Anderson Language and Technology Center

ALTEC is part of the University of Colorado Boulder. We are a service department which supports the language learning community at the University and in the state of Colorado. Our offices and classrooms are located on the main Boulder campus on the south end of the Quad in the Hellems building.

We have come far since our beginnings as a listening lab with reel to reel tapes.
Terie Anderson Roubos and her husband Gary Roubos established ALTEC in 1989 to honor Terie's father, Garfield O. Anderson. The CU Language Laboratory received a donation and matching funds from the College of Arts and Sciences. A renovation committee formed, which included the Vice Chancellor, the Language Lab Director, Marie Sheppard, representatives from the Language departments, and technical consultants. 

The committee formulated a master plan to renovate and upgrade the lab, which opened in 1990 as the "Anderson Language Technology Center". The purpose was to provide an interactive, high tech approach to learning foreign language and in the words of Marie Sheppard, "transform the Labs from the sleepy, 60's-style facility they were to a showplace that ranks with finest foreign language technical Facilities anywhere."

ALTEC's mission was to "support the study of foreign languages and Cultures on the UCB campus" through language resources and state-of-the-art facilities. ALTEC assumed control of the University's Language Laboratories, which has always occupied Hellems. Room 159, now the Multimedia Library, was initially an interactive videolab where students practiced foreign languages on computers. Hellems 145 began as a Mac Lab and it's function has remained the same. Room 148 was a recording studio where faculty could subtitle videos, produce original voice and video recordings, and record SCOLA. Room 152 (the current PC Classroom) was the A/V lab and housed an extensive library of audio materials, foreign films, and books.