By Justin Wright

The UK Arts and Sciences Department has beefed up their program.

Keeneland Hall is now home to A&S Wired — a program designed to create a living and learning community for nearly 200 first-year students.

At the beginning of the fall semester, freshmen A&S students living in Keeneland Hall received an iPad as part of the program.

Centered around new techonology, two classrooms have been constructed for the program, with an interactive digital bulletin board and a movie screen.

Courses offered to students include an eight-week interdisciplinary Wired course and a first-year writing course.

Adrienne McMahan, assistant dean of undergraduate affairs in the College of Arts & Sciences, said the new technology will hopefully appeal to students.

“We hope that this technology will keep freshman interested in the University so they will come back for their sophomore year,” McMahan said.

Students are welcoming the technology-driven program.

“This is a great leap forward because this enables students to use and familiarize themselves with this new method of learning,” Michael Powers, an A&S freshman, said.

“The A&S wired classroom setting in Keeneland Hall is a really innovative idea that gives everyone, not just students living in this building, a chance to experience what learning will be like in the future of the university,” Erik Garrard, a secondary mathematics education major, said.