Campus planning is, on one level, a straightforward process to develop an answer to the question, "What facilities will we need to advance our mission over the next 10-20 years?" But as we think about what should be done, and the resources we may have to make these proposals reality, it becomes clearer that it's not quite so simple. We begin to ask questions like:

•  What aspect(s) of our mission are most deserving of facility support?

• Since we can only do a portion of what we'd like to do in any period, which projects are essential to our continued and greater success?

•  What projects do we need to do soon, and what can be deferred?

And we begin to realize that we need to frame a dialogue that will build consensus around institutional priorities.

There are a number of possibilities for determining priorities for campus planning projects.

• The President and/or Trustees could meet to declare the high level institutional view.

• The Faculty could determine its view of priorities rooted in the academic plan.

• The Advancement Office could identify those projects most likely to resonate with donors.

•  Students could decide the issue by liking projects in a Facebook poll.

• City residents could choose projects that would both provide amenities to the community while avoiding friction in the neighborhood.

• The Alumni could prioritize the projects for the good of the college.

• The Consultant could dictate priorities based on his or her preferences and best professional judgment.

Perhaps all of these things could be done and then somehow synthesized to articulate the ultimate statement of institutional direction. However, this process is likely to be lengthy, potentially messy and probably somewhat divisive. What is absolutely essential about prioritization is that it is fundamentally an institutional responsibility. While consensus may be impossible, a shared vision is achievable and a strong indicator of success for plan implementation.

There are two tools we employ to get to the heart of the prioritization puzzle. The first tool is based on a simple, somewhat impressionistic matrix that responds to the ambiguity of multi-dimensional goals. Two axes bisect one another at right angles creating 4 quadrants. The vertical axis represents urgency from low to high, the horizontal axis represents alignment with mission and vision from negligible to strong. Projects are placed in each quadrant according to the project's conformance with its plotted position along both axes. We were introduced to this methodology by, John Sell, a wonderful collaborator we met in the course of our ten-year (and counting) engagement with the College of Wooster.

The second tool is a more rigorous mapping of projects and their contribution to achieving strategic goals. A matrix is developed that arrays the projects down the vertical axis and the institution's strategic goals along the horizontal axis. Each project is then assessed in regard to the impact it would have in advancing each of the goals. (a 3- or 5-point scale is sufficient). Those projects with the most points rise to the top of the priority list. An implementation plan can then be devised informed by these rankings and the logistical factors affecting project sequencing.

Clients have led us to develop other methods beyond these, but whether we use either of these methods or devise a third, the process tends to be iterative. Generally the college participants in the prioritization process should be familiar with the planning to date and in positions with at least some responsibility for implementing the plan. Basic questions participants should wrestle with prior to prioritization discussions include:

·          Of this long list of projects and proposals which will most positively impact students? Why?

·          Which of these initiatives best advances our core mission? How?

·          How might these projects embody our vision of the future?

·          If we could only do three of the things proposed, which would they be? Why?

·          For each proposal, is there an acceptable (or better) way to meet the need?

·          Link a project to one or more strategic goals. If you can't, does the project have a lasting justification?

Prioritization of a plan's projects and initiatives is a demanding process critical to plan success and longevity. This is the stage of the process where the excitement of developing project concepts, and receiving and assessing the possible plan alternatives gives way to reflection and hard choices from a list of attractive options. It's where the institution exerts the most influence on the development and final representation of the plan. Ensuring that a sound methodology appropriate to the culture of the institution is in place to frame this phase is a key to plan success.

Readings, not all of them focused on campus planning, that might be done on the issue of decision-making in complex settings include the following:

"Campus Planning ­ Creating the Framework for Decision-Making", Arthur J. Lidsky, AICP

"Practical Considerations in Selecting a Method for Planning", Campus Planning, Richard P. Dober, p. 177

"A Pyramid of Decision Approaches", Schoemaker & Russo

Nudge, Thaler & Sunstein, ch. 4 - "When do we need a nudge?" and ch. 5 - "Choice Architecture"

The Fifth Discipline, Senge, ch. 11 - "Shared Vision"

- George Mathey

As campus and facility planners, we often describe our work as pre-architectural. That is, we work to help our clients make decisions about mission- and vision-driven campus development, renovation and new construction. This activity is an essential step for orderly, effective campus renewal and growth and is an important precursor to architectural design - the development of concepts, drawings and specifications for construction of a new building.

