Time and Place for (Sustainable) Planning: A Structural Topic Model Analysis of Campus Master Plans

• In Event: Artificial Intelligence and the New Technological Environment of Higher Education

Abstract

A well­planned college campus can significantly impact an institutions’ finances, students, and sustainability efforts. Despite its importance, systematic research on campus master plans remains limited (Dalton et al., 2018). This paper addresses this gap by employing structural topic modeling to identify the main topics within the campus master plans, and to analyze how these topics’ prevalence varies across time and location. The results highlight sustainability collaboration as a dominant topic, showing a clear pattern of variation over time and place. These findings contribute to the literature by suggesting that the inconsistency in college sustainability efforts may be influenced by external environmental factors, thereby affecting administrative processes that are typically considered uncontroversial.

Authors

• Matt Capaldi, University of Florida

• Jinnie Shin, University of Florida