Designing, Building, Testing, Learning

Home to Farmingdale State College’s (FSC) School of Engineering Technology, Lupton Hall is the largest academic building on campus. An intricate maze of classrooms, faculty offices, and laboratories, Lupton serves the School’s 2,400 students and approximately 78 full-time faculty and staff. More than 8,500 students have graduated from FSC’s School of Engineering Technology since its inception.

The focus of engineering technology education is the implementation of technical innovations and solutions. The building’s 22 labs serve as innovation hubs within the School and facilitate the technology requirements for approximately 100 courses.

Within Farmingdale laboratory spaces, learners validate theories and utilize state-of-the-art monitors, testing equipment, robots, and a wide variety of machinery to develop a solid foundation in the applications of technical concepts. The School dedicates extensive space to these applied learning spaces, regularly upgrading the technologies with input from local employers to ensure the labs remain contemporary and relevant.

“Lectures and labs go hand in hand,” said Bahar Zoghi, PhD, assistant dean in the School of Engineering Technology and acting chair of the Civil Engineering Technology Department. “We lecture and conduct experiments in the same space, so our lab rooms are designed to serve as teaching spaces as well. Our labs are maintained the same way we would maintain a classroom or lecture hall, to ensure a seamless experience for our students.”

A visit to Lupton’s labs reveals loft-like spaces, many with sprawling windows and skylights, creating an ideal environment where students, faculty, and the instruction support team can work and learn. Since they double as lecture and experiment spaces, the labs are designed to offer maximum flexibility for the professor to teach in a way that is ideal for the specific topic. For example, equipment is often housed along the outer walls of the lab, with movable tables and chairs in the center of the room to facilitate engaging discussion, said Zoghi. The criteria of the accreditation body, ABET, specify that programs must offer learning spaces that are “available, accessible, and systematically maintained and upgraded.” Laboratory spaces are meticulously organized, cleaned, and maintained to foster student learning and to promote a safe environment.

Following are highlights of seven of the 22 labs in Lupton Hall: