now.”

Ruelle and Olive-Taylor are pleased with the development of the learning commons created by adding the Koenigsberger Learning Center to the library. They see it as a win-win for all involved, especially the students. But both agree the work is just beginning. They plan to study how students and others use features in the new learning commons and make changes accordingly. In many ways they are walking a fresh path with only the students to guide them. “We have to be willing to learn from our students. We have to watch how they learn,” Ruelle says. “We’re making a road by walking it.”

And while the space is lovely, Olive-Taylor says it’s the dedication of the partners in the space that will realize the hopes and dreams for it. “All the partners are committed to student success and making this happen,” she says. “We are more than the sum of our parts and pledge to become a model of supporting cooperation in the service of student access and success.”