Learning Resources

Abstract: On-campus childcare will be crucial not only in allowing faculty and staff to return to campus post-COVID but also in recruiting and retaining the next generation of campus leaders. This session will focus on leveraging on-campus childcare, an overlooked but integral piece of a successful integrated strategy for returning to a robust in-person campus experience. Join our subject matter experts to find out how you can lead and participate in strategic planning around this critical work/life issue at your institution.

Abstract: Early in the pandemic, the University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) took deliberate steps to communicate, engage, and collaborate with its campus and surrounding neighborhood. These actions included health and safety measures and programs, channels for addressing concerns, and efforts to meet basic campus and community needs. This session will focus on how the university encouraged adherence to health and safety guidelines by using a framework emphasizing culture, education, compliance, and support. Come learn how Pitt fostered a sense of community and belonging, created volunteer experiences, and motivated students to comply with health and safety rules during a public health crisis.

Abstract: When institutions prioritize diverse cultural representation in their planning process and built environment, this promotes a positive learning community as well as a sense of belonging and wellbeing. In this session we’ll share our layered, inclusive planning process that engages and empowers campus and community constituents to celebrate cultural expression through the built environment. Come learn how you can develop a road map for sparking conversations on transparency, inclusion, and engagement in diverse groups to embrace current trends and explore change at your institution.

Abstract: The campus exists to serve as a support network for students, but the COVID-19 pandemic has revealed the variety of ways in which some students remain underserved. This session will discuss the equity and access issues amplified by the pandemic and how institutions are adapting this fall's programs and environments to alleviate these issues. Come join our panelists for an in-depth discussion of research into student inequities and how their institutions plan to improve the student support system on their campus this fall.

Abstract: Post-occupancy evaluation (POE) of learning space is now an essential tool for institutions to align capital decisions with student performance. We will explore exemplary active-learning environments and the evaluation methodology we used to measure how these environments have elicited learning behaviors that foster student engagement. You will learn which aspects of the learning environment are important to measure, how to measure them, and how the collected data connects to metrics that matter to institutions.

Abstract: Higher education institutions, across nearly all socio-cultural cross-sections, are more diverse today than ever before. This evolution in campus demographics also coincides with the changing values, priorities, and needs of students. The bottom line for many of today’s students is clear: now more than ever, values matter when selecting a school. This article explores the programmatic and administrative responses as well as the physical planning and design opportunities associated with creating and sustaining more diverse and inclusive campus environments.

Abstract: Today, the amount of space devoted to research at research universities exceeds that of classrooms and class laboratories. This research space portfolio presents important policy and management challenges. As stewards of this portfolio, universities must address issues of funding the construction of research facilities, equipping and maintaining them, allocating and accounting for space used for research, and managing, in broadest terms, the physical and administrative infrastructure in which research is conducted. As this article illustrates, managing the balance between the growing demand for and the supply of research space is complicated. To address the issues of research space, universities have developed a variety of space management methods to fit their unique research missions, priorities, and operational culture. This article provides important insights into this little studied aspect of higher education space planning. The article is an overview of research space management across the U. S. on general campuses and in health science centers. It is based on interviews with senior administrators in selected research universities conducted specifically for this study, information about research space management available on university documents on the Internet, and on the work of Ira Fink and Associates, Inc. in programming research facilities on a multitude of campuses nationwide.

Abstract: Recruiting and retaining women and minority faculty members is a particularly challenging workforce development issue facing many universities. This article summarizes current literature and the results of a survey of selected institutions to gauge responses to this challenge. All the survey respondents indicated that recruitment of women and minority candidates has been problematic, that retention problems vary, and that job placement is difficult and can negatively influence the recruitment and retention of women and minority faculty members. Job placement for partners has been most difficult for those universities located in small- to mid-sized cities. A variety of programs have been attempted to alleviate problems of recruitment and retention.