Rena Cheskis-Gold, of Demographic Perspectives, LLC, agreed to share some of her observations of last week's 2012 SCUP North Atlantic Regional Conference. The following were originally posts in SCUP's LinkedIn group, The Integrated and Well-Planning Campus.

 

SCUP North Atlantic Regional Conference Blog

 

I have been asked by the SCUP office to write some thoughts about what I have been listening to at the conference. Feel free to comment, or to join in if you, too, are here. I enjoyed a session about the planning and design of the John Jay College building in which we are meeting. The panel was the college's Senior VP for Finance and Admin, Dir of Space Planning, and the SOM architect. We heard about the user and team input in the planning, the goals to provide collaborative space for intellectual and social discourse, and the spaces developed to engage and serve the NYC external community. I particularly liked the dashboard methodology utilized to rate the elements of the building in the planning phase. A question I have is will they conduct a post occupancy assessment to learn how users perceive the building, and if so, when is the best time to conduct this study?

 

 

More on North Atlantic SCUP

 

The architecture firm Perkins + Will did a great toolkit session on interesting and sustainable materials and finishes. They brought examples of recommended flooring, such as linoleum, tile, and enginereed wood, and wall materials such as resin and beautiful glass. Their website transparency.perkinswill.com looks to be an excellent resource on this topic.

 

 

Last Blog Posting from SCUP NA

 

I am on a train back to New Haven, but other SCUPers are hearing a plenary session and thinking ahead to a fun reception tonight at Gracie Mansion. It was a stimulating day, and I am glad to have been there for it.

Before I sign off, one lst note about the session on space utilization and sustainable practice. Hilary Brown, Peter Gisolfi, and Adrian Tuluca led us through a discussion of how the cultural time practices of campus building usage lead to poor energy efficiency. They presented several examples of methodologies to measure energy usage, and offered many techniques for monitoring energy usage as well as adapting building usage culture. Will campuses ever go back to classes held 5 days per week, or find synergistic opptys to use (or rent) the space for more hours per day? Can careful planning keep energy usage down if this does not happen?

In my previous post about RIT I didn't mention the names of the speakers - ARC (architects), and Kurt Ingerick, Tynelle Stewart and James Yarrington from RIT.

 

Here are members of SCUP's North Central Regional Council and some SCUP staff at the wrap-up lunch immediately following the region's 2010 conference at the University of Cincinnati. Click on any image to see a larger version.

Above, beginning at left: Karen Verhey, director of administration services, SCUP; Anthony P. LoBello, sponsorship chair, Gensler;Michelle Pierson, regional program assistant, SCUP; Rich Smith, 2011 conference chair, HOK; Jeff Conroy, at-large, Architect; JoEllen Baldwin, membership chair, Indiana University at Bloomington; Couper Gardiner, communications chair, BDHP Architecture; Larry Gleason, professional development chair, Cost, Planning & Management International, Inc.; Darlene Ebel, chair of the regional council, University of Illinois at Chicago; Mark Curchack, chair of the Mid-Atlantic Regional Council, Arcadia University; Mary Beth McGrew, 2010 local host chair, University of Cincinnati; Chris Whitney, 2010 conference chair, URS Corporation; Jolene L. Knapp, executive director, SCUP; Betty Cobb, associate director for corporate relations, SCUP.

Below, conference chair Chris Whitney of URS, gives certificates to the presenters of the "Best in Show" session Monday afternoon, "Inovation Campus at University of Nebraska-Lincoln; The Future of Research." From left to right: Michael Weise, vice president, Noddle Companies; Mary Jukuri, principal, JJR, LLC; and Jennifer Dam, campus planner, University of Nebraska-Linsoln.

  

I was privileged to listen to Chris give Monday night's plenary speaker, Steve Steele, director, Institute of the Future @ AACC, Anne Arundel Community College, an excellent "prep" on the SCUP audience. Steele spoke on "We Are What We Build: 21st Century Scenarios - Exploring C.A.P.A.C.I.T.Y."

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• Carefully define objectives at the outset.

• Consider transferring the risk of building and operations to a third party; this can lead to significant value.

• Work with your private-sector partner to identify best-in-class developers who will compete for a new project, yielding the most innovative design options possible.

