Last spring Sasaki Associates & Eastley+Partners worked with student, faculty, staff and alumni groups to develop guidelines for campus planning. After much brainstorming, conversation and analysis, they presented a report detailing five main principles:
1. Synergy of Residential and Academic Experience
How can we create spaces that tie academic work to campus learning more broadly?
2. Network of Informal Learning Spaces
How can we enhance the idiosyncratic spaces in which serendipitous encounters lead to deep learning?
3. Spectrum of Formal Learning Spaces
How can faculty and students collaborate in creating places on campus appropriate to the new ways we teach and learn most effectively?
4. Transparency of Indoor/Outdoor Spaces
How can we plan for spaces that weave a more seamless connection between the interior and exterior landscapes?
5. Engagement Local and Global
How can the principles of sustainability and stewardship lead to more productive engagement for the Wesleyan community in Middletown and beyond?
You can find a link to the executive summary of the report here. Thanks to the Facilities Committee and all the other Wesleyans who contributed to this effort. Over the course of this year we will begin to plan for campus improvements guided by this work.