Talking Stick - January/February 2011 - 21

Dan Mizer, associate director of facilities and operations at Texas A&M University in College Station, explains that their decision to raze residence halls was based on consideration of how they could best serve the university community: “We decided to replace the halls because they had served their time, and we needed to be more competitive with our housing options.” Renovating

Lemasters explains, “We surveyed our students, who overwhelmingly indicated support for new, suite-style housing built in the middle of campus. They also indicated that they were willing to pay a significantly higher room rate for the new suites. Our alumni supported the projects as evidenced by the fact that our Foundation actually owns the new buildings.” The result was well worth

Demolish What?
Does the potential decision to demolish halls on your campus have you nervous? Arm yourself with current facilities information from the 2010 ACUhO-I/APPA housing Facilities Conference. Each of the presentations below can be found online in the ACUhO-I Online Library. Once inside the library, simply click “Facilities Conference” on the front page. • “Renovate or Replace: The Process of Long-Range Planning for Existing Buildings” by Brad Noyes and Jeffrey Juliano. • “Rethinking Facilities Audit” by Mike Black, Gary Thompson, and Linda Anderson. • “Lifecycle Maintenance and Budgeting” by Steve Waller and Mark hill. • “Preventive Maintenance vs. Deferred Maintenance” by Mark hill and Bill Johnson. • “Class for Clunkers: Breathing New Life into a Tired Building” by Paul Wuennenberg, John Biernbaum, and Richard Kirschner.

older halls had become cost prohibitive, and the physical structures could not provide the kind of amenities offered by nearby off-campus housing. They simply couldn’t compete in the kind of comparison shopping that students and parents conduct when looking at housing options. This assessment was also the driving factor in the decision to raze four halls at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. “We began to hear from prospective students and their families that our older traditionalstyle residence halls were becoming a negative factor in their decision to even consider attending IUP,” says Michael Lemasters, director of housing and residential life. “Our current students were moving off campus as quickly as they could for more comfortable accommodations, and as a result we had multiple vacancies.” The solution was to discover what students wanted.

the effort, Lemasters notes: “For the most part, everything worked extremely well. The students have filled the new buildings, demand has never been higher, and enrollment is continuing to grow.” Once the decision is made to demolish a residence hall, it’s important to get everyone on board. Chareny Rydl, senior associate director of residence life at Texas A&M, explains that disseminating information is the first step: “We did much work in informing students and alumni about retiring the halls.” Student government groups and student-led media were also informed of the plans to replace the older halls on campus, and this kind of overt communication and transparent decision making was, according to Rydl and Mizer, largely responsible for the project’s success. Texas A&M also worked with the Aggie Foundation to

texas a&M University at College station

january + february 2011

Talking Stick - January/February 2011

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Talking Stick - January/February 2011