Frederick Community College Facilities Master Plan Chapter 4 Needs Assessment 4-2 May 12, 2023 for continuing education and personal enrichment opportunities. Continuing Education & Workforce Development programs will require highly flexible specialized learning environments for a variety of trade skills. These types of programs often necessitate large unique commercial and industrial type specialty spaces, utilizing interior and exterior open areas. Such spaces, or groupings of spaces, are intended to maximize efficiency and flexibility of use in terms of highly specialized tasks, tools, materials and equipment. Central to FCC’s efforts to enhance and refine its learning environments are the major thrusts of restoring and maintaining existing facilities, as well as the aesthetic environment. These thrusts are to be developed, guided, and modified within the parameters of systematic, coordinated planning efforts. The short and long-term outcomes of each planning methodology will provide direct evidence of the revitalization of levels of integrity that reflect optimal teaching and learning environments. Contemporary learning environments are required so the College can continue to successfully attract and retain a representative level of its market’s available student population. Contemporary teaching/learning environments include the provision of detailed and unique needs for classroom, laboratory and office space, as well as ancillary spaces required for supporting future programmatic impetus. Improved literacy and refinement of technology in educational institutions dictate the provision of instructional spaces that are designed for both unique and/or shared functions. These spaces will further require adequate consistency with global reconfiguration that increases the utilization efficiency ratio. Future environments should be such that distinction between computer lab and a lecture classroom will disappear because technology and furnishings will be unobtrusive but available on demand. Furniture will be easily movable allowing for rapid reconfiguration based upon immediate need. Except for science labs, athletic and recreation spaces, and some arts studios, the idea of rooms belonging exclusive to an instructional area will also become obsolete. Credit classrooms will be available to continuing education learns and vice versa. Electronic presentation that allows integration and manipulation of complex data into the learning environment is becoming more and more the norm. Teleconferencing and online learning capabilities will make partnerships with other schools and businesses, even ones in other countries, commonplace. Modernization of instructional delivery requires that instructional spaces be configured relative to future disciplinary/programmatic goals whose objectives and functions dictate more efficient organization and effective utilization of space. In addition to academic needs, there are needs for projects focusing on various academic support, institutional support and campus-wide pursuits that collectively create an exceptional atmosphere for students, faculty, staff, alumni and visitors to the College campus. These needs should be viewed in the context of how strategic responses would effectively align with the College’s mission, Strategic Plan, and its planned academic direction. In order to make campuses more attractive and responsive to prospective students, institutions are creating single points of entry that create a sense of arrival, appeals to all senses, and provides clear wayfinding. Welcome centers are direct responses to the current state of higher education. Many universities and colleges are in the process of creating welcome centers or “front doors” due to a highly
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