News > September 20, 2007

By Jacob Bathanti | Staff writer

University President Nathan O. Hatch’s inauguration three years ago ushered in a strategic planning process, an evaluation and reevaluation of the university’s long-term vision and missions. Now strategic planning has begun to intersect with the campus master planning process, creating an intersection of two major operations, which in turn opens the door to a major re-imagination and renovation of the university.

The campus master plan is a routine process in which, ideally, the university engages every five years.

It is meant to address the future needs of the campus, as much as a decade in advance, and deals with all conceivable physical aspects thereof – from building space to traffic and green spaces.

According to the campus master plan Web site, this is the first comprehensive master plan since the university’s construction. The three other campus master plans, in 1989, 1991 and 2000 address specific aspects of campus planning.

Now the university hopes to consider all facets of the campus as a whole, in a holistic fashion.

This time around, the incidence of the strategic planning process at the point of the campus master plan means that the goals of strategic planning (essentially, raising the bar across the board at the university and continuing to maneuver it into prime position as a national-caliber school) can be embedded in any long-range facilities planning.

A major focus of the plan, for example, will be how facilities planning affects the way that faculty, students and staff interact with each other.

With such lofty goals in mind, the university has contracted Ayers Saint Goss, an architectural and planning firm based in Baltimore, to help in the planning process.

Ayers Saint Goss works largely with campuses, having dealt in the past with schools from Notre Dame to UNC-Chapel Hill.

“For us it’s the nuances,” said Luanne Greene, of Ayers Saint Goss. She went on to explain that ASG thrives on the unique particularities of specific campuses.

“We don’t crunch a lot of numbers and expect to get the answers at the end of that,” Greene said, describing ASG’s approach to campus planning as qualitative and design-based rather than statistics-based.

To that expressed end of accommodating the wishes of the university community in the process of moving forward, the committees that run the campus master plan – the steering committee and the advisory committee – together with ASG, have begun to run a series of forums designed to give the full spectrum of university stakeholders a voice in the planning process.

Forums have been held from Sept. 18-20, and a preliminary progress report is due to be delivered Oct. 11-12.

ASG will begin to hold precinct study workshops – essentially smaller forums focusing on specific areas of the university – in the early part of the upcoming spring semester.

The hope is that the full set of recommendations will be submitted by next October, to fall within the 12-month target period.

ASG will be working with three other consulting firms: Affiliated Engineers, Inc., which deals with utilities; Biohabits, Inc., which deals with environmental planning; and Martin/Alexiou/Bryson, which deals with issues of transportation and traffic.

The balancing of interests inherent in such an arrangement may prove useful, as a multiplicity of interests will have to be accommodated in the process of setting long-term goals.

Two preliminary forums held Sept. 18 and Sept. 19 demonstrated the wide range of issues and concerns that will have to be balanced. The meeting Sept. 18, held in Annenberg Forum, addressed faculty and staff concerns.

These covered a broad spectrum of issues, ranging from discontent with the physical plant to concerns about the university’s interaction with its neighbors.

Many concerns overlapped with those at the second meeting held Sept. 19 in Benson 409, particularly those having to do with social and recreational spaces.

That forum was composed of a student focus group, with several members of Student Government and the student trustee, senior Carolyn Harbaugh, in attendance.

From the many shortcomings of Tribble Hall (which according to some of the faculty members in attendance include too much window space and a paucity of desks) to the lack of adequate audiovisual media space in many classroom buildings, professors evinced serious concerns that the university’s classroom buildings are showing their age.

Stephen Whittington, director of the Museum of Anthropology, pointed out that his own building is cut off from the rest of the campus, difficult for visitors to access and too small to hold all of its collections.

He and his colleagues at the museum also connected this to what was termed the unfriendliness of the university’s outer perimeter; everywhere one looks, they said, one finds high hedges, walls and gates.

Similar concerns were taken up as well by faculty in the department of theater and dance, who pointed out that its 14 members are crammed into office spaces originally intended for a faculty of three.

Scales Fine Arts Center, faculty went on to say, is cut off from the rest of campus by being situated in a field, and oriented toward a road which no longer exists.

Attendants at both meetings expressed their hope that long-term planning would incorporate a true recreational facility.

The Student Government Speaker of the House, junior Ross Williford, pointed to Davidson College as a model for such a building. “It could really just be a box with TVs and couches,” Williford said.

Some faculty members also floated the idea of a comprehensive exercise and recreational facility, or even a one-stop wellness center that would incorporate university counseling and Student Health facilities into one building.

The creation of such a space, these advocates argued, would create a single large gathering place, with the potential for increased interactions between students, faculty and staff and a concomitant strengthening of community.

“We’re so far from being competitive that it’s laughable,” senior Alec Lovett said, in reference to recreational facilities, and the current rec-room arms race that is gaining currency among institutions of higher learning.

Environmental issues emerged as another important concern, thanks to the presence at the meeting of a small contingent of students at the faculty and staff forum.

Supported by some professors, they argued for increased sustainability, a more bike-friendly campus scheme and an increased reliance on biodiesel.

At the student forum, the idea was even raised of a bike swapping system, where students in need of speedy transportation could take a bike from a communal rack and return it when done using it.

Student concerns focused around safety issues as well. Lighting appeared to be a strong concern, as did the travails of crossing Lot Q after dark. Students also raised issues of wider social spaces.

The idea of opening Reynolda Village to a more collegiate set of shops and restaurants was broached, although legal covenants place considerable restrictions on such a venture.

However, it appeared that the hope of somehow creating a space analogous to Franklin Street somewhere adjacent to campus holds some currency – Harbaugh even mentioned the possibility of converting Campus Gas on Polo Road into a bar.

All in all, the representatives of ASG should have a tidy bit of planning and accommodating to do. A keen interest is apparent, at least among those members of the university community in attendance at the two recent events, in shaping future university planning.

“We’re at a good point,” SG president senior Whitney Marshall said. “Lucky because this is at the same time as the strategic planning process.”

Marshall and Harbaugh also emphasized the student body’s good fortune in having a set of administrators and consultants who appear willing to listen to student input.

With such conditions in place, Marshall said, students should be raring at the chance to chip in with words of wisdom.

“It’s wanting to see the university be the best it can be,” Marshall said.