Learning Resources

Public Higher Education in Today’s Climate Crisis

By: Tamara Wallace, CSU Office of the Chancellor

With the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events continuing to increase across the country, the need for resilience planning is more critical than ever before.

Abstract: With the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events continuing to increase across the country, the need for resilience planning is more critical than ever before.

Numerous campuses across the California State University (CSU) system have direct experience with wildfires, extended drought, floods, extreme heat, public safety power shutoffs, hurricanes, and sea level rise. The CSU is currently working toward increasing resilience in response to catastrophic events through systemwide technical guidance resources on building and infrastructure design and retrofit. These extreme conditions further prompted the need for vulnerability assessments systemwide and coordinated climate resilience planning and investment activities.

Using the activities of CSU climate action and adaptation planning, Wallace’s SCUP Fellows project sought to achieve three (3) primary objectives:

Review planning documents and policies that consider climate resiliency governance versus climate resiliency implementation.
Identify key stakeholders to develop a primer for addressing and incorporating campus-community implementation priorities.
Raise awareness with the broader higher education planning community to collect feedback and share model practices.
Join 2022-2023 SCUP Fellow Tamara Wallace as she shares her findings to help you and your team proactively plan for climate change to mitigate risks, prevent damage, and ensure continued learning from lived experiences.

Planning Types: Campus Planning, Sustainability Planning
Tags: Community Engagement, Crisis and Disaster Management, Facilities Design;Facilities Planning, Resiliency, Sustainability (Environmental), Town and Gown

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What Constitutes Tribal College and University Sustainability?

Research Develops a Framework to Begin the Conversation

By: David Sanders, PhD

Historical successes and challenges join missions, visions, and strategic plans for a glimpse of what TCU institutions are emphasizing, today and in the future.

From Volume 52 Number 2 | January – March 2024

Abstract: This article uses available Tribal College and University (TCU) missions, visions, and strategic plans as well as dissertations focused on TCU research to develop a framework to begin the conversation about what constitutes sustainability for the institutions. The dissertations offer an opportunity to look at historical successes and challenges, while TCU missions, visions, and strategic plans provide a glimpse of what the institutions are emphasizing currently and in the future. Both present elements to consider as part of a larger TCU sustainability framework.

Institutions Mentioned: Institute of American Indian Arts, Diné College, Oglala Lakota College, Sinte Gleska University, Chief Dull Knife College
Planning Types: Strategic Planning
Tags: Alignment, Community College, Community Engagement, Funding, Higher Ed in Society, Mission / Vision / Identity, Original Research, Resiliency, Tribal College or University

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Conference Presentations

Published
March 5, 2024

Planning and Implementing the Sustainable Campus of the Future

By: Nicole Holmes, Nitsch Engineering | Thomas Nyquist, Princeton University | Daniel O’Shaughnessy, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP | Natalie Shivers, Princeton University

Integrated planning and design that optimizes development capacity and leverages campus growth can help institutions achieve ambitious resilience goals for net-zero energy and resource conservation for a healthier, more sustainable environment. This session will discuss Princeton University’s ongoing efforts to support an ambitious capital plan, address deferred maintenance, advance climate solutions, and maximize use of campus lands. The path to a sustainable campus future will require institutions to go beyond business-as-usual planning to rethink campus infrastructure—particularly energy, stormwater, and landscapes—and activate high-performance sites and buildings.

Abstract: Integrated planning and design that optimizes development capacity and leverages campus growth can help institutions achieve ambitious resilience goals for net-zero energy and resource conservation for a healthier, more sustainable environment. This session will discuss Princeton University’s ongoing efforts to support an ambitious capital plan, address deferred maintenance, advance climate solutions, and maximize use of campus lands. The path to a sustainable campus future will require institutions to go beyond business-as-usual planning to rethink campus infrastructure—particularly energy, stormwater, and landscapes—and activate high-performance sites and buildings.

Planning Types: Campus Planning, Sustainability Planning
Tags: Capital Planning, Deferred Maintenance, Energy Efficiency and Conservation, Energy Infrastructure, Landscape / Open Space, Resiliency, Sustainability (Environmental), Zero Net Energy (ZNE)

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Overcoming a $90M Budget Overage in Vanderbilt University’s Residential Colleges

A Multifaceted Team Worked Collaboratively to Stem Overruns

By: David Bailey, BA, AIA, LEED AP, and Walt Massey, BA

The University, architects, engineers, strategic planning consultants, and contractor teams worked hand in hand to peel back the onion to stem the overruns.

From Volume 52 Number 1 | October–December 2023

Abstract: When Vanderbilt University began seeing signs that cost escalation, scope additions, campus requirements, and authentic Collegiate Gothic architecture for their proposed new residence halls were all pressuring the budget, a multifaceted team worked collaboratively and arduously to stem the overruns.

Institutions Mentioned: Vanderbilt University
Planning Types: Campus Planning
Tags: Academic Facility, Engaging Stakeholders, Facilities Design, Facilities Planning, Implementation, Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), Mixed-Use, Modifying the Plan, Project Management, Project Management / Delivery, Student Housing

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What Is Your Crisis ‘What If’?

Create a Sustainable Approach to Emergency Response Planning

By: Jessica A. Luedtke, PhD, and Mary M. Reinke, MBA, MS

The Medical College of Wisconsin planned strategically, engaged executive leadership, and operationalized an Administrative Response Team to navigate critical incidents impacting the university.

