Talking Stick - September/October 2016 - 16

JUST IN

Ask the Librarian
Q: Is contracting with a private developer the way to go for my
campus housing program?
A: It's a business practice with many names: outsourcing,
contracting, privatization, P3s, public-private or privateprivate partnerships (PPP), and so on. Whatever you call
it, an agreement with an outside entity to perform all
or a portion of a campus's housing functions has been
a subject of interest for campus housing providers for
a while. This is unlikely to change soon, as institutions
continue to deal with limited budgets while trying to
provide the best possible experiences for their students.
A partnership is among the options that might be
considered. Is a PPP, in some shape or form, right for
your campus? The answer is "maybe."
Just as every campus is unique, every PPP
arrangement is unique, so extrapolating from a single
case study, whether a success story or otherwise, is
difﬁcult. It depends a great deal on the campus, their
desires, the private entity, how they agree to divide
duties, and how well their cultures mesh. That's a very
unsatisfying answer, I know.
Because P3s remain a relatively new entity in the
campus housing world, the research in this area is
somewhat limited and similarly inconclusive. Some
studies show greater student satisfaction and success in
one arrangement or the other; some reveal no signiﬁcant
differences. That means there's more footwork for
campuses considering a PPP relationship: ﬁnding studies
that look at schools similar to theirs, creating ﬁnancial
models for different scenarios, then talking to private
developers and seeing if anything clicks. Here are a
few studies of the effects of these arrangements on the
residents and whether there's a distinct beneﬁt to living
in a self-operated or privately contracted building. Most
of what I've seen in this area looks at one or maybe
two institutions. This is not an exhaustive list by any
means, so feel free to contact me for more citations
or full-text articles, if you can't access them from your
home institution.

Emily Glenn is the ACUHO-I librarian and is available
to assist with most of your questions. She can be reached at
Emily@acuho-i.org, and she is on Twitter as @acuhoi_lib.

TALKING STICK

In the ACUHO-I Library:
"To Contract or Not to Contract," Jay Klingel, 2011 Facilities
Conference.
"Good Institutional Practices to Improve Dining: Lessons
Learned from Self-Op and Contract Programs," Kevin Maurer,
Anthony Montefusco, John King, Darlena Jones, 2013 Annual
Conference & Exposition.
Talking Stick Article
Business: "Not Much Is Typical Here," Susan Strobel Hogan,
Talking Stick, November/December 2008.

Elsewhere:
"UC Berkeley's Adaptations to the Crisis of Public Higher
Education in the U.S.: Privatization? Commercialization? Or
Hybridization?" George Breslauer, Center for Studies in Higher
Education, December 1, 2013.
"Privatize or Self-Operate: Decision-Making in Campus Services
Management," Jeffery Shelton Pittman, dissertation, Old
Dominion University, 2003.
"A Comparative Analysis of Differences in Resident Satisfaction,
Retention, and Cumulative Grade Point Average Between
University of Central Florida Owned and Afﬁliated Housing,"
Jeffrey Michael Novak, dissertation, University of Central
Florida, 2008.
"The Impact of Two Residential Models for African American
Students at an Historically Black Institution," Douglas F.
Gwynn, dissertation, Morgan State University, 2015.
"Understanding the Relationship Between Undergraduate
Housing Environments and Academic Self-Concept," Scott M.
Helfrich, dissertation, Pennsylvania State University, 2011.
"Study of the Effects of Outsourcing Residence Life Programs on
Student Satisfaction," James H. Manley Jr., dissertation, Capella
University, 2011.
"An Examination of the Relationship Between Outsourcing
and Perceptions of Campus Climate," David M. Milstone,
dissertation, University of Massachusetts, Boston, 2005.

Talking Stick - September/October 2016

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Talking Stick - September/October 2016