SCUP Scan: Friday, 12-18-09

Some quick links from our daily environmental scan of higher education media for information of potential interest to SCUP members:

• Ed Department Calls Into Question a Regional Accrediting Agency's Decision, Inside Higher Ed: A recent DoE 'Alert' criticizing a North Central Agency's Higher Learning Commission decision appears to continue the department's focus on the accreditation process, not "backing off" from the same focus during the Bush administration. Here's Eric Kelderman's take on this in The Chronicle of Higher Education.
• The Nature of Innovation in the Community College, Leadership Abstracts, The League for Innovation in the Community College: Terry O'Banion and Laura Weidner report a Summary of Key Findings from an analysis of winners of this award since 1982. Available resources are important, as is the "culture and climate created by leaders to encourage, support, and celebrate the individuals and teams who design and implement the innovations."
• AACC Report Affirms Major Increase in Community College Enrollments: The PDF can be downloaded here; Scott Jaschik of Inside Higher Ed writes at length about the report here. Of note: Full-time enrollment is up more than part-time, and male enrollment is up more than female enrollment.
• Arne Duncan and the Lumina Foundation Agree: Institutions Need to Get Creative About Funding, Inside Higher Ed: Lumina made $9M in grants to help institutions "bust" inertia in several states. The article briefly mentions circumstances and outcomes in Arizona, Maryland, Wisconsin, Tennessee, Ohio, Texas, Montana, and Indiana.
• Verifying Student Identities, Today's Campus: Two "Executive Briefings" on this topic today. Here is: We think we know who enrolled in the course. Now who's taking the exam?" and here is "Identity checking will be a requirement in higher education. A federal law is on the books. The rules are being reviewed."
• The North Country Japanese Garden at St. Lawrence University, University Business: This open space for "reflection and learning" is part of UB's "Sense of Place" series.
• Survey of College Finances Finds Good Stewardship, but Some Possible Red Flags, The Chronicle of Higher Education: The Association of Governing Boards of Colleges and Universities (AGB) and the National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO) collected and evaluated data, originally collected by the IRS, from 146 colleges. Their joint report is titled, Statement on the IRS Compliance Questionnaire for Colleges and Universities (PDF).
• Central Texas Technology and Research Park, Buildings & Grounds Blog, The Chronicle of Higher Education: Led by Baylor University in collaboration with many other higher ed institutions and local, regional, and state agencies this project will create the facility by renovating a 300,000 sf General Tire plant closed in 1986.
• Anne Arundel Community College Promotes Future Thinking, Innovation Showcase, The League for Innovation in the Community College: Very interesting. A team of faculty teach two classes, "Exploring the Future" and "Globalization and Its Future" - as well as supporting local agencies and organizations. The program, IF@AACC, also publishes a monthly ezine, Futureportal.
• Changing the Way We Think About Community Colleges, National Crosstalk: Definitely worth a read: "a small but growing number of advocates and analysts inside and outside the community college system have underscored the point that the nation’s challenges of postsecondary access and attainment won’t be solved by focusing on AP courses or elite campus admissions alone."
• Extreme Makeover College Edition, Public Purpose: "UMSL and other AASCU schools have found that fundamentally redesigning certain courses creates a compelling path to better pedagogy, improved learning and—sometimes—lower costs for instruction. For institutions that want to improve quality and trim budgets, that’s a powerful trifecta."
• Risk Management: A Steep Learning Curve for Higher Education, Public Purpose: "Having a qualified administrator with a full-time focus on potential threats is key to one of the AGB’s recommendations: conducting frequent and thorough assessments that analyze risks and the institution’s tolerance for risks."

