 |
|
 |
|
|
|
 |
|
Rise in Tornadoes, Floods Poses Risk to Colleges
What if the sort of extreme weather that has left the University of Iowa inundated in floodwaters is not a freak event? What if it is a sign of things to come? (Photograph by AP Images)
Art & Architecture Renovations Near Completion at Yale U.
Paul Rudolph's 1963 Brutalist icon is getting a makeover, plus an addition by Charles Gwathmey.
Guest Blogger: Anne Stephenson
Even the greenest construction project increases a college’s carbon footprint.
Other News
Land-Rich Universities Weigh New Options for Real-Estate Development
Universities are taking advantage of new ways to develop their holdings through corporate partnerships, a new report says.
U. of Iowa Begins Mucking Out and Assessing the Damage
The university's insurer spent the weekend starting to assess the damage to the auditorium and 19 other flooded buildings.
U. of Iowa Flooding Takes Costly Toll in Research and Equipment
Parking lots are under water, some roads leading to the campus are closed, and the campus utility infrastructure is damaged.
New campus buildings
Multimedia
A Green Building as a Billboard for Science
(A 2006 Chronicle video)
Subscribe
Subscribe to Buildings & Grounds in a feed reader.
Get the Buildings & Grounds widget for Facebook, Myspace, or your own blog.
About Buildings & Grounds
Buildings & Grounds is written by Scott Carlson (left) and Lawrence Biemiller (right). Scott Carlson writes about architecture, facilties, energy, and sustainability, among other topics. Lawrence Biemiller writes about architecture and facilities and contributes to Notes from Academe. What's happening on your campus? Let us know.
Dormitories: At U. of Colorado, a Residential College; at Tufts U., Getting Fancier
Old dormitories at the University of Colorado at Boulder are getting a $13-million facelift, as the university moves to a residential-college model, with professors and students living side by side, reports the Daily Camera. The dormitories will feature smart classrooms, so students can sit in courses within their living areas. And the buildings will have technology that controls the heating and cooling in the building, sensing when a window is cracked open.
People at the university believe that the new living arrangements will encourage the sort of serendipitous encounters between professor and student that lead to engaging discussion and learning. The residences will house honors students, and one professor said that he was excited about raising his children around college kids, in an atmosphere where “it’s cool to be nerdy and smart.”
From a sustainability perspective, the strategy also helps to cut down on the carbon footprint of a campus by obviating the need to commute. Transportation and commuting can be among the highest generators of greenhouse gases among all of a college’s activities.
Meanwhile, in other dormitory news, students at Tufts University have outlined their complaints about residences there in a 12-page report. Among the grievances, according to The Boston Globe: “dormitory common rooms are dreary spaces with carpets that ‘clash with furniture,’ couches that are ‘haphazardly arranged,’ and lighting that does not ‘work with the mood of the room.’ Don’t get them started on the window dressings.”
The Globe story gets into the well-worn territory of student coddling and luxury residences — and the downsides of these plush living spaces. Some of the best analysis of this issue can be found in a Chronicle Review interview with Susan Painter, of the firm A.C. Martin, and in an editorial from The Providence Journal by Jonathan Zimmerman — which, incidentally, mentions Tufts. —Scott Carlson
Scott Carlson | Monday April 28, 2008 | Permalink | Contact usComments
Previous: Guest Blogger: The Bilbao Effect—Does It Work on Campuses?
Next: Shop Talk: Erasing the 1960s From the Campus Map, Failing the Smell Test, and More
As for Colorado’s residential college move, research suggests that social interactions alone between faculty and students does not elicit any educationally purposeful outcomes. However, structured discussions concerning classes, politics, and the like have been shown to increase critical thinking and cognitive growth. Additionally, one should question whether or not they should also have student affars professionals as well given that most faculty are not trained or versed in developmental literature, which will be immensely important as student demographics continue to shift. So, it all sounds good in theory but there is much research our there regarding residential colleges that the public doesn’t get to see and I wonder if the University will employ. It is certainly one thing to cut down commutes for professors but it is another to have staff well educated in the deeply impactful developmental processes of students
— Brian Apr 28, 12:38 PM #
Maybe not educationally purposeful outcomes, but this is one more way to try to make a big university smaller—which should aid in retention. Having a professor in residence demonstrates the university’s dedication to undergraduate students, and gives these students a “point person” to go to when they have questions and concerns. I would love to implement such a model at my university.
