Learning Resources

Abstract: Although belonging is a key element of college student success, little is known about how campus spaces, particularly the residence hall, affect the development of student belonging. Through qualitative analysis of interviews and student-created photo journals and maps, two key findings were identified as particularly useful for campus designers to consider: (1) students need spaces for personalization and privacy, not in ways that isolate but rather in ways that promote individual well-being and belonging; and (2) residence hall design needs to be continuously assessed and aligned with residence hall programming to most effectively facilitate meaningful student interactions. When campus planners and architects, university administrators, and residence hall staff work collaboratively and feedback is solicited from students, residence halls can become spaces where students feel as if they belong.

Abstract: Traditional campuses are being challenged by the digital transformation of higher education. The unquestioned need for synchronous place and time is evaporating. Assumptions about academic calendars, faculty, and geography are now either obsolete or optional. A thicket of demographic and business issues reduces institutional options. Academic tradition limits innovation. Investments in the physical campus and those who plan them are being questioned as never before. To be justified—for campuses to matter—they must provide value that is not available by other means. Existing campuses need to be rethought and transformed as if their survival were at stake.

Abstract: There are literally thousands of studies on retention efforts; however, the role of the built environment at the campus level is largely ignored. Using data from 103 universities in the United States with high research activities, we found strong positive associations between three campus qualities—(1) greenness, (2) urbanism, and (3) on-campus living—and student retention and graduation rates after controlling for student selectivity, class size, total undergraduate enrollment, and university type. Overall, this research provides new insight for university administrators, campus planners, and higher education researchers about the significance of the campus built environment in retention efforts.

Abstract: The phenomenon of universities building luxury dormitories or commissioning headline-grabbing landmarks as a means of gaining an edge over other institutions has become one of the most conspicuous trends in modern campus design. However, this is no new practice. Roberts and Taylor consider how, since the Middle Ages, the physical environment of a university has been perceived as a decisive factor in attracting staff and students and acquiring the competitive advantage that leads to success.

Abstract: The forms and layouts of classrooms reflect the societies and economies that students will face when they graduate. As happened in the previous two industrial revolutions, classrooms today need to respond to an emerging “third industrial revolution,” with its demand for innovation and creativity and its provision of information on demand. Active learning classrooms represent a transition to a future in which most learning will no longer happen in what we call a “classroom” today. Instead, students and teachers will be able to move to a variety of spaces, on demand, in order to accommodate different kinds of intelligences and pedagogies.

Abstract: Globally, changes in demographic and financial realities—and shifts in educational approach to meet these new challenges—require colleges and universities to reorient to support new educational models. In the process, institutions are recasting both what higher education is and how a physical environment can serve it. A look at the diverse approaches schools are taking to planning, design, and building around the world produces a revealing snapshot of a fast-changing future for campuses and the new experience students and young workers will come to know. Amidst all this change, the campus—in all its evolving forms—matters as much as ever.

Abstract: This is a revised version of the article originally published in Planning for Higher Education 43 (4), Summer 2015.
We are seeing an emergent campus type driven by a desire around the world for economically accessible, community-focused—and community-grown—learning and knowledge creation in a networked digital age. While questions about the future of the traditional campus have been a central focus of higher education discussions, off to the side there is a groundswell of learning activities that is all about the “there” there while also being everywhere. Grounded in physical communities, these activities strive to connect home, school, and work in a continuous lifelong learning path nourished by open digital resources. This is the Networked Community (College) for the growing legions of Citizen Learners. While seemingly peripheral to traditional higher education, this new model represents an approach that increasingly will be central to learning and knowledge creation in the 21st century not only beyond a traditional institution’s boundaries but also at its very core.