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Blog Post

Published
September 2, 2025

How Strategic Is Your Strategic Plan?

Identify Its Shortcomings and Ask Key Questions

By: Sarah L Collie, PhD, Associate Vice President for Organizational Excellence, University of Virginia

Today, strategic planning in colleges and universities is more crucial than ever. Yet many strategic plans in higher education lack a clear strategy, instead resembling a long-range plan.

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Planning for Higher Education Journal

Published
July 17, 2025

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Co-Locate and Consolidate to Create Connected Campuses

Grow in Place Rather Than Add More Space Where Students Will Succeed

By: Elliot Felix, MArch

You can share spaces, support services, staffing, and technology systems within your institution and with external partners. This reduces costs while improving outcomes such as retention, graduation, and career placement rates.

From Volume 53 Number 3 | April–June 2025

Abstract: Colleges and universities have a traditional way to meet new needs. When there is a new research initiative, degree program, or student support function, institutions add space. Despite good intentions, their siloed structures, poor strategic planning, and history of continuous expansion mean that institutions adapt by adding. The result: Campuses are overbuilt and underutilized. Instead of shared spaces and seamless, supportive experiences, we’re left with sprawling campuses and spiraling costs. With enrollments, research funding, and our climate all changing, it’s time for a new model and a new mantra: Grow in place rather than add more space.

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Tool

Published
May 13, 2025

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Campus Contingency Planner

By: Elliot Felix, Buro Happold | Nicholas Santilli, PhD, SCUP

This tool is a template for lightweight, rapid contingency planning. It guides you through a process that identifies the impacts of change, how decisions during contingency planning will be made, and the operational components of programs and offerings that will need to be adapted in response.
Abstract: Times of rapid change can interrupt operations and implementation efforts. Preventing this requires an ability to quickly adapt our programs and offerings to the changing landscape. Unfortunately, operational complexity and the disorienting nature of uncertainty become a hurdle to rapid response. Either we get overwhelmed trying to identify all that needs to change, or we respond haphazardly, missing crucial details.

Contingency planning can help. It is a method for preparing for potential changes that identifies how operations and action plans need to shift in response. It can also be used to respond to changes after they happen.

The Campus Contingency Planner is a template for lightweight, rapid contingency planning. It guides you through a process that identifies the impacts of change, how decisions during contingency planning will be made, and the operational components of programs and offerings that will need to be adapted in response.

Whether you manage student-facing programs (like academic programs or student affairs activities), or direct services that are internally supportive (like space management or IT), the Campus Contingency Planner can help you respond to change with flexibility, minimizing disruption and moving your institution forward.

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Planning for Higher Education Journal

Published
April 30, 2025

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Colocating Dissimilar Academic Programs

A School of Nursing and a School of Engineering Align for Mutually Beneficial Outcomes

By: Ed Stand, BArch, LEED BD+C, AIA, Richard S. Leddy, MBA, P.E., and Laura White, BArch, AIA, LEED AP, WELL AP

Respecting mission-oriented mutual goals, two schools at Hofstra University shaped an improbable pedagogical partnership through cross-functional collaboration and data-informed decision-making.

From Volume 53 Number 2 | January–March 2025

Abstract: Administrators at colleges and universities across the country face mounting concerns over enrollment rates, curricular rigor, and climbing real estate costs. These challenges are particularly daunting for liberal arts institutions, many of which have pivoted or are pivoting to STEM programs out of necessity. Cross-disciplinary colocation strategies can enhance hands-on learning opportunities while optimizing spatial and financial resources. This article explores the planning approach to forming mutually successful partnerships between dissimilar academic programs through mission-oriented cross-functional collaboration, including examples of tools and processes for data-informed decision-making.

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Conference Presentations

Published
April 7, 2025

Small College, Big Ambition: Delivering STEM Environments for Tomorrow

Abstract: Campus science and tech buildings are crucial for research, hands-on learning, and development of a skilled STEM workforce. Institutions, and small colleges in particular, must leverage these campus resources to stay competitive while facing the impact of birth rate drops. This session will explore creative solutions for bringing state-of-the-art science and technology environments to your college campus in the race to recruit and prepare students for careers in a technology-driven society. Join us to learn how other mid-sized, regional colleges have solved the problem of creating consensus, space programming, and the institution's role in delivering successful, modern STEM learning environments.

