Art + Technology + the Liberal Arts

In January 2007, St. Lawrence University opened its new Newell Center for Arts Technology (NCAT). A shared facility with buy-in from visual arts, music, theater, communication, and film studies faculty, along with the campus's Brush Art Gallery, the NCAT replaces departmental labs and serves two purposes: it helps the departments meet their technological needs for teaching and learning; and it serves as a hub for collaborative, interdisciplinary work.

In its present form, the NCAT consists of a 20-student computer classroom, a 20-workstation lab with a HelpDesk, two small project studios (one for audio and one for video), and support spaces. The two larger spaces and the two smaller spaces are designed to be interchangeable when necessary. It is adjacent to a traditional photography studio and the oral presentation studio, where students can rehearse class presentations and videotape themselves for diagnostic purposes.

All of the NCAT's 52 Mac Pros run software for audio, video, and still image creation and manipulation, among other things; students working in the lab are quite likely to be seated next to someone who is working in a completely different medium. The NCAT hosts both formal classes that are interdisciplinary in nature and more casual collaborations among students and faculty from across campus.