Arkansas State University-Jonesboro and the University of Nevada-Las Vegas have received APPA's 2010 Award for Excellence (PDF). Congratulations to the SCUPers who are part of the teams at each institution!

The Award for Excellence is based on a set of criteria, which include:

• Leadership
• Strategic and Operational Planning
• Customer Focus Information and Analysis
• Development and Management of Human Resources
• Process Management
• Performance Results

Evaluation for the award consists of two parts: a self-evaluation addressing specific, stringent criteria, and a site visit by a team from APPA’s Professional Affairs Committee to confirm the accuracy of the self-assessment. Applying for and receiving the AFE is no small task for an institution. As you will read in the following pages from ASU-J and UNLV, it takes teamwork from everyone within the facilities organization and requires coordination, motivation, and support from the top levels of leadership to be a successful facilities operation and to win the APPA Award for Excellence.

Bennington College for the Student Center, with Taylor & Burns Architects; also Reed Hildebrand Associates Inc.; The Collaborative Engineers; Acentech; Otter Creek Engineers, Inc.; Ricca/Newmark Design - was a recipient of an Honor Awards in the 2010 SCUP/AIA-CAE Excellence in Architecture for a New Building category.

The charge was to create a Big Room for student social and performance uses; expand the café to increase capacity and life safety; accommodate organized student activities; create a new dining hall and kitchen for daily food service; connect existing buildings into a vibrant social center on the site of a parking lot; improve definition of the campus core while pushing cars to the campus edge ... .

The Big Room is a flexible open space that supports student and campus activities including social and academic gatherings; food service; readings and recitals; dance parties; demountable stage for corner or thrust formats; theatrical sound and light control booth; green room; and adjustable acoustics and daylight with motorized curtain.

The jury said, “ . . . very elegant courtyard . . . planning is significant portion of architecture and vice versa . . . fits nicely in campus plan . . .”