• Realize that the level of experience of the team and the personalities of the contractors chosen by the developer can influence project outcomes.

[T]o dismiss 2008 to 2010 as an aberration of market performance would be a due-diligence mistake. Risks are real and are here to stay, they noted, and failing to recognize the warning flags can take an unfortunate toll on the day-to-day financing of institution operations.

Trainor and Wetzel walked attendees through a tiered approach to managing working and long-term capital, offering tips for understanding the relationship between risk and returns, cost and rewards, and liquidity within the context of cash cycles, marketplace options, concentration risks, and organizational objectives.

More than 200 SCUPers attended the Southern Region's 2010 annual conference in Charleston, South Carolina. The photo, below, features (centered) regional council chair and SCUP board member Lily del C. Berios of the Sizemore Group and College of Charleston president P. George Benson, along with a number of other SCUPers.

President Benson welcomed attendees to his campus and shared important highlights from the college's new strategic plan, Gateways to Greatness, in the context of the changes going on in higher education. This room is the Alumni Memorial Hall, within Randolph Hall.

After the session, attendees enjoyed a reception in the president's home.

Oh, no! You won't be getting a printed SCUP–45 Preliminary Program in the mail this year. Instead, SCUP is going green and regularly updating this digital version (PDF), which you can download at any time. We're only 14 weeks-out now!

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SCUP Link

In this series of three videos, Roxane Assaf, director of teaching and learning programs for the Studio Classroom Project at Truman College, Chicago, interviews attendees at SCUP–43 in Montreal, in 2008. Her focus is on learning space design, including learning theory and the integration of technology. Her selection of interviewees demonstrates both the diverse array of very thoughtful people who plan on campus, and the professionalism of SCUPers from campuses and from companies that service campuses.
She concludes: "This SCUP conference was tremendously productive—the people that I've met, their insights their input—the collective experience was invaluable."

Part 1 (6:01)



Part 2 (7:12)



Part 3 (8:01)

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SCUP's Planning Institute: Enjoy the F2F company of your colleagues and peers while you engage in one of the three SCUP Planning Institute Steps. In addition to being offered on demand, on campuses to teams of campus leaders, the institute steps are also offered to all professionals at varying times and venues. Currently scheduled are:

• May 22–23, Ann Arbor, MI - Step I
• July 10, Minneapolis, MN - Step I (in conjunction with SCUP–45)
• October 2, Ann Arbor, MI - Step I
• January 21–22, Tuscon, AZ - Step II and Step III

At SCUP-43 in Montreal, long time SCUP leader Roland Prouxl was named the city's Ambassador to SCUP's conference. Now, there is a brick in the Montreal Conference Center's 'Walk of Fame" acknowledging SCUP's conference in 2008 and Proulx's role. (Proulx, emeritus professor from the University of Montreal, was also recently named 2009 Higher Education Professional of the Year by Strathmore's Who's Who.) Thanks for ensuring that Montreal will always remember SCUP-43, Roland!

Who doesn't want to know what went on at the conference they didn't go to? Brief summaries of what went on at the NACUBO and APPA conferences this past summer are linked to here: APPA 2008 Conference Highlights (PDF), NACUBO in the Windy City.

The University of Western Ontario in partnership with Sierra Youth Coalition and EnviroWestern is putting on a Campus Sustainability Conference in an effort to push sustainability on campuses across Canada.

"Drawing 150 students from across Canada, the National Conference will train and educate students on how to conduct a reliable sustainability assessment and implement change. ***
In addition to training delegates, the conference will host several keynote speaker sessions which are open to the entire university. On Sept. 28, Western’s Charles Trick, Beryl Ivey Chair of Ecosystem Health, will discuss the relationship between human health and ecosystem health. Hans Schreff of London Hydro’s conservation program will discuss the importance of utilities, the private sector and the individual in effectively improving energy efficiency. On September 29^t, Penn Kemp will open the evening keynote with a reading of her work “Poem for Peace in Many Voices.” Evon Peter, the national director of Native Movement, an organization that seeks to motivate young people “toward balanced relations with each other and Mother Earth” will give the Saturday evening keynote entitled “Steps Towards a Balanced World.” "

To learn more about the event, visit www.syc-cjs.org/sustainable