Agenda for Thursday

Most institutions have embraced energy tracking and strategic energy planning, and some have even merged master planning and energy master planning into one process. We'll extend the idea of tracking environmental impacts to a comprehensive view of integrated environmental impacts, with an eye toward driving a regenerative master planning process. Focusing on the Yestermorrow Design/Build School in Vermont, we'll examine the school in terms of water use and water quality, habitat health, student experience, community economic health, and other environmental measures. Then, we'll look at future direction for program and campus growth, and use the environmental metrics to inform a regenerative planning process. This planning process leverages school growth to repair the campus environment and build a stronger community.

Learning Outcomes:

1. Discover the range of effective environmental metrics that are available to you.
2. Assess the big drivers of environmental regeneration.
3. Analyze the value of different environmental metrics.
4. Discover how to utilize metrics in your own planning process.

The City University of New York’s University Budget Office is responsible for the overall management of $2.6 billion in City and State tax-levy operating funds, including over $1.0 billion in tuition revenues.  The management of these funds involves complex interactions among City and State officials in both the Executive and Legislative branches; the University's Board of Trustees, principally through its Committee on Fiscal Affairs; the University's Central Office; and its 23 colleges.  In 2011, legislation signed into law by Gov. Andrew Cuomo maintained CUNY’s current higher-education funding level for five years and authorized increases in tuition of $300 per year during that period, establishing a rational tuition policy for the first time.  This presentation will explain the decisions and data that drove the new tuition policy.

Keeping up with classroom space needs is an almost constant struggle on most campuses. University of Massachusetts Boston (UMass Boston) and its partners collected and analyzed data on existing classroom utilization, and considered space planning benchmarks and industry standards. Engaging academic leadership in the planning effort, UMass Boston developed recommendations for improving classroom space within existing and new facilities. Join the planning team for a look at this process of classroom planning and how it has benefited the campus.

Learning Outcomes:

1. Explore how one institution has approached classroom planning for existing and new facilities.
2. Share information with colleagues about classroom planning experiences and best practices.
3. Discuss how external consultants can collaborate with campus planners and administrators on classroom studies and planning exercises.
4. Participate in a dialogue that will extend beyond the session about classroom planning best practices.

Community colleges have been creating strategic plans for decades. However today, multiple external factors, including the economy, demographic changes, declining public funding, and accreditation among others, are compelling colleges to find innovative ways to fulfill their mission while addressing numerous challenges. We'll focus on analyzing longitudinal trends before embarking on the strategic planning process. Pre-planning assessment and evaluation across multiple areas, including academic affairs, finance, facilities, resource development, faculty, and student outcomes is critical to a successful planning effort.

Learning Outcomes:

1. Assess institutional effectiveness across key academic and administrative units.
2. Engage multiple stakeholders in analyzing baseline data to inform future goals.
3. Establish a framework for institutionalizing ongoing evaluation of outcomes and processes.
4. Establish transparent accountability in fulfilling strategic objectives.

In a world of ever-more interdisciplinary science education, nanotechnology has both forced and enabled different scientific disciplines to come together to examine common problems in a new way. University of Massachusetts Lowell’s Emerging Technologies and Innovation Center (ETIC) will use this platform to link manufacturing, chemistry, and engineering sciences in an interdisciplinary research facility. Discover the vision for creating a place where industry partners connect with students and faculty, in both scientific and soft spaces, to identify key challenges for transfer of technology to commercial use. The journey brought this vision to reality in a highly technical, energy-efficient facility programmed by function rather than by faculty.

Learning Outcomes:

1. Examine trends toward interdisciplinary science and engineering with mix of clean room, high bay manufacturing and research labs.
2. Discover the user (academic researcher) and lab designers' key challenges in creating a place where industry partners connect with students.
3. Examine key challenges in designing a flexible environment for a technology platform in its infancy.
4. Identify energy strategies in a building type usually identified as a high use of energy.

John Jay College of Criminal Justice (JJCCJ) and The City University of New York (CUNY) navigated a lengthy, 20-year timeline, diverse program needs and requirements, and fostered a sense of community and collaboration during the development its new 620,000 gross square foot (GSF) building. The planning team considered peer institutions, university space standards, and college priorities to create a flexible building. This presentation will explain the “evidence” that JJCCJ uncovered while considering the evolution of the college—the dynamic nature of career-focused programs and the technologies that support them.

