ACUHO-I's 'Talking Stick' Magazine

The Association of College and University Housing Officers International (ACUHO-I) is one of SCUP's sister associations in the Council of Higher Education Management Associations (CHEMA). It's one of those associations which have a dual role on campus, each half of which needs to be integrated with the other, but often presents different issues: Housing facilities and the programming for student life that relates to student housing.

It's magazine is called Talking Stick, and past issues are available for review through a clickable online PDF file. The November-December 2009 issue is here. Among the articles in this issue is They're Back by Neil Howe and Reena Nadler. It's about Millennials, and how more senior staff on campus can best help them adapt (and adapt to them) as work colleagues, now that they've graduated and are no longer students. If you're finding yourself working with Millenials, this is a good read. If your interests or responsibilities relate to student housing, it's worth browsing through Talking Stick's back issues.

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Regional SCUP Events! Enjoy the F2F company of your colleagues and peers at one of three SCUP regional conferences this spring:

• March 14–16: Baltimore, MD
• March 24–26: Cambridge, MA
• April 5–7, San Diego, CA

Residence-Hall Market Sees Rising Demand and Falling Construction Prices

A "Buildings & Grounds" blog post by Lawrence Biemiller notes a residence hall building boom in Western Pennsylvania and that a drop in building costs is letting the University of Georgia move from a wood to a steel frame in a new residence hall.

It's behind password protection, but a related article from The Chronicle of Higher Education offers a negative view by Robert E. Ritwchel regarding the""mission leap" of two-year institutions building residence halls.

Students in My Backyard: Housing at the Campus Edge and Other Emerging Trends in Residential Development

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This article was published in January 2009 in the second of two themed issues of Planning for Higher Education. SCUP members most likely have print copies, and can also access the articles from SCUP's website. In order to bring it out and make it available to everyone, we have assembled all of the articles into this digital (PDF) SCUP Portfolio.

When it comes to building student housing, the stakes for universities and colleges have never been higher. From competing for prospective students and environmental bragging rights to contesting for space on the typical campus, institutions face a fundamentally different landscape than they did when housing previous generations of students. A national sampling of student residential projects and housing data provide some indication of emerging trends. Universities and colleges will increasingly look to the campus edge (even in difficult environments), will challenge themselves to build sustainably (even where budgets are tight), and will partner or compete with private developers in a variety of contexts. These emerging trends are set against the already-established trend that finds students enjoying—and expecting—more luxurious accommodations than were once typical.

Citation
John Martin and Mark Allen. 2009. Students in My Backyard: Housing at the Campus Edge and Other Emerging Trends in Residential Development. Planning for Higher Education. 37(2): 34–43.

CLICK HERE for the full text of Students in My Backyard: Housing at the Campus Edge and Other Emerging Trends in Residential Development

Students in My Backyard: Housing at the Campus Edge and Other Emerging Trends in Residential Development

From the January–February–March 2009 issue of Planning for Higher Education, this "SCUP Links Blog" post provides an opportunity for you to share comments or additional resources/links about the focus of the article, Students in May Backyard: Housing at the Campus Edge and Other Emerging Trends in Residential Development, v37n1, pp. 34–43 by John Martin and Mark Allen. You can read the entire article here [LINK TO COME], in Planning for Higher Education.

The article "blurb" reads: Where is the campus edge? Is it becoming more defined or disappearing?

[ABSTRACT TO COME]

Note that this issue of Planning is the second of a two-part themed volume with the overall title, Student Life. The first part was published in October 2008. Assembled, the two parts will be available later in 2009 for purchase as a single PDF document for your quick and easy reference.

Dorms of Distinction" Winners and Runners-Up

University Business magazine received 76 nominations for its Dorms of Distinction competition. This lengthy article provides vignettes of many of the selected winners as well as a summary of trends from all of the nominations. The trends included: getting more student input at all phases of the design and planning process, more and more home-like atmosphere touches, and more sophisticated and intentional common and gathering areas. This is a must-read for anyone in the planning or design stages of a new residence hall or major residence hall renovation.

What Comes Through the Dorm Mailroom? Pretty Much Everything!

Well, we certainly hadn't thought through the implications for residence halls of students ordering more and more things on line, so this article by Jonathan D. Glater in The New York Times was enlightening:

Dealing with the increased mailroom activity is also costing colleges money. Pomona College — whose mailroom handled the ant farm, air-conditioner and barbecue grill — spent thousands on a system to scan bar codes, which sends students e-mail messages notifying them when they have packages in the mailroom. Pomona has also expanded its mailroom, making room for more packages.

At SUNY Binghamton, where the number of packages received increased to 57,000 last year, from 33,000 in 2002, officials invested about $25,000 in a bar code scanning system to track packages from the moment of arrival to the time students sign for them.

“We’re hoping that we’ve seen the worst of it,” said Larry Roma, associate vice president for facilities management at the university.

SUNY’s Purchase College has also invested in such a system, at a cost of $37,000. Meanwhile, Arizona State University decided it could not even handle students’ deliveries itself, and handed over mailroom operations to UPS.

Outsourcing Student Housing in American Community Colleges: Problems and Prospects

This article, by Gray Bekuers of the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, is published in Volume 31, Issue 8 of the Community College Journal of Research and Practice (August 2007).

You may or may not have access, depending upon your own or your employer's subscription to this and other journals. Here is the abstract:Today's community colleges are experiencing tremendous growth at a time when higher education is experiencing little success in the fierce battle for public funding. Administrators believe that providing housing on college campuses increases enrollment and improves access, but they are having difficulty meeting students' demands for both quantity and quality of student housing. Community college leaders are challenged to find alternative ways to achieve new housing on their campuses. With resources already stretched, institutions sometimes struggle to find funding sources for these projects due to their impact on institutional debt service. Many colleges are turning to private foundations and corporations for their financing, construction, and management needs. This practice has increased dramatically over the past 10 years. To date, there have been over 214 privatized, nonrecourse-financed student housing projects on college and university campuses in the United States, with at least 11 occurring on community college campuses. Due to increasing demand, privatization of student housing is likely to increase. Very little literature exists addressing the evolution, problems, and potential of this practice, but administrators may need to have an understanding of the process as it becomes more commonplace on community college campuses. Interviews with community college administrators, student housing administrators, and representatives of private development and management corporations and a literature review were conducted. The results are synthesized into a history and overview of outsourcing student housing construction and management in the United States, including problems with outsourcing, strategies to avoid failure, future possibilities, and recommendations for future research.