What if
Visualizing Change in the Learning Environment
Economic realities face off against educational goals in every decision facing college administrators today. As student populations decline, global competition becomes even fiercer, and energy costs continue to rise, these pressures are only going to increase, and colleges are going to need to evolve rapidly to maintain their viability. Because the physical campus represents a significant portion of most of a school’s budget, how those facilities are used will have an enormous impact on a college’s future.
While change will take many forms, there are a few certainties. The successful schools will find unique and distinctive pathways that build on both their academic strengths and the strengths of their physical facilities. The successful schools will optimize their faculty’s direct interactions with students through selective use of new and effective technologies to allow both more intensive personal exchanges and more highly interactive remote exchanges. The successful schools will use their existing facilities and any new facilities more efficiently in order to control both capital and operational costs. Successful schools will move aggressively toward creating sustainable campuses and toward becoming energy resources for themselves and models for their communities.
Learning and Technology
Classrooms of the future will be transformed by our ever-increasing understanding of how humans learn and by new, simple, and more powerful software.
Teaching will need to reflect the latest research on how humans learn. We now know that students retain only about five percent of what they hear in a lecture format. They retain 60 to 80 percent of the information they encounter when they are actively involved with their own learning. This may include collaborative problem solving; multi-dimensional research projects; preparing for and teaching others; or hands-on, project-based learning.
Lectures will not likely disappear completely, but large group lectures and the lecture halls that support them will become much less prevalent because the instructor will no longer be primarily lecturing. There are multiple options that are already evolving specific to the materials being introduced. Podcasts of some lectures will be available any time to be downloaded and listened to at the student’s convenience. This will free the professor’s time for critical, face-to-face interactions to discuss projects or research or to respond to questions that arise as a result of the last lecture or reading assignment.
Alternatively, while the teacher no longer needs to be the center of attention, he will still be the guide, sometimes face–to-face and sometimes remotely, via videoconferencing. Distance learning, which was once looked down upon, will become more accessible and more responsive to individualized learning. Each student will bring his or her own laptop or have access to electronic tablets. Each student can see, hear, interact with, and respond to the presentation. If the teacher or a student poses a question or problem, the students can respond electronically. As soon as a student responds, that response and its source will be instantly available to the teacher. If there is no response to a question, the instructor will know that as well. The pace and progress of the classwork can be quickly shaped by this instant student feedback. Happily, this can be accomplished without needing or securing projectors, or replacing burned-out bulbs, antiquated technology, or broken controls. Learning will happen anywhere students can interact with information, regardless of the location of the teacher.
While there will be fewer traditional classrooms, flexible meeting rooms that can adapt to a range of uses will be needed. Students will need space for informal study groups, project collaboration, student presentations of their work, or discussions with professors. These rooms will have comfortable chairs on wheels for mobility, along with tables that can be grouped in a range of configurations, and walls with writing surfaces. There will be no need to plug in; the totally wireless campus is right around the corner.
Of course, as the omnipresent coffee shop has taught us, the availability of food and drink nearby makes the learning space even more attractive. The trend has been initiated and will likely grow to create student social environments that support healthy lifestyles in conjunction with learning. Student life environments are becoming truly integrated, multi-use facilities. What once was referred to as a residence hall will contain not only housing, but will increasingly have a range of athletic, cultural, and academic facilities, as well as foodservice and commercial venues.
Optimizing Existing Facilities
With the cost of operating space rising, full utilization of existing buildings will be given a high priority. Scheduling rooms to optimize use will be critical. For some schools, one option may be to partner with one another to form networks of regional or even national educational excellence. Imagine two colleges in the same region with somewhat different areas of expertise: one is a center of excellence in environmental science, and the other has a terrific political science department. The construction of new, specialized facilities can be minimized. Through distance learning, some faculty can be shared. Students are allowed a “semester abroad” at the other school to provide a different educational experience. Perhaps the libraries become combined at a central archiving location midway between the two sites. Some overlapping administrative functions might ultimately be combined. The creation of new academic facilities, with the costs they entail, can be controlled.
This is what is happening at Olin College in Needham, MA, a relatively new engineering school. Olin College built a campus adjacent to an existing liberal arts and business school, Babson College, in Babson Park, MA. The students can take advantage of the other school’s classes, and, without heavy capital investment by Olin, the Olin students have access to excellent athletic facilities on the Babson campus.
Attracting donors for renovations of existing facilities has always been a greater challenge than attracting donors for a brand-new facility. These existing facilities represent a significant investment by the college and they need to be reconsidered and improved. Typically, renovations have a smaller environmental footprint than new construction.
Broad and creative investigation is often required to determine how the existing facilities might be improved, either through integrating new programmatic functions into them or by adding on to them to reshape the nature of the existing building. Rather than planning room-by-room renovations, colleges need to undertake careful and strategic rethinking of older buildings to prepare for future needs, excite potential donors, and minimize impact on the environment.
The Campus and the Environment
There are few colleges today that are not working to reduce their carbon footprint. Efficient mechanical systems, harvesting of natural daylight, minimizing water use, and highly insulated buildings are each important steps. But the colleges that will be truly successful will be those that actively move towards becoming models of sustainability within their communities and move to generate power not only for their campuses, but potentially for their surrounding communities as well.
This will mean research and investment in renewable energy sources, wind power and photovoltaics, and in cogeneration. Maine’s Colby College is planning an upgrade of their central power plant that will run on biomass. Cornell University is making use of energy generated by hydroelectric power through its famous gorges and creating air conditioning from the cool waters of Cayuga Lake.
All of the alternatives discussed here are ultimately about becoming more efficient with facilities. Institutions that undertake detailed, long-term campus planning that consolidates facilities and optimizes classroom schedules, creates flexible multi-use space, and uses technology to minimize the need for new classrooms will maintain their strategic edge well into the future.
Laura Wernick, AIA, REFP, is a principal with HMFH Architects, Inc., a Cambridge, MA-based architecture firm focused on the academic market.