The Shape of things to come
By Michael Graca
Imagine the Wheaton College campus 10 years from now: faculty and students work in a state-of-the-art science center; alums spend the night in a colonial-style guest house across from the main campus; high school students and their parents start tours of Wheaton from a new visitors' center; and the college's athletes run laps on a new outdoor track.
Could this be for real?
Well, predictions of the future are notoriously dicey, but all of the above are possibilities envisioned in the college's recently updated master plan, a framework for guiding discussions about Wheaton's future. Crafted by consulting architect Martin Sokoloff in collaboration with college leaders, the master plan analyzes the current campus environment and identifies opportunities for development. It also suggests what types of building projects would best suit each of the "opportunity zones."
The updated campus master plan comes at a time when the college is uniquely positioned to imagine and shape its future. In 1987, Sasaki and Associates, of Watertown, Mass., prepared a master plan for the campus. Since then, the college has grown tremendously in strength; student recruitment is at an all-time high in both the quantity and quality of applicants; the Campaign for Wheaton concluded last year with overwhelming success; and the institution's national reputation as a leading liberal arts college has risen considerably. These accomplishments are inspiring faculty, administrators, trustees, students and alumnae/i to explore how this momentum might be harnessed to further advance the college and the quality of its programs.
Recognizing the approaching crossroad, President Dale Rogers Marshall initiated a broad-based institutional planning process with "Vision: Wheaton 2005," which examines the college from multiple perspectives. A central focus of the planning is a curriculum review which Provost Susanne Woods and the faculty began last year and they expect to conclude during the 2001-02 academic year. Professors started the process with the question, "What does it mean to be a liberally educated person in the 21st century?" and are considering many issues, including the future role of technology at Wheaton. The college's relations with alumnae/i are also being examined. The Alumnae/i Association is leading this planning for its future. (The Association's planning effort will be the subject of the fall issue of the Wheaton Quarterly-Ed.)
The campus master plan forms a critical backdrop for all of these planning efforts. "It's been extremely helpful in identifying our options," says President Marshall, noting that the plan's formation has already influenced development decisions, including the siting of the college's new studio arts building and the renovation of Watson and Meneely halls. "It's a substantial achievement, in my view."
Seeing opportunities
The college's planning framework rests upon an analysis of the "built environment" of the campus-roadways and parking areas, pedestrian paths, buildings and landscape features. "It's easy to argue that we all love the Dimple or the area around the pond," Sokoloff says. "It's no accident that those are well-defined spaces. What we've done is look for the places where the campus plan is incomplete and then consider what might be done in those spaces and how it fits with the college's long-term goals."
The result of the systems analysis is a deeper understanding of how the campus actually is experienced by the people who live, study and work here. At the same time, the evaluation highlights areas of the campus that are not yet fully developed. These areas--seven in all (see illustration above)--represent opportunity zones, according to Sokoloff. Those zones are the starting points for broader discussions about the college's goals and how available space might best be used to achieve those objectives:
- The Town Green area encompasses land owned by the town and by the college, and represents the main entry point for most visitors to campus. Siting a visitors' center on college-owned land in this area would clearly announce the college's presence. The lower campus residential area would benefit from renovations and extensive landscape work to create more comfortable, student-friendly spaces, such as already exist on upper campus.
- Completion of a new 100-bed residence hall in winter 2002 at the southern end of campus will complete a new residential cluster with Gebbie and Keefe halls. This area will include a green quadrangle created after Public Safety is relocated to property on Route 140.
- The area directly behind Balfour-Hood Student Center, now occupied by parking lots and building service shops, represents the largest tract of undeveloped land on the core campus and could be the future home of new academic and residential buildings.
- The southern end of the campus contains sufficient space for student parking facilities with a dedicated entry from Pine Street, and this is now under construction. There is also space for an outdoor track to enhance the college's successful track-and-field program.
- The area surrounding the Madeleine Clark Wallace Library and the Science Center contains little additional space, but the library has undergone extensive renovation over the past several years. Additional studies for expansion of the Science Center are expected in the near future.
- The expansion and renovation of Wheaton's arts facilities are currently under way in the area that encompasses Watson, Meneely and the northern end of Chapel Field.
A plan with history
The updated master plan draws additional strength from its seamless integration of earlier planning efforts. Most significantly, the new plan builds on the solid foundation of the comprehensive study conducted by Sasaki after the college became coeducational. Much of the development envisioned in that plan, including the construction of the Haas Athletic Center, has come to pass. Many of the remaining projects first proposed under the Sasaki plan have been modified in the college's latest round of planning.
The new residential area at the southern end of campus is a perfect example of the synergy of Wheaton's new master plan with past efforts. This residential zone was first envisioned in the Sasaki master plan, and work on the project began shortly afterward with the construction of Gebbie and then Keefe halls, both 50-bed dormitories. As the college's enrollment has increased over the past five years, the need for additional student housing became clear.
This new living area will be completed with the 100-bed residence now under construction. It's siting is shaped by the college's updated plan, which includes the addition of a Howard Street entrance to the campus from Route 140. This new entry was made reality about a year ago when Howard Street became a two-way thoroughfare at its southern end.
Similarly, the college's new arts center was originally planned to be built north of Route 123, a proposal that became less than ideal when planning for the project drew near. The reason? Increasing traffic on Route 123 made the idea of siting an academic facility across the road from the main campus far less palatable. The college's updating of the master plan identified a new possibility: locating the building on the edge of Chapel Field next to Meneely, while preserving much of the area's open space.
Projects to ponder
Ten years ago, the Sasaki master plan anticipated that the college would invest in shaping the development of the town's center. However, this did not prove to be financially feasible given the many competing priorities.
The updated master plan encourages the college to explore the possibility of siting a visitors' center near the junction of Routes 123 and 140. Such a center would create an easy-to-find starting point for high school students and their parents to begin tours of the campus, and would serve as a highly visible entry to the college.
Also under discussion is the renovation and expansion of the Science Center. In the next few years, the college will examine how better to accommodate the growing programs in science and update laboratories for the advanced research conducted by faculty and students. The explosion of new technologies is one factor in the need for expansion and renovation. The 30-year-old building was designed prior to the information technology boom. Additionally, the college has established a computer science department and major in recent years, and enrollment has grown 50 percent since the center's opening.
"Wheaton is fortunate that we have the land that will enable us to enhance facilities and the institutional strength to build on the quality of our educational programs," President Marshall says. "The past five years have been a time of many successes for Wheaton, so now it is very inspiring to think about all the great things we have yet to do as a community. We're focused on the future, and we're seeing lots of exciting possibilities."