SCUP Scan: Thursday, 12-17-09

Some quick links from our daily environmental scan of higher education media for information of potential interest to SCUP members:
NEW BOOK: Financing Sustainability on Campus, NACUBO: "Shattering the myth of “funding first, operational change second,” the authors provide a comprehensive handbook to financing sustainability with real world examples, creative strategies, and clear explanations of a wide variety of financial tools and programs." Print ($75) or ebook ($35)
Overcrowded and Underfunded: New York's Public Universities, National Crosstalk: "It’s crowded. Very, very crowded. Every seat is taken in every classroom you can see. Some of those seats are in the aisles."
A Tale of Two Cities: Pittsburgh & Dallas, Inside Higher Ed: "Dissecting fall enrollments in Pittsburgh and Dallas, we find that public colleges boomed and independent institutions mostly held on, thanks to rising tide (and more merit aid).
Interview with John Mills, President, Paul Smith's College, Today's Campus: "How does a small private college attract 'achiever students' to a remote location in a down economy? John Mills has an interesting tale."

Chiropractic College's Rugby Team Is Good for Business, The New York Times: "At Life University College of Chiropractic, when they say they've got your back, they mean it. And the Rugby team players provide lots of teaching experience, "players' out-of-whack spines afford an assembly line of bodies to press on."

Pittsburgh Sets Vote on Adding Tax on Tuition, The New York Times: 10 colleges and universities, and 100,000+ students don't like the idea, but this 1 percent tuition tax may well become law; and then head for the courts, of course. Update: The vote was postponed. Mayor still thinking institutions might cough up money voluntarily.

Berkeley & Landmark Buildings, The San Francisco Chronicle: "With more than 300 landmark buildings, Berkeley loves its architecture." Did it go "too far when it bestowed the hallowed status on a concrete, flat-roofed Berkeley building loosely linked to Bernard Maybeck."

Reactions: Is It Time for Class-Based Affirmative Action?, The Chronicle of Higher Education: "A new study [With Their Wholes Lives Ahead of Them] from Public Agenda has found that the main reason students drop out of college is that they have to work. That raises the question: Has the time come for an affirmative-action policy based on socioeconomic status?"
Tufts Adds 5 Stories to Downtown Building, Without Closing It, Buildings & Grounds Blog, The Chronicle of Higher Education: Add 5 floors on top of 10, keep the 10 open while you do it, and earn LEED certification while you're at it. Nice.

SCUP Scan: Wednesday, 12-16-09

Some quick links from our daily environmental scan of higher education media for information of potential interest to SCUP members:

Wisdom, Intelligence, and Creativity Synthesized: A New Model for Liberal Education, Liberal Education: WICS is a model for liberal education that takes into account why it might be that a highly successful individual got a "C" grade in Psychology 101 as an undergraduate.

Portrait of a Multitasking Mind, Scientific American: This is an intriguing report on "multitasking" and college students: "Those who engage in media-multitasking more frequently are "breadth-biased," preferring to explore any available information rather than restrict themselves."

Evicting Cascadia Community College From Its Campus?, HeraldNet (Washington State): Cascacia and UW Bothell share a campus. A plan is being floated where UW Bothell takes over the entire campus and Cascadia then merges with Lake Washington Technical College. Some busy planners up there.

Education Is Always a Political Act, Getting to Green Blog, Inside Higher Ed: "The truth of the matter is that education is always a political act. If what's being taught enhances critical thinking, then the possibility of political change appears. If what's being taught is merely training at a mechanistic level, then the possibility of political change is suppressed."

Interview with Authors of What They Didn't Tell You in Graduate School, Career Advice Blog, Inside Higher Ed: "Being an ABD is an exciting new level you reach when your proposal is approved. But if you don’t complete and defend your dissertation, being an ABD becomes one of the lowest forms of academic life."

Holyoke Community College Builds on Its Transfer Tradition, The Chronicle of Higher Education: "This Massachusetts institution not only sends its students on to four-year colleges, but also helps them attend elite liberal-arts institutions nearby."

Art College in Boston Will Share 21-Story Residence Hall and Its Health Center,

Buildings & Grounds Blog, The Chronicle of Higher Education: Three schools—Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, Wentworth Institute of Technology—will share parts of the building.

Is Your Facility a Part of Your Faculty?, Healthcare Design: "At this school, they look at the buildings on their campus as being an extension of their faculty . . . The Board of Directors of the school considers the buildings themselves to be a part of the faculty that is teaching the student and leading by example about conservation, sustainability, and responsible architecture."

Pushing ADA Beyond the Limits

Sometimes it's lonely on campus, being a planner. Start planning now to attend higher education's premier planning conference for 2010, SCUP–45, July 10–14 in Minneapolis, where you can network and converse with more than 1,000 of your peers and colleagues.
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From University Business:

The Americans with Disabilities Act requires specific measurements and codes that allow access for disabled students. Some campus planners say that isn’t enough—and are looking to universal design concepts.

Interview w/CEO of ConnectEDU About Facebook

Sometimes it's lonely on campus, being a planner. Start planning now to attend higher education's premier planning conference for 2010, SCUP–45, July 10–14 in Minneapolis, where you can network and converse with more than 1,000 of your peers and colleagues.

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From Today's Campus:

It's an infant approaching adolescence. An adolescent Facebook will begin to stake its claim to being the premier destination for personal communication. For example, you may be spending much less time in your personal email inbox.

Appropriations as an Afterthought

Sometimes it's lonely on campus, being a planner. Start planning now to attend higher education's premier planning conference for 2010, SCUP–45, July 10–14 in Minneapolis, where you can network and converse with more than 1,000 of your peers and colleagues.

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More from Inside Higher Ed:

With college lobbyists awaiting action on student loan reform, passage of 2010 spending bills get little attention. Here is a quick review of what's in them.

Projecting Sustainability

Sometimes it's lonely on campus, being a planner. Start planning now to attend higher education's premier planning conference for 2010, SCUP–45, July 10–14 in Minneapolis, where you can network and converse with more than 1,000 of your peers and colleagues.
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In the Getting to Green Blog section at Inside Higher Ed:

Isn't all teaching either political, social, or economic advocacy? How is it that some consider advocating for change while teaching to be a bad thing?

Structural and Safety Issues

Sometimes it's lonely on campus, being a planner. Start planning now to attend higher education's premier planning conference for 2010, SCUP–45, July 10–14 in Minneapolis, where you can network and converse with more than 1,000 of your peers and colleagues.

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From University Business, Report Finds Structural and Safety Issues on College Campuses (MO):

Missouri’s college campuses look good from the outside, but within are cramped classrooms, deteriorating walls and outdated lab equipment, according to a state report out this week.

Pressures & Results

Sometimes it's lonely on campus, being a planner. Start planning now to attend higher education's premier planning conference for 2010, SCUP–45, July 10–14 in Minneapolis, where you can network and converse with more than 1,000 of your peers and colleagues.
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From Today's Campus, an interview with David Feldman, Professor of Economics, College of William & Mary:

A plainspoken professor/author continues to paint a clear picture of the pressures on higher education costs and the results in the marketplace.

Hate Learning Objectives?

From The Chronicle of Higher Education, Learning to Hate Learning Objectives: I don't know whether accreditation works or whether it matters. I only know that, for me, teaching and learning are inseparable and driven not by "learning objectives," goals, outcomes, performance indicators, or assessment rubrics, but by complicated, often painful, but always irresistible compulsions

Sustainable Sweets

From The Chronicle's Buildings & Grounds Blog, "Gingerbread Has Its Strengths as a Sustainable Building Material": UBC students discovered that it has more strength when made with shortening, not butter.

Rice at a Crossroads

From Inside Higher Ed, Rice at a Crossroads:

Baylor College of Medicine has become something of a Rorschach test for Rice University faculty members. Some look at the institution down the street and see a top tier medical school that could be enveloped into Rice at a bargain basement price. For others, Baylor is a financially beleaguered institution that will at best drain resources from Rice, and at worst suck it down like an anchor.

New Federal Loan Rules

New federal rules about a school's eligibility for federally-backed student loans for its students ease the rate within defaults must stay from 25% to 30%, however, they also measure the defaults over three years instead of two. This rules change will change the game for some, especially small cor-profit institutions, who say that of course their default rates are high - they accept more economically marginal students.

SCUP Scan: Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Some quick links from our daily environmental scan of higher education media:

Projecting Sustainability, Getting to Green Blog, Inside Higher Ed: Isn't all teaching either political, social, or economic advocacy? How is it that some consider advocating for change while teaching to be a bad thing?

