At Michigan, Integrated Planning Ferries Student Veterans Through Launch of new GI Bill

At the University of Michigan, top administrators did some environmental scanning and spotted the potential for major problems in implementing the new GI Bill for veterans. So they engaged in cross-departmental, integrated planning and pulled off a very successful program:

“I knew we would rise to the occasion,” says Lester Monts, senior vice provost for academic affairs. “Our student veterans earned these benefits, and university staff make sure our students are the priority.”

Initial notification of the new benefits program arrived from the Department of Veterans Affairs in January 2009. Students could begin to apply in May; but the VA’s procedural details were not available until June.

“We could see the potential for a serious logjam,” said Assistant University Registrar Christine Bedz. “With so little lead time, we were concerned about the adverse impact on our students if VA disbursements were delayed. We were determined to make our students’ experience seamless.”

With full appreciation of the operational complexity of the emerging program — including the related Yellow Ribbon tuition supplement, www.ur.umich.edu/0809/Jul27_09/17.php — staff from the Registrar, ONSP, Information and Technology Services, the offices of financial aid, student financial services and the Stephen M. Ross School of Business mapped out what they thought the new system would require.

They hit the bull’s-eye, producing a new process that provided common rules and procedures and, ultimately, a safe harbor for U-M’s student veterans.

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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

What to Do When Your Gigantic Neighbor Leaves Town

Two years ago, pharmaceutical giant Pfizer decided to close its major research facility, which bordered the University of Michigan's North Campus in Ann Arbor. The university purchased the 30 buildings, with nearly 2M square feet of space on 174 acres for $109M and has renamed the property the North Campus Research Complex. Glimpses into the planning process for what to do with the property can be found on this special planning page. 

Practice and Pedagogy of Architecture Must Change?

Minoca Ponce de Leon, dean of the A. Alfred Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning at the University of Michigan, writes about how the pedagogy and practice of architecture must be transformed: "Our teaching methodologies and the predominant model of studio instruction has remained virtually unchanged for more than 100 years. More importantly, in the last 20 years architecture has stagnated in the midst of architectural research that focused too closely on topics that proved to have little consequence."

"Today, with accelerated advances in digital fabrication technologies and their widespread application, I believe that we find ourselves in the midst of a second digital revolution. Not unlike the 1980s, as we argue over the significance of these “tools,” digital fabrication is fundamentally changing construction methods and transforming the building industry. This second time around, however, we have a remarkable opportunity to take a more critical stance toward technology and articulate its potential for social engagement, or else we risk perpetuating the divides that threaten to limit the relevance of architecture to the actual circumstances of the building industry—as the current economic downturn has demonstrated.

Other fields are wrestling with these very same issues. Not only will architecture be best served by entering into a conversation with these disciplines, but architecture will best serve and participate in the construction of culture. Much of what lies at the core of our discipline is already playing a central role in the redefinition of other fields. It is telling that design is now an integral part of the curriculum at top business schools across the country. Engineering departments have developed coursework around notions of creative practices, while schools of social work and public policy have aligned social activism with entrepreneurship and design thinking. The value of design has increased in all aspects of society, at the same time that the pertinence of architecture has decreased. By remaining hermetic and, dare I say, self-absorbed, we run the risk of relegating to other fields the cultural power of design as an agent for social change."

Read more here:
http://www.archpaper.com/e-board_rev.asp?News_ID=3464

Unbuilt Michigan: The University That Never Was

Retired University of Michigan planner and SCUP charter member, Fred Mayer, has written an interesting article for the Ann Arbor Observer about campus projects that almost- or might-have-been-but-weren't-built at the University of Michigan (PDF). That publication does not post its own articles on line but has agreed to let SCUP share this one. Enjoy! (We're sure that Fred would enjoy hearing from you about this: fmayer@umich.edu.)

The U-M is almost always in the midst of a building boom. Year in and year out, Michigan has one of the most active programs of building renovation and new construction of all American universities.

This program is very carefully managed to ensure that substantial architectural design work is not undertaken until there is a strong likelihood that a project will actually be built. But despite these precautions, some projects never make it to the construction phase. Most of these unsuccessful projects are quickly forgotten.

Because most never progressed beyond preliminary stages, there is often little documentation remaining,and they are difficult to reconstruct. This article focuses on those for which design drawings survive. For more recent projects, it also draws on my own knowledge gained during thirty-seven years as the university planner.