Campus Checkup: Assessing Higher Education Facilities

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Episode Transcript

[Music Intro]

Brian Trainer, Host: Welcome to Trends + Tensions, presented by BHDP, where we discuss Trends in Architectural and Interior design and the competing priorities or Tensions that arise from integrating new ideas into existing organizations, enterprises, and institutions. In this episode, “Campus Checkup: Assessing Higher Education Facilities,” we are joined by Marlo Cookston, Director for Enterprise Risk & Facilities at Anderson University, and Tom Sens, a Client Leader at BHDP. I am your host, Brian Trainer, senior strategist for BHDP. Let’s get started.

Brian: Marlo, would you tell us who you are and what you do?

Marlo Cookston: I am Marlo Cookston, the director for enterprise risk and facilities at Anderson University in Anderson, IN.

Brian: Well, thank you for being here, Marlo. And again, we have Tom. Tom remind people who you are and what you do.

Tom Sens: My name is Tom Sens. I am Client Leader with BHDP's Higher Education group. Hard to believe I'm in my 32nd year at BHDP. I would say probably 25ish of those years I've been focusing exclusively on higher education clients such as Marlo and Anderson University.

Brian: Speaking of that, though, we're talking in the higher education sandbox. Today, specifically about FCAs, now me is a non-higher education person. What is an FCA, and why should a university care?

Tom: OK. I'll give the definition, and Marlo, maybe you can add on from the client's perspective. So the FCA, that's an acronym that stands for facilities conditions assessment. It's a very rigorous process where we go kind of building by building on a campus. And we look at each facility, and we give all of the different components, the different systems, a grade. Then, we take the repair cost that we anticipate a building will need and we divide that by what we estimate the replacement value of that building is, and we come up with a number. So, if it's a low number, like a .1, that's a pretty good score. But when you get into the like the .4 is the .5’s, that becomes a red flag that it's probably going to be more expensive to really fix that building than perhaps either do away with it, demolish it, or even maybe sell it off. So that's kind of a quick snapshot on what an FCA is. I don't know, Marlo. If you'd like to add from the client’s perspective.

Marlo: Yes, so why should the university care about this? And why is it important? From the client's perspective as a university, the number one asset on a campus, especially a residential campus, is the buildings. And as we look at, from the facilities condition assessment, we look at those numbers to help make strategic plans and budgetary plans. How do we go about servicing not only the buildings but the people who utilize those buildings? That’s the information that we get from a facility's condition assessment.

Tom: So there's just some other information that I think clients find of value with facilities conditions assessment. Obviously, you get the current conditions of the building’s assets. You also get a forecast of the asset's age and the projected lifespan. We develop cost estimates to assist in capital planning, as Marlo had just mentioned. We identify any code or life safety concerns. I know when we did the FCA for Marlo's campus at Anderson University, there were some life safety issues that we had to really quickly bring to their attention. And then we also identify the potential replacement value of the building. So they really understand kind of what their facilities assets are.

Brian: So when you say life safety issues, like what kind of things did you identify In this FCA?

Tom: Could be something as simple as some stairs that are in disrepair. An elevator that doesn't work. Maybe there's some egress lighting that's not functioning properly. Fire alarms aren't working. But if there are things like that, we'll flag them. And oftentimes the facilities conditions assessment, they're very, very long documents. What we do is we probably would recommend they look at the executive summary, which provides kind of the priorities that they really need to address any many of those, are the life safety issues.

Brian: Marlo, what made you say hey, we need to do this FCA right now?

Marlo: So, this was the very first time in the 100 plus years that the university has been in existence that we did this type of a deep dive into the facilities condition. We did that because as we are looking at decision making, budgetary constraints, and changes, the higher education is in absolute flux at the moment. What's this going to look like? What does this need to look like for these next generation of kids coming in? And this was our foundation. The decision was made. Let's figure out what we have right now, what we have to work with, what we need to do to help us strategize where we are going.

