College Planning & Management is the information resource for professionals serving the college and university market. Covering facilities, security, technology and business.
Issue link: https://collegeplanning.epubxp.com/i/131338
per-student appropriations is 13 percent below what states provided to colleges in 2001, when higher education budgets were at a high point, the report says. Colleges Respond to Trends The old saying is that people don't plan to fail, they fail to plan. Community and technical colleges are no exception. Spending the necessary time before the first line of the design of a new or renovated facility is drawn will result in maximizing the return on capital dollars spent and, potentially, spending less. If an integrated facilities master plan isn't already in place for a campus or institution, building projects merely react to immediate needs. A proactive strategy focuses on the big picture and outlines a long-term campus vision. Basic components of a proactive, strategic master plan should include: • Vision. What is the preferred future of your institution? • An academic plan. What is your institution's educational philosophy and how should your spaces best respond? Don't limit thinking solely to classrooms, which amount to only 10 to 15 percent of total campus space. • A strategic plan. When and how will new spaces be integrated into service delivery? • Infrastructure assessment. What spaces are already in place, what's the cost to maintain them, and how do these spaces align with projected student enrollment? • Basic data. What is the rough size and cost of anticipated facilities, and the priority of each? By considering facilities holistically, and in the context of the greater institu- WE MANUFACTURE BENCHES IN CONCRETE & tional vision, administrators and architects can develop tools to define the necessary action items. For example, plotting existing and projected enrollment against existing and projected facility operations and maintenance costs can pinpoint when the deferred maintenance of a facility will outpace the cost to replace the facility. Similarly, other tools can help administrators objectively make decisions about how capital dollars are best spent. One such tool, an Energy Usage Model, assesses utility usage by facility or campuswide, and can further be broken down by resource type (electricity, steam, water, etc.). Planners can then target projects that are the largest energy consumers for efficiency retrofits, reassignment, or demolition. This can produce immediate, bottom-line benefits for stretching operational budgets. METAL Check our websites: wausautile.com & wausauselect.com to view at least 100 more or call: 800.388.8728 for a full product catalog MADE IN WAUSAU Wausau Tile TM 60 YEARS Choose from our standard products or we can create custom designs. MAY 2013 / COLLEGE PLANNING & MANAGEMENT 47