Appropriations as an Afterthought, Inside Higher Ed:
With college lobbyists awaiting action on student loan reform, passage of 2010 spending bills get little attention. A quick review of what's in them.

Interview w/CEO of ConnectEDU About Facebook, Today's Campus:
It's an infant approaching adolescence. An adolescent Facebook will begin to stake its claim to being the premier destination for personal communication. For example, you may be spending much less time in your personal email inbox.

Pushing ADA Beyond the Limits, University Business:
The Americans with Disabilities Act requires specific measurements and codes that allow access for disabled students. Some campus planners say that isn’t enough—and are looking to universal design concepts.

5 Higher Ed Tech Trends to Watch in 2010, Campus Technology:
There aren't too many corners of higher education that technology hasn't infiltrated. From admissions to financial aid to the classroom and everything in between, nearly all aspects of college are being handled in some way by the applications, hardware, and gadgets that help institutions work more efficiently.

Financial Affairs: In Gauging Their Economic Impact, Colleges Should Be Careful What They Measure, The Chronicle of Higher Education: A number of initiatives are underway to gauge the economic impact of higher education institutions. Goldie Blumenstyk notes several and wonders about their focus.

Michigan State Will Go Ahead With Zaha Hadid Art Museum Design, Buildings & Grounds Blog, The Chronicle of Higher Education: LEED, $45-50M, daring design.

SCUP Scan: Monday, December 14, 2009

From Inside Higher Ed, Rice at a Crossroads:

Baylor College of Medicine has become something of a Rorschach test for Rice University faculty members. Some look at the institution down the street and see a top tier medical school that could be enveloped into Rice at a bargain basement price. For others, Baylor is a financially beleaguered institution that will at best drain resources from Rice, and at worst suck it down like an anchor.

From The Chronicle's Buildings & Grounds Blog, "Gingerbread Has Its Strengths as a Sustainable Building Material": UBC students discovered that it has more strength when made with shortening, not butter.

From The Chronicle of Higher Education, Learning to Hate Learning Objectives:

I don't know whether accreditation works or whether it matters. I only know that, for me, teaching and learning are inseparable and driven not by "learning objectives," goals, outcomes, performance indicators, or assessment rubrics, but by complicated, often painful, but always irresistible compulsions.

From Today's Campus, an interview with David Feldman, Professor of Economics, College of William & Mary:

A plainspoken professor/author continues to paint a clear picture of the pressures on higher education costs and the results in the marketplace.

From University Business, Report Finds Structural and Safety Issues on College Campuses (MO):

Missouri’s college campuses look good from the outside, but within are cramped classrooms, deteriorating walls and outdated lab equipment, according to a state report out this week.

Classes That Start at Midnight

Sometimes it's lonely on campus, being a planner. Start planning now to attend higher education's premier planning conference for 2010, SCUP–45, July 10–14 in Minneapolis, where you can network and converse with more than 1,000 of your peers and colleagues.

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Space planners have been telling us for years that space utilization would be more efficient if learning spaces were scheduled across a longer learning day. Not to mention that energy efficiency would go up it more buildings were more fully utilized when they are active. This Inside Higher Ed article by David Molz reviews quite a few institutions, with examples of what they're offering to night owls.

Community colleges are leading the surge toward perhaps all day scheduling, especially with workforce development classes that take advantage of people having free time later into the day. The increase in demand for classes that came with the financial crisis and the recession is causing more institutions to more broadly schedule classes, even Psychology or English, after midnight.

How to Build a Supercomputer in One Day

Sometimes it's lonely on campus, being a planner. Start planning now to attend higher education's premier planning conference for 2010, SCUP–45, July 10–14 in Minneapolis, where you can network and converse with more than 1,000 of your peers and colleagues.

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Well, it takes more than a bit of planning first, but Purdue University built a "community cluster" super computer this year, and it was running operations before one full work day was over. The concept of community cluster means that a variety of campus units which need super computer computing power, pool resources, each contributing funds for a number of "nodes" but gaining in return far more computing power (and time) then they could have gotten on their own. Like we said, it takes careful planning and as well, an IT department with competence and capability for operation and management.

