Higher Ed Trends Recap

May 26, 2010

The first part of 2010 has seen the full spectrum of activity in design for higher education - from the start of new projects, to the ongoing development of those in design, to the opening and occupancy of those completed.  A consistent theme in all of this activity might be characterized by the phrase "trends become common practice."

Certainly one trend we are seeing is the blurring of the distinctions between Community Colleges and 4-year Colleges.  With the increasing number of students who are starting a 4-year college degree at a community college comes expectations of a "traditional" college experience.  More FTE students are spending more time on campus and they want a high quality physical plant with a real sense of place that has amenities that will sustain the "whole student" in a complete learning environment.  Program functions and design goals that were indicative of a trend some years ago are now commonplace.

•  Community College campus master plans are focusing on the pedestrian experience with buildings organized to make outdoor green space.
•  Spaces for student life commons in College Unions are programmed as part of hybrid academic buildings combining dining, recreation, and student activities with computer labs, classrooms, and lecture halls.
•  Health, wellness and even residential projects are showing up in Community College capital plans.

From the opposite perspective - community colleges have become the benchmark for significant developments at the 4-year institutions.  Community colleges have long been innovators and leaders in information technology adapted for learning.  IT and curricula necessarily adapted to varied learning typologies and the need for distance, online learning as well as to the demands of local business to develop their workforce to compete in a changing economy.  In addition, the very existence of the "hybrid academic building" is the result of community colleges' need for the efficient consolidation of resources - in facilities that are flexible for use by many departments and "owned" by none.  It is possible that the inevitable challenge of scheduling and competition for space did as much to foster interdisciplinary interaction and the destruction of "silos" as anything.  Indeed, in our experience, community college deans have an admirable predisposition to compromise and collaborate.

So what do we now see?  Community college master plans with a "residential zone" and community college academic buildings with imbedded student unions and fitness centers - if not independent buildings for those functions.  We see hybrid academic buildings on 4-year college campuses with classrooms, labs, and student activity spaces to be shared by all and owned by none.  These same buildings sometimes have "centers for teaching and learning" with staff and resources dedicated assure that pedagogy responds to new learning typologies and technologies - pedagogy which ultimately drives design for a new generation fo learners preparing for life in a "conceptual age economy."