Case Studies College and University

Every spring, it’s common for college athletic coaches and their assistants to hit the road in search of athletes to recruit. Dr. Farzad Shahbodaghlou, a professor and the founding director of the construction management program at California State University, East Bay, took a recruiting trip in April, too. Only he went to India to recruit […]

It may be a school that adheres to conservative values and for that Liberty University makes no apologies. But it needn’t cling to some old and very inefficient ways of campus and facilities upkeep. So, Michael S. Terrell emphasized two years ago when returning to where he had lived, the idyllic locale of Lynchburg, Virginia, […]

It’ s not always easy for a hospital system to be sustainable. The lights are always on, machines like respirators run steady throughout the night and refrigerators must be kept cold to preserve medicines and specimens. These are but a few of the challenges Mike McKay encounters at UW Health as he works with his […]

A rectangular brown and beige, two-story concrete structure that once housed the Star Press in Muncie, Indiana, the building really was yesterday’s news. It had stood vacant since 2000, save for break-ins. Years later when the newspaper’s owners donated it to Ivy Tech Community College, it was one very distressed property. “Just a rundown eyesore […]

Education is multifaceted. For instance, one can learn how to install an irrigation system by working on a farm or by sitting behind a college desk. Marcos Rodriguez did both. Between 1996 and 2004, he worked as an irrigation manager for Wonderful Orchards, a pistachio, almond and pomegranate farm covering 22,000 acres. In 1999, he […]

It takes some doing to earn the designation of Canadian Certified Healthcare Facility Manager. Bryan Wakefield reckons that everybody who has the certification, along with his experience, would fill a modest room with seats to spare. He garnered that certificate in 2019 while finishing a 14-year stretch at Ontario’s London Health Sciences Centre in facilities […]

Growing up in Houston, Allysia Kizzee recalls seeing the grandeur of Rice University while passing by—the quads with vibrant green lawns bordered by brick buildings, many connected by covered walkways with majestic arches.   “Looking at it from the outside, it may seem simple,” she says. “When you come inside the hedges, we have a complex, […]

Driving onto the University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg campus, one of the first things people see is the new life sciences building. The two-level building is topped by large high plume dilution fans, which are exhaust systems for chemical hoods in laboratories. Fans like this are typically hidden to make buildings more aesthetically pleasing, but […]

Tunnels are the perfect fodder for a host of myths, urban legends or, in the case of Southeast Missouri State University, campus lore. So, in October 2022, with Halloween right around the corner, SeMo students tracked down the campus director of facilities management, Angela Meyer, to debunk the mystery. Meyer, who’s been on campus for […]

Before last year, when students at Fayetteville State University submitted a maintenance request, they didn’t know when it would be addressed. Sometimes, facilities workers would show up when students were sleeping, getting dressed or trying to concentrate on their work, creating an uncomfortable situation for both parties. Tai Davis heard these frustrations from students last […]