Campus Ecologist

By Dr. Marijane Axtell Paulson

President, Pikes Peak Community College

Colorado Springs, Colorado

Editors Note: Pikes Peak Community College in Colorado Springs, Colorado is in the process of building an additional campus at the north edge of the city. The article that follows was written by President Paulson and appeared in the campus's Newsletter in September of 1995. Her remarks are informative and refreshing and can serve as a foundation for thinking about campus architecture and the building process.

What will the new campus look like? We've selected an architect, and have begun the important discussions that will result in drawings and plans and virtual computer images and non-virtual cardboard models. But what will it look like?

My own artistic, decorative and architectural abilities were arrested before the age of consent ... my notion of interior design is to hang a picture in the center of the wall; with any luck, it will match the colors of the couch. Oh --- and one firm rule --- no chintz.

So when I was asked for my "ideas" about the north campus, I knew I Was in some trouble. It's not that I don't have definite ideas. It is that I wasn't sure how to express them. I decided I needed to some reading. I enjoyed The Fountain headache: The Politics of Architect-Client Relations by Pressman (1995). Poetics of Architecture( Antoniades, 1992) and The Power of Place: How our Surroundings Shape our Thoughts, Emotions, and actions(Gallager, 1993) were also helpful.

But it's Fountainheadache that I recommend the most. Besides allowing me to remember that wonderful Ayn Rand novel, it convinced me that I don't need to know anything about design. All I need to do is to talk about the purpose of the building. In Pressman's words:

"This writer's observation is that

the single most important place to test and hopefully cement the best client-architect relationships, is in the development of the program --- before any sketches or images

are discussed. From the architect's stand-point the ideal program is a statement of functions, and what responses or behaviors should occur around those functions ...

Where program statements most often go astray are when clients say things like 'I want it to look Colonial' or 'I don't want

it to be brick,' and so on. There is time for discussion of images and materials, but it is best deferred until after the plan has accommodated the program" (p. ix).

 

So. What are needed are the functions of the building and the behaviors that should occur. That duality is why I call this Reflections "We're building a Campus ... and Creating a Community." Here goes.

The function of the building(s) is to create spaces for teaching/learning and student support. But not any

                           old spaces will do. The spaces must support our institutional focus of

individual student success, care for the college family, and service to the community.

 

Individual student success means that the space must be inviting, attractive, and humanly-scaled. (I don't mean that it must be single storied --- just that the design should inspire and not overwhelm.) Parking will need to be convenient. The entryway(s) must be welcoming. Interior barriers in the form of "Do not enter," "Off limits to Students "or high counters with menacing signs on top (and frowns behind) are unacceptable. Interior and exterior walls and coverings must be attractive and easy to maintain. We use our buildings to say "You are important" to students. No shabby or dirty or second-class atmosphere is tolerated. (I hope this attitude is evident to our architects as they tour our Centennial, Downtown Studio and Commerce Center locations).

Individual student success also means that care is taken in the choice of interior color, in acoustics, and in natural and artificial light. Spaces must be designed so that there is "quiet" space for study and reflection, as well "group" space for rhetoric. I suspect we'll have lots of interior plants and waterfalls and ... oops! I almost forgot. I'm to focus on function and behaviors . . . not design.

Individual student success also means that technology --- for learning; for student access and convenience; for community benefit is also present. Lots of it. Video-conferencing, multimedia learning stations, microwave and cable distribution sites, production facilities... a whole lot of technology. Again, it is meant to assist the student, both in assisting learning and student support. Both the macro environment and the interface of machine to man(or women) needs to be human. We'll want high touch with our high tech.

Care for the College family means that we'll need to provide employees --- faculty, staff and administration---with an attractive, comfortable, relaxed and pleasant environment. There needs to be a special focus on instructional office space. It may be helpful, at this point, to provide a contrast by using Centennial Campus as an example. (Centennial Campus is located on the south side of Colorado Springs). Faculty space is awful. We've warehoused our full time faculty in terrible tiny cubicles. They have no space for professional holdings, for developing instructional material, or for one-on-one interaction with students. It is terrible. Adjunct faculty have even less space. (Office space at The Downtown Studio is a vast improvement over Centennial's)

The need for appropriate space for teachers and learners is an extremely important consideration. Our, College architecture looks like my grammar school room looked 40 years ago. There are classrooms with desks in rows and a teacher's table in the front. The door is closed, and teaching begins. When the class is over, students walk down chairless, hard corridors; the noise of shoes is punctuated by slamming locker doors.

