Learning Resources

Abstract: Universities and colleges across the country are faced with growth in the campus population and the loss of surface parking lots for new buildings. The response of many institutions is to build new garages with the assumption that parking demand ratios will remain the same. Such an approach, however, can be extremely expensive—upwards of $2,000 per net new space annually. In many cases, a mix of parking and demand reduction programs—such as shuttles, bicycle and pedestrian improvements, and financial incentives not to drive—can accommodate growth at a lower cost per trip. A balanced approach will also tend to support other goals, from improving town-gown relations to maintaining debt capacity. Demand management strategies have been employed by institutions for many years. However, it is less common for a cost-benefit analysis to be undertaken comparing them with new parking construction. Using examples from universities in California and Colorado, this article demonstrates a methodology to inform basic decisions on the amount of parking required to cater to campus growth, which can be incorporated into campus master planning.

Abstract: Global society has “overshot” the long-term human carrying capacity of Earth. This unsustainable state is an emergent property of the systemic interaction of techno-industrial society as presently configured and the ecosphere. It cannot be corrected without fundamental changes to critical socio-cultural variables that determine the interaction. To the extent that higher education (re)produces the dominant cultural paradigm, it is a source of the problem. Universities must strive to reduce the ecological footprints of both their own operations and, more importantly, of the growth-oriented materialistic worldview they promote. Indeed, the real challenge for higher education is to help articulate an alternative life-sustaining worldview.

Abstract: Consortia, their impact on cooperating institutions, and critical factors in inter-institutional planning were the subject of a recent study for the United States Office of Education, directed by Harold L. Hodgkinson of the Center for Research and Development in Higher Education at the University of California at Berkeley. The critical issues, according to the study findings, are problems of reciprocity and autonomy, coordination of programs among diverse institutions, and strategies for campus involvement and leadership. The following article, by three staff members of the New Hampshire College and University Council—one of the consortia in the Hodgkinson study—is devoted to a discussion of the process of consortium decision-making, touching on the three key issues. The authors are: Lynn G. Johnson, the Council's associate director in charge of academic programs; Dr. William W. Barnard, consultant and coordinator of a two-year Cooperative Curriculum Project, and Douglas W. Lyon, coordinator of January Term Programs and communications coordinator.