Grand Rapids Community College is currently working on a master plan to improve campus facilities. College administrators are working together with an architecture firm named The Collaborative for these plans.
An open forum was held Thursday, Nov. 14 to present the data they collected and hear feedback from students and staff.
Landscape Architect Philip Enderle spoke to The Collegiate about the improvements that could be made on campus to help students find their way around campus.
“For many students, maybe they are first generation, so we want to make sure its very welcoming,” Enderle said. “We would like to see classrooms that are very flexible, as a community college the institution needs to be very flexible, it needs to be very nimble because as the economy changes they need to be able to almost retool themselves to deliver education… IT infrastructure is really important. I think more social space where students can gather and have collaborations, a lot of learning takes place outside the class, not just in the classroom.”
Last week’s open forum was the second of six.
“We are in the planning stage of the process,” he said. “We hope to have an actual master plan for the board to approve in May of 2020. Now as far as implementation, we are looking out 10 (years). Every 10 years the institution is required to put together a master plan, so this is good for the next 10 years… The first project maybe two or three years out of this master plan.”
If students have any comments, concerns, or questions you can email Philip Enderle at penderle@TC.design.