US Campuses Dig for Geothermal Energy

Sometimes it's lonely on campus, being a planner. Start planning now to attend higher education's premier planning conference for 2010, SCUP–45, July 10–14 in Minneapolis, where you can network and converse with more than 1,000 of your peers and colleagues.

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Geothermal just makes sense, where it makes sense. With only 5 buildings done out of the planned-for 18 to be upgraded to geothermal, the Theological Seminary in New York City already saved $200,000 in energy costs in the last year. A lot of schools, like Ball State University in Indiana, are building geothermal. BSU, with the charge led by SCUPer Bob Koester, is upgrading all 45 of its buildings and will save $2M per year. And dozens of schools are collected their portion of hundreds of millions of dollars in related federal grants, for construction and research.

So far this year, the Department of Energy has announced $400 million in grants to advance geothermal projects like those under way on a handful of campuses.

Geothermal technology has been around for decades, it works and it's increasingly affordable. At colleges that must maintain dozens of large buildings, the savings are magnified.

Those involved in the decision to pursue geothermal technology say they wanted to use less coal-fired power, although the schools also had to save money to justify the move.

MIT's New Media Lab - Where Clutter Is About to Meet Transparency

Sometimes it's lonely on campus, being a planner. Start planning now to attend higher education's premier planning conference for 2010, SCUP–45, July 10–14 in Minneapolis, where you can network and converse with more than 1,000 of your peers and colleagues.

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And don't overlook a closer, more intimate opportunity: SCUP's North Atlantic Region's 25th annual conference, at MIT March 24–26.

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What happens when "creative clutter" meets transparency in a new, elegant building? Robert Campbell reviews the new MIT Media Lab building at MIT.

Frank Moss, the Media Lab’s director, puts it this way: “It will take time to regain the sense of mess and to repopulate with junk.’’

It’s the classic marriage of form and content. The new building is Snow White and the Media Lab is Mad Max. Time will reveal how well the marriage works.

That said, viewed simply and purely as a work of architecture, this is a wonderful building. You can think of it as an exercise in transparency. The Media Lab has long been famous for hiding itself in a building by I.M. Pei that was a nearly windowless box. The new building, which joins the Pei at one edge, is exactly the opposite. From outside, you can look all the way through it from one end to the other. It’s sheathed in shimmering glass and metal screens that allow about half the sunlight through to the interior. You feel that the building is temptingly veiled, not blanketed.

University Strategic Planning and the Foresight/Futures Approach: An Irish Case Study

An intimate sharing of the environmental scanning, strategic foresight/futures thinking used at Dublin City University.

Citation

Ronaldo Munck and Gordon McConnell. 2009. University Strategic Planning and the Foresight/Futures Approach: An Irish Case Study. Planning for Higher Education. 38(1): 31–40.

Abstract

The contemporary university operates within a global context characterized by ever-increasing uncertainty and complexity. Strategic planning must, therefore, be cognizant of future trends and how those trends will affect the university by creating both threats and opportunities. Our hypothesis is that an approach we refer to as “strategic foresight” can provide us with the tools, methodology, and process to creatively address uncertainty and complexity in our working environment. Dublin City University has taken the lead in Ireland in terms of its emphasis on strategic planning. Its 2005–2008 strategic plan, Leadership Through Foresight, was part of an ambitious foresight exercise that was aimed at informing subsequent strategic cycles. This article reports on this process in the context of the wider literature examining the value of foresight/futures thinking as applied to universities. The article commences with a review of current uncertainties and complexities in the current operating environment. It broadly outlines foresight/futures thinking and then examines universities specifically. It continues by focusing on Dublin City University’s foresight exercise as an example of how foresight operates in practice. Finally, the article concludes by exploring what a strategic foresight approach to planning might look like based on that experience.

Rebooted Computer Labs Offer Savings for Campuses and Ambiance for Students

Sometimes it's lonely on campus, being a planner. Start planning now to attend higher education's premier planning conference for 2010, SCUP–45, July 10–14 in Minneapolis, where you can network and converse with more than 1,000 of your peers and colleagues.

