A capital funding squeeze led universities to seek new ways of developing their campuses. It now appears city CBDs and developers might do better out of those deals than universities.
Universities must meaningfully acknowledge they are sited on unceded First Nations land and Indigenous culture should be recognised in campus design. These steps are vital for reconciliation.
Treating online education as a cheap alternative to lectures will be a mistake. At first universities will probably have to allow more preparation time and invest more in training and technology.
World-leading university campus developments overseas call into question plans for CBD-based campuses in Australia. They might be good for CBD development, but what about the universities themselves?
More than 90% of universities in the world have been built since 1949. The vast majority built large campuses outside city centres, and all for much the same reasons.
Université de Sherbrooke introduced 10 new outdoor classrooms during COVID-19 and created a guide about outdoor teaching. It will fine-tune outdoor teaching in response to student feedback.
Despite serious financial and enrolment pressure for some, our universities are unlikely to close their doors – but some may have to resort to being ‘merged’ or taken over by a stronger partner.
European ideas of the campus as a place apart shaped Australia’s “sandstone” universities. Now universities are adopting urban regeneration strategies, bringing the city to the campus and vice versa.
Another student has died due to hazing. Research shows that there has been at least one such death in the US since 1954 (with 1958 the only exception). So why does hazing happen in the first place?
Academics are often in the vanguard of the fight to preserve heritage buildings but they are losing the battle on home turf as universities shed their 1960s and 1970s concrete skins.
The year 2015 escalated many of the tensions that have existed on university and college campuses for a long time. It will be remembered as the year of student activism.