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: 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: 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: 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: 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.