Learning Resources

Abstract: In its August 1973 issue, Planning for Higher Education reported on the plans of Rio Grande College, a small, private, liberal arts institution in southeastern Ohio, to operate a new community college under contract with the four-county Rio Grande Community College District. The story suggested that, as far as could be determined, the Rio Grande plan was a first. Not so, according to Kenneth W. Iversen, president of Union College, a private , two-year institution that since 1969 has been operating a community college under contract with the Union County Agency for Higher Education in New Jersey. Details of the Union operation are outlined in this article.

Abstract: As courthouse violence in California has demonstrated, courtrooms of traditional design are far from being as efficient and as secure as they might be. At the same time, the law schools have been criticized for their lack of effectiveness in training trial lawyers. In an attempt to meet both of these problems, the McGeorge School of Law of the University of the Pacific in Sacramento, California, has opened what it terms the "courtroom of the future" and a prototype for courts and schools of law across the nation. The model courtroom and its evolution are described in this article.

Abstract: Even in the enlightened '70s, many of the nation's institutions of higher education remain handicapped by a lack of planning personnel and expertise. But perhaps none are more handicapped than the predominantly black colleges, both public and private, the majority of which lack the resources, in both money and talent, and, in a few instances, the foresight to carry out a rational planning effort. In an effort to correct the situation, The Ford Foundation in late 1967 set aside $100,000 for physical planning consulting services to predominatly black institutions and contracted with Educational Facilities Laboratories (EFL) to administer the program. The effort later was expanded to a total commitment of $325,000 over four years. The results, some of which may be of import for other institutions with inadequate planning resources, are outlined in this article.

Abstract: The Massachusetts Advisory Council on Education published a significant, two-volume study of continuing and part-time education. As its foreword suggests, the massive, 950-page document represents "the most thorough effort by any state so far to describe and rationalize, from a consumer's point of view, the extensive and continuing part-time postsecondary educational activities under way and provide the guidelines for innovative yet pragmatic public policy." The report is analyzed in this article by Curtis O. Baker, director of institutional research and planning, New York University, and Anthony D. Knerr, associate dean for budget administration, City University of New York.

Abstract: Examining the changes occurring in the nation's colleges and universities over the past quarter of a century, Ivar Berg, George E. Warren professor of business and sociology at Columbia University, finds higher education in "a crisis of purpose," a crisis that will have deep significance for the academic planner. Professor Berg is the author of Education and Jobs: The Great Training Robbery, published by Praeger in 1970 and issued as a Beacon paperback in 1971. He has been associate dean of faculties at Columbia and led a task force that prepared an HEW-approved affirmative-action program for that university. His provocative ideas on higher education's crisis are outlined in this article.

Abstract: There is a new--or newly apparent--reality facing college and university planners: they must plan in an atmosphere of rapid, if not traumatic, change, in an era when even institutional objectives cannot be taken as fixed or sancrosant. That reality was underscored at SCUP's 7th Annual International Conference in Atlanta by Fred E. Crossland in an address titled "In Planning: Aim at a Moving Target" (see the volume 1, number 2 issue of Planning for Higher Education). A year later, at SCUP's 8th Annual International Conference in Toronto, another perspective was offered by J. Gordon Parr, deputy minister of colleges and universities of the Province of Ontario.

Abstract: The growing importance of interinstitutional cooperation is underscored by the proliferation of regional consortia of colleges and universities across the nation. Unique among them is The Association for Graduate Education and Research of North Texas (TAGER), which operated a microwave network interconnecting nine colleges and universities in the region, as well as the facilities of seven large corporations. The network permits the institutions to share their course offerings and to tap new student "markets" among corporate employees. This is the story of TAGER's origins and operations.

Abstract: Spurred by the pressure of higher education's current recession, many colleges and universities are looking to the conversion or renovation of existing buildings as an alternative to new construction. But perhaps none has taken a more comprehensive approach than Oberlin College in Ohio, which recently undertook a building-by-building survey of its entire physical plant, emerging with plans to recycle 17 campus structures of between 260,000 and 340,000 square feet of space at an estimated cost ranging from $5.8 to $7 million.

Abstract: Colleges and universities, for years accustomed to planning in a condition of steady, sometimes rapid growth, now find themselves planning in a period of stable or declining enrollments. The result is a whole new set of problems and approaches for institutional planners. That new reality was a major focus of attention at SCUP's 8th Annual International Conference in Toronto, cropping up not only in a panel devoted to the subject but in other conference sessions. This article summarizes some of the discussion highlights.

Abstract: Small, private, liberal arts colleges across the nation face an increasingly uncertain future as costs continue to rise and competition from expanding public schools intensifies. Meanwhile, there is pressure--witness the recommendations of the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education--to establish two-year community colleges in areas not now served by such institutions. A solution to both problems may have been found in Ohio, where the newly formed Rio Grande Community College District proposes to contract with Rio Grande College, a private four-year college, to operate the community college program. If the plans are approved, the four-county community college district stands to avoid the heavy capital expenditures normally involved in setting up a community college and little Rio Grande College gains an assured future.