Imagining Northwestern’s Futureby Anita Cirulis

$55 million campaign will fund learning commons, student scholarships and new academic programs

The design of the new learning commons includes large windows for plenty of natural light, easy access to technology, and space—such as group study rooms, a coffee shop and a community lounge—that will facilitate collaboration and conversation between Northwestern students, faculty and staff.

Imagine walking into a room filled to overflowing with all the information in the world, contained in books scattered everywhere with no system of organization. The books have no titles and can only be retrieved by searching their text.

How do you locate what you’re looking for? More importantly, how do you judge the reliability of the information you find?

Dr. Tim Schlak, Northwestern’s library director, uses that analogy to describe the Internet. In this Information Age of the Web, Kindles and iPads, some believe libraries are a thing of the past. Schlak argues they’re more important than ever.

“Think of libraries in this new age of technology as an organized version of that room, providing services that can deal with information overload and address issues of information literacy,” he says. “That’s the direction we’re moving in: teaching students not only how to access information, but how to evaluate it.”

On Sept. 30 Northwestern publicly launched the Imagine Campaign—a $55 million fundraising effort—during a banquet for college donors. Among the campaign’s goals is the construction of a learning commons, a building that will house not only the college’s library, but its academic support center, writing center, multimedia center and computer help desk.

“We’re bringing key departments that are integral to what happens in the classroom and placing them in one convenient, accessible location,” says Schlak. Such an integration of function will better equip Northwestern faculty and staff to help students conduct research, evaluate sources and incorporate what they’re learning into their own work and thinking.

At $15 million, the learning commons is a key component of the campaign, which has already resulted in more than $35 million in gifts and pledges. A $2 million gift in April by Jack and Mary DeWitt of Holland, Mich., played a key role in fundraising efforts as other donors followed their lead. President Greg Christy and members of Northwestern’s advancement staff are anticipating another $1 million gift from other donors soon, leaving $3.3 million left to raise for the building.

“The end of the calendar year is always an important time for giving,” says Christy. “Having raised over $1 million in recent months, there’s great momentum to complete the funding and make this dream a reality.”

Other campaign goals include raising $8 million for student scholarships; $8 million in deferred giving through wills, bequests, trusts and annuities; and $5 million for facilities improvement—such as the recent renovation of the DeWitt Physical Fitness Center’s four-court gymnasium.

Another $9 million will be earmarked for strategic initiatives, including funding for new academic programs; developing an online learning curriculum; strengthening co-curricular, experiential and intercultural programs; providing resources for academic support and advising; and establishing endowed professorships to support faculty recruitment and retention.

A $10 million goal for the Northwestern Fund over the course of the campaign will help fund the college’s operational budget through annual unrestricted gifts.

While all of these goals will play a vital role in strengthening Northwestern, it’s the learning commons that will arguably make the biggest impact on campus. The three-story, 58,000-square-foot building will be constructed just west of Christ Chapel, representing in a tangible way the integration of faith and learning that takes place at Northwestern.

Schlak, who holds a doctorate in library and information science from the University of Pittsburgh, envisions the learning commons as a center for intellectual, scholarly and cultural dialogue. Gone are the days, he says, when the only option for students in a library was to sit quietly, reading or studying on their own.

“That’s how learning used to look,” he says. “We’ve moved from a very individualized approach toward a collaborative paradigm in which students partner and dialogue with each other. The current generation of students is very keen on learning in this way, and this building will support that learning style.”

Northwestern’s Ramaker Library has just one group study room, and Schlak says that room is always occupied. Students even commandeer areas—such as the children’s library—that weren’t designed as group study space in their search for places to work together.

In contrast, the learning commons will have nine group study rooms, plus another five that can accommodate up to two people. Many of the group study rooms will be equipped with high-definition television screens with ports for USB flash drives, laptops and cameras, allowing students, for example, to practice a PowerPoint group presentation with their peers.

This emphasis on technology will permeate the learning commons—from the multimedia center where students can review music and films to the walk-up computer kiosks where guests can check their email or search for a book upon entering the library. There’s also a 32-computer reference classroom where students will be taught research skills.

Other informal student study space will include a coffee shop on the main floor and a 12,000-square-foot community room on the second floor, with expansive views of Zwemer Hall, Christ Chapel and the campus green.

College officials have actually scaled back, from earlier plans, the space dedicated to shelves of books. Book ordering trends are down—students access journal articles as often as they do books—and Schlak is in the process of working with faculty to winnow from Northwestern’s collection those volumes that are either out of date or not intended for an undergraduate curriculum.

“It used to be that the quality of a collection was measured by its size,” he says. “I measure success in how often these items are being used. We shouldn’t raise funds for a building to house books that are no longer relevant to a liberal arts, undergraduate curriculum.”

Once that winnowing process is completed, Schlak anticipates moving a collection of 100,000 volumes, which would fill the shelves to just under the 70 percent of capacity recommended for optimal browsing. With a continued commitment to electronic books and resources, however, Schlak hopes to have a total of 200,000 books and e-books in the collection by year’s end.

Further room for expansion will be provided by a shelving-on-rails system to be housed in the lower level of the learning commons. Though the storage space isn’t needed now, the railing will be installed in the floor so shelves can easily be added in the future.

Those involved in talking to Northwestern alumni and friends about the Imagine Campaign are excited about its potential for advancing the college’s mission and touching students’ lives.

“We have a sterling academic reputation, but this project, along with some curricular improvements we are developing, will transform how learning takes place at Northwestern,” says Christy. “The new learning commons will impact every academic department on campus and launch us to an even greater level of scholarly excellence.”

Whether it’s the learning commons or some other aspect of the Imagine Campaign, Jay Wielenga, Northwestern’s vice president for advancement, believes the variety of goals and projects will appeal to the many people who support the college financially.

“While the learning commons is the most pressing, or visible, part of this campaign, there are opportunities for individuals and organizations to give to Northwestern in a variety of ways,” he says. “People need to consider a gift where their passion lies, and the Imagine Campaign enables them to do that.”