The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 40, No. 2 & Volume 41, No. 1 - 123

Good Counsel Then and Now

Explore Technology
The most dramatic change since Murphy and
Purkey's 1981 article is the way technology has
invaded educational environments. While this
new culture creates educational challenges,
it also offers enormous potential for invitational engineering. While social networking
platforms are an obvious way to engage students in the residential context, the possibilities for technology-based learning continue to
expand almost daily. For example, communitybased blogs-where students can write and
respond to one another concerning a variety
of topics ranging from calculus to dining halls
to religion-engage tech savvy students in the
community.
W. Gardner Campbell (2011) provides a
speciﬁc framework for blogging in residence
hall contexts that he coined "Narrate, Curate,
Share." Campbell argues that creativity is all
too often treated like a limited natural resource requiring a sort of educational mining
to ﬁnd it among students. Instead, Campbell
suggests, creativity is like a gene that is expressed in the right conditions. Blogging done
well in a residence hall turns on that gene to
catalyze learning.
I believe these three imperatives [narrate,
curate, share] underlie some of the most
important aspects of an educated citizen's
contributions to the human record. And in
my experience, blogging offers a uniquely
powerful way of becoming a self-aware
learner in the process of making those
contributions. (para. 2)
In short, Campbell's blogging framework is a
new way to invite students into new levels of
participation in their learning.

There is no shortage of ways
residence halls; the challenge
incorporating technology into
environments and instead

into their learning.

Technology has also given us new ways
to stay in touch with students, their needs,
and their progress toward achieving educational outcomes. Many housing professionals, for example, have mobilized technology
to strengthen assessment efforts, bolster communication, and afford students access to
learning tools from the convenience of their
residence halls. There is no shortage of ways to
utilize technology in residence halls; the challenge is to move beyond simply incorporating
technology into environments and instead emphasize how this powerful tool can be used to
invite students into their learning.

Become a Choice Architect
Reinforced by a growing research base, Richard
Thaler and Cass Sunstein (2009) advocate the
potentialities in being what they call a "choice
architect," the implications of which could be
profound for the housing profession. A choice
architect understands that small environmental details have enormous impact on human
behavior. As corporations vie for the attention

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The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 40, No. 2 & Volume 41, No. 1

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 40, No. 2 & Volume 41, No. 1