Learning Outcomes:

1. Evaluate and “profile” your own institution to become competitive amongst peer institutions.
2. Discuss ways to manage expectations while taking input from a broad range of needs at your institution.
3. Explore techniques to navigate change at your institution, maintaining a steady course through a prolonged or multi-phased project.
4. Assess resources to find multiple ways to use physical space in the service of different programs over time.

This topic will enlighten universities on what the key technology, space planning and design considerations are to deploy a global campus and remain competitive in an increasingly globalized environment.

Learning Outcomes:

1. Discover the advantages to developing global partnerships.
2. Identify how technology can be used to make a global campus function
3. Determine key technologies for distance learning, lecture capture, on-line collaboration and digital asset management.
4. Define design criteria for teaching spaces that will be outfitted with these technologies

Massachusetts Institute of Technology had a question: could an outdated building be cost effectively renovated and repurposed for short-term reuse? They needed swing space during a series of renovation projects, a short-term need for engineering laboratories, and were presented with a chance to satisfy both needs in a vacated former industrial and laboratory building that was slated for eventual demolition. The team looked at strategies to create flexible, economical space, and compared the life cycle cost against leasing nearby space.

Learning Outcomes:

1. Discover key drivers that determine whether a large-scale, short lifecycle renovation can be cost effective.
2. Evaluate a flexible, adaptable space program that can accommodate a range of users with minimal modification.
3. Determine key issues when developing a return on investment analysis.
4. Differentiate opportunities and constraints that determine which uses can be effectively located in an existing building.

Effective decision making is often a challenge on campus due to the conflicting goals and objectives of the various stakeholders. This toolkit on space management decision making will suggest a practical approach to getting beyond “analysis paralysis” and focus on identifying effective processes to make informed decisions. The importance of data will be part of the discussion which will also examine the composition of the decision-making authority, the importance of their commitment to institutional priorities, and establishing transparency throughout the process.

Learning Outcomes:

1. Identify the necessary components of an effective decision-making process.
2. Design effective decision-making committees.
3. Recognize the importance of delegating decision-making authority.
4. Utilize multiple types of data for effective decision making.

In recent years, colleges and universities have assumed a leadership role in sustainable practices. A facility’s campus landscape can easily become a central feature in the articulation of many institution’s goals. While few schools have the financial capability of starting over again with complete site redesign, there are a number of ways you can revision a campus plan to embrace more sustainable outcomes. This session will examine how landscape maintenance strategies can be used as drivers of larger campus-wide sustainability practices.

Learning Outcomes:

1. Recognize how integrated management planning (IMP) techniques can be used to identify, quantify, and assess sustainability opportunities.
2. Apply sustainable maintenance principles to broader campus redevelopment strategies, such as climate action plans, zero-waste goals, and carbon-neutral agendas.
3. Translate broad sustainability themes into measurable action plans for landscapes.
4. Evaluate sustainable maintenance strategies that have been enacted within a variety of institutional landscapes.

Our choice of building materials has significant environmental impact inside buildings on campus. As building products flood the market under the guise of green materials, it is important to know how to make informed decisions in selecting finishes that support sustainability in new buildings and in the renewal of our existing buildings. This presentation will address trends in higher education and laboratory environments to incorporate durable yet safe materials, how to find them and determine if they are right for your building.

Learning Outcomes:

1. Assess conventional building materials commonly found inside campus buildings and understand their negative impact on air quality, operations and maintenance, and goals for sustainability.
2. Explore the proprietary and public access tools that classify common building materials and their impact on the environment and human health.
3. Differentiate the different environments that require unique interior finish solutions.
4. Identify and analyze innovative alternative interior finishes and materials on the market for our schools.

Higher education institutions across the globe have augmented their traditional campus buildings by acquiring or building hotel facilities. Harvard University will share valuable first-hand experience from their campus hotels and how they are positioning these facilities to meet institutional goals for the future. Gain suggestions for planning and designing campus hotels, and the developer’s perspective.

