The long-term survival of the physical campus will lie in keeping students at the center of the diagram.  The adaptations required will result from a different way of thinking about facilities, in which small moves made with students in mind can be of strategic significance.

A recent project at Cal State Northridge is one example.  Documented in the SCUP Journal Planning for Higher Education by Katherine Stevenson, Sean Clerkin, and Diane Stephens, the project provides a student-centered environment for introductory mathematics.

Though modest in scale and lacking design panache, the project focuses on the institution’s first priority:  the welfare and intellectual progress of its students.  Since weak math skills represent a major constraint to academic success, the project is of strategic significance to the institution and the students it serves.

The project’s implementation is a story of overcoming two familiar pitfalls of facilities planning:  1) limitations of master planning, and 2) decision-making driven by first costs rather than academic imperatives.

Master planning – Master plans have limited ability to inform small project development decisions.  A project of about 12,000 square feet is below the level of detail provided by most master plans.  Preambles about supporting the academic mission are not sufficiently specific to address the issue of finding space for a small but essential aspect of improving educational outcomes.  In these cases facility decisions tend to be more expedient and less strategic.

Decision-making – Without other direction, facility decisions usually follow the course of least resistance and rely on the lowest first cost in choosing among alternatives.  The initial administrative response at Cal State was true to this pattern.  A peripheral campus location was made available and the renovation cost was relatively low.

In this case the need for convenient student access trumped the ease of implementation and first cost advantages.  Academic priorities prevailed.  A central campus location was found.  This allows the math center to be in the natural flow of student activity.  It was the right solution and one that may prove to be of strategic significance.

Arriving at the right solution involved undoing previous space allocations and increasing construction cost.  This is an example of rethinking facilities issues with the student in the center of the diagram.  For CSU-Northridge the goal of improved student success became the first priority.

Not all situations will be as clear-cut, but some variation of these conditions exists on every campus.  In particular, the facilities adaptations responding to digital transformation and improving sustainability (both environmental and economic) are too small to be captured by traditional master planning.

A different model of facilities management is required.  Given the competing demands on facilities managers and planners, focusing on students is difficult.  This type of strategic thinking places the student at the center of every planning diagram.  The worthiness of a project can be judged by its value for students and their education.

Campus openspace, study areas, classrooms, libraries, labs and an array of physical assets need to be thought of as contributing to better educational outcomes.  Otherwise they are impediments and constraints that decrease the quality of educational outcomes, increase the time and cost to the student, and ultimately reduce the viability of the institution.

For some institutions, this will not be a new way of thinking.  Others, focused on growing research programs and increasing programs for economic development, will find it difficult to return the student to the center of the diagram.  It is absolutely necessary, since the revenue from undergraduate education underpins the viability of every traditional public college and university.

Over the next few semesters, the ‘big data’ and ‘analytics’ movements will define value much more accurately than the current opinion based ranking systems.  Students will be able to see the relative costs and benefits of individual programs and institutions.  Certification systems will compete with Degree systems.  Time and cost to certification/graduation will be common market knowledge.

Placing the student at the center of every decision diagram will be of strategic importance.  As for facilities decisions, even small steps can be significant if they are focused on the right goals.  The project at CSU-Northridge to improve math skills is an excellent example.

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