“The campus reveals the power that a physical place can possess as the embodiment of an institution’s character.” Campus: An American Planning Tradition Paul Venable Turner, 1984
Campuses adapted to a digital world will have a future. It is likely that others along with their institutions will wither into irrelevance.
When I began my work on this topic about ten years ago, it wasn’t clear that any campuses had much of a future. Analogies to the growing demise of newspapers and shopping malls were widespread. Digital transformation was underway. Online courses were growing in quantity, quality and popularity. Competition from digital alternatives was growing. Seeing these conditions as existential threats seemed to be reasonable and not overly dramatic.
Some observers were confident that more than a third of existing higher education institutions would close. Others believed that changes wrought by digital transformation were just another twist in a long history. After all, colleges and universities had gone through multiple periods of change and transformation since their emergence almost 1000 years ago. Each time, institutions adapted and some survived.
It’s a wrap
As I bring my work to a close, it is good to note the errors I have made. The first was failing to distinguish the implications of financial and demographic pressures from those resulting from technological evolution. The second error has proven more problematic: failing to distinguish campus from institution.
Digital Transformation in a Thicket
Through conversation with many faculty and administration members, I came to realize the operational complexity of colleges and universities. I saw more of the moving parts and I began to appreciate the changing financial and demographic environments in which they operated. Technology was only one of many forces threatening traditional higher education and changing its campuses.
The challenge became to identify consequences of digital transformation that were hidden in a thicket of issues influencing higher education and its campuses. While technology has caused, allowed and/or created changes in higher education, I came to understand that these changes were difficult to separate from the bigger waves of demographics and financial patterns.
This realization more than anything explains how a single question led to a decade of work. I read from a flow of books, research papers, articles, blogs and revisited the history of higher education. I worked with my students on understanding the planning and design of campuses. Most important were conversation with faculty, administrators and consultants working in and with colleges and universities. All helped me to see and understand what was evolving on the ground, within the moving parts.
What was happening?
Pedagogy was changing as faculty members experimented with the potential of online resources. Coffee was coming into libraries. At the same time, librarians found the need for more people space and less onsite book storage. Expectations for study and group workspace was increasing across campuses. As online resources improved, students and faculty spent less time in classrooms. Most importantly institutions were less bound to their physical place, the campus. Several were becoming national and global without any increase in physical footprint. There’s a lot to unpack there. I will devote several upcoming posts to do that unpacking.
Campus and Institution are not synonymous
My second error has proven more problematic: failing to distinguish campus from institution. The campus, the physical place, is not the institution any more than a religious building is a religion. In both cases the place/building is a physical expression of the institution/religion. In early writings I fell into the common practice of making campus and college or university synonymous. Lately I have become rigorous in using the term campuses only when speaking of physical places in much the same way we distinguish a snail shell from a snail.
To wrap up my work on the future of the physical campus, I am continuing conversations with valued colleagues. I am updating my campusmatters.net blog posts. Finally, I will be identifying patterns of adaptation and describing the types of campuses taking shape in response to the digital transformation of higher education.
Do Campuses Have a Future? is adapted from an unpublished manuscript Campus Matters: Place in a Digital World Michael Haggans, 2020
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Looking forward to the promised additions.
Your perspective is thought-provoking and a good catalyst, Michael! Thanks
Monique, you are so kind. Thanks
The institution, virtual or physical, is serviced by the facilities (architecture) to meet the needs of the institution. The institution survives because its leaders read and respond to the marketplace.
In some cases, we have seen institutions fail. They failed because they were unable to adapt to the demands of the marketplace which may have been founded, in part, due to the physical campus. I would argue that disconnects between the institution and its facility organization failed first either by slow response or no response at all. Where the fault really lies is immaterial; the result is a tragedy.
That said, I believe the facilities (campus architecture) supports the needs of the institution and makes the institution a more successful deliverer of education. This support is necessary but not sufficient. A beautiful campus with a poor educational mission is a poor institution. An ugly campus with an excellent educational mission may be an excellent institution.
What must campus planners and designers do? Ask questions, listen to responses, and address the needs of the campus thoughtfully. This blog has been about that despite occasional tangential investigations. It’s been wonderful to read the observations and a pleasure to have the opportunity to comment.
Ted, thanks for such a generous and idea-filled response.