News Release

Johns Hopkins University's new Education Building, formerly known as Seton Court, has officially opened its doors. The 73,000-square-foot building at 2800 N. Charles St. is now the residence of the Graduate Division of Education's Baltimore-based programs.

The Education Division faculty and staff moved into the building — located just south of the Homewood campus between 28th and 29th streets — in early March, with classes beginning March 6. Previously, the Education Division, part of the School of Professional Studies in Business and Education (SPSBE), occupied space on the Homewood campus, 3400 N. Charles St., in Whitehead Hall and Shaffer Hall, and in a townhouse located on East 29th Street.

The Education Building houses the Baltimore-based programs of SPSBE's Graduate Division of Education and some offices of the Eisenhower Library and JHU Press. Photo by HIPS / WILL KIRK

Nancy Cohen, a lecturer in education, said the reaction to the new building has been overwhelmingly positive. "There really is a sense of community now," said Cohen, who came to Johns Hopkins in 2002. "Students don't have to walk across campus to see their faculty, and faculty can have closer interaction with each other, as we're now just down the hall from each other. This really is a wonderful, collegial space for us."

The Graduate Division of Education, which this year has 1,771 students, offers programs for the preparation and continuing development of teachers, administrators, special educators and counselors. The division is organized into departments of Teacher Development and Leadership, Teacher Preparation, Special Education, and Counseling and Human Services. In addition, the division is the leading provider of masters' degrees in education in Maryland, and has strong partnerships with Baltimore City and other regional school districts. For more information, visit www.education.jhu.edu.

The four-story Education Building features 11 "smart" classrooms; five seminar/classrooms; two conference classrooms; a Technovations Lab, where students will be able to prepare digital lessons and work on their electronic portfolios; a computer lab; a Gallery with computer workstations; a counseling suite; student and faculty lounges; and 36 offices. All classrooms, halls and the Gallery feature wireless Internet service. The counseling suite contains small rooms with two-way mirrors so that faculty can observe students in a session.

Each classroom desk has a USB connection so that students can plug in their laptops and project a presentation on the main screen for the entire class to critique. Faculty can control all the systems from a wired- in podium.

Diana Filo, a master of arts in teaching candidate, said she loves the building. "We have a lot of added benefits in this facility that really help out students like us," Filo said. "We work full time and go to class at night; this building provides us with computers with Internet access and vending machines that provide actual meals. All those added bonuses help to ease the stress of getting a master's degree while teaching full time."

The building originally opened in 1907 as St. Joseph's School of Industry, which in 1928 was renamed Seton High School. The all-girls' Catholic high school merged with Archbishop Keogh High School in 1988 and moved to another location. The building was later sold and converted into offices. Johns Hopkins purchased the property in April 2003 from Sheppard Pratt Investment.

To honor the building's past, large framed black-and- white prints of the building's days as a school line many of the hallways. Johns Hopkins also preserved the architectural integrity of the building, which features two wings, a three-story central grand stairwell, skylights, wide corridors and glass transoms. Some of the building's religious artifacts, left from its days as a Catholic high school, also remain in order to retain its historical identity.

SPSBE occupies the building's first two floors but is not its only tenant. The Milton S. Eisenhower Library occupies offices on the fourth floor for its Entrepreneurial Library Program, whose staff moved in last month. The Johns Hopkins University Press will occupy some of the third floor with its Production, Marketing and Circulation departments. The northwest corner of the third floor will be the new home for SPSBE's Center for Summer Learning.