So while our work is pre-architectural, it encompasses both planning and design.

Some definitions can be helpful:

planning noun

The act or process of making or carrying out plans; specifically: the establishment of goals, policies, and procedures for a social or economic unit <city planning> <business planning>

                                                                                                         merriam-webster.com

A set of intended actions, through which one expects to achieve a goal.

                                                                                                                     wiktionary.org

Planning in organizations and public policy is both the organizational process of creating and maintaining a plan; and the psychological process of thinking about the activities required to create a desired goal on some scale. As such, it is a fundamental property of intelligent behavior. This thought process is essential to the creation and refinement of a plan, or integration of it with other plans, that is, it combines forecasting of developments with the preparation of scenarios of how to react to them. An important, albeit often ignored aspect of planning, is the relationship it holds with forecasting. Forecasting can be described as predicting what the future will look like, whereas planning predicts what the future should look like.

                                                                                                                      wikipedia.org

design noun

   1. A plan (with more or less detail) for the structure and functions of an artifact, building or system.

   2. A pattern, as an element of a work of art or architecture.

   3. The composition of a work of art.

   4. Intention or plot.

   5. The shape or appearance given to an object, especially one that is intended to make it more attractive.

   6. The art of designing

                                                                                                                            Wiktionary

Planning and design are different but similar, like fraternal twins. It is revealing that in the examples above design is often defined as dependent on planning.

Any good design has benefitted from the planning (however unconscious) that supports its execution.

Any good plan has benefitted from its intrinsic design and from designs that illustrate the plan.

Planning tends to the Apollonian, design tends to the Dionysian.

Planning is more aligned with craft while design is more aligned with art.

For individuals, planning can be spontaneous and nearly indistinguishable from design.

For complex organizations, formal planning is an essential foundation for design. The discipline, inclusiveness, analysis, prediction and order of planning informs campus design making it stronger and more integrated with institutional goals and vision.

We believe that serious planning is often overlooked or short-circuited by the excitement generated by a compelling design. For this reason, our approach to campus planning is to emphasize the planning process to ensure for our clients a solid basis for decision-making that is sensitive to change and can inspire multiple design solutions - executed by us or the many other talented designers at work today.

The quote below comes from a talk I heard 26 years ago given by John Whiteman, a former urban planning faculty member at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. I believe he credited someone else but I have been unable to track down the original source.

Do you want to influence the shape and character of a campus, neighborhood, city or nation, or would you rather decide the precise location of a window mullion?

                                                                                                                                     Anon.

This question summarizes how I feel about the relationship between planning and design and helps crystallize for me the importance of the planning activity and its benefits for colleges and universities.

The differences between the planning and design stages are perhaps most tellingly revealed by the ways we illustrate our thoughts at each stage. Planning graphics tend to be simple, germinal, suggestive, and in a very intentional way, not quite complete. The goal is to convey information and, hopefully a bit of spirit, but to leave room for multiple interpretations.

Design graphics in architecture, at least, can range from the loosely pictorial to the nearly photographic as the concept evolves into a design and then the detailed instructions for building.

The second maps the development sequence from programming, through campus planning and building design. Our thanks and respects to the architects for the use of their drawings in this illustration of planning & design graphics.

Three of our recent clients have three very different, singular, memorable, iconic main buildings. Each is fulfilling a vital role on its campus and each is at a different stage of its recurring life cycle.

St. Charles Hall - Carroll College, Helena, Montana

The most typical of the Old Main type, the central portion of St. Charles was the original building for Mount St. Charles College, the precursor to Carroll College. Designed by the Washington D.C.-based A.O. von Herbulis and built in stages from 1909 to 1924, St. Charles is the campus architectural icon, and its palette of red porphyry ashlar blocks with limestone trim and red tile roofs is repeated in several campus buildings. The uses in St. Charles run the gamut from student housing to classrooms, to academic office space to fine arts and music studios to the theatre for the College's thriving performing arts programs (formerly the college gymnasium. The College is working to give St. Charles a first-rate renovation to extend the life of this much-loved symbol of the College.

