Beyond the Ivory Tower: Urbanism and Higher Education

Group Submission Type: Formal Panel Session

Proposal

Relevance
Urbanism is an important framework for understanding higher education. The interaction between students, stakeholders, and the surrounding community is a universal aspect of universities and colleges. Each year, there are new universities or institutions being established in growing sectors, such as global branch campuses. At the same time, higher education is seeing cuts and closures in contracting sectors with the looming Demographic Cliff and other austerity measures. Because of this constant state of flux, understanding the urban dynamics of higher education is essential for navigating the complex and often conflicted relationships that define its future.

Given the CIES theme of "Re-examining Education and Peace in a Divided World," this panel will focus on these higher education conflicts through the lens of urbanism, which has rarely been the focal point of panels within CIES. The panel will touch on student housing, branch campuses, and closing universities across a spectrum of settings, from the world’s largest megacities down to small rural college towns from across the world.

Theory
Urbanism extends beyond the simple concept of “the city” to encompass urban, rural, suburban, and everything in between. Fischer (2005) provides four broad typifications of urbanism: demographic, institutional, cultural, and behavioral. The demographic considers density and size of an area; institutional looks at the organizations, entities, or and their structures (both physical and organizational); cultural defines the various costumes, habits, and aesthetics of a specific space; and the behavioral accounts for the social and intrapersonal interactions of the community and its places.

Given this broad definition, it is clear that aspects of higher education can be an important part of each typification. One aspect in particular comes from studentification, a term coined by Dareen Smith (2005) to describe a type of gentrification in college towns or areas whereby development of housing and services becomes overly geared towards students. The concept of studentification has mostly been considered in cases in the UK or other Anglo countries (although not typically in the US), but there are versions happening in countries around the world. In places with growing higher education sectors, studentification will become an even more pressing issue, boiling the town-gown tensions. However, the reverse of studentification can also happen when an educational institution closes down or leaves an area. This can also have a detrimental impact on the local economy and culture with so-called de-studentification. This highlights a delicate urban equilibrium that higher education institutions can create and disrupt.

Inquiry & Findings
The first paper looks at the rise of the Purpose-Built Student Accommodation (PBSA) in US college towns, particularly near large research universities. Unlike traditional off-campus housing owned by local landlords, these PBSAs are developed by larger multinational corporations as financial investment assets. Drawing on an ethnographic study of international students in the US Midwest, the paper argues that the experience of being "educated in luxury" is not a matter of individual choice but is shaped by larger forces of the commodification of higher education and the financialization of real estate. The design of PBSA creates a sense of placeless luxury, fostering a mode of disengagement with the local community. PBSA represents a “spatial fix” of accumulation within the neoliberal spatial order. Ultimately, PBSA is an architectural and financial infrastructure that reinforces the objectification of international students as "cash cows" while also fundamentally reshaping access, affordability, and belonging in higher education.

In the next paper, the author considers aspects of urbanism through the operations of Chinese-foreign cooperation in running schools (CFCRS) in the Greater Bay Area (GBA). The author first breaks down the types of CFCRS and their various characteristics, accounting for over 1,400 programs, partnerships, or institutions throughout the region. The paper then explores differences and influence through a multiple-case study approach, with both interviews and document analysis. The findings show that the CFCRS have become key tools to shape city branding and to attract talent, with the universities or institutions working closely with the government to achieve these goals. Universities, in this case, are more than simply educational institutions, but rather symbolic tools of governance that offer prestige and legitimacy to given cities and localities.

The final proposal chronicles the contracting higher education sector around the world, specifically through the closure of universities. This analysis includes media reports and other public announcements regarding closing institutions found around the world, such as Japan, South Korea, and the UK. The analysis then homes in on the case of the US through an ethnographic study of 49 US closed campuses and the impact on the surrounding community, including interviews with stakeholders, photographs and document analysis, and thick description of field notes. The analysis shows that a key challenge for these shuttering institutions and communities is adaptive re-use of the campus, with actualized fears of campus sitting empty that work to hollow out communities. These difficulties are only exacerbated in rural areas, where re-use is more challenging.

Contribution
Global capital will continue entering the student housing market, new branch campuses will spring up, and other universities will close. These issues in studentification and de-studentification will impact the urbanism of the communities within and surrounding higher education institutions.

Despite the town-gown conflicts, universities can be magical places because they bring together people who may have never interacted without these educational spaces. Students from around the world, faculty with PhDs, both white collar and blue-collar staff members, and the local townspeople, all living in a community together. It is for these reasons that many of us in the Higher Ed SIG continue to study this field.

While many of these topics have been brought to CIES in the past, the field has hardly considered these through aspects of urbanism. Urbanism is critical to understanding higher education and its impact on the surrounding community, helping to mend a “Divided World” that the CIES theme calls for this year.

Sub Unit

• Higher Education SIG

Organizer

• Shanshan Jiang-Brittan, University of California, Berkeley

Chair

• Ryan Allen, Soka University of America

Individual Presentations

• From Public Good to Profit-Driven Asset: The Financialization of Student Housing and Its Urban Implications - Shanshan Jiang-Brittan, University of California, Berkeley

• Shuttering Universities Around the World: Space and Place Lost in Higher Education - Ryan Allen, Soka University of America

Discussant

• Melissa Whatley, William and Mary