Learning Resources

Abstract: Among the many reforms currently sweeping higher education is the growing demand that formal educational opportunity be opened to adults. The result has been expansion of traditional continuing education and extension programs as well as a plethora of new and experimental programs aimed at the adult student. In an attempt to bring some order out of the resulting chaos, Jane Lord, a researcher for Educational Facilities Laboratories, and Ronald H. Miller, project coordinator for the New York City Regional Center for Life-Long Learning at Pace College, have reviewed the literature on adult education to produce this article, discussing the trends and the options open to institutions of higher education. An extensive bibliography is included.

Abstract: The concept that innovation and change in curriculum and teaching patterns will affect the arrangement and utilization of physical facilities is hardly novel in 1972. But perhaps nowhere has the principle been demonstrated more dramatically than at Colorado College in Colorado Springs. The college, with a faculty of 125 and a student body of 1,650, in September 1970 adopted a comprehensive plan that involved an almost total revision of the concepts of a course, a classroom, a contact hour, a unit of credit, scheduling procedures, and definitions of academic and non-academic space. This article is adapted from one by Dr. Glenn Brooks, professor of political science and assistant to the president, and Malcolm Ware, administrative assistant to the dean, describes both the planning process and the ultimate results. The original appeared in Higher Education Facilities Planning Manuals, published by the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education.