McInnis Learning Center
The primary academic facility is the McInnis Learning Center which contains modern classrooms and offices for faculty, the dean, provost, and registrar, a 300-seat auditorium for the performing arts, and several music practice rooms. It houses the biology science center, a highly regarded curriculum laboratory for education students, a planetarium and observatory, the Instructional Technology Support Center, a computer-assisted language laboratory, a video classroom used in distance learning applications, and a student computer center.
McInnis Learning Center houses both the Julia Fowler Planetarium and Bradstreet Observatory. The Observatory consists of two computerized 16-inch diameter Schmidt-Cassegrain telescopes each housed under automated domes. The telescopes and computerized, highly sensitive, charge coupled device (CCD) cameras are controlled from within a shirtsleeve, climate-controlled, warm room. The Observatory is used primarily by astronomy students for class assignments and professional research but is also open to the community one night per week. The Planetarium has a 20-foot diameter dome housing a digital Spitz SciDome projector. This state of the art facility allows audiences to not only see accurate depictions of the night sky but also to travel and land on other planets! The Planetarium is used by astronomy classes as well as thousands of school children and other community groups each year.
