Category Archives: Facilities Planning

Legacy and a Blank Slate

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Blank SlateProvosts and presidents are asking how much campus they actually need.  Campus planners are caught between decisions of building or not building.  As each contemplates changes to the trajectory of their institution, they will be well served to have the courage to consider both a blank slate and “Old Main.”  Making campus matter in the 21st century requires two contradictory ideas:  respecting legacy and starting fresh.  Until recently much was tacitly assumed to be fundamental to the idea of campus:

  • Physical class time was required.
  • Serendipitous encounters occurred face to face.
  • The value of an institution was tied to a specific geography.
  • Books were on paper.
  • An undergraduate degree required eight semesters.
  • Research required specialized locations; and
  • Interactions among students and faculty were synchronous.

These assumptions are becoming either obsolete or optional.  The choices vary among institutions and are a function of evolving business models. Continue reading →

To Build, or Not to Build

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UMN.vert.cropUniversity presidents and provosts are always faced with the choice of staying the course or modifying the trajectory of their institutions.  Due to failing business models, rapidly evolving digital competition and declining public support, the stakes are rising.  Some are asking how they should think about the campus built for the 21st century.

My first draft of recommendations:

  • Build no net additional square feet
  • Upgrade the best; get rid of the rest
  • Manage space and time
  • Measure productivity
  • Right-size the whole
  • Rethink
 capacity
  • Take sustainable action
  • Make campus matter

Continue reading →

All fall down: the tipping point has been reached

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Walls fall downThe metaphorical walls and gates that have defined higher education are falling down.  The literal walls and gates will require some careful rethinking to avoid a similar fate.  For those who view the traditional campus as essential to authentic higher education, this will be a challenging time.  The relationship between an institution’s business model and its physical presence is being broken.

We have reached the tipping point in the digital transformation of higher education that has been anticipated for more than a decade.  The proof lies in faculty votes that are beginning to be taken around the country.  As if suffering through the stages of grief, faculties and administrations have been in denial.  Now they have moved to anger.  Bargaining and acceptance are yet to come. Continue reading →

Hollowed Halls

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Empty lecture hall.sepiaThe empty lecture hall is just one sign of redesign in higher education.  Substituting digital formats for large live lectures is the simplest and earliest stage of higher education redesign.  This process of substituting synthetic for real will take several years and there will be many failed experiments.  Whether in the mega courses offered by Coursera and their ilk, or the burgeoning number of asynchronous on-line offerings of traditional institutions, the availability of higher education is rapidly expanding beyond the traditional constraints of geography and time.  Almost all of the expansion is digital.

The good news is that most of these new digital forms are no worse – and are often better – than the large traditional lecture hall formats.  Most would agree that expanded access to higher education is a good thing for most of the planet’s population.  Daphne Koller considers it to be inappropriate to compare Coursera’s offerings [and other digital products] to face-to-face interaction with the best faculty members.  The only fair comparison is access versus no access. Continue reading →

Real or Synthetic?

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Haggans in PDU 130226Two recent events have brought the paradox of the 21st century campus into sharp focus for me.  First, I taught one of my courses remotely via Google Hangout.  Second, a seminar class allowed students to have an in-class conversation with a veteran Minnesota campus planner and later to engage in a discussion of Mission and Place by Kenney, Dumont and Kenney.

In the first case, technology is pulling us away from the traditional model.  In the second case, the values of the traditional model pull us back to the chairs and tables of three-dimensional space.  Technology is allowing us to reinvent many aspects of what has traditionally been the exclusive domain of higher education as they are pulled into a synthetic digital domain.  As this happens many educators are seeking and often struggling to retain the unique values of the real face-to-face experience.
Continue reading →

The Paradox of the 21st Century Campus

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UT stepsMany worry that traditional higher education is over valued yet also believe that there is something of lasting worth in the shared experiences of campus life.   This is the paradox of the 21st century campus:  feeling the need for “campus” while technological and pedagogical realities are moving higher education away from the campus. Continue reading →

Campus Sustainability: Compromised by Space and Metrics

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Every college and university claims to be striving to be sustainable.  Two significant obstacles stand in the way:  too much space and ineffective management practices.

The most sustainable building is the one that is never built.  Unfortunately, most institutions continue to build space they don’t need and can’t afford.  Even if these buildings are at the cutting edge of sustainable design, institutions are increasing their carbon footprint problem.  Having more bricks than necessary is expensive, regardless of how good those bricks are.

Everyone wants more space, but only occasionally is that appropriate and sustainable.  Two articles in the SCUP journal Planning for Higher Education provide insight into these dynamics.  Space and Power in the Ivory Tower, by Sandra Blanchette, identifies the challenges in achieving effective space management in the political milieu of the university.  New Metrics for the New Normal, by Gregory Janks, Mel Lockhart and Alan Travis, identifies the limitations of current space allocation guidelines.  Together they describe an environment with inadequate tools and ineffective decision-making. Continue reading →

Students in the Diagram

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The long-term survival of the physical campus will lie in keeping students at the center of the diagram.  The adaptations required will result from a different way of thinking about facilities, in which small moves made with students in mind can be of strategic significance.

A recent project at Cal State Northridge is one example.  Documented in the SCUP Journal Planning for Higher Education by Katherine Stevenson, Sean Clerkin, and Diane Stephens, the project provides a student-centered environment for introductory mathematics. Continue reading →

Trajectory – 2

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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 →

Student Community: Verbs not Nouns

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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 →