Wednesday, April 9, 2008

February 6, 2008 Master Planning Session Review

With the master planning process entering the next stages, I knew that it would be a great opportunity to combine great ideas with dedicated individuals from throughout the Unity College community. Approximately 40 students, faculty, staff, board members and administrators descended on the Unity Center for the Performing Arts. The plan for the night was to break up into small groups based on a pre-selected topic. These groups were then responsible for establishing criteria for their selected topic. After selecting criteria to build their plan around, the groups were to choose a plan. At this point, most groups decided to modify the existing plan to better suit their criteria. Starting at approximately 7:15, the groups reported out to the entire group.

After choosing which group to be in, my group was responsible for Community Life and Recreation. We established criteria such as; ensuring adequate open space for recreation, designing buildings to incorporate indoor and outdoor activity, ensuring the safety of all members of the community and incorporating small gathering places/niches. After listing out approximately 20 different criteria, we ranked each of the three plans according to our criteria. In the end, it was decided that “Streams and Bridges” was the plan that was best suited for the criteria that we had established.

After deciding on a plan, many changes and modifications were made between the groups. Each group was told to stay within their selected topics and only incorporate the elements which pertained to their topic. After looking at the “streams and bridges” plan, the community life and recreation group decided that it would be best to keep the athletics on campus, rather than move them to the Field of Dreams. In addition, we felt as though it would be critical to use careful placement of trees and barriers in order to maintain privacy while also ensuring the safety of people while on the campus.

While the reporting out process was taking place, I ensured that I got equal representation from each group. By incorporating the different criteria and ideas and recording each point, I was able to compare and contrast the different groups. Ultimately, the following points appeared to be repeated the most, and therefore should be carefully considered/incorporated in the future:• “Streams and Bridges was selected by 4 out of the 5 groups as the plan that best suited their selected criteria. “Farms and Gardens” was selected by the energy and conservation group because of the high efficiency a plan such as “Farms and Gardens” would produce.

• The safety of all people entering the Unity College Community was very important and incorporated by all groups.

• Promoting/providing/incorporating access for disabled individuals was frequently repeated.

• The need to incorporate places for small gathering/niches in every building and setting was very prevalent.

• Most groups hoped to establish a stronger connection with the community by making the campus as inviting as possible, as well as establishing a walkway/trail from the middle of campus, down into the middle of town.

• Most groups felt as though the campus should be designed with efficiency in mind, such as efficient use of energy and natural resources, to the placement of buildings to ensure adequate/efficient services for residential students.

When the meeting was adjourned, everyone left knowing that a large amount of information and ideas had been shared and put out onto the table. The energy was great and all attendees expected to return on Wednesday, February 13, 2008. The goal was to break the existing topic groups into five separate groups that had representation from all five topics. These groups then planned on incorporating all ideas and selecting a plan that was best suited for the ideas and criteria that was established. From there, the groups would be modifying the existing plan/developing a new plan to be best suited for their combined ideas and criteria.

Ultimately, after leaving UCPA for the night and returning to my room, I had a large amount of thoughts and ideas flowing through my head. I felt as though the session was extremely productive and flowed incredibly well. All groups appeared to be extremely on task and accomplished a tremendous amount of work. The ideas were great and the energy level was exciting to see. Because I was involved with a particular group, I was unable to spend time observing exactly how each and every group functioned. However, based on the end results, it appeared as though each group worked well together and formed a mesh that ultimately produced great work.

In addition to how well some things went, at times it was frustrating working with other people. Because everyone had so many ideas and opinions, sometimes it was hard to ensure that your opinion was heard. In addition, because we had to ensure that we kept on task and meet the time deadlines, I felt as though some things were slightly rushed. As a result, I think some things could have been looked at in more depth, or additional ideas presented. At the same time, I feel as though we as a group were able to work well and using the established criteria, ideas and opinions, we were able to produce a great product. By having differing viewpoints, both political and personal, my group was able to ensure that nothing was overlooked because one person or the next always caught something that someone else may have over looked. Ultimately, I felt that this may have been the biggest factor that allowed us to come up with a great final product for the first master planning session.

With all slight disagreements and negatives aside, I felt as though the first master planning session was a great success and I looked forward to the second session, hoping that the energy, enthusiasm and incredible work ethic would continue.
.

No comments: