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New survey reveals the usage of 3D printers among American college students

2022-02-02T13:54:00-05:00

A new study published by Primary Research Group has been released examining American college students and their use of 3D printers.

The survey looks closely at how many and which students are using 3D printers at their colleges, along with how much they are using them. The report also collected students’ opinions on the value of 3D printers and how aware they are of their availability in their academic settings. The report aims to assist college and university officials to estimate the current and future level of demand for 3D printing and the source of demand. Data was collected through a representative sample of 1,076 students attending four-year colleges in the United States.

Key findings of the survey are:

46% of students majoring in engineering, mathematics, and computer science had ever used a 3D printer, the highest of any major or range of academic fields in the sample.
Older students aged 26 to 35 were much more likely than others to find a 3D printer valuable or very valu...

New national study reveals post-Covid campus facility trends

2021-08-03T17:52:00-04:00

In a new national study conducted by the Society for College and University Planning (SCUP) and Buro Happold’s higher education consulting group, brightspot, a series of notable findings reveal the major impact the Covid-19 pandemic has had on how universities and colleges are planning for new facilities.

Called the Campus Facilities Inventory (CFI), the survey is used to provide facilities benchmarking data to colleges and universities in order to better inform their planning efforts. It asks institutions to provide space data as categorized by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) and Facilities Inventory and Classification Manual (FICM). It was last undertaken in 2007. In the 2021 edition, a group survey of 88 higher-education institutions across the U.S. was conducted, gathering data on their buildings, as well as recent and planned changes to their facilities. The research also details changes over the last year and plans for the next three years.

Map of institu...

Cobe unveils book-inspired winning design for Gothenburg University's new library competition

2021-06-05T15:00:00-04:00

Plans for a new library at Gothenburg University have been revealed after a search by the Swedish consulting firm Akademiska Hus to add what is now the newest chapter in the long architectural history of the nation’s second-largest city.

Göteborg Universitetsbibliotek. Photo courtesy of Cobe

Danish firm Cobe won the commission with a fitting design meant to mimic the curvature of a book’s pages in an imposing 16,000 square meter space adjacent to Gothenburg's most important cultural institutions.

The new building, which will replace smaller libraries serving different academic departments in arts and humanities, uses extruded white ceramic panels to create a volume interposed with vertical patterns that work the building’s profile into an eight-story literary metaphor Cobe founder Dan Stubbergaard feels is central to its function and educational mission.

Göteborg Universitetsbibliotek. Photo courtesy of Cobe

“The book serves as the inspiration and point of departure for the design,...

Art students demand tuition refund due to "insufficient" online instruction

2020-04-15T13:26:00-04:00

As hundreds of universities across the US are forced to shift classes online and as arts studio programmes and workshops are compromised due to the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic, students are mobilising to demand the full or partial reimbursement of their tuition. Few efforts, however, have yielded positive results, to the financial devastation of many students.

According to The Art Newspaper, a letter containing the signatures of more than 80% percent of Boston University MFA students was "rebuked by school representatives last month." The school says that it believes its Zoom meetings are commensurate with a "studio education." Additionally, students at the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD), Yale University's School of Art, RISD, and the New York University Tisch School of the Arts are all arguing for partial refunds for tuition, The Art Newspaper reports.

As Historically Black Colleges and Universities shutter, America loses its history

2019-07-03T09:48:00-04:00

For nearly 200 years, since the opening of Pennsylvania’s Cheyney University in 1837, H.B.C.U.s have educated thousands of students, including the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Justice Thurgood Marshall, Toni Morrison, Representative Elijah Cummings and Senator Kamala Harris. But from a high of 120 such schools to about 101 in 2019, many have faced an uncertain future. In the last 20 years, six have closed, and several others remain open in name only after losing accreditation.

A recent New York Times report chronicles the increasing pace of financial woes and accreditation hurdles facing Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) in the United States.

The report states that in the last 20 years, six HBCUs have shuttered, leaving only 101 of these culturally and historically significant institutions in operation.

At their height, at least 120 HBCUs were in operation across the United States, providing a vital source of educational opportunity for Black Americans, including in architecture.

According to The New York Times, a variety of leading political and cultural figures graduated from HBCUs, including Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, author Toni Morrison, Representative Elijah Cummings, and Senator Kamala Harris, among many others.

The remnants of Morristown College, which is listed in the National Register of Historic Places and shuttered in 1994. Image courtesy of Wikimedia user Bravidos.

At leas...

The top 50 universities for architecture in the world ranked by QS World University Rankings

2018-02-28T16:53:00-05:00

Global higher education analysis firm, Quacquarelli Symonds has released their 2018 rankings of the top universities in the world for the study of architecture and the built environment. Many of the leading names are university mainstays, with MIT topping the list for the fourth year in a row. Of the top 10, three are US-based schools, another three located within the UK, and the rest, scattered across parts of Europe with the exception of the National University of Singapore, which was the only non-Western University to make this top tier. Read on for the top 10 rankings.

You can check out the full list of 200 by visiting here.

This startup hopes to bring autonomous campus shuttles to colleges by 2017

2016-03-30T13:34:00-04:00

Since summer 2015, [Alex] Rodrigues and his team [at Varden Labs] have been tinkering with autonomous golf carts on university campuses...On the one hand, campus transit agencies, and particularly university ones, are uniquely posed to experiment with pricier autonomous vehicles...But these shuttles will also need maintenance...Plus, driverless shuttles will be the diving bell for a tricky, tricky question: how important are bus drivers?

The hedge fundification of American universities

2016-03-11T14:27:00-05:00

Have you heard the latest wisecrack about Harvard? People are calling it a hedge fund with a university attached [...] Though the exact figure is hard to determine, experts I consulted estimate that over $100 billion of educational endowment money nationwide is invested in hedge funds, costing them approximately $2.5 billion in fees in 2015 alone. The problems with hedge funds managing college endowments are manifold, going well beyond the exorbitant...fees they charge for their services.

"The time has come for students to connect the dots between ballooning student debt, the poor treatment of campus workers, and the obscene wealth of hedge fund oligarchs."

A rallying cry for a divestment movement to oppose hedge funds and their involvement with academia, the article discusses the relatively new relationship between universities and high risk investing. Not only are money managers – and often university trustees – making off with obscene profits, the finance industry has actively lobbied against policies "designed to curb inequality."

For more on the implications and ramifications of academia's historically-unprecedented flirtations with finance, check out these links: