Kathleen G. Scholl and Gowri B. Gulwadi’s article on campus landscapes argues that the open spaces in a college campus must be utilized in a fashion that maximizes attention restoration and expands the learning environment. It is necessary to maintain this standard due to the fact that college students spend exhausting and extensive hours in curricular and extra-curricular activities. These long hours cause an unprecedented amount of stress and it is the responsibility of the institution to facilitate balance within student life. In order to provide this balance Scholl and Gulwadi examine key concepts such as direct and indirect attention, and how to restore these faculties. Additionally, the authors demonstrate the importance of a “holistic” learning environment in which the open spaces and instructional spaces are interconnected in order to sustain “a lifelong and year-round pursuit [of learning]”(2015).
Prior to addressing these main points, the authors provide an overview of the historical evolution of the campus space. Scholl and Gulwadi start their historical overview with the use of the word “campus” which was “derived from a Latin word for ‘field’ – ‘an expanse surrounded…by woods, higher ground, etc.'”(2015). The use of the word campus evolved from first merely describing the college grounds in Princeton University during the 1770’s to becoming a term that encompasses the overall quality of life within an institution. The authors describe early American institutions as wanting to be separate from the distractions of a city while maintaining a sense of community by “enabling their students and faculty to devote unlimited time and attention for classical or divinity learning, personal growth, and free intellectual inquiry.”(2015) By expanding the reaches of the student learning experience the authors show that early American colleges and universities were also focused on creating holistic learning environments; just not as progressively as future institutions. But, despite distancing the college ground from the city, institutions found it necessary to provide real-life experiences for students in fields such as agriculture, science, and technical education. As a result “open space and “zones” for disciplines became far more common than closely clustered buildings”(2015) allowing college campuses to become integrated with real life practice.
Scholl and Gulwadi identify the exposure and interaction with nature as the key component to revitalizing students active attention. The authors claim that active attention is restored through the stimulation of involuntary (indirect) attention through the presence of “inherently intriguing” stimuli. In this article the stimuli of interest is nature; more specifically green nature. The authors of the article choose to define nature as “’physical features and processes of nonhuman origin that people ordinarily can perceive, including the “living nature” of flora and fauna, together with still and running water, qualities of air and weather, and the landscapes that comprise these and show the influences of geological processes’”(2015). This stimulus activates other centers of attention within the brain thus allowing for direct attentional faculties to rest and replenish. In order to create a holistic learning environment not only is it crucial to integrate green spaces within the college campus but the authors also suggest that, buildings should minimize the number of floors and windows should give naturalistic views. Through careful attention to details like these Scholl and Gulwadi concludes that “viewing the campus landscape as a holistic spatial and mental dynamic entity … provides us a unique opportunity to reconceptualize the campus landscape of the future as an attentional resource.”(2015)
