Category: Blog

Designing Sustainable Facilities as Learning Spaces

“We have this expression here that the campus is another member of the faculty. In our planning and our design we need to always keep this in mind, because students will learn from and interact with the physical space. It’s not just a passive setting.” Jack Byrne, Middlebury College For institutions that have made sustainability a strategic objective, the ideal approach is to involve both facilities planners and academic leaders in the planning process for new facilities and facilities upgrades, from concept to design to execution. This allows you to plan the facilities in such a way as to maximize their potential as learning spaces and as learning opportunities. Jack Byrne, the director of Middlebury College’s Sustainability Integration Office, offers this example. When adding a $12 million biomass combined heat and power plant, Middlebury College made a series of decisions early in the planning process with the intent that the facility would support student learning and faculty research: The facility would be located near the student center and on the main quad The operation of the facility would be as visible as possible — in this case, the entire facade along one side was to be a glass wall “We […]

Benchmarking Deferred Maintenance: A 2012 Survey

“You have to be clear on the distinction between deferred maintenance and ignored maintenance, and ensure that your institution’s leadership is clear on this. Intentionally deferring needed maintenance after a careful assessment of your facilities condition is a strategy. Ignoring maintenance is a problem.”Faramarz Vakili, Associate Director of the Physical Plant, University of Wisconsin-Madison Historically, institutions of higher education have built new facilities without budgeting for life cycle operational costs, and have built up a significant backlog of “ignored” maintenance projects. But the past few years have seen growing awareness that this is not sustainable, and more institutions are looking for ways to take proactive, not just reactive, action on facilities maintenance and renewal. In January – February 2012, Academic Impressions conducted a benchmarking survey of facilities managers at more than 75 institutions of higher education. While this is a small sample, the results were indicative. For example, the survey confirmed that addressing deferred maintenance has moved from a worry to a priority at the majority of institutions: When we dug deeper, we found facilities managers at a variety of stages in addressing the issue — but they all feel the pressure. Some are making presentations to the board; some […]

How Do You Make the Case for Funding Maintenance and Renewal for Campus Facilities?

YOU’LL ALSO WANT TO READ:Benchmarking Deferred Maintenance: A Recent Survey (May 2012)Proactive Approaches to Deferred Maintenance (November 2011) In our January – February 2012 survey of facilities managers (read the executive summary here), Academic Impressions learned that while physical plant operations at most institutions have assigned a high priority this year to addressing their deferred maintenance backlog, many falter in making an effective case for funding facilities replacement and maintenance needs. We turned this week to Daniel King, facilities manager at Auburn University (Auburn, AL), who has recently done some innovative thinking and piloting around just this issue. Here are two ideas Dan King offers – one for working with academic leaders to prioritize “small and modest” maintenance projects, and one for communicating to institutional leaders the big picture of the institution’s replacement and renewal needs. A Clear Process for Prioritizing Maintenance Projects Auburn University has piloted a prioritization process that involves soliciting maintenance needs from across campus and then meeting with the provost to evaluate the proposed projects on a regular basis. The keys to the process are the involvement of the entire campus in a discussion of the institution’s maintenance needs and transparency around the decisions made. King’s […]

What Might be Missing from Your Crisis Communications Plan

While most institutions now have a full crisis communication plan in place to allow their communications office to communicate with the emergency response team, the campus community, local entities, and the local media during a crisis, one particular contingency often goes missed: what if the crisis that occurs includes a sustained electrical outage? Your campus email, your emergency website, your institution’s twitter feed, and many of the communications systems you would rely on in the event of a crisis will be unavailable to you in the event of a regional power loss (such as that seen, for instance, during Hurricane Katrina). “It’s so obvious that often we forget to ask it. If you can’t send email, if you can’t get people on the phone, if you were to abruptly lose your communications infrastructure, what would you do? I have seen some campuses drill an electrical outage for 15 minutes, but you really need to think about this with a long-term view. What if you have an electrical outage that lasts for a full day, or for several days?” Cindy Lawson, DePaul University For advice, we turned this week to crisis communications expert Cindy Lawson, who is currently serving as the […]

Does Your Curriculum Serve International Students?

“Too often, integration of international students into the institution is not viewed systemically. The institution may be recruiting international students to increase diversity, to increase revenue, or for some other goal … but you rarely see the globalization of the campus conceived of as a systemic effort.” Gayle Woodruff, University of Minnesota Recruiting international students without ensuring that the curriculum itself is internationalized is an unsustainable effort. Providing international students with an education that will equip them for success whether in the US or in their countries (and simultaneously providing domestic students with a truly global education) entails the integration of international content and perspectives across the curriculum, as well as a careful look at biases in pedagogical design and delivery that may make the learning experience less accessible to all students. To learn more, we interviewed Gayle Woodruff, who directs a system-wide curriculum and campus internationalization initiative at the University of Minnesota, one that she has modeled closely on successful examples from universities in Australia that have conducted extensive research on internationalization, such as the University of Melbourne and the University of South Australia. Woodruff advises that institutions enrolling high numbers of international students take steps to: Focus on […]