From Volume 51 Number 3 | April–June 2023

Institutions Mentioned: Medical College of Wisconsin
Planning Types: Continuity Planning
Tags: Building (or Writing) the Plan, Communication, Crisis and Disaster Management, External Collaboration / Partnerships, Leadership, Medical / Allied Health Education, Modifying the Plan, Recovery Planning, Response Planning, Risk Management, Scenario Planning, Security

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Blog Post

Published
March 17, 2023

Cultivating 55+ Communities on Campus

Higher Education and Senior Living

By: Apryl Motley, CAE, SASM

To gain insight into the potential opportunities and obstacles university-based retirement communities (UBRCs) present for higher education, we turned to Andrew Carle, adjunct faculty member, senior living administration for Georgetown University’s Master of Science Program in Aging & Health.

Institutions Mentioned: Georgetown University, Indiana University-Bloomington, Iowa State University
Planning Types: Campus Planning, Resource Planning
Tags: Demographics, Higher Ed Trends, Public-Private Partnerships (P3), Real Estate, Town and Gown, Trends External to Higher Ed

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Book Review: The Agile College

How Institutions Successfully Navigate Demographic Changes

By: Bryan C. Harvey, EdD

From Volume 51 Number 2 | January–March 2023

Abstract: The Agile College: How Institutions Successfully Navigate Demographic Changes
by Nathan D. Grawe
Johns Hopkins University Press: Baltimore: 2021
298 pages
ISBN: 978-1421440231

Does hope motivate action or complacency? Does crisis induce change or despair? Nathan D. Grawe readily acknowledges this tension in The Agile College, his follow-up book to his 2018 Demographics and the Demand for Higher Education. The latter propelled the inescapable discussion throughout higher education of the looming “demographic cliff.” The Agile College suggests how agile institutions might prevent demography from becoming destiny.

Planning Types: Strategic Enrollment Management Planning
Tags: Change Management, COVID-19, Demographics, Disruptive Change, Recovery Planning, Resiliency, Shrinking Pool of Potential Students, Student Demographics, Student Recruitment, Student Retention, Trends External to Higher Ed

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Conference Recordings

Published
November 2, 2022

2022 Mid-Atlantic Regional Symposium | November

Reckoning with Entangled Histories

Higher Education and Slavery

By: Fanchon (Chon) Glover, College of William and Mary | Amber Hall, College of William and Mary | Samuel Hayes, College of William and Mary | Ben Carton, George Mason University | Wendi Manuel Scott, George Mason University | Cathy Pinskey, George Mason University | Dereck J. Rovaris, Sr., St. Mary's College of Maryland | Maurice Schlesinger, St. Mary's College of Maryland | Louis Nelson, University of Virginia | Alice Raucher, University of Virginia | Stephanie Wolfgang, Perkins&Will

In this symposium, four institutions will share their approaches to these complicated questions and how they’re continuing the conversation around the legacy of slavery on their campuses.

Abstract: American higher education institutions have a long, complex history with slavery that shouldn’t be ignored. Reckoning with these historical ties—from slave-owning namesakes to the enslaved laborers who constructed campus buildings—generates difficult questions for colleges and universities:

How do we honor those who were enslaved?
How do we recognize our role in the history of slavery as a means of learning from the past to guide our future?

In this symposium, four institutions will share their approaches to these complicated questions and how they’re continuing the conversation around the legacy of slavery on their campuses.

Institutions Mentioned: College of William and Mary, George Mason University, St. Mary’s College of Maryland, University of Virginia-Main Campus
Planning Types: Campus Planning, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Planning
Tags: Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI), Facilities Design, Facilities Planning, Historic Preservation, Landscape / Open Space, Placemaking, Racial Equity, SCUP 2022 Mid-Atlantic Symposium | November, Student Engagement

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Examining Naming Issues on Campus

By: Erin Johnson, MS, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

This is a SCUP Fellow Research Project Final Report for the 2020–2021 program. This report summarizes the specific cases of US institutions that addressed a problematic building or facility naming issue between 2014 and 2021 and what each of them chose to do when faced with this challenging decision.

Abstract: From 2015–2018, amidst a period of heightened activism on campuses and broader societal change, institutions of higher education renamed and de-named campus buildings with namesakes whose legacies were seen to conflict with institutional missions and community values and harmful to members of the campus and surrounding communities. In 2020, the push for addressing problematic namesakes grew exponentially, expanding beyond buildings and postsecondary education.

Effectively managing naming issues on campus and the expectations and interests of internal and external stakeholder groups is challenging, emotional, and time consuming work that has a lasting impact on the physical campus as well as institutional legacy. This research report summarizes the specific cases of US institutions that addressed a naming issue between 2014 and 2021 and what each of them chose to do when faced with this challenging decision.

Planning Types: Campus Planning, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Planning
Tags: Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI), Facilities Planning, Higher Ed Trends, Historic Preservation, Original Research, Placemaking, Racial Equity

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Campus Historic Preservation and Adaptive Reuse

Leverage These Tools to Achieve Your Planning and Sustainability Goals

By: Meaghan Finney, MS, and Michael Patrick, M.Arch, AIA, NCARB, LEED AP

By integrating historic buildings into your campus planning, their continued reuse can help solve some of the specific challenges facing university planners today.

From Volume 50 Number 4 | July–September 2022

Abstract: Historic campus buildings are often perceived as a burden, but by integrating them into your campus planning, their continued reuse can help solve some of the specific challenges facing university planners today, specifically in the context of sustainability. There are numerous case studies that demonstrate the successful adaptive reuse of varied campus buildings as well as an undeniable body of evidence showing the benefits of such an approach in working toward carbon neutrality. As long-term stewards of their built environments, colleges and universities are uniquely positioned to realize enduring savings from investing in the energy performance of existing buildings.

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