For the past two years, CU Boulder has been working on the Space Utilization and Optimization Initiative, an ongoing effort to improve how CU Boulder manages space on campus to best support our students and the university’s mission of education and research.
Assistant Vice Chancellor Chris Ewing
CU Boulder Today spoke with Chris Ewing, assistant vice chancellor for the department of Planning Design & Construction (PD&C), to learn more about what this initiative means for the campus and what to expect in the future.
CU Boulder Today
This initiative has been going on since Provost Russell Moore and Senior Vice Chancellor and CFO Kelly Fox announced it in 2014. What have we accomplished since then?
AVC Ewing
Based on feedback from various campus constituents coupled with findings from the Huron Consulting external review, the space utilization steering committee began to focus on immediate needs. For example, students reported they needed more shared study space than was currently available, and we felt this was something we could have an immediate impact on.
Through work with Housing & Dining Services, our subcommittee on supporting student success found a way to keep a wing of the C4C (Center for Community) open after dining hours for shared study and collaboration space. This was so successful that a similar concept was employed in the design of the new Williams Village dining center.
Another example of a quick win is the team helped to identify administrative units on Main Campus who could move to East Campus, freeing up prime academic space to be designated for units that directly serve the university’s academic mission.
CU Boulder Today
So what else has been going on behind the scenes while you were accomplishing some of these quick wins?
AVC Ewing
There have been two primary areas of focus over the past six months. The first is establishing an accurate and updated space-management technology tool and database for tracking and managing the various types of space across campus.
Many of the university’s colleges and other units have been managing data related to space utilization on their own, but because they have been using different tools and processes to capture this data, it has been challenging to efficiently understand and manage space from a campus level.
To this end, a space utilization subcommittee was created to focus entirely on understanding our needs and identifying the best space-technology tool to meet those needs. I’m pleased to report a tool has been selected that will enable the campus to better understand our space data, facilitate space-management decisions at the department, college or campus level, and enable users to be involved and gain visibility into how their space is being tracked and managed in the tool.
The tool that has been selected is called Archibus, and the team is working through the planning phases that will lead to rollout of the tool later this year. The idea is that if we’re all using the same system, we can look at that data for individual units, colleges and the overall campus alike—all leading to better coordinated space decisions.
CU Boulder Today
Who will be responsible for overseeing space management at a "university level," as you say?
AVC Ewing
The vision is that there will be a service-oriented space management office responsible for tracking and managing space data in Archibus, fielding requests from campus constituents, advising and making recommendations on space utilization and leading the many efforts involved with the space utilization initiative.
This unit will initially consist of two analysts and will be headed by the director for the space management office. We are in the process of hiring an individual to lead this effort and plan to be able to announce him or her to the campus soon.
There will also be a steering committee with broad campus representation to oversee space utilization in conjunction with the space management office. The team is currently working to define membership for this committee, the decision-making mechanisms and how this committee will work in concert with the space management office, the Capital Governance Committee and other existing governance groups.
CU Boulder Today
You mentioned there was another major area of focus since we last spoke with you.
AVC Ewing
That’s correct. When Huron Consulting visited campus to conduct an analysis of our space utilization, one of their primary recommendations—in addition to advising we adopt a consistent tool and methodology for capturing space data—was to “change the culture” of how our campus thinks about space.
Because the implications of this work are likely to have a significant impact on how we teach, learn and work on campus, the team felt it was best to step back and facilitate a number of conversations and activities across campus to best inform our efforts moving forward.
Alex Macklin, former associate dean of University Libraries, led a human-centered design initiative to accomplish just that. A subcommittee spent several months engaging face-to-face with hundreds of individuals across campus to build awareness about the current state, inspire a desire to work together more effectively and better understand cultural barriers to change and begin addressing them.
Through this process, the team first broadly asked participants to describe the problems they experience related to space. The team then brought those problems and ideas to other campus groups in an iterative process to understand problems and design solutions for the most commonly identified themes. Finally, the team brought together academic and administrative leaders as well as faculty and students to review those suggestions and modify or clarify them.
CU Boulder Today
So what is your team working on now?
AVC Ewing
The subcommittee focused on selection of the technology tool and is now working on the rollout of Archibus. This is an important first step, as it will really help make all data visible and available to best inform space decisions moving forward.
Implementing Archibus will be a 6- to 24-month rollout and will involve an extensive effort to input all of the university’s space data into the database, requiring the team to work hands on with every unit on campus to gather and input current data into the new tool and learn how to use it.
Additionally, the team is working to draft our next set of policy, which will define how various campus groups and stakeholders work together to make space decisions. I’m very excited for this work to progress and bring consistency to how the university manages its space and help support our students and academic and research missions.
CU Boulder Today
What do you want the campus to know as we move forward?
AVC Ewing
I think it is important to understand there will be some pain points as this initiative moves forward, but it’s important to keep in mind this work will help ensure we are making strategic decisions about space allocation that allow us to prioritize resources to best support student success and the missions of the university.
