Design
Could the College Campus Go the Way of the Bookstore?
As classes shift online, some are predicting a radical overhaul of academic infrastructure.
When it comes to the frenzied advent of the MOOC, the massive open online courses that have been threatening to upend higher education, no college wants to be perceived as old school. For some, there is a very real danger of becoming no school.
With all this potential for upheaval, the physical makeup of institutions of higher learning is being called into question, too. As the business of education moves online, is the traditional quadrangle-dormitory-lecture hall-library configuration really going to be necessary? Could the college campus go the way of – gulp – the bricks-and-mortar bookstore?