Mission and Place: Strengthening Learning and Community through Campus Design (review)

Through the combined knowledge and experience of two professional planners/designers and a college administrator, Mission and Place illustrates the connection between the physical campus environment and an institution's sense of community and place. Additionally, the authors take the position that improvements made to the campus through "placemaking" not only have a positive effect on campus aesthetics but can also help the institution reach its goals and fulfill its mission.

Throughout the book, the authors demonstrate the similarities between communities found in cities and towns and those found on college campuses. Terms one would typically associate with urban planning (such as "suburbanization," "sprawl," and "density") appear frequently in expressions of concerns for college and university campuses—for example: "Even today, many institutions do not understand the link between their sprawling campuses and the lack of community they experience" (p. 106) and "This physical compactness allows students and faculty to walk more easily from one place to another, encouraging interaction and community, and reinforcing a sense of place and institutional identity" (p. 105). The parallel between cities and college campuses is one the authors make quite clear: the college campus is indeed a type of community.

From the beginning, the authors identify the loss of a sense of community on college campuses as a very common concern. Administrators often complain that they "can't get them [the students] out of their rooms," to which the students retort, "There's nowhere to go" and lament that they "don't feel connected" with their college (p. 21). The authors provide several possible explanations for these growing negative sentiments toward the campus, ranging from the construction of palatial residence halls that discourage students from leaving their rooms and overpaving the campus to create conveniently located parking lots.

Kenney, Dumont, and Kenney argue that, just as poor campus design negatively impacts the sense of community, so proper campus design can improve it. Because the presence of people on campus is key in creating and improving a sense of community, proper campus design not only creates an environment in which faculty, staff, and students want to linger after class, but also one in which these people are visible to each other. People want to be where other people are, and the presence of others is the essential element of community.

The authors hold that the positive effects of improving a sense of community through proper campus design can be felt throughout the institution. The benefits are apparent in the admissions office in the form of higher recruitment and retention rates. They cite a study reported by the Boston Globe that the campus visit is ranked "first among fifteen 'influential information sources'"—so it is no wonder the authors consider the campus to be "perhaps the single most effective marketing tool" (p. 16). The public safety/police department may benefit from an enhanced perception of safety on campus through increased interaction and redesigned parking facilities. "With no one around, people feel unsafe and leave the area as quickly as they can, and the cycle of isolation grows worse" (p. 170).

The authors discuss the essential principles of proper campus design in Chapters 7 through 16. These chapters highlight the strategies necessary to create meaningful places, utilize density as a method to encourage interaction, encourage mixed-use development on campus, incorporate landscape and architecture design to enhance a sense of community, and attempt "taming the automobile" (p. 169) to increase foot traffic, among others.

In Chapter 7, "Meaningful Places," the authors explain that "the physical campus sends a message about the institution. The meaning of the physical campus and the message it sends to students, faculty, staff, and visitors is fundamental to achieving every part of the institutional mission" (p. 73). A campus design plan can be tailored to meet an institution's individual needs, goals, and mission.

While the...