Composing New Narratives, Creating New Spaces: Constructing a Learning Commons with a Wide and Lasting Impact
Justin A. Young, Eastern Washington University
Introduction
Overview
Learning Commons
Student Success
Collaboration
Conclusion
This chapter will address the question of how innovative learning spaces can transform the university in long-lasting ways, within the context of a learning commons model of student support, via an examination of an ongoing effort to transform the Eastern Washington University Writers’ Center into a multiliteracy center relocated within the campus library. As Cristina Murphy and Lory Hawkes (2010) wrote, “It will no longer be sufficient to debate issues of marginalization and rebellion within academic structures…. What will be necessary are new cultural narratives and cultural transformations for the Writing Center as it becomes the multiliteracy center and thus a major educational resource for the 21st Century” (p. 182). Working from the premise that new, sustainable learning spaces cannot be created without composing new cultural narratives to inform and frame them, this chapter presents the challenges and rewards seen over the course of the planning and construction of a Learning Commons, and particularly the effort to relocate and redesign the EWU Writers’ Center within this new Commons. The story of the development of the Commons will be told through a set of intersecting and competing narratives. The development of this learning space can best be understood by examining the current cultural narratives held by and influencing the various stakeholders involved; this analysis suggests a way toward the composition of a new narrative of learning in higher education that next-gen learning spaces can exemplify and engender.
Individual pages in this webtext will examine the positions and experiences of particular stakeholders, in relation to the cultural or pedagogical narrative that informed those positions. For example, a section focused on the Writers’ Center's negotiation of the architectural changes brought about by a move to the Commons also discusses the ways those changes can help to challenge the common narrative of writing centers as fix-it shops for struggling writers. Another section will consider the creation of a new learning space from the point of view of an administrative leadership team who is motivated by the narrative of “student success,” promoted by entities such as the American Association of Colleges and Universities, while constrained by the political and financial realities that confront all state universities. A further section will consider the positions/narratives of other stakeholders in the learning commons project: the multimedia lab and the students themselves. This exploration of the development of the EWU Learning Commons from multiple viewpoints suggests that the creation and continued success of sustainable learning spaces in the 21st century must involve many voices. In fact, the development and current operation of the EWU Learning Commons suggests that collaboration amongst a range of diverse individuals and entities is key to establishing a sustainable learning space. This account suggests that sustainability—meaning, in this case, the creation of a learning space that will survive in a rapidly evolving environment—can be established and encouraged by following four principles for space design and program design:
- Collaboration
- Openness
- Flexibility
- Visibility
Ongoing, dedicated collaboration ensures that a wide number and range of diverse voices will be invested in the continued success of a learning space. Openness allows for visual and conceptual connections to be made by students, faculty, and staff amongst the various programs that compose the learning space and keeps individual programs from becoming siloed and static. Flexibility allows the space, and the programs within it, to shift, evolve, and grow with the changing needs of the university. Visibility helps ensure that the learning space itself will have an ongoing impact on the changing direction and shape of the university. Finally, this account suggests that a new narrative of increasing openness, complexity, and connectedness must inform both the design of new learning spaces and the practices that emerge in these spaces. In such a narrative, learning emerges from a dynamic web of relations among flexible spaces, diverse peoples, evolving technologies, and new ways of knowing.