Finding a Balance

This month’s cover story, which begins on page 18, profiles innovative learning spaces on campuses across the country, from Oregon to Connecticut. These high-tech—some might even say futuristic—facilities provide students with cutting-edge tools to augment their academic experience. One of the schools included in the article, Winona State University in Minnesota, is even a “laptop campus”—each student attending the university is provided with a laptop computer. Winona State isn’t the only one. A number of colleges and universities routinely provide their students with a mobile device of some sort, from phablets and tablets to notebooks or laptops.

I am reflecting on this because oddly enough this topic came up—students being provided with digital tools by their school or college—in a conversation about the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL. An acquaintance declared that “back in my day” students got along just fine without laptops, cell phones, tablets, or other devices in the classroom, and schools should “stop wasting money” handing them out and instead spend that money on better security and protecting students. I pointed out that today’s students are digital natives; they grew up using technology. Digital tools—desktops, laptops, tablets, smartphones, video screens—comprise an integral part of how they expect to receive information. “But they don’t need them,” she argued. “They can learn from books and teachers, like we did. They need to be safe.”

I can’t argue with the stance that all students need to be safe. I know from working with the experts—as well as colleges and universities—who provide insight, columns, and articles for this magazine that safety and security are their daily concerns; ones they take very seriously. Every day. They are relentlessly developing facilities, products, training, tools, methodologies, and yes, technologies that will improve campus safety and security for everyone. We cannot stop improving our approaches to campus safety and security.

We also cannot set aside providing up-to-date, relevant environments and tools for teaching and learning in order to do so. It’s not an either/or. It’s a balance. These objectives must exist in tandem so that we can offer the best education to students in the safest possible facilities in order to prepare them for life and work in our increasingly digital world.

This article originally appeared in the College Planning & Management March 2018 issue of Spaces4Learning.

Featured

  • old university building with visible aging signs, overlaid with digital data graphics like thermal maps, charts, and system icons

    Modernizing Higher Education Infrastructure: Why Smarter Facility Management Is Essential to Protecting Aging Schools

    Schools now have the opportunity to adopt smarter, more strategic approaches to futureproof operations and enhance the on-campus experience.

  • Key Considerations for Office-to-Higher-Education Facility Conversions

    Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, office-to-alternative-use conversions have become a recurring subject of urban development discourse. Office utilization rates across major U.S. cities remain below 50%, with vacancy rates exceeding 27% in San Francisco and 16% in New York. Higher education facilities present programmatic and spatial use cases that align readily with the typical characteristics of commercial office buildings.

  • Image credit: O

    Strategic Campus Assessment: Moving Beyond Reactive Maintenance in Educational Facilities

    While campuses may appear stable on the surface, building systems naturally evolve over time, and proactive assessment can identify developing issues before they become expensive emergencies. The question isn't whether aging educational facilities need attention. It's how institutions can transition from costly reactive maintenance to strategic asset management in a way that protects both budgets and communities.

  • Epson Receives Seven AV Industry Awards

    Projectors manufacturer Epson recently announced that it received multiple awards across the Higher Ed AV Awards, SCN Stellar Service Awards, and InfoComm 2025, according to a news release. The company was recognized for three projectors from its PowerLite L-Series line, accessories, installation process, and its customer support team.

Digital Edition