Interviews with four SCUP members have been compiled into a Building Design + Construction magazine article offering advice to professionals who work with higher education institutions. 

In response to these concerns, we recently spoke with four veteran university architects responsible for hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of construction at their institutions: Barbara White Bryson, FAIA, Associate Vice President for Facilities, Engineering & Planning, Rice University; Pamela Palmer Delphenich, FAIA, Director, Campus Planning and Design, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Maxwell Boone Hellmann, FAIA, Associate Vice Chancellor and Campus Architect, Facilities Design and Construction, University of California, San Diego; and Alexandria Carolyn Roe, AIA, Director of University Planning, University of Connecticut. ...

“Another one of my pet peeves is dealing with architects that don’t know who the [real] client is,” adds Delphenich. “I’m not only the representative of the institution and the budget watchdog, quite often I’m working with end-users who aren’t financially responsible for the outcome.” End-users—faculty members, program directors, department heads, etc.—may want features that the budget can’t support, and if the design firm believes that a certain costly feature favored by the end-user is best, that puts the campus architect in an uncomfortable position. “To play the stakeholder against the client [the institution’s architect] is a real mistake,” says Delphenich. “But I don’t see that as much as I used to. I think our role as campus architects is becoming better known, and I think people realize that they need to work with us.”

Roe (at left) was recently a member of SCUP's Board of Directors and currently services on SCUP's North Atlantic Regional Council.

Delphenich, who also serves on SCUP's North Atlantic Regional council, is currently co-chair of the national Campus Heritage Preservation Symposium scheduled for November 2–3 in Washington, DC.