Built right into a university’s DNA, is the key to its evolution and, ultimately, its survival: participation among students with sharing of knowledge, sharing of resources, and sharing of power. It’s the Shareable University.
A number of key factors make campuses worldwide fertile ground for sharing initiatives: density of residents, widespread technology adoption, extensive social networks, homogeneous needs, sense of affiliation, skyrocketing costs of education and cash-strapped students. However, sharing on campus is more than just textbooks, bikes, used furniture, and cars. From student-run food cooperatives to waste recovery networks, peer-to-peer lending services, open online courses and teaching materials and participatory advanced research, a radical reengineering is underway.
This shouldn’t come as a surprise; after all, sharing is something of a way of life on campus where a typical student wakes up in shared housing, eats in a shared kitchen, grabs a book from a shared library, and goes to class in a shared lecture hall. Universities should expand or accelerate these types of exchanges beyond providing a few kiosks and the occasional bulletin board. Universities can serve as a model and living laboratory for a more sustainable society, getting students familiar with sharing as a lifestyle and later allowing them to choose the solutions that fit their needs as they age.
Read the full story on Shareable.
