Who couldn’t figure out the experience of enrolling in a congested college? The type of college where the games pitch isn’t available or is very small to accommodate all games. Despite the academic excellence of a college, lack of some extra curriculum equipment could deter students from enrolling to such colleges (Neuman et al., p. npag). Currently, Alexander College fits the above description. Generally, it is a fundamental requirement for a college to be designed in such a way it offers a conducive learning environment for students as well as being a platform for impacting other non-curriculum skills to both students and staff. The expansion goals by the Alexander College are the efforts to pave in for spacious environment for interaction of students, the achievement of the provision of holistic education by increasing the number of program courses being offered as well as pioneering future development. Therefore, the goal of this paper will be to provide an argument defending the decision of the college to expand to a location whose space is double the present. More also, the installation of the necessary amenities that are lacking presently will be addressed.

There is need to set up a branch of the college to improve on the design and the layout to cater for the ever increasing population of the students (Glatter et al., p. npag).  Traditionally, the colleges have their buildings arranged around a courtyard such that the pedestrian traffic passes through a single entrance that leads to the offices and notice board. However, this is not the case in Alexander college. The college is currently characterised by congestion of students making the management and movement difficult. Besides that, the population of the college is increasing due to the incorporation of more course programs. If there is are no efforts in restructuring the college, the learning activities are likely to be halted in future. Therefore, the new development is the approach to implement the courtyard arrangement.

In the residential colleges, the student’s rooms have staircases that are opens into courtyard that drives the traffic to a main entrance and passing through major common rooms. The new approach is meant to mix the shared rooms to the same corridors or staircases. This construction is reserved for the graduate students and older undergraduate or even for the couples. The reserved rooms aren’t meant to segregate different groups. Instead mixture of age groups is encouraged as far as the varying level of privacy is considered. Having first years in doubles should clearly define that privacy is guaranteed as they advance through college (Glatter et al., p. npag). Additionally, those better rooms should not be overcharged but allocated same price since they are simply categorized by seniority. This is a system that will promote fairness and understanding to everyone.

Secondly, the new layout of buildings will ensure smooth flow of pedestrian traffic within the college. The manners in which the standard rooms are placed determine the easiness of the pedestrian traffic. The layout will ensure that highest amount of traffic are at college and dining hall entrances. Therefore, the layout will be designed in a way that common rooms will be adjacent to these areas of high traffic. For example, the junior common rooms should be near the dining hall with privacy in mind. Common areas without high congestion will be offices and laundry rooms. Laundry could be near the game rooms such that students would be socializing as they wait for their clothes to dry (Rydeen, p. npag). The offices could be near the main entrance so that it will be easier for students to through offices as they go in and out of college. Such a conducive environment with smooth traffic isn’t the experience of the current layout at the college.

Additionally, the primary goal of the university is to bring in other educational programs. In order to cater for the expansion of the university, there is a need to set up new buildings. An explosion of the population of the college will demand an increase in the number of classrooms, the expansion of libraries and offices for the increased number of staff. The growth of a college is a positive indication of the growth of society. Currently, with the introduction of five more programs, the school environment is congested such that the library is an unbearable environment for studying. The rescheduling of the classrooms is another challenge since all the classes available are not enough (Gamble et al., p. npag). As the college continues to bulge in population, the residential facilities will be a problem too. This would force most of the students to rent away from the university at a higher price. Therefore, the three block away college buildings to be set up as from January 2020 are thought worth endorsement to curb for the mentioned predicted problems.

The doubling of the space for the setting up the new structures is focused on equipping the college with all the amenities to improve the student learning experience. Space would be utilized in the expansion of learning rooms such as classrooms (Rydeen, p. npag), library and the offices. The rest of the space would be enough tolerance for future expansion of the college. More also, other facilities such as the gaming rooms, the football pitch, swimming pools and the resting space would be set up quickly. The goal of the university is to add to its curriculum more programs that are related to technology. Therefore, the double space is necessary for the setting up of laboratories.

To the opponents of the courtyard layout favors the establishment of the residential rooms that are arranged on the double corridors. Although the approach can be useful and offer some levels of an enclosure, many disadvantages come along with the methodology.  For instance, in order to accommodate many students, corridors have to be made very long. Such long tunnels will require many openings to eliminate the tunnel-like effect. In the worse cases, such corridors would be so long such that the faces of individuals would not be recognizable. Therefore, when students cannot recognize each other at a distance, the long corridors feel unsafe.

The setting up of another phase of Alexander College in few yards away is a sign of the expansion of the college. Those who oppose the growth of colleges claim that small college is easier to manage, strong friendship among students and students have more opportunities to gain leadership skills since there is less competition compared to large colleges. However, such sentiments can be responded to by revealing the pros of large colleges over small colleges. First, it is important to know that friendship thrives most in big colleges since more students diversify the social experiences by providing a wide platform of interaction (Gamble et al., p. npag). There are more extra curriculum activities in large colleges hence offering a student with holistic learning.

Most of the people interpret learning as the only process of acquiring theoretical knowledge and then graduate at the end of the program. However, education is complete when it has brought on board other non-classroom activities. It is illogical to confine learning environment to a single building with no room for extra curriculum activities and categorize that as an achievement (Neuman et al., p. npag). Learning is a process of both acquiring professional experience without compromising other aspects of life.

From the above discussion, Alexander College should have its logistics set to launch the new construction according to the plan. Although it’s a costly project, the advantages accrued after its completion is worth taking the risk. The expansion of the college will be beneficial in freeing congestion of students in offices as well as in classrooms (Gamble et al., p. npag). It will increase the capability of the college in accommodating more students, and therefore more programs could be added, and the learning process run smoothly. Lastly, setting up of entertainment amenities will improve the learning experience of the students (Morgan et al., p. npag). Most of the students will have an opportunity to showcase their talents in games and practice their religious beliefs. Therefore, curtailing the expansion of the college on the basis of the cost would be graduating incomplete professionals and make the learning process monotonous if other social amenities aren’t provided.

Work cited

Glatter Hayley, DeRuy Emily and Wong Alia. “Reimagining the Modern Classroom”. The Atlantic, Sep 2, 2016, https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/09/reimagining-the-modern-classroom/498224/

Rydeen James. “Facility Planning: Building Success”. America School and University, Dec 01, 2010, https://www.asumag.com/constructionplanning/facility-planning-building-success

Gamble, Cynthia J. Proust as interpreter of Ruskin: the seven lamps of translation. Vol. 9. Summa Publications, Inc., 2002.

Tierney, William G., and Linda Serra Hagedorn, eds. increasing access to college: Extending possibilities for all students. SUNY Press, 2002.

Neuman, David J. Building type basics for college and university facilities. Vol. 22. John Wiley & Sons, 2013.

Morgan, Michelle, ed. Improving the student experience: A practical guide for universities and colleges. Routledge,  2013.