Isaac Delgado Hall (Building 1) - Delgado Community College, New Orleans, Louisiana

This neo-classical building designed by Edward Angelo Christy (then architect for the city of New Orleans) and completed in 1921 is both the iconic symbol of the College's City Park campus and its most heavily-used academic and administrative building. Pressed into intensified service in the aftermath of Katrina and the closure of over a third of the campus's facilities, Building 1 houses classrooms, administrative offices, and the departments ranging from Music to Biology to Child Development to ESL to Theater and the Fitness Center. In order to accommodate accelerating growth (now just shy of pre storm levels) the College is working hard to create new academic space to decompress Building 1 and facilitate renovations that will extend its contributions to the campus and the critical role Delgado is playing in the city's and region's re-building.

University Hall - Lesley University, Cambridge, Massachusetts

Probably the least traditional of the three buildings, this building was designed by Chicago architect George C. Nimmons and began life in 1928 as a Sears Roebuck department store. Acquired by Lesley in 1994, and now re-named University Hall, it currently houses nearly half of the University's classrooms, its science programs, its signature School of Education, as well as a vibrant retail floor at street level to maintain a neighborhood amenity and contribute to the activity in Porter Square.

Although these buildings are very different in history and function each has endured due to some fundamental qualities :

Size - All of these buildings are large, (St. Charles=75,600, Delgado=118,000 NASF, University Hall=166,000 net square feet) making them more accommodating of change, and churn.

Adaptable Structure - Each of these buildings has structural qualities that have ensured longevity and evolutionary capabilities. St. Charles sustained only minor damage to mostly ornamental elements in an earthquake that hit Helena in 1984, and has a robust mixture of large and small spaces to accommodate changing uses. University Hall makes minimal use of bearing walls relying on structural columns that facilitate relatively easy space reconfiguration. Delgado Hall is probably the most structurally constrained, but is at least durable enough to sustain long periods of minimal re-investment. All of the buildings have higher than currently-typical floor-to-floor heights, allowing introduction of systems never contemplated by the original designers and users without compromising the spatial qualities of the rooms.

Campus Heritage - Each of these buildings is the highest profile building on campus and in the case of St. Charles and Delgado Halls, so much of the institution's history is bound to the building that separating the two is nearly impossible. Even University Hall, though a relatively recent acquisition, was instantly the most prominent of Lesley's buildings and connects it most directly to its neighborhood. The very fact of its acquisition sent a signal to the community that Lesley is a dynamic, growing and entrepreneurial institution with a significant public role, symbolizing its transformation into a distinctive University with an enviable national reputation.

Good Esthetics - This is critical. To become an icon, it generally helps to be attractive. None of these buildings are the very best of their types, but all of them evince a refined, handsome presence that speaks to the institution's region, longevity and aspirations.

- George Mathey

Erika's piece on public-private housing partnerships stresses the critical importance of the project team, to ensure the good communication that leads to a high-quality outcome.

Over the years, many institutions have increasingly preferred planning project teams composed of multiple firms to ensure maximum coverage of all systems from academic to waste water.

These large teams require strong leadership. The team's lead firm must have deep experience in-house and good team management and coordination skills.

Applying all team members' talents to the project in appropriate amounts at the right time requires clarity about desired outcomes as a key starting point. While the project team can help identify, refine and articulate the scope and depth of deliverables, this is fundamentally a client responsibility, so spend some time during the drafting of the RFP focusing on the specifics of the deliverables. After all, these are the tangible products that will represent the many hours of work and collaboratively-generated wisdom of the project team. The documents will be used over several years to guide decisions on campus development. Talk with your colleagues about what your institution requires of these products? Who will use them? How will you use them? Answers to these questions early in the project will guarantee a satisfactory outcome.

When evaluating teams, consider combining local expertise with national (or even international) experience. Teams that meld these perspectives and knowledge will provide stronger input and richer solutions.

If yours is a large, complex institution, a large, complex team may well be necessary. For smaller colleges and universities, a small team is beautiful. If specialized assessments and knowledge are required, these skills can be added to the team as needed in a focused way, rather than bloating the team (and its fees) from project inception to completion.

Finally, in team selection, pay attention to the personality and character of the team leader. Campus plans typically take several months to complete, and the quality of the relationship with this person can make the difference between an adequate and an excellent plan.