— Tad Apr 28, 04:17 PM #
The research does show that when students and faculty interact, topics like classes, politics, career, etc. are discussed more frequently – which correlate nicely with several educationally purposeful gains. Indeed, a proper understanding of the residential college model would lead one to understand that the student-faculty interaction therein would extend well beyond the social variety.
Second, it is also worthy to note that there is no research showing that interactions between students and student affairs staff elicit any educationally purposeful gains. Or, for that matter, that student affairs practitioners know more about students and their development than do faculty members.
It is the fundamentally flawed assumption that student affairs practitioners somehow know students and their development better than faculty members. It is reflective of an anti-faculty bias held by too many higher education administrators who believe that they themselves somehow have a education and set of skills that uniquely qualifies them to work with students. The evidence in support of that simply does not exist (other than the select anecdotes used to support one’s argument).
As a student affairs administrator, our best allies for working with students are the faculty. The Residential College model isn’t perfect, but these critiques are unfounded.
— John Apr 28, 04:46 PM #
The research on student attrition (see Vincent Tinto’s book, “Leaving College”) tells us that social and emotional factors are sometimes more important than academic factors in students’ decisions to stay in school. There are many ways that a residential setting can support academic achievement. An important benefit of the residential college model is that it provides a small-scale setting: students can readily make friends and establish the important social framework that supports their academic work. Colorado’s decision to include the faculty-in-residence component addresses their students’ psychological needs for comfort and emotional security and lets students turn their attention to their studies. The Tufts’ students aren’t necessarily cry-babies—when students have to live in old and neglected dorms, the message they can’t help but take away is that their comfort and emotional security is not high on the institution’s list of priorities. The Boston Globe story includes the response of Tufts’ officials, who appear to agree with the students that their living quarters need attention. So much of the country’s existing campus housing stock was built in the 60’s and 70’s that these buildings really ARE in need of thoughtful renovation.
— Susan Painter Apr 28, 05:33 PM #
Readers who would like to learn more about the growing international residential college movement, of which this development at Colorado is a small part, are invited to visit The Collegiate Way: Residential Colleges and the Renewal of University Life. The Collegiate Way contains news reports from around the world along with many pages of detailed readings and recommendations, both architectural and social, for the establishment and support of residential colleges within larger institutions.
— R.J. O'Hara Apr 28, 06:12 PM #
Readers, for a fascinating challenge to the politically correct (academically correct?) assumption that residential colleges are inherently good, take a look at the book Importing Oxbridge: English Residential Colleges and American Universities. It provides an interesting hypothesis that the late-20th-c. nostalgic yearning for English-style residential colleges is less about our modern expertise in learning, and more about the xenophobia, racism, and Anglophilic mania of the early 20th century. If nothing else, it’s a good cautionary tale for administrators, warning against unexamined adoption of programs just to keep up with Jones U.
— HIED doc Apr 28, 08:16 PM #
The argument described in #6 is an excellent example of the genetic fallacy: arguing that something is good or bad because of its origins rather than its present content. (McCain/Obama is a bad person; this idea comes from McCain/Obama; therefore it is a bad idea and we don’t need to examine it further.)
Readers external to these issues may like to know that this small group of competing comments are a tiny skirmish in a vast clash of civilizations: the the world of the faculty is on one side, and the world of Student Affairs is on the other. This conflict been around for a long time, and it’s only going to get bigger in the next twenty years. For a look at its historical roots, see Richard Hofstadter’s Anti-Intellectualism in American Life (the chapter on the “life-adjustment” movement in particular).
— R.J. O'Hara Apr 28, 09:30 PM #
Wow. Who knew college dorms could drum up so much intellectual discussion? Fascinating.
— Deborah Apr 29, 10:17 AM #
RE: #7… as I read Importing Oxbridge, I did not see an assumption that residential colleges or the old “collegiate way” are bad or good because of their origins. Similar, but substantially different, is the suggestion that it is poor administrative practice to assume that just because something works somewhere else it will also work on your own campus. Good administration requires more expertise than that. From an historical perspective, the value of understanding the historical development of a program or concept is not in labeling its current content as bad or good, but to place emotion, assumption, and reputation in the context of evolving societal forces. Also on that note, it would be helpful to note for readers that the Hofstadter book was published in 1966, and should be read as an artifact of a very unique and volatile period in the history of higher education, rife with repositioning societal views of authority and the role of academe and intellectual debate. Finally, it seems a shame to frame the discussion as a battle between faculty and student affairs. That argument has always seemed to me to be an oversimplification of what is a much more interesting and nuanced discussion about the role of student life and learning at a vast array of institutional types.
— HIED doc Apr 29, 02:40 PM #