Learning Outcomes:

1. Recognize how campus hospitality offerings can support academic goals.
2. Evaluate how hospitality can be added to traditional campus uses.
3. Implement the proper marketing and design tools when adding or repositioning hospitality on campus.
4. Analyze how hospitality can affect the strategic goals of an institution.

On-campus co-generation can reduce the load on municipal electricity grids and reduce carbon emissions. Using case studies such as the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry Gateway Building as examples, this presentation will analyze and compare different co-generation options (e.g. biomass boilers, steam turbines, gas turbines, microturbines) for university campuses. Methodology used to compare different co-generation options will be summarized. Metrics considered include annual energy cost, life cycle cost, and annual carbon emissions. Factors such as phasing of new building construction and electricity buy-back from the local utility will be discussed.

Learning Outcomes:

1. Discuss methodology for evaluating central energy plants using comparative energy models.
2. Examine the difference between carbon emissions from different fuel types.
3. Explore the application of energy modeling in case study.
4. Discuss the context of central plant in a campus’ Climate Action Plan.

Campus infrastructure and facilities management and operations utilize a large portion of campus resources. Case studies at State University of New York (SUNY) Oswego and SUNY Cobleskill, including a demonstration of each campus’ information management model, will be presented showing how data and information gathering about campus infrastructure assets can be further used to support master, capital improvement, and sustainability plans.

Learning Outcomes:

Today’s students say they can learn what they want from online resources; they are bored by being spoon fed from Powerpoint slides. So why is the instructional technology and classroom design based on historical traditions? Rooms display oversized posters and charts of the human body, outdated maps, and element charts. The typical classroom model still has the project screen in the center of the room with chalk or marker boards on either side. This room layout has not changed in 100’s of years and is now called multimedia if we add a smart podium and hang a projector from the ceiling. But today’s digital natives say they're bored in the first 15 minutes of class. We'll evaluate and discuss typical technology in today’s classroom, and compare it to what will support the learning process of current and future generations of students and instructors. It is only by this comparison will both the needs of the students and the style of the instructors be met.

Learning Outcomes:

1. Design room design and layouts that will support emerging uses and future uses.
2. Assess how we can change the use of whiteboards and power point.
3. Analyze use patterns of classrooms and rank the importance of instructional technology.
4. Investigate how instructors use classroom technology.

College art museums are special places. Often donor-created, broadly accessible to the public, and deeply tied to the institutional identity, these repositories of visual art offer unique learning opportunities. Two generations of Williams College-educated art historians will explore the impact of the college art museum on students, scholars, and the wider community. We'll discuss the challenges of balancing the sometimes-competing priorities of conservation and connoisseurship, funding constraints, operational realities, and educational access.

Learning Outcomes:

1. Demonstrate the educational role of college art museums and define the importance of art education through hands-on learning and interaction with museum art collections.
2. Describe exhibition development and design and its import to art appreciation and education.
3. Describe curatorial decisions and curriculum.
4. Explain the administrative complexities of funding, donors, and public access and explain the benefit of the college art museum as an ambassador of the institution for the community and beyond.

To better prepare its students for careers in an increasingly global society, Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) has brought four continents together in one nine-acre, 414-bed living and learning campus community. Explore the process that started with the 2005 strategic vision, integrating multiple interest groups from around campus. RIT’s Global Village provides a unique living/learning experience, and is a “one-stop” complex that provides students and faculty with support for pursuing multicultural and global education opportunities.

Learning Outcomes:

1. Discover how the global and entrepreneurial missions of RIT were supported through the resources created both for incoming international students, and for the preparation of American students to thrive in a global community.
2. Discuss the integrated effort that developed a unique mixed-use international living/learning environment which balanced social and academic program components.
3. Identify the primary constituents and decision-makers, both from the institutional side as well as consultants, who should form the collaborative working committee.
4. Develop a one-stop complex that facilitates how students and faculty pursue multicultural living and global education opportunities.

Recently, William Rainey Harper College simultaneously completed a comprehensive strategic plan review and campus master plan. Since a student’s time is valuable, learning and support resources should empower students to master their environment effectively. Through its design concepts for new, re-imagined, and more sustainable places on campus, the campus master plan furthers Harper’s four strategic directions: inspiration, partnership, accountability and completion. Student success is thus enabled by the creation of welcoming, supportive, flexible, and effective environments for learning.

