In today’s New York Times, a front page article titled Rural Colleges Seek New Edge and Urbanize: A new concept of the college campus is taking root: a small city in the country that is not for only the young.
What does Northfield and its colleges have to learn from this trend?
Some quotes:
“When you picture a global university, you picture urban,” said Amy Gutmann, the Penn president. “You picture restaurants, art galleries, you picture day and night, taking in movies, live performances.”
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Buildings will be close to the street and roads kept narrow to encourage pedestrian traffic and de-emphasize cars. The neighborhood and its buildings are meant to recall the housing and shops built in American towns in the first half of the 20th century.
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“It is about creating walkable places that are sustainable and gratifying on a human scale,” said Robert L. Chapman, managing director of Traditional Neighborhood Development Partners, the developer of what will be called the Village at Hendrix.
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“I think liberal arts colleges and universities are all about the serendipitous moments,” said John Fry, president of Franklin & Marshall. “You’re in the coffee shop on a Saturday morning sipping a cup of coffee and you run into a professor, and two hours later you’ve had one of those transformative moments.”
Hey Griff:
Does this mean the Colleges might invest in a Night Club?
http://nddc.org/weblogs/homepageblog/archives/000279.html
Ross
I think they should, Ross. Brendan Etter wrote this in the movie theater discussion thread at:
http://locallygrownnorthfield.org/archives/355/#comment-1048
I don’t think he was referring to having the colleges be the ones to build it. But won’t Carleton argue that the Old Middle School, soon to be college arts center, will function as this type of facility?
Griff, Thanks for noting this article, which also caught my eye. A more walkable, bikeable town will also help the colleges attract students.
A performing arts center would be good too. It would be great if this could be done privately, as the city seems to have a lot on its back now. However, Philip Spensley called for an arts center combined with a remodeled library, extending south from the present library; that was in a Nfld News column a while back.
Thanks, Bill. I don’t see the Nfld News article but note this article about Carleton’s new Arts Center in the old middle school:
http://apps.carleton.edu/campus/inside/?issue_id=232434&story_id=232534
[...] New Edge and Urbanize. Northfield blogger extraordinaire Griff Wigley has already posted a nice digest of quotes from the article, including those relating to the creation of walkable civic spaces where [...]