Learning Resources

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: 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: 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: Change in higher education and in the society at large demands that university planners "take aim at a moving target," Fred E. Crossland, program officer in higher education for The Ford Foundation, told his SCUP-7 audience. That target may be even more elusive than imagined, in the view of a young faculty member, who holds that planners, whether their concern is academic, fiscal, or physical, will have to re-examine their professional self-image if they are to rebuild the university to meet the requirements of today. This article is excerpted from a SCUP-7 address, "University Planning: Some Interrelationships Between Self-Concept and Spatial Design," by David E. Whisnant, assistant professor of English at the University of Illinois.

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: 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: Shifts in student lifestyles and the phenomenon of empty dormitory rooms notwithstanding, many colleges and universities still face the problem of providing adequate housing for their students or helping them find such housing. An interesting, if little-publicized, option--one to be exercised more by students than by institutions--is student-initiated housing, in which student groups lease, purchase, or even develop their own living quarters. To fill the information gap, Educational Facilities Laboratories will publish a report on the subject by Washington-based consultant Robert M. Feild. The report's highlights are summarized in this article.