Tom: That's a great summary, Marlo.

Brian: For better or for worse, your buildings are your biggest asset, but another important feature of any college is the students. What is the deferred maintenance impact on students, and what does that do for retention or attraction? 

Marlo: Yeah. So that is, that is a really, really big question on our campus right now. And we are looking at what students want to see on campus. What is important to them? We're asking those stakeholder questions and then looking at how we can renovate, refresh, and make better the places where the student lens is most important for retention and for drawing students into campus. Anderson University is mostly a residential campus. So, what our facilities look like, where our students live, and where they eat are of utmost importance to the student experience. If we don't have our students, we don't have a university here, and so we are looking at that student lens and asking the student stakeholder questions what are the most important things, and that's how we are choosing those strategic decisions budgetarily, facilities wise moving forward.

Tom: Brian, I would answer it. There was an APPA (Association of Physical Plant Administrators) study done some years ago that asked a prospective student what they look for when they're making their decision to choose a college or university. And there's really two things. They look at the building that's going to be their place of study. If they study science, it's going to be the science building. But they also want to see where they're going to sleep, where are they going to, you know, be hanging out most of their time. If they go to a residence hall that's cold, that's damp, that you know is just not functioning, that's gonna be a hard sell. To the point, Marlo, I think we really need to understand if your campus, like Anderson University, is primarily residential; those residence halls are extremely important from an attraction and retention standpoint, aren't they?

Marlo: Yes.

Brian: If you know things are broken, why are schools not fixing issues upfront and waiting for them to become bigger problems? Also, why is there such a thing as deferred maintenance?

Marlo: Yeah, that's a really good question. Sometimes, I sit here and ponder that question myself. 

*Laugher*

Marlo: Knowing that the pandemic had a very severe and interesting impact on residential campuses, you know, lots of things slowed down at that point. Maintenance slowed down at that point. Housekeeping slowed down at that point. Coming out of the pandemic, we have had supply chain issues. From 2022 to 2024, the cost of supplies has gone up 23%, and revenue has not gone up 23%. So, you know, we're looking at costs exceeding revenue at this point. So, we're needing to make very strategic decisions on how we use the dollars that are available. Historically also, I know that Anderson University has been in this position, and there are other universities I'm sure of. In fact, I've spoken with colleagues that there were decisions made earlier on to do expansion without the idea of what are those operating costs going to be further down the road or how do we set aside money for that deferred maintenance. The idea of always thinking tomorrow is going to be better tomorrow or is going to be easier. And just like we do as homeowners thinking, “Oh, I'm not gonna replace my roof this year. I'm gonna wait. You know, I just don't have the budget, or we'd rather go to Disneyland,” right? And so, we're making these choices, and I think that is no different on a university campus of how those choices are made. And that's where we are today fixing it.

Tom: It's really key to the deferred maintenance. It's when you bring a new building online, you really do need to budget for its operational cost for its deferred maintenance. The deferred maintenance doesn’t get inexpensive over time; it just increases because the systems get older. And if you don't fix them now, address them now; it's going to be a larger bill down the road. So, you need to really establish a budget for operating a facility from day one.

Brian: The unfun stuff is necessary to keep the day-to-day going. So, Marlo, you talked about setting strategies for how you're going to spend the money or how you're going to do the maintenance; what strategies are you exploring to prepare for future maintenance?