Learning Outcomes:

1. Identify aspects of sustainable master plans that shape campus resources to support strategic objectives.
2. Develop sustainable combinations of new and existing elements to create a more welcoming and effective campus.
3. Use programming data strategically to evaluate campus needs with a long-range perspective.
4. Create opportunities for flexible, forward-looking student support through concepts for sustainable and cost-effective facilities.

Consider the perspective of panelists who were instrumental in the programming and design of a LEED Gold classroom-only building including teaching spaces that provide a range of opportunities for instructional delivery. Major considerations were large lecture halls, smaller lecture rooms, flexible seating and tables, learners' comfort, ability to project and use white boards, infinite lighting and natural light control, wide range of electronic devices and inputs, safety aspects, acoustics, space for student notices, comfortable waiting areas, help desk, and breakout rooms.

Learning Outcomes:

1. Identify means to include faculty in the programming and assessment of new teaching spaces.
2. Analyze a range of contemporary learning environments that affordably support growing enrollments and technology use in teaching.
3. Recognize how the need for student support uses and spaces impacts the attributes of classroom buildings.
4. Identify means to inform students, faculty, maintenance, and facility staff in sustainable principles.

Creating authentic place can drive economic growth, improve quality of life, restore investment in a community, and generate recruitment, retention, and fundraising gains for an anchor institution in the host community. The University of Memphis focuses on creating the optimal for-profit investment environment by aligning partner interests, creating effective community revitalization tools, and focusing on realistic and implementable planning efforts. Explore how the university encourages renewed investment in place, and discuss techniques for leveraging institutions for university-community success.

Learning Outcomes:

1. Discover an urban institution’s approach to the strategic challenge of developing a sense of place on the campus edge.
2. Specify the planning processes and tools utilized by one community-institutional partnership to align partner interests.
3. Employ development tools utilized by one community-institutional partnership to create the optimal environment for private sector development.
4. Discuss specific techniques for leveraging institutions for university-community success through group discussion.

The University System of New Hampshire is one of 672 signatories to the Presidents’ Climate Commitment, which requires achieving climate neutrality as soon as possible. The university’s leaders are demonstrating their commitment through the development of buildings targeting zero net energy and by master planning for new teaching environments that deliver more learning in less area. Strategic financial, pedagogical, and sustainable goals are converging. Three perspectives will address: the strategic vision and financial considerations that attracted limited state resources, the value and challenges of integrated energy modeling from the building to campus scale, and design strategies for deep energy savings, on-site renewable energy, and sustainable campus planning.

Learning Outcomes:

1. Acquire a working knowledge of the requirements of the Presidents’ Climate Commitment through an interactive exercise, and how your institution can meet that challenge.
2. Evaluate how iterative energy modeling of campuses and buildings can be used to make data-based decisions during the planning and building design process, and understand the limitations of modeling.
3. Analyze various approaches to green building design, emphasizing significant energy use reduction and on-site renewable energy, and learn to evaluate the role of iterative energy modeling, design options, and building information modeling (BIM) delivery using examples from a nationally-recognized green architect.
4. Discern the educational benefits, pedagogical initiatives, and fundraising advantages of supporting the Presidents’ Climate Commitment by developing advanced high performance buildings and engaging in sustainable master planning.

At Stony Brook University, a powerful resource has emerged in the Advanced Energy Center, a facility containing both research-oriented and industry-driven infrastructure. Here, public-private partnerships are exploring renewable energy sources, enhancing the performance of traditional fuels, and employing cutting-edge technologies—and then engaging in community outreach and education on these topics. We will also look at how the center accommodates the collaboration of multidisciplinary research teams through its flexible design and functions as a teaching tool for sustainable energy use.

Learning Outcomes:

1. Explore the various benefits of partnerships between incubator facilities and private industry.
2. Analyze the flexibility of a facility’s design to accommodate energy research now and into the future.
3. Discover how to arrive at the correct mix of core support facilities versus shared program space.
4. Discover how renewable energy can be integrated into high performance laboratory design.

In an average week, most academic buildings are occupied only 14% of the time. Yet, institutions continue to construct new buildings. Three presenters, representing academia, architecture, and sustainable practice, will point to trends in pedagogy and enrollment. They will illustrate how these trends impact the future of the campus and its built environment. This session will challenge you to think in new ways, and to master new techniques for measuring success.