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What happens when "creative clutter" meets transparency in a new, elegant building? Robert Campbell reviews the new MIT Media Lab building at MIT.

Frank Moss, the Media Lab’s director, puts it this way: “It will take time to regain the sense of mess and to repopulate with junk.’’

It’s the classic marriage of form and content. The new building is Snow White and the Media Lab is Mad Max. Time will reveal how well the marriage works.

That said, viewed simply and purely as a work of architecture, this is a wonderful building. You can think of it as an exercise in transparency. The Media Lab has long been famous for hiding itself in a building by I.M. Pei that was a nearly windowless box. The new building, which joins the Pei at one edge, is exactly the opposite. From outside, you can look all the way through it from one end to the other. It’s sheathed in shimmering glass and metal screens that allow about half the sunlight through to the interior. You feel that the building is temptingly veiled, not blanketed.

During a recent tour of the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan, we noted the plethora of 'breakout' rooms which resemble the spaces this article describes as being created from what used to be computer labs.

More than 11 percent of colleges and universities are either phasing out public computer labs or planning to do so, according to this year's survey of college technology leaders by the Campus Computing Project, released last month. At colleges that have not pulled the plug on their labs, nearly 20 percent are reviewing the option. This is the first year the Campus Computing Project has asked the question.

UVa will phase out computer labs like this one, at Thornton Hall, and let students log in to the campus network on their own machines to use expensive software.

Institutions agree that computer labs, much like student centers and libraries before them, are due for an extreme makeover. That is why several technology officials contacted by The Chronicle believe in creating work spaces that hardly resemble the computer labs of the past.

These new spaces might be lounges filled with modular furniture and plasma televisions; virtual labs that give remote laptops access to software; or bigger, better computer rooms with state-of-the-art machines and pleasing architecture that can act as de facto student centers. Fortunately for young caffeine addicts, nearly all officials interviewed said they planned to let students drink and eat while typing away—something that has long been forbidden in traditional computer

NCES 'First Look' at Employees in Postsecondary Institutions, Fall 2008, and Salaries of Full-Time Instructional Staff, 2008-09

Sometimes it's lonely on campus, being a planner. Start planning now to attend higher education's premier planning conference for 2010, SCUP–45, July 10–14 in Minneapolis, where you can network and converse with more than 1,000 of your peers and colleagues.

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What happens when "creative clutter" meets transparency in a new, elegant building? Robert Campbell reviews the new MIT Media Lab building at MIT.

Frank Moss, the Media Lab’s director, puts it this way: “It will take time to regain the sense of mess and to repopulate with junk.’’

It’s the classic marriage of form and content. The new building is Snow White and the Media Lab is Mad Max. Time will reveal how well the marriage works.

That said, viewed simply and purely as a work of architecture, this is a wonderful building. You can think of it as an exercise in transparency. The Media Lab has long been famous for hiding itself in a building by I.M. Pei that was a nearly windowless box. The new building, which joins the Pei at one edge, is exactly the opposite. From outside, you can look all the way through it from one end to the other. It’s sheathed in shimmering glass and metal screens that allow about half the sunlight through to the interior. You feel that the building is temptingly veiled, not blanketed.

The Institute of Educational Sciences (IES) of the National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES) provides this freely-downloadable (PDF) report on employees of the more than 6,700 postsecondary institutions which participate in Title IV federal student financial aid programs. As usual, the data behind this report is also available from NCES. Some highlights:

• In total, the institutions employ 3.7M individuals;
• Of those 2.4M are employed by public institutions and 1.3M by private institutions, for-profit and nonprofit;
• There are 194,714 full professors, 124,653 associate professors, 134,169 assistant professors, 94,573 instructors, 28,299 lecturers, and 48,894 with no academic rank; and
• Average instructional staff salaries at public and non-profit privates were nearly the same, but salaries at for-profits were about 40 percent lower.