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Conference Presentations

Published
October 23, 2024

Reimagining Clippinger: Adaptive Reuse of an OU Post-war Science Building

By: Stephen Bergmeier, Marvin E. and Ann Diley White Professor of Chemistry, Ohio University-Main Campus | Matt Garrett, Principal, Flad Architects | John Wroblewski, Architect/Science Planner, Flad Architects

Since Ohio University's (OU) Clippinger Laboratory was built in 1967 higher education has changed dramatically: scientific research, instruction, and the students themselves.
Abstract: Since Ohio University's (OU) Clippinger Laboratory was built in 1967 higher education has changed dramatically: scientific research, instruction, and the students themselves. Through several examples over the 10-year period of Clippinger's reimagining, this session will examine a process for rethinking a building's vision, developing space needs, and responding to changing times so that the building can continue to serve the College of Arts and Sciences into the future. Come learn a set of adaptive reuse tools to guide planning and design, including alignment of program and capacity, compliance with regulations, and achieving sustainability and environmental goals.

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Conference Presentations

Published
October 22, 2024

Full STEAM Ahead: Colocating Science, Engineering, and Liberal Arts

By: Jim Brummer, Vice President of Facilities, University of St Thomas-Minnesota | Melissa DelVecchio, Partner, Robert A.M. Stern Architects | Brian Lapham, Architect and Lab Planner, BWBR Architects, Inc.

Recruitment and retention are increasingly vital as student demographics evolve. New approaches to collaborative planning create keystone spaces on campus that can reinvigorate entire zones and benefit students, faculty, staff, and the bottom line.
Abstract: Recruitment and retention are increasingly vital as student demographics evolve. New approaches to collaborative planning create keystone spaces on campus that can reinvigorate entire zones and benefit students, faculty, staff, and the bottom line. The University of St. Thomas's Schoenecker STEAM Center uniquely combines science and engineering spaces with liberal arts programs and other collaboration space while also enhancing use patterns, gathering points, and campus circulation. We'll share tools and lessons learned to help you navigate the complexities of co-locating disparate functions while accounting for funding capacity and time-of-day use, resulting in efficient, effective spaces that support changing campus demographics.

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Conference Presentations

Published
July 23, 2024

A School Without Walls: The Architecture of Data Science

By: Phil Bourne, Founding Dean | Lauren Shirley, Senior Associate | Mike Taylor, Principal

Data science is a rapidly developing discipline and serves as a catalyst for the future development and management of institutional faculties.
Abstract: Data science is a rapidly developing discipline and serves as a catalyst for the future development and management of institutional faculties. This session will examine the unique engagement process behind the University of Virginia's (UVA) 'School without Walls', as well as its dynamic programming and design for serving an emerging discipline. This project plays a special role in providing a venue for community and industry interaction and research. We'll explore points of engagement with an expanding faculty throughout the design process, which inspired flexible internal planning, and reflect on the appropriateness of wider contextual influences on the design solution.

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Conference Presentations

Published
July 23, 2024

Engaging Faculty in Classroom Planning and Design

By: Karen Detlefsen, Professor of Philosophy and Education | Bonnie Netel, Associate Director of Classroom Planning and Design | Gary Purpura, Associate Vice Provost for Education

Flexible classroom space is at a premium, making it necessary to link design with utilization to facilitate projected academic program growth. Including faculty in classroom planning and design processes is a vital part of supporting pedagogical innovation in campus learning spaces.
Abstract: Flexible classroom space is at a premium, making it necessary to link design with utilization to facilitate projected academic program growth. Including faculty in classroom planning and design processes is a vital part of supporting pedagogical innovation in campus learning spaces. This session will highlight recent strategic planning efforts with faculty and staff at the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) focused on Central Pool classrooms and support for teaching and learning. We'll share ideas about how to facilitate collaboration between faculty, staff, and experts in the industry to maintain and advance flexible classrooms that support pedagogy and program development.

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Conference Presentations

Published
July 23, 2024

Harnessing the Disruptive Power of Collaborative Intelligence

By: Linda Baer, Principal | Paul Leblanc, President | Donald Norris, Founder and President Emeritus | George Siemens, Chief Data Scientist

This session will illustrate how Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Human Intelligence (HI) combine to create Collaborative Intelligence (CI), which will transform and disrupt every process and practice it touches. Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU) is building on its track record of preparing students for the future by leveraging CI and a clean sheet design approach to create a revolutionary new instructional model.
Abstract: This session will illustrate how Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Human Intelligence (HI) combine to create Collaborative Intelligence (CI), which will transform and disrupt every process and practice it touches. Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU) is building on its track record of preparing students for the future by leveraging CI and a clean sheet design approach to create a revolutionary new instructional model. To harness the power of CI, institutions must reinvent their approach for crafting and executing strategy to create a sense of urgency for change, engage many participants, provide transformation tools, and change culture.

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