Learning Outcomes:

1. Identify current trends in pedagogy, and relate these trends to space utilization in campus buildings and to long-term sustainable goals.
2. Master simple techniques to increase the energy efficiency of buildings related to occupancy, and to dramatically increase the energy efficiency of existing buildings.
3. Formulate a method to measure the energy efficiency of the entire campus based on traditional characteristics, such as site area, building area, and overall space occupancy and utilization.
4. Consider best current practices used by university and school planners to reduce building program size, based on better scheduling practices, flexible design for multiple types of occupancy, satellite learning, leases, or other methods to avoid underutilized space.

This session brings together institutional, industry, and student leaders to discuss the definition, application, creation, and measured success of high-impact learning environments on our campuses. How are the principals of the Learning Spaces Collaboratory influencing emerging teaching pedagogies across a broad array of disciplines? What are physical characteristics required of these spaces? How do we measure effectiveness? Students divulge outcomes of a directly-relevant proprietary research project. An interactive exercise engages participants and encourages dialogue on these cutting-edge learning environments.

Learning Outcomes:

1. Draw on knowledge shared by industry leaders on the foundational theories and broad applications of high-impact learning spaces across disciplines.
2. Examine empirical data from institutional research on the effect of high-impact learning spaces on educational quality.
3. Dissect outcomes of Keene State College architecture students' research (survey and observational evidence) on the successful elements of high-impact learning spaces.
4. Participate in interactive focused exercise and discussion to glean ideas that can be applied back to home campuses.

In 2010, Saint Joseph College updated its strategic plan to specifically investigate campus-wide utilization of academic and administrative spaces. The surprising results illustrated that improved classroom utilization would allow the college to defer construction of new academic facilities originally identified as necessary in the 2009 master plan. In 2011, the college initiated the strategic implementation of distinct projects in order to incrementally improve academic and administrative efficiencies. This presentation will illustrate the process and results, including proposed renovations.

Learning Outcomes:

1. Translate utilization metrics to assess and change classroom assignment practices to promote efficiency and defer large capital expenditures.
2. Evaluate underlying challenges with repurposing older dormitory facilities to contemporary office environments.
3. Investigate a balanced approach to implementing small project needs while addressing larger deferred infrastructure improvements.
4. Discover opportunities within existing campus buildings to improve efficiency and challenge assumptions about major capital investment.

Monroe Community College (MCC) in Rochester, New York, had the stress of meeting high demands placed upon them by changes to the local economy, an explosion in enrollment, and a need to improve the delivery methods for quality educational outcomes. MCC’s Building 9 was just not meeting that challenge. The focused and practical solution resulted in repurposing MCC's Building 9, and combining it with a new 21,000 SF Wolk School of Nursing. The planning process could be of interest to others facing similar changes within their communities.

Learning Outcomes:

1. Discover flexible and meaningful educational environments that address the diversity of community college constituents, the curriculum and learning styles. 
2. Discover how the resources from administration, planning staff, faculty, students and the facilities implementation team were integrated toward the success of the project.
3. Discuss how the management and control of building systems addressed the flexible and sustainable solutions desired in the project.
4. Assess the ways that re-purposing a 1960's facility can meet the challenges of a 21st century learning environment.

The University of Vermont campus offers an opportunity to take participants on an insider's virtual tour of projects that focus on three E's: energy sustainability, efficient land use, and edible landscaping. Examples include LEED-certified buildings, infill development, campus gardens, and student initiated projects that could represent a window to the future. All of the featured projects have a back story that includes extensive stakeholder process and/or student involvement. The presentation will feature student feedback on the process, and outcomes of each project.

Learning Outcomes:

1. Discuss the challenges and payback with sustainability initiatives.
2. Consider how experienced planners deal with predictable challenges such as stakeholders' conflicting interests.
3. Discuss how complex systems thinking, trends in new technologies, and new perspectives on old ideas can help shape a vision for the future.
4. Discover how to effectively integrate student ideas and initiatives into the long-term planning process.

Sign up for your ticket to attend Thursday night's exclusive reception—you won't be disappointed! Details to come. (You must sign up during the registration process to attend this event)