Rowan Growing Smart – Reflections on Rowan’s Campus Development

Rowan Growing Smart – Reflections on Rowan’s Campus Development

John Hasse, Ph.D. AICP

Welcome to Rowan Growing Smart Blog - This Blog is intended to be a forum in which ideas and perspectives regarding Rowan University's pending unprecedented growth can be shared.  As a licensed professional planner, I have a particular interest in viewing the land development of Rowan's physical campuses, the layout of campus buildings and infrastructure, the architectural design of its buildings and the degree to which environmental protection and sustainability can be achieved as the campuses develop in the coming decade.

“Before Beginning, Plan Carefully”

Cicero - (Roman philosopher/orator)

About Planning

Webster's defines planning as "the establishment of goals, policies, and procedures for a social or economic unit."  The professional of land planning attempts to thread together land development, the physical infrastructure, the economics, the cultural context, the politics, the environmental constraints and (hopefully) the voice of the stakeholders into an organized process for achieving the intended outcomes.  Bringing together all of these competing and often contradictory factors is no small feat for even the smallest development project.  At the scale of change that is slated for Rowan in the coming decade, the level of complexity will be unprecedented and will require the very best of planning efforts with many adjustments likely to be needed along the way.

Bunce Hall Entrance

The Coming Rowan Decade

President Houshmand's ten year vision for Rowan is enterprising and bold, promising to bring the university to regional and national prominence.  These certainly are interesting times to be on board the Rowan train as it boldly forges into the future.  As New Jersey's second comprehensive research university we have entered a whole new era.  With such unprecedented growth, no doubt that many unexpected devils will arise in the details requiring a careful balancing of the many factors involved.  Through an open and sound planning process following smart growth principles, it is to be hoped that the most sensible outcomes can be achieved.

However, "sensible" is not always the word that comes to mind when looking at past development patterns whether it be the "eclectic mosaic" of buildings on Rowan's campus or  the sprawling pattern of suburbanization that has been endlessly repeated from Manhattan to Los Angeles .  Much of our most fertile farmland has sprouted subdivisions and shopping malls in a scattered pattern that is costly, squanders natural resources and inhibits traffic flows.  This short-sighted haphazard pattern of development does not create a community or result in a sense of place.  With the highest population density in country, the state of New Jersey has been particularly impacted by not-so-smart-growth.  The Garden State has already urbanized 1.5 million acres (25% of its total land area) and continues to convert open space the rate of 16,000 acres per year.  At this rate of development New Jersey is on trajectory to be the first state in the nation to run out of open land for development sometime around the middle of this century.  Such a sprawling and land-consumptive pattern of development is simply not sustainable.

Rowan as a Model for Smart Growth

We can do better.  Land can be developed in a far more efficient, beneficial and sensible pattern than it has in the past and as a public university Rowan can help to exemplify a more sustainable approach to growth. By incorporating green building and principles of sustainable community development, Rowan can be a model for how to avoid the costly mistakes of sprawl by taking a more holistic approach and designing an inspiring and well-functional land use plan built at a more affordable cost and with less of an impact to the environment.  This planning trend is now often described as Smart Growth.

Oak Hall, Rowan South Campus

Universities are not immune from making shortsighted development decisions that wind up not being very smart and often quite  costly over longer time horizons.  Our very own campus has more than a few examples of not-so-smart-institutional growth exemplified by questions often asked by my planning students such as; "why does Bunce Hall face the wrong direction?" and  "how come Memorial Hall is so impossible to walk through?" and "why do sidewalks on campus suddenly end?"

The poorly coordinated pattern of our campus can be traced to development decisions made throughout Rowan's history that  were done in a piecemeal fashion focusing on a single goal in response to a particular need while paying little attention to the long-term implications.  The result is Rowan's less-than-well-coordinated campus land use mosaic that many just accept as "the Rowan Way."

I am hopeful that the Houshmand administration will approach our current campus development from a longer range planning perspective.  They have embraced the Sasaki master plan for guidance.  This includes commissioning the expansion of the master plan to include a Stormwater Management and Landscape Master Plan to better mitigate flooding, protect the campus environment and enhance the Chestnut Branch stream that runs through the heart of campus.  Further,  they have reached out to the University Senate for input into various committees involved in new building development.  These are important indicators of the value placed on the planning process by this administration and bode well for achieving a smart growth outcome.

Smart Growth is Founded on an Open Planning Process

A key factor in smart growth planning is transparency and inclusion of the voice of the stakeholders so that their needs, wishes and concerns can be incorporated into the planning process.  It is essential to engage the input of stakeholders for designing the most effective and creative building solutions.  This has not always occurred at Rowan.  Some planning decisions of previous Rowan administrations were made with little or no input by anyone except at the top level, and, if there was an open forum, it usually was to tell the stakeholders what was about to happen.  Even with the best intentions, an administration cannot see every angle and cannot know the collective experience and institutional knowledge of the entire community.  Every member of Rowan's community should have a voice in shaping the plan and it should be understood that a plan will be made better by that input.

In the end, the development of Rowan will not simply be a collection of new buildings but will be the creation of a new campus environment that will be the "habitat" of students, faculty and staff for generations to come.  How we develop the campus at this moment in history will be a reflection of university's values, its self-image projected to the world in bricks and mortar, landscape planting and park benches.  We are creating the arena in which Rowan will endeavor to fulfill its mission to educate our future citizens, to be a central cultural asset in the region and to be an agent for the betterment of society.

Imagine 2024 Hindsight

From the vantage point of April 2014, it is not possible to know where Rowan will actually be in a decade.  But if we imagine how the 2024 campus will be experienced by its future users, that can serve as a powerful guide for making the most prudent planning decisions in 2014. What an exciting time it is to be part of the venture of reinventing a university that is forward-looking and striving to reach its greatest potential.  We can thank President Houshmand for setting the course.  But each member of the Rowan community will also be playing a role (either by being involved or remaining silent) in shaping how the future Rowan turns out.

Smart Growth campus planning begins by imagining the
perspective Rowan's future community stakeholders.

Imagining what the future Rowan looks like, our university is ripe in possibility for becoming a regional nexus where talented people debate and develop the frontiers of knowledge and expressions of culture.  Where thirsty young minds are nurtured and challenged to uncover the mysteries of our amazing world.  Where civic engagement is inspired in our citizens to solve challenging problems and create a better world in the coming century.  This won't happen if we just build a collection of independent buildings, but it can be inspired through an intentionally designed sustainable campus environment.  This is why we must get our pending development growth right in 2014 and why an open planning process is essential. How we grow will truly be a reflection of who we are as a university community, what we value and what we strive to be.

These are indeed exciting times to be a member of the Rowan community and through this blog I hope to bring a professional planner's perspective on how we might best achieve the smartest growth possible in the coming years so that we can arrive in a place that meets or exceeds our unbounded potential.

In the next few posts I will be exploring the answer to the question of why Bunce faces the wrong way and the importance for Rowan to carefully plan for the coming Camden-Glassboro  light rail transit line.  I welcome your participation in this blog through either posting your comments or writing guest blog entries so that your voice becomes part of the dialog of Rowan Growing Smart.

For in the wise words of Yogi Berra;
“if you don’t know where you are going, you’ll end up someplace else...”

I look forward to the conversation-  John

(John Hasse, Ph.D. AICP is a professor of geography and the chair of the Department of Geography & Environment at Rowan University.  Hasse's research expertise is in land development and smart growth evaluation. He has AICP planning certification and founded the Bachelor’s of Science in Planning degree program at Rowan, NJ's first new planning degree in over 30 years).