Learning Resources

Abstract: An inclusive approach to planning and design for the new headquarters for Thunderbird School of Global Management offers important lessons about the value of investing in stakeholder engagement. The Thunderbird leadership team worked with their architects and planners to connect with Arizona State University stakeholders, the City of Phoenix, regional constituents, and alumni in the area and around the globe. This article includes real-world insights into how global entrepreneurs and business leaders collaborated and innovated to create a business-and-industry-savvy academic environment. The integrated process shows how teamwork and the understandings it yields set the stage for the institution to be a good citizen in the community and the world.

Abstract: The most effective master plans are those that reflect the myriad voices of the institution. We’re finding the engagement process is fast becoming as important a product of the plan as the plan itself. Engagement should be informative, inclusive, meaningful, and fun—and should be the product of an integrated process. Leveraging the University of California, Berkeley’s Campus Master Plan as a case study, this article provides a framework for developing custom engagement strategies, and highlights examples, lessons learned, and tips for optimizing meaningful participation.

Abstract: by James Martin, James E. Samels & Associates
Johns Hopkins University Press
Baltimore, MD 21218
2019
328 Pages
ISBN 978-1421432786

Abstract: Within the last several years, higher education institutions have embraced the language of an “anchor mission” to define their place-based commitments. This case analysis details the role of data in promoting systematic local change in six institutions participating in the Anchor Dashboard Learning Cohort. These institutions committed to measuring community impact through the Anchor Dashboard, a tool to understand and enhance local commitments along several social and economic dimensions. This article details the promises and pitfalls of developing an institution-wide, place-based mission led from different institutional levels—from the president’s office to faculty-led centers—using this data tool.

Abstract: Do you have facility needs, like the need for more/improved space for instruction or infrastructure upgrades? Is it time to address deferred maintenance issues? Do you have reservations about venturing into unfamiliar territory? You’ll have to wrestle with some vexing matters—plan alternatives, big budgets, illusive funding sources, and an uninformed public.
Your concerns are valid. With a rich background as architectural firm principal and later as a community college project manager, the author has been through the drill. This article’s thoughtful advice details a project’s first phases—from initial concepts to developed projects with funding. It will head you toward success by helping to avoid the pitfalls.

Abstract: Industry and academia are partnering like never before as entrepreneurship and maker culture become more important to our economy and a regular fixture in higher education curricula. With the influx of allied industry partnerships, evolving pedagogies, entrepreneurship programs, and a maker culture comes a pressing need for new spaces, ranging from fabrication and prototyping studios to innovation districts devoted to new kinds of research partnerships. Schools like the University of Washington, Babson College, and Arizona State University are leading the way on new collaborations. In this article, Sasaki planners and urban designers examine how design disruption will guide the development of campuses that enable 21st-century teaching, learning, and research paradigms.

Abstract: The community colleges in the State University of New York system leveraged “systemness”—the idea that working together can greatly enhance the possibility of positive results—in creating a statewide program to retrain dislocated TAA-eligible workers and returning veterans for high-quality, high-paying jobs in the skilled manufacturing sector. By aligning with the strengths of each college, curricula in areas such as photonics, optics, advanced manufacturing and machining, and semiconductors and mechatronics were created, leading to a diploma or certification and thus to increased probability of hiring. Regional employers and government workforce agencies were also part of the leadership teams, helping to create programming that was specifically focused on the needs of these vital industries.

Abstract: Colleges and universities typically do not gather routine feedback from community stakeholders, despite the fact that various organizations dedicated to the advancement of higher education continually have clamored for campus representatives to be more responsive to members of host communities. Recent petitions for “deep culture” change within academia—in combination with recent methodological advances in efforts to understand town-gown relationships—provide a comprehensible set of motives and details for institutions to become more fully engaged in the process of collecting systematic information from community members. A review of recent efforts to conceptualize and measure town-gown relationships using a tool known as the Optimal College Town Assessment (OCTA) is provided. After reviewing results from a previous study that piloted the OCTA tool, qualitative data gathered from a subset of community stakeholders in that original sample are presented and analyzed. The resulting themes are described and discussed in the context of enhancing evidence-based campus planning efforts that meet the call for greater higher education responsiveness.