Learning Resources

Abstract: While universities have long been bastions of intellectual diversity, they are now embracing a broader understanding of diversity that extends beyond race, gender, and socioeconomic background. Neurodiversity, a concept celebrating the natural variations in human neurological functioning, is gaining prominence as an essential aspect of fostering a truly inclusive educational environment.

Abstract: A global health crisis intersecting with a racial reckoning has led to a renewed commitment to reflect on complex histories and plan for more inclusive futures on many American campuses. Institutions, which benefitted from traditional hierarchies of power, are starting to grapple with histories of developing indigenous lands and the legacy of a western and able-bodied vernacular within campus design that continues to reinforce in-groups and out-groups. The authors are presently leading first-of-their-kind DEI planning initiatives; in this article they unpack how a public institution is meeting their past head-on to plan better futures.

Abstract: American industries, professional organizations, individual companies, and higher education institutions continue to struggle to attract employees from underrepresented populations. Future-forward thinking is required to ensure a multicultural workforce. The authors, a design educator at a predominantly white, Midwestern university, and a high school principal at a multicultural urban school district, developed an intentional collaboration—partnerships between secondary and postsecondary institutions—to bridge the gap. In this article, they share strategies they developed for recruiting and retaining underrepresented students through intentional planning and design of competency-based, personalized learning models.

Abstract: In context of COVID-19, institutions are developing new approaches to online learning at an unprecedented pace. Looking ahead, this great experiment may offer lessons for broadening the definition of accessibility. Three decades after the Americans with Disabilities Act established minimum accessibility standards for the built environment, this moment of accelerated change presents a unique opportunity to utilize hybrid delivery models and universal design principles to rethink accessibility. Sasaki principal Greg Havens examines how continued emphasis on improvements to the physical environment, when combined with hybrid learning and services, could transform the way we plan the human-centered, accessible campuses of tomorrow.

Abstract: Through design or redesign of conventional structures, the physically and visually handicapped can easily use many conveniences and facilities previously unavailable to them. The authors describe several efforts to enable the handicapped to learn about the physical structures of their community and to move about their environment more freely.