Learning Resources

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.

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.

Abstract: The trend toward statewide planning for higher education, the pressures behind the trend, and the sometimes-sticky problems involved were the subject of a SCUP conference in March 1973. This article is adapted from the remarks of three conference panelists and represents a discussion of statewide planning from three viewpoints: the institutional administrator (James L. Fisher, president, Towson State College, Maryland), the systemwide administrator (G. Theodore Mitau, chancellor, Minnesota State College System), and the legislator (Joseph C. Harder, chair, Education Committee, Kansas State Senate).

Abstract: Accountability increasingly is being required of America's institutions of higher education. But how best to meet that new demand? One institution, Gallaudet College, an institution for the deaf in Washington, D.C., feels it has found a solution in the use of "measurable objectives" in its program planning. The Gallaudet story is set forth in this article by Ronald H. Miller, project coordinator for the New York Regional Center for Life-Long Learning at Pace College and a member of the SCUP Editorial Advisory Committee.

Abstract: Student rejection of traditional campus residence halls in favor of apartment-style living is old news. But this drastic shift in living patterns left the colleges and universities with a variety of problems. Those problems and some solutions are offered in this article by Mrs. Erma Striner, project director of the Clearinghouse Project, jointly sponsored by Educational Facilities Laboratories and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and aimed at development of an information pool on changing campus living patterns.

Abstract: Among other effects, the fiscal crisis in higher education has put the brakes on new campus construction and placed a new emphasis on the better use of existing space, the "recycling" of existing structures for new and/or better uses, and "found space," the lease or purchase of noncampus commercial structures and their conversion for academic use. This article, based on a SCUP conference on "Modernization and Renovation for Higher Education Facilities" held in St. Louis in April 1973 in cooperation with Educational Facilities Laboratories, outlines some of the alternatives and procedures for effective utilization, modernization, and renovation.

Abstract: Cost simulation models offer an important new tool for colleges and universities struggling with new demands for greater efficiency and accountability and new requirements for reporting to both state and federal governments. But there are a number of approaches to modeling, a variety of models available to planners, and not a little confusion in the minds of administrators contemplating their use. In an effort to clear up some of that confusion, SCUP held a conference--"Let's End the Confusion About Simulation Models!: A Candid Discussion of Their Place in Higher Education"--in March 1973 in Washington, D.C. This article is adapted from the conference proceedings.

Abstract: Education, particularly higher education, is on the defensive in Washington, the 50 state capitals, and everywhere else. One result is a new demand for efficiency and accountability on the part of the colleges and universities, a demand that was the subject of thoughtful analysis by Stephen K. Bailey, who offered his thoughts in a speech titled "The Limits of Accountability," delivered in February 1973 before a conference of New York college and university trustees. This article is adapted from his remarks and from a subsequent article in Change magazine.

Abstract: Leveling or even declining enrollment and the current economic recession in higher education have forced many colleges to suspend or cut back plans for new construction and to consider the re-use and recycling of existing buildings. One candidate for rehabilitation: the campus chapel. The possibilities were examined at a two-day conference at Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio February 26-27, which provided the basis for this article.

Abstract: There are good reasons—educational, economic, sociological—for educational institutions to coexist on the same site or even in the same building with governmental, residential, or commercial functions. At the same time there are roadblocks to such joint-occupancy arrangements, particularly for public institutions, in the laws governing the financing of public buildings and in bureaucratic inertia. This article is a profile of one institution—the new Inner Harbor campus of the Community College of Baltimore—that tried to share its facilities with commercial interests—and failed.