In the article "Lazy River and Student Debt", Kellie Woodhouse discusses and analyzes Governor Chris Christie and Senator Elizabeth Warren's views on luxurious college amenities. She explains that both Christie and Warren agree that colleges are spending massive amounts of money on these amenities to draw more students in. Woodhouse then cites studies that show that these methods have not been very effective in attracting students. She uses Louisiana State University as an example to discuss how practical these projects are, the student response, overall cost, and how much students pay. The author admits that luxurious amenities are not responsible for high student debt, but is still critical of their contribution to issue throughout the article.

The definition of holistic learning is, "a philosophy of education based on the premise that each person finds identity, meaning, and purpose in life through connections to the community, to the natural world, and to humanitarian values such as compassion and peace." Therefore, you can take away that the authors are trying to say that today it is expected for a college campus to be more than a place that promotes academic learning. A college campus must also encourage connections between the community of students to foster non-academic knowledge about life because people expect to "find themselves" during their years in college.

Scholl and Gulwadi's decision to include this piece of information in the historical context supports the idea that they have a somewhat biased opinion of what a college student is. Early on in the article, they make the claim that, "Americans expect a university campus to look different than other places and that the campus 'expresses something about the quality of academic life, as well as its role as a citizen of the community in which it is located.'" They also state that students only spend about one-fifth of their time in a classroom. Based on this, it is reasonable to believe that Scholl and Gulwadi's idea of a college student spends most of the remaining four-fifths of their time on campus. It is likely that this is true because they stress how important the look and feel of a campus are throughout the article. Explaining that the ideal campus to many university founders was similar to a bubble in the historical context may suggest that they have a similar view to the founders. Their suggestions throughout the article are only useful to insulated universities such as these. The opinions they offer could have very little impact on schools such as Georgia State University where, "18 percent of the students live in college-owned, -operated or -affiliated housing and 82 percent of students live off campus." The average student that lives off campus does not spend most of their time on campus and can also easily find a holistic landscape closer to home. Scholl and Gulwadi do not seem to have all universities in mind when writing this article. It seems that what they say could only be applied to an exclusive, expensive, and prestigious university and the students who attend such institutes. While their article has little to do with more common universities and commuting students.

I agree with this statement out of personal experience. When I spend most of my day focused on school work, I feel very refreshed and ready to go again after spending a little bit of time outdoors. However, in reference to "Lazy Rivers and Student Debt," after spending time focusing when I stay indoors and take advantage of the university amenities, such as the student center, I feel more irritable, tense, and hostile afterwards.

Although the focus of the article is on campuses that have natural features and room to expand, Scholl and Gulwadi mention urban campuses in this section. They highlight that urban areas typically lack the natural features to assist in the type of rest that restores our ability to effectively pay attention, and they even give ideas for ways natural features could be included in urban campuses in the table. However, they do not discuss any of the unique challenges that urban college campuses encounter in trying to make green space available to students. For example, there are multiple urban parks surrounding Georgia State University that are open to the public. These parks provide the natural setting to restore our attentional capacities, but students are rarely seen taking advantage of them. For the most part, these parks are populated by the homeless. It would not be very ethical for a university in the center of a major city to make a popular city park exclusionary, because the park no more belongs to students than to the homeless. Therefore, it is much more difficult to have natural spaces for students to enjoy near an urban university. In an urban setting, the university must make sure students and the large surrounding population are all taken into account when making decisions.

An example of the kind of university Scholl and Gulwadi are describing here and throughout most of the article is The University of Colorado Boulder. A photo of the entire campus from above be found at the following link: http://www.colorado.edu/law/profiles/cu_law/themes/law/images/background.jpg A photo of the urban campus of Georgia State University from above can be found at the following link: http://video.realviewtv.com/education/gsu/ref/i/campus_atlanta_map.jpg A direct comparison of images of these two campuses shows that it could be very difficult to impossible to discuss their natural features at the same time. This makes a lot of the article problematic, if you are evaluating a campus that does not have a large number of free acres to implement the kind of green spaces being promoted.