Marlo: Well, one of those is exactly what we were just talking about, is having the conversation with my colleagues on the advancement and development team and putting a policy in place where we do have those funds set aside initially as we are moving forward and thinking about the overall strategic plan for the campus and moving forward and when we start to think about building those new buildings or renovating or adding on; let's put that policy into place so we are not in the same place that we are today. Let's help with that preventative maintenance and move forward. The second thing I would say is another strategy we're exploring to prepare for our future maintenance is creating that deferred maintenance plan. How we are going to address what is currently on the ground in front of us right now. What does that look like? How are we utilizing our budget dollars right now to hit those high points of what needs to be addressed per the facility condition assessment and then per the lens of ROI, and what is the best return on our investment? So those are the two strategies that we're putting into place at the moment. Again, this is a newer way forward for Anderson University. This is the first time we've done this, so we are learning as we go and creating these strategies right now. We've been sitting with the facility's condition assessment for about six months. As we make some strategic decisions and create the strategy for curriculum and planning for the future of Anderson University. And so, we're tying all of this, the facilities condition assessment, into all of those future plans.

Brian: Well, what about the process itself? Like what did you expect going in versus where you are now?

Tom: Relative to lessons learned, there might be one with how the FCA is presented and how it's digested because you and I had a conversation a couple of weeks ago, Marlo, regarding just making sure that all the board members are on board. You can take a document like that, and you can pick it apart. You can say, “Oh, that building doesn't need to have $300,000 worth of investment relative to maintenance; it's 100,000.” You can make that argument, but you have to be in the weeds, and you also have to be at a high level. We're saying $80 million, is it 80? It's not 80, it could be 90. It could be 70. But we're just saying that based on this week that we spent on campus, we think there's about an $80 million deferred maintenance problem, but it's how it's communicated to the board of trustees, so they get behind it. They understand that there's a problem that needs to be addressed. They understand that it's not going to be done in one year. They understand that it's a process that needs to be planned for. So, it's really how it's communicated out there, I think, is very, very important.

Marlo: I would agree with that, and I would agree that that communication piece is critical. Honestly, I'm not sure that our executive leadership fully understood and grasped what we have here, and again, back to that idea that Tom just mentioned. We have a small building on campus. It's a health services building, and it's just a tiny little building, and the fair market value is about $100,000. But the FCA says that it would cost roughly about $350,000 to replicate that. And the idea is that we're not replicating the building. We're replicating the services, the entire health services that are inside that building. And some of the leadership was not fully aware of what that meant, and they looked at the outside of this building, and they said, “It's not going to cost $350,000 to rebuild this building.” And again, it's an educational component. I wished that I would have known more about a facility condition assessment, having educated myself more. That way, when it is and was presented or becomes part of our data that I could then enhance that education for the executive leadership. That's why I wish I had had more of a background with a facilities condition assessment to be able to express and communicate the value of what the facilities condition assessment provides for the university.

Brian: Awesome. Any final thoughts before we go? Tom, you wanna go first, and then we'll let Marlo have the last word?

Tom: I guess on behalf of BHDP, Marlo, thank you for the continued partnership. It's been really a pleasure to work with you and your colleagues on campus. Next time, I guess another lesson learned: let's do that FCA, the site work, in July and not in January.

Marlo: I would agree. Let's do that.

Brian: Perfect. And Marlo, any final thoughts from you?

Marlo: Yes, I would say for campuses, for universities, a facilities condition assessment is the first thing before putting together a campus strategic plan. It's not, as we said, not as sexy and not as fun because you get information that is really a challenge to swallow. But do the facilities condition assessment before you launch into a strategic campus plan, so you know what you're working with and you know what you have currently in-house before you start adding a whole bunch of new stuff.

Brian: Awesome! Marlo, thank you very much. Tom, thank you as well. Thanks for sharing your expertise and insights, and I hope you both have a lovely day.

Tom: Thank you. Brian.

Marlo: Thank you so much.

Tom: Take care!

[Music Outro]

Brain: Thank you for joining Trends + Tensions presented by BHDP for this episode, “Campus Checkup: Assessing Higher Education Facilities,” with Marlo Cookston of Anderson University and Tom Sens of BHDP. If you appreciate what you have heard, please rate, subscribe, and give us a review. I am Brian Trainer, your host, and I hope you’ll join us for another episode of Trends + Tensions to see what topics drive design.