Learning Resources

Abstract: In an article in its April 1973 issue, Planning for Higher Education offered a technical discussion of the problems in converting campus chapels for use by the performing arts. Now, two private institutions--Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, and the University of Dallas in Texas--have been successful in converting found space in other building types into imaginative small theaters. Their experiences are outlined in the following article.

Abstract: The California Legislature's Joint Committee on the Master Plan for Higher Education has released its final report. The culmination of more than two and one half years of intensive study, discussion, and public hearings, the report contains recommendations on the purposes, structure, coordination and planning, and financing of California post-secondary education. It is signed by the eleven legislators, Republican and Democrat, liberal and conservative, who served on the committee. Several of the recommendations have already been adopted by the legislature based on a draft report issued earlier this year. The article which follows was written by Jon Vasconcellos, California State Assemblyman and Chairman of the Joint Committee, and by Patrick M. Callank Staff Director of the Joint Committee, who is currently directing a similar study for the State of Montana.

Abstract: In late November, 1973, the Society for College and University Planning convened a workshop, entitled "New Approaches to Planning for the Adult Student," at the Hyatt Regency in Atlanta. The ninety-one participants in the workshop attended from seventy colleges and universities and eight agencies or private organizations throughout the United States and Canada. the following is a report on the workshop and the questions raised by participants.

Abstract: Educational Facilities Laoratories has received numerous requests for information on campus transportation planning. There is no definitive study of campus systems, their efficiency and net energy consumption, and there exists no national or state source of information on the subject. This report of scattered innovations in the field was complied by Larry Molloy, an EFL Project Director, in order to stimulate the flow of data from other informations. Communications received by EFL may be used in a future special report on college and university transportation issues. Addresses for further information on projects described here are listed in an appendix and keyed by number through the report.

Abstract: Recent announcements that several prominent colleges and universities would embark on year-round operation have revived interest in this concept. In the past 15 years, there have been numerous publications containing theoretical arguments for or against YRO, or reporting empirical research at the University of Calgary, and A. Paul Bradley, Jr., director of institutional research at New York's Empire State College, reviewed 55 of these works written before summer, 1972, and report here on their findings.

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: 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: 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 architects and planners of a new college or university enjoy a singular opportunity: the ability to start from scratch, unencumbered by existing buildings, entrenched administrative and faculty empires, or the traditions and prejudices normally encountered in an existing institution. Conversely, there are handicaps. Speed usually is mandatory. Classroom seats and/or dormitory beds must be provided immediately for initial enrollment levels. But specialized facilities must be planned with ultimate enrollments in mind. Even more than in existing institutions, change in the uses to which the new facilities will be put must be assumed. In perhaps the most sophisticated repsonse to these challenges to date, the planners of Stockton State College in New Jersey turned to the use of systems building, fast-track planning, and construction management to produce a 1,000-student, first phase campus in 20 months. More significantly, an elaborate set of phased or incremental plans was developed to permit orderly growth to an ultimate enrollment of 7,500. The resulting facilities described in this article emerged with a chameleon-like ability to change in function as, phase by phase, the new campus was developed.