- George Mathey

In the realm of campus development, public-private partnerships are becoming a more common occurrence, but are nothing new.  The trend began nearly 20 years ago as cash-strapped colleges and universities looked to the private sector to assist with the construction of student housing.  Private development had been used previously to construct bookstores, student centers, and offices, so upon a key IRS decision in the 90's, housing was the next natural extension of this arrangement. Private developers, with knowledge of real estate markets and the development process, saw that their skills could marry well with universities' tax-exempt status, land holdings, and constant stream of tenants. 

Universities are finding that this is a beneficial arrangement for a number of reasons.  For one, it provides the obvious advantage of deferring the delivery and budget risks to the developer as well lessening the impact of the debt to the university's books. This also makes the developer solely accountable for completing the project on time.  When students sign contracts for the housing months in advance, they and their parents fully expect to move in at the designated date before the semester begins.  If a project gets behind schedule and the facility is not ready for occupancy on day one of the contract, the developer is charged with finding suitable accommodations, usually in a nearby hotel, and arranging transportation to campus. 

This partnership structure also leads to a more manageable bidding process that greatly reduces the amount of time and money needed to go from project inception to completion.  As opposed to a standard process, whereby the university bids out separately for planning, design, and construction services in stages, with public-private development the university issues a single RFP for full-service developer-led teams.  The developer is able to assemble a specialized team of architects, engineers, and contractors and leads the process while working intimately with university administration.  The value of this type of integrated planning is that it allows for the entire team to discuss design and specification issues as they happen, rather than requiring the construction team to loop back with the design team over discrepancies, helping to keep the project on budget and on schedule.  The development and construction process is also more streamlined because the developer is required to guarantee the design to the exact specifications agreed on by the University at a guaranteed maximum price.

Georgia, like a number of other states, does not provide public funding for housing development, which leads most public colleges and universities in the state to pursue public-private partnerships to increase their housing stock.  In particular, Georgia Southern University in Statesboro, Ga. has built 2,900 new beds since 2003, each with varying design programs and rental rates, to attract undergraduate students to on-campus living throughout their college years.  The most recent project to open is Centennial Place, completed in partnership with Ambling University Development Group, which includes 1,001 beds in apartments and suites as well as 10,000 SF of retail space.  For this development, GSU's third public-private housing development, the University set up a separate single-purpose non-profit LLC to own the project.  GSU manages and maintains the property as part of its current housing program, with the LLC board providing oversight of the building's finances and repair costs.

In the end, it's the institution's students, faculty, or staff, not the development team, who will be the users. As Vickie Hawkins, Director of Housing for Georgia Southern University, states, what is most important in the relationship is to choose a developer that is willing to treat the university as a customer and work collaboratively.  "When disagreements arose on issues such as how much money was allocated to the project, interpretation of the contract, or interpretation of the University's architectural standards, the clear, open, and honest communication as well as the strong working relationship that the university and developer had established was the key to effectively resolving these issues.  You cannot have an adversarial relationship and get what you want out of the project." The university's administration has to be very involved with decisions on the design and material selection throughout the project.

Hawkins, who has been with Georgia Southern University for 30 years, offers the following advice for institutions seeking to enter into a public-private partnership. 

·         Each state and university is different.  Find out how your state addresses public-private development and what your college or university administration desires from the project before moving forward. Some trustee boards are more willing to take on risk than others to control the development process and outcome.  Also, contact others who have been through the process to see what worked and what didn't to get information that will help you make the best decision.

·         Ensure that the RFP is as comprehensive and specific as possible so that developer teams know what you are seeking and what to expect from the project.

·         Ensure that the contract is strong with clear language to help avoid disputes because, in the end, the contract guides the process.

·         For the University and the developer, the detailed architectural design specifications provided a high level of clarity so that Ambling knew what GSU wanted and GSU also could refer back to the standards when disagreements in design came up.  The specifications went from the broad to the specific, including items such as the type of surveillance system to install and bathtub faucets.

·         Ensure that you work with a developer team that values open communication, an honest working relationship, and collaboration to work out problems and keep everyone on the same page. 

·         Set expectations of one another at the beginning and review them every few months to see how well you are meeting them

Public-private partnerships do not work for all campus housing projects, but they do allow universities to drastically increase the stock of on-campus housing and other revenue producing campus facilities without relying on public money or donations.  While it is too early to understand the long-term implications of this type of development, to date it has allowed a more efficient and collaborative process that can create a winning formula for both the universities and development teams involved.

