SMBW created an intentional design for the mission of Washington and Lee University with the Ruscio Center for Global Learning in Lexington, Virginia.

The Washington and Lee Center for Global Learning integrates global perspectives into the education of every W&L student. This facility for 21st century learning serves as a hub, drawing from across the W&L and Lexington communities. Advanced technologies have brought the world into the Center and take the Campus Community out into the world, connecting classrooms to global partners in real time, sustaining communication with students, faculty and colleagues abroad, and expanding W&L’s range of collaboration around the world: a facility that serves students and faculty from the humanities, social sciences, business, law and the physical sciences with labs for pedagogical research and development.

The Center for Global Learning serves as an educational resource and a portal opening onto world events. W&L’s window on the world showcases interdisciplinary, cross-cultural approaches to learning. It incorporates innovative technologies and spaces to promote engagement with ideas and with people, on campus and beyond, fulfilling W&L’s mission of preparing graduates for “engaged citizenship in a global and diverse society.”

Design: SMBW
Contractor: Branch & Associates
Photography: Ansel Olson