The Carrier Dome is a 50,000-seat sports stadium located on the campus of Syracuse University (SU). Since its opening on September 20, 1980, the facility has hosted a wide variety of events. The facility serves as the home of the SU Orangemen in football, men's basketball, and men's and women's lacrosse. Furthermore, the "Dome" has hosted numerous rounds of NCAA championships in basketball, lacrosse and track and field and hosts regional and state scholastic competitions in football, soccer and field hockey, as well as NBA pre-season games. In addition to sporting events, the Dome has staged Olympic ice skating shows, as well as concerts by stars such as Elton John, Frank Sinatra, Billy Joel, Rod Stewart, U2, Genesis, the Rolling Stones, Garth Brooks, The Who, Neil Diamond, Pink Floyd and many other rock and country performers. SU's annual Commencement ceremony and various academic convocations take place in the Dome. The Billy Graham Crusade visited Syracuse and the Carrier Dome in 1989. Moreover, the annual celebration honoring the life of Martin Luther King Jr. is hosted in the Dome every January. The Carrier Dome was constructed between April ,1979 and September, 1980. Total construction cost was $26.85 million, including a $2.75 million naming gift from Carrier Corporation. Hueber, Hunt and Nichols, Inc. was the general contractor and Birdair Structure Inc. out of Buffalo was in charge of roof construction. In all, more than 80 companies contributed to transforming thirty thousand cubic yards of concrete and 880 tons of steel into the fifth largest domed stadium in the United States and the first such facility in the Northeast. The teflon-coated, fiberglass fabric for the Carrier Dome's 64 roof panels is 6.5 acres - 287,000 square feet - worth of SHEERFILL II (outer layer) and an equal amount of FABRASORB (inner layer). The roof is held together by a latticework of cables. The 14 bridge cables - some as long as 700 feet and weighing seven tons - not only hold the roof panels together, but also support the Carrier Dome's massive lighting and sound systems. This roof was replaced with new fabric panels (SHEERFILL I) and vents, new cable attachment system, and new inner liner during the summer of 1999 for an estimated cost of $14 million. The Carrier Dome is 570 feet long by 497 feet wide; the top of the inflated roof is 165 feet above the playing surface. Sixteen five-foot diameter fans located in mechanical rooms on the north and south sides of the building are used to keep the Carrier Dome's 220-ton roof inflated. Each fan has the capacity to generate 95,000 cubic feet of air movement per minute, giving the total operation a capacity of moving well over one million cubic feet of air per minute. Air is directed upward through the Carrier Dome's 36 main columns and under the Dome's double-layered roof. Each of the 36 concrete columns stands 60 feet high and weighs 40 tons. Prior to the start of any snow storm, air heated to 160 degrees is pumped into the dead air space between the two layers of the Carrier Dome's roof, melting the snow before it can accumulate. Runoff is caught in the Dome's compression ring where 36 drain pipes direct it down through the Dome's walls and into the city's sewer system. Entry to the Carrier Dome is gained through one of 32 revolving doors. An additional 62 "out only" crash doors are used to help speed crowd flow after games, giving the Dome a total of 94 exit doors. Gates A and C on the lower level and Gate G on the upper level have a special air lock entry door to allow access for patrons utilizing wheelchairs and people with mobility limitations. Illumination within the Dome's main arena is provided by 432 metal halide MultiVapor bulbs (1,500 watts each), 60 quartz flood lights (1,500 watts each) and 56 high pressure sodium lights. That lighting package, which was updated in 1989, lights a playing surface that is 215 feet by 405 feet. The sound system, which was also updated in 1989 and again in 1999, consists of 8 distributed clusters of BOSE speakers that hang from the roof cables. In addition, new speakers have been installed in the two concourses, under the overhangs on the second level seating, and in stairwells, offices and other hard-to-reach areas. A separate outside speaker system was also installed. The floor surface has an asphalt base topped with 3/8-inch of Rubaturf. For football, soccer and lacrosse, the entire arena floor is covered with 1 1/4-inch carpet of Astro Turf, which was replace in 1994. This consists of 26 rolls that are 15 feet wide by 215 feet long. The floor surface is 215 feet wide by 405 feet long. The carpet is put down utilizing a special machine called a "Grasshopper", and is held together by zippers. A 60-foot by 100-foot hardwood basketball floor - used for SU home basketball games, and replace with a new one in 2002 - is assembled in the west end-zone and is composed of 225 interlocking sections. Seating for Carrier Dome events consists of approximately 48,700 aluminum bleacher seats, 684 theater seats (18 in each of the Dome's 38 private box suites) and approximately 195 seats for media in the Press Box which is located on the second level, south side. The north and south bleacher stands have platforms for wheelchair patrons that are utilized for both football and basketball viewing. The entire east end-zone at the lower level concourse is accessible for wheelchairs. There are also platforms for wheelchairs on the second level for football, and there is a wheelchair platform in front of the east rolling bleacher stands for basketball viewing. We seat approximately 49,250 persons for a sold-out Syracuse University football game. A parking platform for television vehicles (outside Gate B on the south side) was constructed in 1994 which provides easy camera and audio cable hook-up direct to the press box and to the various camera locations in the Carrier Dome. The Carrier Dome's Daktronics, Inc. scoreboard system, replacing the original Fairfield scoreboard in 1994, is the focal point and information center for all SU sports fans. In addition to displaying the usual game-in-progress information, the system is capable of displaying a combination of statistics, out-of-town scores, player photos and various graphic animations. The main scoreboard measures 13 feet high by 46 feet wide and is located on the wall above the stadium's west end-zone. It consists of a matrix of 28,160 light bulbs (80 bulbs high by 352 bulbs across). Three smaller repeater boards - 3 feet high by 32 feet wide - are located between the stadium's second and third levels, two at the 20-yard line (northwest and southwest sides) and the third in the east end-zone. A state-of-the-art LED Video Display System, manufactured by Daktronics Inc., (as well as a control room, 3 cameras and computer support equipment) was installed in the summer of 2003, and features 2 video boards (15' x 25') that are located on the east end and north-west corners of the 3rd level, along with 58 color TVs for the back rows of the 2nd and 1st levels.