In the table under campus nature settings for urban typologies, green roofs were listed. I had never heard of a green roof before, so I did some research. Green roofs are defined as, "living roofs or vegetated roof covers, with growing media and plants taking the place of bare membrane, gravel ballast, shingles or tiles." I think that implementing green roofs on the lower levels of the Georgia State library, where the roof is visible from out of the windows could be very beneficial to students based on the evidence presented by Scholl and Gulwadi. I looked into the cost of implementing a green roof, and it is relatively affordable, "commonly the range is between $14 - $25/sq. ft." I believe that Georgia State could easily afford to place green roofs on the few roof tops that are visible to students out of windows in study areas. The following link shows an image of what green roofs look like from above: http://cookjenshel.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/131.jpg The following link takes you to the page where I found my information on green roofs. There are a lot of FAQs about green roofs on the page that are very informative. http://www.greenroofs.com/Greenroofs101/faqs.htm

I believe that Kathleen G Scholl and Gowri Betrabet Gulwadi are credible sources on this topic. Their writing in, "Recognizing Campus Landscapes as Learning Spaces" was published in an academic journal, giving us reason to believe it is credible. Also taking a look at their references, it is clear that they did an extensive amount of research to write a relatively short article. The references they cited all seem to be academic and credible as well. A quick google search of their names turns up more to support their credibility. Kathleen G Scholl is a professor of leisure, youth, and human services at the University of Northern Iowa. Scholl also has a Ph.D and is a Certified Therapeutic Recreation Specialist. More information about her can be found in the following link: https://coe.uni.edu/departments/school-health-physical-education-leisure-services/faculty-staff/kathleen-g-scholl Gowri Betrabet Gulwadi is a professor of interior design at the University of Northern Iowa. She also has a Ph.D and has many publications listed under her name. More information about her can be found in the following link: https://csbs.uni.edu/sahs/interior-design/faculty-directory/gowri-betrabet-gulwadi Based on the amount of research proven to have been done along with the topic of the article falling into Scholl and Gulwadi's areas of expertise, I have concluded that they are credible sources to get this information from.

In the article, "Recognizing Campus Landscapes as Learning Spaces" Scholl and Gulwadi explain the ways in which campuses designed to promote holistic education are higher quality learning environments for college students. They primarily use the article to expound the idea that viewing natural environments uses a kind of involuntary attention that allows for attention regeneration. Throughout the article, they discuss the value of natural features being present on a college campus and give examples of what a holistically designed campus looks like. They push the educational value of green space present in today's campuses by referencing credible resources on the topic and presenting the information in a clear and concise argument.

In relation to both "Recognizing Campus Landscapes as Learning Spaces" and "Lazy Rivers and Student Debt", it is my opinion that amenities such as lazy rivers and rock climbing walls do nothing to promote holistic education. According to the Georgia State University website, student fees are $1,064 per semester for both Georgia residents and out-of-state residents. It seems absurd for a traditionally commuting college such as Georgia State University to have a recreational center with amenities that cost students so much per semester. It is clear that Georgia State is attempting to attract more students to live on campus, however the article "Lazy Rivers and Student Debt" states that amenities projects such as these have done very little to attract students. I am a student that lives off campus, and I have never visited the recreational center before. However, I am still required to pay $1,064 in student fees per semester. I do not think this is very fair when only 18% of the students at Georgia State University live on campus, giving them regular access to these amenities. Furthermore, I do not think that these amenities add to the holistic educational value of the university. I think that the amenities provided in the student center are solely a gimmick used by colleges to attract students. I have a close friend that is a student at Emory University. Emory is much more similar to the kind of university described by Scholl in her article, and my friend is the kind of student described by Scholl as well. Emory University could be easily described as a bubble. The students are required to live on campus for 2 years, they cannot have cars on campus until they are in their junior year, and the campus is separate from the city of Atlanta. My friend is able to leave campus regularly, as she grew up in the area and has friends at nearby schools who can pick her up. However, my friend has only met one other person who is from the state of Georgia attending Emory. As a result, the students of Emory University spend almost all of their time on campus. Despite this fact, my friend does not use Emory's recreational center. In my opinion, both Emory and Georgia State fail to promote holistic education. Georgia State as a whole does practically nothing to connect students to the community, natural world, or humanitarian values. On the other hand, Emory seems to push much too hard to promote holistic education. Forcing students to be part of a community can easily make them resentful of these requirements, in turn taking away from their educational experience.