American Places: In Search of the 21st Century Campus (review)
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To the stream of thoughtful speculation about the physical forms of higher education, add and read M. Perry Chapman's informative and instructive American Places: In Search of the 21st Century Campus. The work comes from a professional planner with decades of experience and a well defined and well defended viewing point: "I am an unabashed 'Olmstedian,' writes Chapman. His guiding principle is Frederick Law Olmsted's "dynamic vision" of designers engaged in creating campuses for "a restless, changing population . . . and to serve that population the campus would have to adapt to change" (199).
How so and why? The underlying theme is elaborated upon and extended with seven essays about places that Chapman has experienced three-dimensionally. His lucubrations also provide armatures for sculpting a blend of facts and opinions from clients, colleagues, and commentators about factors and conditions affecting persistence and alteration in the groves of academe, indigenous and exogenous. Little of this will be new to anyone tracking trends, issues, and opportunities—i.e., the headline topics and themes that generate concern and wonderment. The density of the quotations, their connectivity, and his conclusion are the value added by Chapman.
The seven institutions and the circumstances which have impacted aspects of their physical forms—as this may be relevant to defining a model college or university in the future, include Virginia Polytechnic Institute and University (cyberspace); Lewis and Clark College (globalization); Northeastern University (demographics); Clarion University of Pennsylvania (stewardship); Marquette University (town and gown relations); Princeton University (entrepreneurship); and The University of South Florida (sustainability).
As noted, each of the seven headline topics is mined for its potential or existing influence on campus planning and design. Chapman's compilation, a clip file of news and commentary, contains in his shrewdly chosen citations abundant insights and wisdom from the recognized experts. Change and consequence, cause and effect are tracked to slogan-like observations. On the effects of globalization, for example, the quotations from Thomas Friedman, Lester Thurow, Clark Kerr, Michael Elliot, and Richard Florida, among others, are interwoven to sustain Chapman's argument that "a premium will be placed on the campuses and localities that are open to new faces and new ideas" (p. 92). The accumulation of the self-evident might be criticized as too elementary a handling of Chapman's ambitious "search" for and expression of paradigm campuses. Who will deny his reckoning that "people learn in different ways and at different paces"? (p. 154). The piling up and stringing together of comparable statements, however, leaves little doubt about the author's ability to sustain his conclusion: "The probability is that campuses will not depart much from the essential forms they have today, but rather in the variety of arrangements they will make to serve broader segments of the learning community more effectively" (p. 202)
The seven case studies are bracketed with a concise account of the development of the American campus as large-scale architecture and a sermon-like epilogue that outlines how best to deal with the "seismic forces" (Chapman's metaphor) that are expected to induce change. The former draws heavily on Paul V. Turner's 1987 classic Campus: An American Planning Tradition. The latter has the fervor and fever of an op-ed piece advocating the necessity of planning comprehensively, particularly the conjoining of campus and community.
Constructively, Richard Freeland endorses that plea in his introduction to Chapman's book. The [End Page 241] recently retired president of Northeastern University notes: "Physical place has an immense impact on the quality of institutional life on a daily basis, potentially reinforcing or undermining important institutional goals and values" (p. xii).
The photos Chapman selected for each of the seven indicative campuses present and illustrate—more than the text, I think—his take on what constitutes an attractive campus in the years ahead: generous and varied landscapes, comfortable and protected settings for encouraging participation in campus life, views and vistas of landmark architecture. It is...
