To: Dr. Vincent Boudreau, president, The City College of New York (CCNY)
From: Jhom Patino, Staff member at the Office of Facilities Management
Date: March 4, 2024
Subject: Classroom desk, lighting, and board upgrades

The purpose of this memo is to bring awareness to our classrooms here in CCNY since some of them need to be re-molded. By doing this it could also enhance the learning environment.

Summary
The classrooms here in CCNY are not the best and need to be re-modeled to suit students the best. There are three key features in a classroom, the desks, the lighting, and the boards and all three of these features are not meeting good standards. Therefore, I made proposal which can help turn this around for the better and would like to talk to you about this when you have the chance.

Discussion
This might not be easy, but the students do their part in paying their tuition in hopes to gradate with their desired degree and by having a classroom that is outdated it makes their learning environment and experience harder. A class typically should have uniformed desks, which means desk that are the same size and shape, good lighting and whiteboards. Desk must be one of the main focuses since it the most important part of the classroom. As we see in the classroom there is no standardization as a good majority of desk are different sizes and shapes instead of just being one size for all the desks in the college. A step in the right direction for this is getting new desks where the classrooms all have the same type of desk with the size of the actual desk being able to hold a laptop and a notebook. Also, for the smaller classrooms it would be a good idea to get training tables, which are long rectangular shaped tables which allow more than one seat,
with a set a chair to accompany them.

In addition to the desk and chairs, we can also think about improving the writing boards and lighting. This topic is a bit more complex, and it requires a higher budget, but it can still be done and have a great advantage for students. In the classrooms itself there are either chalkboards or whiteboards; it varies from classroom to classroom. A crucial step we can take to make the classroom better is to move on from chalkboards and replace them with whiteboards. The reason being that they are so much more beneficial than people might think, and chalkboards are really out of date in today’s times. In addition to this lighting can be improved by switching to LED lights in order to mimic natural daylight since not all classrooms have a window for natural light. And, to keep up with maintenance for classrooms the light covers in the classroom should be cleaned regularly, and some may need to be changed as over time they start to get yellow and look old.

By considering these changes it can be beneficial to the current students and prospective students. New desks allow them to look more organized and provide a firm surface for note taking. Nobody wants to sit at a desk that is unbalanced and can fit only a small book. Also, changing the boards in classrooms is seen as a very huge improvement for the college. It is healthier to write on a whiteboard than it is on a chalkboard because whenever your write on the chalkboard the dust that the chalk creates can trigger allergies or asthma to the students and professors. And it is easier to maintain them as the markers don’t break as often as the chalk does and cleaning the whiteboards is much easier. The LED lighting changes can potentially save the college money as LED bulbs waste less energy and last longer.

Recommendation
Thank you taking your time to reading this proposal. I hope to hear back from you so we can discuss these suggestions in person. We could arrange a meeting with you and invite maintenance staff so we can get on the same page and see what follows through. You can email me at [email protected] to arrange the meeting.