Learning Resources

Abstract: After decades of significant investment in campus development, US universities are now confronted with enormous challenges, including declining enrollment, evolving academic technology, online learning, and rising facilities maintenance costs. The authors of this research examined how 11 public R1 universities in the Northeast and Midwest are addressing these challenges through a review of campus plans and interviews with senior planners and administrators. This study argues that a new campus planning paradigm is gradually emerging in response to these risks, which highlights innovative strategies for place-based institutions to rapidly reexamine their prevailing capital planning priorities with a focus on adaptability and right-sizing campus facilities.

Abstract: As universities grow, the way they foster community needs to adjust. Yale University has responded to campus physical expansion and population growth in ways that can be a model for others. Yale has unified its community with strategic development along its two-mile-long urban campus, strengthening diversity and inclusion while the historically dispersed communities of the residential colleges continue to flourish. We will share methods for managing physical development while adapting and evolving the campus culture.