Most higher education capital plans for facilities are little more than politically correct prioritizations of departmental wish lists. Funding opportunism has long trumped budgetary discipline. Four cycles of facilities expansion have left most institutions in an unsustainable position – more space than they need and more than they can afford to operate and maintain. Just now digital transformation is bringing this into focus. How did it come to this? Continue reading
Category Archives: Digital Transformation
Preserving what?
While they continue at full speed, higher education institutions face the challenge of remaking themselves. In the coming years this will shift from cosmetic tweaking to preserving the best and losing the rest.
It is difficult to identify those ‘best’ characteristics without sounding nostalgic and all rah-rah. Perhaps everyone can identify a few special conversations with a mentor who has influenced our lives, moments of insight that have dotted our academic careers, and enriching experiences that we have shared with classmates or colleagues. Until quite recently these events always happened in a specific place and ‘real time.’ It may not always be so. Continue reading
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Forever?
Fifteen years ago, Peter Drucker and others began to predict the demise of the physical campus. It was to become yet another relic of an era bypassed by technology.
Yet today it is hard to find anyone who thinks his or her own undergraduate campus will cease to be. It is as if these places will go on forever. Can this be right? Continue reading
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Student Community: Verbs not Nouns
As the academic experience becomes more fragmented and asynchronous with fewer on-campus hours per student per degree, the formation of campus community is becoming more and more tenuous. This is a world of verbs, not nouns. Continue reading
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Study Space: On the floor
In a digital world, poor study space is a strategic liability.
In a previous post, I made the case that the ‘idea work’ of reading and writing requires at least 4 square feet of horizontal surface. Whether by hand, keyboard or touch screen, a horizontal surface is an essential part of the technology.
The most densely packed study spaces are in libraries. Depending on the hour and day even the side-by-side seats at large library tables are used. It’s just like classroom or airplane seating. The middle seat is least desired, but it gets used at peak times. Such is the demand for functional study space on campus. Continue reading
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Study Space: On the surface
Reading and writing – and ‘idea work’ in general – require at minimum 4 square feet of horizontal surface. Whether in a business office, library, classroom or coffee shop some form of the humble table is what makes high-tech highly functional.
Think of those places you “work” most often. If your experience is like those my students and I have been observing for the last few years, a “writing” surface winds up being important to the effective use of your time, with or without digital technology. The comfy chair is not out of style. They still get used, as do miscellaneous window seats and floor cushions. Such spots are used briefly for limited tasks. But for the big stuff – engaging with the material – some form of writing is involved. Whether by hand, keyboard or touch screen, a horizontal surface is an essential part of the technology. Continue reading
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Students as Investment Analysts
Students know the score.
At higher education conferences, you see educators, administrators, and increasingly, vendors. You seldom see students. You might think that they are silent, but they are speaking.
Students can tell you how much they owe and about their concerns about repayment. They make investment decisions every semester. By the time they reach college, they’ve been engaged in the digital economy for years. Continue reading
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Libraries as Goog-Azon-Bucks
People before paper, that’s what the academic library is about.
The most effective academic libraries are informed by the idea of student and faculty members as customers. All are served by learning commons with scores of group workspaces and reference advisors in locations modeled after the concierge desks of hip hotels.
Until recently, the quality of a library was measured by the number of volumes it held. Now librarians strive to measure the standing of their libraries by the quality of service even as their physical print holdings are shrinking. Their success is critical to the survival of their institutions. Continue reading
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Synchronish: Not Quite Here, Not Quite Now
Time and place have fallen apart.
Howard Mansfield says that time and place began to fall apart, as time zones were introduced 1892 severing clock time from solar time. The gap between time and place has been growing since then. By 1953 computer scientists were using the term “real time” to distinguish between their clock time and the different time that existed in the processes of the machines they were building.
Place and time continue to move further apart. Digital media are literally placeless. In higher education, it is possible to access the sound and image of the best presentations on any subject at any moment. Place means less. We can pause or “rewind” at will, thus manipulating time without regard for place. Continue reading
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Faculty Office – Part 1
The faculty office is the third rail of university facilities planning. It is heresy to say that all faculty members do not need a private office. Parking is the only aspect of campus life that’s more contentious.
Truth is all faculty members do not need private offices, but not all faculty work can be done in open office environments. There’s the rub.
Many will believe this to be heresy, just as did most who commented on Lawrence Biemiller’s article “Do All Faculty Members Really Need Private Offices” [Chronicle of Higher Education, July 30, 2010]. He speculated on the advantages of open offices, and some of the comments called the writer’s intelligence into question and others attacked institutional “bean counters” for daring to challenge the hereditary rights of the faculty. Continue reading
