Picture of Vermont Congressman Justin Morrill, the main sponsor of the Morrill Act of 1862.

Source: https://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/Morrill.html

This is the main focus of this entire article. See my above annotations on what holistic learning is. It is very important to understand the concept of holistic learning for this article and the authors do a good job of defining it and making the readers understand what they are talking about.

The article I chose as my supplemental text was the one from Inside Higher Ed about the excessive funds being spent on student recreation (https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/06/15/are-lazy-rivers-and-climbing-walls-driving-cost-college ). Kellie Woodhouse, the author, describes an ongoing controversy while mainly focusing on what is happening at Louisiana State University (LSU). At LSU, the student government decided to increase student fees by $200 to build a giant lazy river in the shape of the letters LSU. This upgrade to their student center (along with a new rock wall and fitness center) will cost the university $85 million. This is small compared to what Ohio State spent to upgrade their student recreation center, which was near $140 million. The controversy arising is whether the universities should be spending all this money on student recreation centers or spending this money on other things, such as research centers.

The Inside Higher Ed piece relates to this article because both deal with student recreation. However, this article discusses student recreation through the environment and the outdoors while the supplemental discusses student recreation through "fun" recreation, like fitness centers, rock walls, lazy rivers, and hot tubs. I believe that both of these things are important to have at a college campus--green space and fun student recreation centers. From what I learned from this article, green space can really help promote holistic learning and mind "relaxation." On the other hand, student recreation centers can create a fun environment and help students relieve stress and relax. In my opinion, universities need to spend money on both of these features to college campuses but need to balance the budget better. Universities can not spend millions on lazy rivers while not putting in near as much to green space. If universities balance their budget more and spend equal amounts on both green space and student recreation centers, the university will hopefully get great feedback and students will be happy and relaxed and become more successful.

Three main takeaways from the article:

1. Students have better focus and attention when they study and learn in nature and the outdoors.
2. Colleges are spending millions on upgrading student centers, but not enough on updating the nature parts of the campus.
3. College campuses should have a lot of green space to help its students achieve the most they possibly can.

I think when modifying their campus, universities should also get the opinions of the students, along with all the faculty, administration, and facility workers. It is important to get everyone's opinions, not just the people who would be paying for it or the people who would be in charge of the project. A holistic learning environment is one that involves everyone. Therefore the creation of a holistic learning environment should involve everyone.

This is the first time a plea like this is addressed in the article. However, I agree with this. If more research is done on human-nature interaction and its effect on learning, it will be very helpful to students and teachers.

By studying campuses around the United States and the world now and by studying how students learn in different environments, universities can adjust how their campuses look and feel. This may cost a lot of money, but student success will be worth it.

This argument has been supported by results other authors have recorded. When students are out in nature, they tend to learn better and therefore more class should be outside or more "nature" should be available to students.

This is an overhead view of Cornell University. As evidenced by the photograph, most of the space in the university is green space. This leads to holistic learning and a large natural environment.

Link to photograph (picture is located on page nine): https://www.amazon.com/gp/search?index=books&linkCode=qs&keywords=9780521341394

To reword, older campuses separated disciplinary fields while newer campuses are bringing them together. This shows how the concept of holistic learning is becoming even more popular and prevalent on college campuses.

This category seems like the one Georgia State would fit into.

Could this be a problem with Georgia State? Should Georgia State be worried about this and, if so, what should they do to fix it? I think they should either add more parks (or green space) or take more class trips to nature centers (like Stone Mountain or the Botanical Gardens). Or, even, have class held outside sometimes.

The article is making an interesting point saying that our mind can replenish itself when we are studying, or rather "interacting," with nature. This supports the article's claim that college campuses should have more green space on campus.

This article is really focusing on two main points: holistic learning and attention. All of the author's points are being brought back to these two main overarching categories.

The argument is that the more nature a college has on its campus the more successful the students will be. This should be supported by student records/test results/grades from very urban universities (like Georgia State or New York University) to rural universities (like the University of Colorado or Dartmouth).

The Attention Restoration Theory is a theory developed by Rachel and Stephen Kaplan in their book "The Experience of Nature: A Psychological Approach." The theory states that people can concentrate better after spending time in nature or looking at nature scenes. Their book is available here, for free:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/search?index=books&linkCode=qs&keywords=9780521341394

This is something that I discovered while doing the Built Environment Description. As I sat in Krog Street Market, the closer to closing time it got, the louder the music they were playing got. It reached a point where the music was loud and annoying so people were leaving. In Krog Street Market, they influenced the environment and sound landscape in order to get the patrons to do what they wanted (which was to leave). This proves that this statement is true.

Now, there are a lot of public announcements about environmental awareness. Colleges (even Georgia State) pride themselves in being environmentally friendly and helping the environment by conserving energy. While most "typical" college campuses have large green spaces, Georgia State is different as we do not, so we have to help the environment in other ways (like walking instead of driving, turning lights off in unoccupied rooms, not littering, etc.).

After reading this phrase it immediately made me think of Georgia Tech. There, there is a road that circles the campus where cars can drive and all parking lots are on the outside. However, when you walk on to the campus, there is nothing but green space, trees, and sidewalks for walking. There are no cars on campus, only the the "ring road" outside of it.

For the first time, students are getting out of the classroom and into actual experiences and hands-on learning (another aspect of holistic learning). This proves that the Morrill Act of 1862 was not only important when it comes to land use, but also student's education as well.

The Morrill Act of 1862 "provided each state with 30,000 acres of Federal land for each member in their Congressional delegation. The land was then sold by the states and the proceeds used to fund public colleges that focused on agriculture and the mechanical arts." From this land, sixty-nine universities were founded including Cornell, MIT, and the University of Wisconsin.

Source: https://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/Morrill.html

This is what many typical college campuses are like. You walk onto the campus and are surrounded but nothing but the college. Once again, this all goes back to holistic learning--the immersion of the student in university life. On a separate note, this is nothing like what Georgia State is like. Georgia state is not secluded from city distraction and is very open to the larger community. However, I still feel like I am on a campus in Georgia State because the part of downtown Atlanta that the college is located in has really become Georgia State's "section" of the city.

This statement is supporting the theory of holistic learning. Clearly, in this article, the authors are arguing that holistic learning is important for a student's learning and colleges must make adjust their campus to make it more easy for holistic learning to occur.

This annotation is not about the text, but rather the sources being used. I believe that it is important and helpful that the authors decided to use so many sources because they make this article very credible. However, essentially every sentence is being cited, and this is making the writing very hard to read (because there are so many citations). Also, the fact that the authors are citing after about every sentence makes me think that they did not contribute a lot to the paper, but rather wrote an article consisting of just quotes from others' works.

I was confused on what the term "holistic learning" meant so I did some research on it. Holistic learning is philosophy where a person does more than just sit in a classroom and learn. They are suppose to find purpose and meaning in their life and the community and basically surround themselves with knowledge and learning.

Here is a link to a chart showing that college enrollment has increased over time. This supports the author's points and proves that universities now have to adjust to the increasing number of students on campus.

[https://www.statista.com/statistics/183995/us-college-enrollment-and-projections-in-public-and-private-institutions/]

This is a point that we have encountered throughout all of our classes. As times change, society and organizations are forced to change with it. As the times change, technology gets better, and the needs/wants of students evolve, public and private universities are forced to adjust to these changes and shifts or risk being left behind.