-Erika Johnson

The past year has been a real wet blanket on the fire that has burned merrily over the past decade driving the engine of campus development. A year in which the key campus development questions have abruptly morphed from "How can we secure that final lead donation for our new facility?" to "How many more people are going to be furloughed or laid off?"

As Arthur wrote back in Issue 21, down economies can be excellent periods in which to advance transformative strategic planning. In the physical and project planning realm, however, many participants are likely to be asking, "What's the point in planning a new facility or renovation that there's no money to build?" But just as this can be a good time for big picture plans, it's also a good time for pre-architectural project planning. A couple of ideas:

·        Convene a group to discuss the next facility called for by your campus plan. Since with tight budgets you are more likely to be doing this in-house, focus the group on the program drivers, rather than the details of facility planning - Why do we need this facility? What strategic goals will it advance? What characteristics can be built into the facility to accomplish those goals? What existing and potential new uses will it accommodate? What principles should guide the reallocation of any space vacated when a new facility comes online? What institution-wide uses or values should it embody? In short, create a vision statement for the building.

·        Convene a group to discuss a long-standing, recurring planning concern. Have you been frustrated by the lack of planning guidelines at your institution? Have there been repeated directives to re-imagine the library, or the classroom pool, or departmental office allocation and configuration? Now may be the only time to advance these discussions in a deliberative way.

- George Mathey

Where There is no Vision, The People Perish

Proverbs 21:18

It is not often that a quote from the Old Testament can be found in a piece about campus planning.  Having an institutional vision is one of the most important first steps of a campus planning process.  Yet, often it is either missing entirely or done so poorly that it squanders its impact.

Most vision statements are less about defining a future, than describing the present.  They are more a mission statement that describes what the institution is presently doing than a statement of what the institution intends to become.

Most vision statements are so generic that they are interchangeable - just swap the name of your college or university with some other institution's vision statement and see if it applies.

Words such as  " we will become ..,"  or "we aspire to be ..,"  or "we will be ..,"  are indicative of a vision statement that is describing a future state.  Jim Barker, the President of Clemson University in South Carolina had a simple but very effective vision:  "Clemson will be one of the Nation's top-20 public universities."  That vision has helped to transform the University.

A vision statement is worthless, if there isn't a plan to achieve it.  For instance, Clemson's vision was accompanied by 27 goals that were divided into five categories: academics, research and service; campus life; student performance; educational resources; and Clemson's national reputation.  Responsibility for realizing the goals was assigned to actual people or the offices they held. Both vision and goals were approved by the Board.

The results of this simple vision are: 

·        the hiring of 320 new faculty with an emphasis on research

·        greater proportion of grad students

·        increasing quality of students, faculty, and staff

·        significant increase in fund-raising and capital projects

·        doubled sponsored research funding in three years

·        increased space

·        created joint University and corporate research park

·        and USNews ranking moved from the mid 30s to the low 20s. In spite of the recent flap over Clemson's conduct regarding USNews surveys, a rise of this magnitude would not have been possible without the strong vision and  tangible results.

Shirley Ann Jackson, the President of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, developed another example of a simple, but effective vision: "To achieve greater prominence in the 21st century as a top-tier world-class technological research university with global reach and global impact."  RPI developed 150 goals to support this vision and these goals fit into six themes: resident undergraduate education; research and graduate education; education for working professionals; scientific and technological entrepreneurship; Rensselaer communities; and enabling change.  Again, key leaders were charged with achieving goals. Both vision and goals were approved by the Board.

The results of Dr. Jackson's simple vision are:

·        80 new faculty

·        doubled the amount of sponsored research dollars

·        anonymous gift of $360 million

·        new biotechnology center

·        new experimental and performing arts center

·        new interactive pedagogies across all curricula 

The lack of an institutional vision is a failure of leadership - because it is the responsibility of the president or the executive cabinet to create a sense of direction toward a future and a detailed, strategy and accountable plan for achieving that vision. 

"The planning effectiveness of a campus depends on the planning effectiveness of its presidential leadership.  There is no escape from this situation."        John Millett

"You got to be careful if you don't know where you're going, because you might not get there."   Yogi Berra