As a first-year singly enrolled education student majoring in Inclusive Elementary & Special Education, Health & Exercise Science, or Physical Education, you have the opportunity to reside in a living learning community comprised of your peers and centered around issues pertaining to the field of education. The ELLC, which is housed in Flint Hall, is designed to bring first year education students together with School of Education faculty and staff members to help ease the transition into the Syracuse University community and contribute to your success within the School of Education and beyond.
The goals of this program are for you to:

Meet and learn from others who hold similar academic interests, but whose backgrounds and values differ from your own

Build a supportive community in which individuals learn to live and work in cooperation with each other

Discover the unlimited opportunities available both within Syracuse University and in the surrounding area to get involved with and contribute to the community outside the academic curriculum

Obtain the academic and social skills necessary to help you achieve your goals

An important component to the ELLC is the opportunity to take two of your required introductory courses within the close confines of your residence hall. EDU 100, a one-credit seminar required of all first-year SOE students, deals with topics surrounding the transition into Syracuse University. In addition to in-hall discussions and guest-speakers, students in the ELLC will have the opportunity to perform a number of activities outside the university environment such as performing community service within the local area, attending cultural events, and so on. WRT 105, the required introductory writing course worth three credits, will also take place in the comfort of your residence hall environment. This writing workshop may be used to further express topics and ideas discussed in conjunction with the EDU 100 course.

The primary benefit for ELLC participants is that it will alleviate some of the personal and academic tensions that many first-year college students have when making the transition from high school to college. By providing a close-knit and supportive environment that involves participating in activities designed specifically for education majors, ELLC students will become quite comfortable with the residential aspects of university life in a short period of time. For more information on the Education Living Learning Community, contact Amie Redmond, amredmon@syr.edu


To learn more about learning communities at Syracuse Univeristy go to http://lc.syr.edu