Page 9 - College Planning & Management, January 2018

TOPIC: A Bird’s Eye View of Higher Education TREND: Toward Embracing Change
PREDICTED BY: Tom Oliff, senior vice president for Administrative Services, Broward College, Cypress Creek, FL
Not just into the future, but even right now, suc- cessful or, more likely, surviving higher education institutions cannot resign themselves to change but must embrace it as a core value. Industry is demand- ing narrow and customized certification as opposed to traditional degrees. Students require diverse, mobile, and personalized educational delivery methods. There are growing opportunities to access knowledge through massive open online courses (MOOCs). Global competi- tion for students grows by the hour.
Traditional 10-year facility master plans that project straight-line student growth and recommend a corre- sponding schedule of new brick-and-mortar construction are a thing of the past. Facilities, and all assets for that matter, must be viewed today as holdings that either result in profit or loss. Today, all assets—and especially facilities and real estate—must be examined with an eye toward maximizing their productivity and value.
Most colleges and universities own properties that meet the location, location, location criteria for which area developers are desperately looking. Actively lever- aging these private development partnership oppor- tunities now can be a key to providing either large, up- front capital infusions or years of recurring unrestricted revenues, depending on how the deal is structured.
Finally, it is partnerships that will be the mantra
of the surviving and successful schools of the future. Intentionally seeking partners, whether they be public- private development partnerships, co-location with private business, custom education academies for industry sectors, symbiotic partnerships with educa- tional entities (whether K–12 or other area colleges and universities), and, yes, even global partnerships will be the strategies of the survivors and the winners.
TOPIC: Architecture
TREND: Toward Regenerative Design Practices PREDICTED BY: Eric Carbonnier, PhD, AIA, LEED-AP BD+C, associate principal/vice president of Sustainability and Eera Babtiwale, LEED-AP BD+C, associate principal/vice president of Sustainability, HMC Architects, Ontario, CA
With more than 1.5 billion gross square feet of higher education facilities in the U.S., coupled with an energy demand that represents the second-highest ex- pense area after personnel, higher education facilities are pivotal to inspiring environmental change.
No longer simply a destination for higher learning, colleges and universities are rapidly becoming “living laboratories” that cultivate our environmental stewards of tomorrow. By combining cutting-edge research with built environments that actually teach, motivate, and in- spire students, these facilities become incubators for the next age of sustainability, known as regenerative design.
While sustainable design attempts to meet the needs of the present without compromising the needs of future generations, regenerative principals seek to replenish and restore natural resources.
With our development ambitions currently outpacing the availability of finite resources, energy, and contri- bution to intensified climate disturbances, it becomes clearer that a regenerative roadmap is necessary.
The U.S. commercial building stock, including colleges and universities, has increased by 21 percent in floor area since 2003, and the U.S. population is anticipated to increase 22 percent by 2060 to 416 million. Sustainable development strategies struggle to keep up with the demand, whereas regenerative thinking encourages innovation and progress.
In this new era of sustainable and positive impact architecture, regenerative design practices can shift college and university facilities from consumers of natural resources to restoration think tanks aimed at positive ecological change by virtue of its sheer mass of place, politics, and policy.
JANUARY 2018 / COLLEGE PLANNING & MANAGEMENT 9
PHOTOS © SHANNON O’CONNOR