A College in the City: An Alternative A Report from Educational Facilities Laboratories
4to. pp. 43. b/w illustrations & floor plans. paperback (near fine - upper corners curled). New York: Educational Facilities Laboratories, [1969].
Second printing.
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A 45-block area of the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, New York was chosen to illustrate how a poor urban community with the physical potential for restoration might be transformed by a local, unconventional college. About 500,000 poor people live in the area, 95% of whom are Negro or Puerto Rican, and almost 50% of these have only a ninth grade education. This new kind of college would educate people, provide park and recreation space, cultural facilities, and low-rise, low-cost housing. It would function in new buildings, architecturally designed to mix with existing structures and filling in vacant lots or replacing deteriorating buildings. The college would be community-operated, open 12 months a year, 6 days a week, days and nights, for all community dwellers who either have high school diplomas or can pass a set of special tests built around the college's curriculum. The college experience would provide (1) a skills studio for practice and instruction in verbal and mathematical skills, (2) an internship program that combines study and work in particular fields, (3) a liberal studies core that relates economics, psychology, science, and other traditional subjects to basic social and human problems as they are seen by the college's students and faculty, and (4) a professional studies core, for concentration on skills in a chosen profession. The report also contains a blueprint that illustrates the design of the proposed facility.