The Transition Out: Moving International Students into the Donor Pipeline

With the balance of wealth shifting overseas — and with more colleges and universities increasing their international enrollment — international fundraising is likely to play an increasingly larger role in development at North American institutions. And by cultivating your international students and alumni as lifelong ambassadors for your institution, you not only strengthen and diversify your institution’s donor pool, you also create a network that can serve as a key resource in helping your school keep its curriculum global and current and connect with new students and new partners abroad. To learn how institutions can get started in such an effort, we interviewed Gretchen Dobson, the senior associate director for alumni relations at Tufts University and the principal and founder of Gretchen Dobson Go Global, a consulting firm focused on helping educational institutions, nonprofit member organizations, and consulate/embassy education officers facilitate alumni engagement and advance international programs. Dobson has also authored the book Being Global: Making the Case for International Alumni Relations (CASE, 2011). Inviting Students into a Lifetime Relationship Dobson notes that international alumni are “hard enough just to find”; if you are serious about cultivating lifetime relationships with this growing body of alumni, the key is to begin […]

The Transition In: Setting International Students Up for Academic Success

A survey conducted in 2011 by three researchers from different institutions confirmed that while most international students feel welcomed and at home on their college campuses, many have a low sense of belonging in the US generally and face challenges in making the transition to American culture. These same students voice concern over the lack of support from the institution in making that transition. One student remarked about the international student services available, “The office helped in all administrative matters, but nothing more. Please, do not get me wrong: they were very helpful, but they did not help in my transition from Mexican to American culture.” Other students cited feelings of isolation and culture shock, as well as difficulties adjusting to the social expectations of the American classroom. The survey results, though taken from a small sample, raise the question: as colleges and universities enroll more international students, what steps can they take to ensure that their growing population of international students have the peer support and services needed to aid them in acculturation and academic success? While international students often come to your institution with an impressive student record, they face significant obstacles in the transition: Differing cultural expectations […]

Recruiting and Admitting International Students: Key Considerations

Unless you are already enrolling high numbers of international students, it’s likely that stepping up recruiting efforts will require significant work in revisiting your admissions communications and processes. Many processes that are “tried and true” in the US may throw unintended obstacles in the way of international applicants, and simply translating your current communications and documents may leave international prospects and parents at a loss to find the information they need most. To gather some expert advice, we reached out to Bob Johnson, president of Bob Johnson Consulting, LLC; Marjorie Smith, associate dean and director of international student admission at the University of Denver; and Kevin Spensley, director of international marketing, recruitment, and enrollment at Saint Michael’s College. Your Website and the International Student Web marketing guru Bob Johnson notes that your website is the first introduction many international students will have to your institution; if you have designed your site with only US students in mind, you will miss many of your best opportunities to interest students from other nations. Johnson offers these tips to get your website “recruitment-ready for visits from potential international students”: Offer a landing page for international students and ensure that the most critical, “can’t-miss” […]

A Whole-Campus Approach to International Students

In This Issue Does Your Curriculum Serve International Students? Recruiting and Admitting International Students: Key Considerations The Transition In: Setting International Students Up for Academic Success The Transition Out: Moving International Students into the Donor Pipeline A Letter from Amit Mrig, President, Academic Impressions May 2012. According to the Open Doors report on international education, international student enrollment has increased every year for the past 60 years. With this trend expected to continue, and international students becoming an increasingly important constituent group, it’s critical for institutions to take a more holistic view at how they’re meeting these students’ needs now and in the future. Beyond recruitment efforts, institutions need to think broadly about integration into the campus community and the academic curriculum to ensure international students persist and succeed. They also need to plant seeds for future support and giving as these students graduate and potentially return to their home countries. A holistic strategy for approaching the international student market can serve both the students and your institution well. We’ve asked experts in the field to share advice and insights into recruitment, transition, campus life, the academic curriculum, and moving international students into the donor pipeline. We hope their advice will […]

Measuring Marketing ROI: Debunking 3 Common Myths

Higher education marketing professionals are under increased pressure to demonstrate the effectiveness of their marketing and branding initiatives. To ensure funding, marketing offices must measure the return on investment of their strategies and communicate their success in tangible ways. We turned this week to Elizabeth Scarborough, CEO of SimpsonScarborough, to ask where institutions may be misdirecting their attention when it comes to measuring marketing ROI. She indicated three “myths” or challenges that hold many institutions back. Myth 1: That it’s impossible. “There is a common misperception, both within and outside of university marketing departments,” Scarborough notes, “that it’s ultimately impossible to measure the impact of your marketing efforts. But you can gather metrics that allow you to assess the impact of your work in specific terms. The problem is that often, presidents and board members will in fact ask unanswerable questions, such as ‘How many students do we enroll because of that billboard we put up on the interstate?’ That’s an unanswerable question. Most colleges are investing more in marketing than they ever have in the past, and leadership has every right to ask what they are getting for their investment. But they may not know which questions to ask.” […]

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