Higher Education and Green Jobs

Sometimes it's lonely on campus, being a planner. Start planning now to attend higher education's premier planning conference for 2010, SCUP–45, July 10–14 in Minneapolis, where you can network and converse with more than 1,000 of your peers and colleagues.

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What happens when "creative clutter" meets transparency in a new, elegant building? Robert Campbell reviews the new MIT Media Lab building at MIT.

Frank Moss, the Media Lab’s director, puts it this way: “It will take time to regain the sense of mess and to repopulate with junk.’’

It’s the classic marriage of form and content. The new building is Snow White and the Media Lab is Mad Max. Time will reveal how well the marriage works.

That said, viewed simply and purely as a work of architecture, this is a wonderful building. You can think of it as an exercise in transparency. The Media Lab has long been famous for hiding itself in a building by I.M. Pei that was a nearly windowless box. The new building, which joins the Pei at one edge, is exactly the opposite. From outside, you can look all the way through it from one end to the other. It’s sheathed in shimmering glass and metal screens that allow about half the sunlight through to the interior. You feel that the building is temptingly veiled, not blanketed.

We recently spent some time with Xarissa Holdaway who is, among other things, the editor for the Campus Ecology Project's ClimateEDU: News for the Green Campus. ClimateEDU is the most readable of the two must-read regular electronic publications devoted to campus sustainability issues. The relationship between SCUP and the Campus Ecology Project (which is a unit of the National Wildlife Federation - NWF) go back to the mid-1990s when its director, Julian Keniry, published Ecodemia, and presented on it at SCUP-31 in Washington, DC. The president of NWF's board of directors, Jerome Ringo, is a plenary speaker for SCUP-45 in Minneapolis next July!

This particular issue of ClimateEDU is themed around "green jobs" and includes articles about how community colleges are adjusting their curricula to be sensitive to the needs of green-minded employers, how that demand varies from region to region and state to state, a specific look at those issues in the hard-hit Midwest, and the "Pathways Out of Poverty" that green jobs initiatives at community colleges create for disadvantaged or impoverished students who cannot afford a four-year education.

Boomers and Technology: An Extended Conversation

Sometimes it's lonely on campus, being a planner. Start planning now to attend higher education's premier planning conference for 2010, SCUP–45, July 10–14 in Minneapolis, where you can network and converse with more than 1,000 of your peers and colleagues.

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What happens when "creative clutter" meets transparency in a new, elegant building? Robert Campbell reviews the new MIT Media Lab building at MIT.

Frank Moss, the Media Lab’s director, puts it this way: “It will take time to regain the sense of mess and to repopulate with junk.’’

It’s the classic marriage of form and content. The new building is Snow White and the Media Lab is Mad Max. Time will reveal how well the marriage works.

That said, viewed simply and purely as a work of architecture, this is a wonderful building. You can think of it as an exercise in transparency. The Media Lab has long been famous for hiding itself in a building by I.M. Pei that was a nearly windowless box. The new building, which joins the Pei at one edge, is exactly the opposite. From outside, you can look all the way through it from one end to the other. It’s sheathed in shimmering glass and metal screens that allow about half the sunlight through to the interior. You feel that the building is temptingly veiled, not blanketed.

AARP and Microsoft held series of extended focus group-like sessions with a bunch of Baby Boomers in May 2009. The focus was on technology use and adoption. The results are the white paper, Boomers and Technology: An Extended Conversation. They'll be of interest to many SCUPers not only because many SCUPers are Boomers, but because of what they reveal about a continuing education market for Boomers as they continue to learn as they age:

Boomers are ready for more technology. They’re actually more likely than those 18-49 — by a margin of 59 percent to 55 percent4 — to agree with the statement “Technology will help me live a fuller life.” And indeed, boomers’ ideas for new technology center around health, communications and the home. Said one Phoenix participant: “How about a phone that has a feedback device to tell you if you’re out of line: like you’re drinking too much, or you’re a little overweight, you’d better cut this out. It keeps reminding you, and when you finally straighten out it gives some positive feedback.” Another participant immediately added: “Or the insurance company gives you the cell phone and it lowers your rates if you behave.”