The irreplaceable value of campuses lies in building community.  Without that they will gradually become hollow shells.

Robert Putnam wrote Bowling Alone about the decline of community involvement over the last 50 years, including the demise of many civic organizations and bowling alleys that once were common fixtures of American life.  He documented waves of technological change from television to two-earner households, and the fraying of community activities.

Perhaps the college campus is the vanishing bowling alley of the 21^st century.  Many have documented the waves of technological change from Internet to MITx and Udacity, and the lone student at laptop is a common image.

Much of the innovation in online learning is now being directed to various forms of online interaction.  Whether through scheduled video chats or well-designed group projects using a growing palette of group-work tools, online educators are trying to leverage the values of community through digital means.  Emerging forms of courses offer heightened levels of interaction.  Even through the chaos of some MOOC’s it is possible for everyone to see and participate in a multi-layered conversation that would be impossible in three-dimensional space.

No one denies the value of at least some level of community engagement in online settings.  Improvements in modes of interaction and requirements for group projects are used to differentiate competing online offerings.

What is in question is the survival of face-to-face community in a traditional setting.  The campus needs to be about more than football weekends and an active social scene.  The data on educational success and the history of innovation both say that building community is important.

Building Community – Late last year an interdisciplinary group met at the University of Wisconsin to explore the understanding of community in the academic setting.  Their report, Physical Place on Campus, summarizes relevant research and identifies institutional shortcomings and opportunities.

The participants shared a belief in the importance of community to education, and in this they were not without foundation.  Perhaps the most solid ground in this area lies in annual surveys of more than 25,000 students and the works authored by Pascarella and Terenzini.  The data is most convincing relative to the connections between community factors and student retention and success in achieving degrees.

Interestingly enough, these findings mirror the growing body of work on active learning, and the changing pedagogies that recognize the value of learner engagement in the relative formality of the classroom setting.

Since online courses are capable of undermining the traditional business model and at the same time being at least equal to traditional large classroom classes, traditional institutions will need to provide a demonstrably better product.

The likely path, from a pedagogical standpoint, is toward more blended forms, utilizing both face-to-face instruction with rich usage of digital products.  Blended courses have been shown to be capable of being better than either traditional or online forms.

And this brings us back to building community, online and face-to-face.  The qualities of face-to-face, synchronous community building may well be the only tenuous advantage that traditional institutions have, and this may be fleeting. The quality of online forms, particularly in active learning and class interaction, is not static.  As research methods are used to more accurately measure outcomes, rapid improvement is almost certain.

None of this matters – Only if leadership sees value in moving beyond marketing slogans to the actions necessary to place the student at the center of the diagram, does any of this data matter.  However, if leadership acknowledges how important face-to-face community is to educational outcomes, then support from community building will logically become part of the strategic plan.  Action plans will differ from campus to campus, depending on culture and existing conditions.  Some situations will involve facilities, but in most cases institutions will need to make significant commitments to strengthen face-to-face programming and provide ubiquitous support services.

I believe that campuses can continue to be an essential part of the higher education continuum.  To remain so they will need to provide something more than a maturing experience, particularly since by 2020 more than half of the USA college students will be “non-traditional.”  Campuses must provide something of irreplaceable and personal value.  That value lies in face-to-face community, both in the formal setting of the classroom and the campus beyond.

Whether preparing for an online quiz or working on a group project, studying alone and studying in community need not be mutually exclusive.   Both are and will be part of successful educational outcomes.  Campuses that survive will find ways to provide for both.

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