There is not a great deal that is different at Centennial Campus. It's a 1990's version of the same thing. We've mostly got classrooms and corridors. There are few places on campus where faculty and staff can comfortably sit down together. Conversations with faculty and other students are hurried in the hall, or uncomfortably draped over the railings. Awful. Maybe we need to "fuzz" the line between classroom and corridor, so that ... oops. I'm into design again.

Student support areas also need attention. Do I need to mention that the area in which I registered for kindergarten looks a lot like most college registration centers? I rest my case.

Our third area of institutional focus is service to the community. Our "customers" at the North Campus (trust me, we won't name it that) will include individuals from business and industry. Additionally, we will undoubtedly serve as a "community center" as well. But the majority of our cultural activities --- poetry readings, gallery, theater, etc. --- will be at Centennial or The Downtown Studio. And we plan on maintaining our major corporate training facility at Commerce Center.

We're building a campus. But we want to create a community.

Antoniades, A.C.(1992).Poetics of architecture: Theory of design. New York: Van Norstrand Reinhold.

Gallagher, W. (I 993). The power of place: How our surroundings shape our thoughts, emotions, and actions. New York: Poseidon Press.

Pressnian, A.(1995).The fountainheadache: The politics of architect-client relations. New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc.

James H. Banning

For the past eight months, I have had the opportunity to serve as a campus ecology consultant on the Pikes Peak Community College's North Campus Project. Working with the college's administrative staff, students, faculty, the appointed building committee, and the architectural firms of Davis Partnership P.C., Architects of Denver and Holger C. Christiansen & Partners, P.C of Colorado Springs, I have had an opportunity to see what role campus ecology can play in what President Paulsen calls "Building a campus ... and Creating Community."

Perhaps the best way to highlight the role that campus ecology played in the project is to outline the tasks that I performed for the campus. These included the following:

Served as a member of the selection committee to recommend an architectural firm for the project.

Opened the Fall Faculty/Staff Orientation Meeting with a slide presentation of the importance of nonverbal communications associated with the

physical aspect of the campus and the role these messages play in the overall campus ecology,

Gave special presentations and/or reports to the administration, building committee and architectural firms on the following topics:

                                Classroom design

                                Role of Light and Windows Open Office Environments

                                Ergonomics in the Classroom Policy for Naming Buildings

    Worked with academic and student services departments regarding their space needs.

                                Reviewed and commented on architectural plans and drawings.

Campus ecology's attention to people and their environments can provide helpful consultation and play major role in campus building projects. The behavior side of the building equation is kept in focus by the tenets of campus ecology. Building can create community.

Alexander, C., Ishikawa, S. & Silverman, M. (1977).A pattern language. New York: Oxford Press.

Banning, J.H. (1995). Feng Shui goes to college. The Campus Ecologist, 13(l), 1-4.

Barker, R.B. & Gump, P.V. (1964). Big school, small school Palo Alto,-CA: Stanford University Press.

Becker, F. (1981). Workspace: Creating environments in organizations. New York: Praeger.

Becker, F. & Steele, F. (1995). Workplace by design: Mapping the high-performance workscape. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Deasy, C.M. & Laswell, T.E. (1985). Designing places for people. New York: Whitney Library of Design.

Dober, R.P. (1963). Campus Planning. New York John Wiley & Sons.

Dober, R.P. (1992). Campus design. New York: John Wiley & Sons.

Lynch, K. (1962). Site planning. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Smith, P. & Kearny, L. (I 994). Creating workplaceswhere people can think. San Francisco, CA:Jossey-Bass.

Steele, F. (I 98 1). ne sense ofplace. New York: VanNostrand Reinhold.

Steele, F. (I 986). Making and managing high-qualityworkplaces: 4n organizational ecology. New York: Teachers College Press.

Turner, P.V. (1984). Campus: An American planningtradition. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

White, E. T. (I 996). Building meaning. Analysis anddesign for image-sensitive projects. Tallahas-see, FL: Architectural Media, Ltd.

Historical References

Pope, JR. (I 920) University Architecture, New York:Publisher unknown.

Pine, J. (I 914). Notes on the building ofa university. TheAmericanArchitect, 106(2),333-40.