As enrollment challenges compound for small liberal arts colleges, some are betting big on new athletics programs, hoping they’ll result in new tuition revenue.

Seeking an Enrollment Hail Mary, Small Colleges Look to Athletics

It happens only once a year—APPA’s 12-in-12 campaign, representing a fantastic opportunity to strengthen your knowledge of educational facilities management and prepare your institution for a productive 2024 marked by industry best practices, creative solutions, and practical tools. From December 1 through December 31, enjoy a 12% discount on every

APPA Bookstore Savings Begin December 1

City College of San Francisco administrators and Museum of Modern Art officials disagree on who should pay to move a massive wall mural back to the campus.

Loaned Mural Prompts Countersuits by College and Museum

A month after Virginia Tech’s freshman orientation in the fall of 2019, Livingstone Bond found a Spin scooter outside a freshman dorm still running on another person’s account. For the next couple hours, he practiced all kinds of daring tricks — multiple people on board, riding with no hands, and seated on the moving scooter’s deck like a motorcycl

Can This University Make Scooters Safer?

The outlook synthesizes data based on a survey of respondents from all regions of the United States and all sectors of higher education except for-profit institutions.
Nov. 28, 2023
Despite 70% of higher education leaders expressing the belief that their industry’s economic model, programming, and other operations require fundamental change, about

70% of Higher Ed Leaders Think Industry Needs Fundamental Change in Management

Improving campus spaces can benefit students in their overall engagement, assist in their well-being or promote belonging. A December 2022 Student Voice survey from Inside Higher Ed and College Pulse found two-thirds of students...

Campus Engagement Tip: Create Spaces for Student Success

As things move quickly in Washington, DC, NACUBO is your constant advocate in action. NACUBO On Your Side covers important legislative and agency activity NACUBO staff are tracking, what we’re currently advocating for, and how you can take action with us.
Here are the issues we are tracking and advocating for this week.
Agency Action
Perkins Cash o

NACUBO On Your Side: November 21–27, 2023

The 2024 Awards Program recognizes excellence in a range of areas, including leadership, sustainability initiatives, and effective and innovative practices, at both the individual and institutional levels.

Recognizing Excellence: Nominate Your Peers (or Yourself) for APPA’s 2024 Awards Program

A preliminary report points to a surprisingly large increase in the number of students applying to college for the upcoming 2024-25 academic year. The new data come from a recent Common App Research Brief, covering applications to four-year institutions for next year received through November 1, 2023.
Through that date, 836,679 distinct first-year

College Applications for 2024 Show Strong Early Surge

Dive Brief:
The U.S. Department of Energy is providing more than $31 million in formula grants to 19 state and local governments to boost energy efficiency efforts.
The Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant program funds will assist state and local governments with clean energy and infrastructure upgrades, the DOE said in a Nov. 14 news re

DOE releases $31M+ in grants for retrofits, infrastructure upgrades

The American Alliance of Museums offers the following information from Violet Rose Arma, Curatorial Assistant & Administrative Support, University of Arizona Museum of Art. The information shared here is based on the best available information as of publication.
Traditional museum experiences sometimes lack regard for differing ability levels and p

Tips for Creating Accessible Museums: Universal Design and Universal Design for Learning

Though the buzz phrase “technical debt” might be new to some, the concept isn’t. Gartner defines technical debt as “accrued work that is owed to an IT system” wherein “teams borrow against quality by making sacrifices, taking short cuts or using workarounds to meet delivery deadlines.”
In higher education, CIOs are well aware of where their tech de

How Can Higher Education Institutions Combat Technical Debt?

While wearables that robotically augment the physical capabilities of workers—like SuitX by Ottobox or the SenSuit by Sarcos Technology and Robotics are fascinating, more humble wearable devices that increase operational efficiency and safety are easier to find on jobsites.
Most of these devices are not stand-alone—they are components in a solution

A Look at Wearable Construction Technologies

Welcome to the November 2023 edition of Campus Safety’s Five Facts!
Five Facts, which runs the last Friday of every month, reviews what Campus Safety has recently covered as well as the quirky, interesting, random information or factoids I come across on practically a daily basis when I’m researching articles.
As we kick off the 2023 holiday season

5 Facts: November 2023 Edition

In today’s hyper-connected world, the propagation and maintenance of internet safety knowledge and protocol is now a vital part of how institutions need to operate. The threat of cyber attacks is becoming increasingly common and can result in devastating, costly breaches that have created irreversible damage and even shut the doors for many institu

6 Ways to Improve Cyber Security and Internet Safety on Your Campus

Biotech firm creates welcoming and collaborative space at new headquarter facility.
Protein sequencing company Quantum-Si in Branford, Connecticut needed a new headquarters for its scientists, researchers, engineers, and other diverse staff members. The new research laboratory and modern workplace will consolidate two prior facilities into a single

Livening Up Research Labs With Design

From triaging deferred maintenance to securing the campus against emerging security threats, educational facilities professionals face a dauntingly long list of challenges in 2024. Many facilities leaders believe the surest way to prepare themselves and their teams for such challenges is to begin the year at APPA’s Institute for Facilities Manageme

January “Institute” to Deliver Latest Best Practices in Facilities Management 

 I thought it would be interesting to see how one AI—Open AI’s ChatGPT 4.0—would respond to a series of queries on the future of facilities management.

I found one simple prompt to be a good starting point:, “Act as if you are a [fill in a role] and describe how you [the AI], my peers and I can benefit from [define a goal].” In this case, I defined the role as “college or university facilities management professional with expertise in using artificial intelligence.” As the goal, I asked ChatGPT to provide “ideas that others in your role could use to improve their day-to-day facilities operations.” 

From the Magazine: AI and the Future of Campus Facilities Management

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“Connectivity is my hammer,” said Robert Metcalfe, recipient of the Turing Award for inventing, standardizing and commercializing ethernet. “Everything looks like a connectivity problem.” His reference to the First Law of the Hammer (“If you give a

In Class, Some Colleges Overlook Technology's Dark Side

Of all the factors impacting educational institutions’ stability and productivity, workforce development and retention may be the one affecting facilities management staff most acutely. Panelists at the Higher Ed Facilities Forum in Austin, Texas, explored this topic November 14, noting that a long-term concerted investment in staff professional de

Professional Development for Facilities Staff “Critically Important,” Say Panelists at HEFF Forum

If you are a trainer or educator in the building science field, having a visual aid to demonstrate scenarios that occur in real buildings is the next best thing to teaching on a job site. Air leakage in buildings can be a complicated topic to cover. To present the material in an effective manner, it’s helpful to have a volume of space or a mockup w

How to Build a Training Lab for Airtightness Testing

College and university campuses are behemoths of energy consumption, with libraries and server rooms using electricity around the clock, large buildings blasting heat and cooling, sometimes to empty classrooms and offices, and students often oblivious of their energy use during late-night study sessions or the occasional all-nighter. As a result, e

Magazine Sneak Peek: A Case Study in Reduced Energy Consumption

November 14, 2023
This new report highlights findings from a contractor study conducted by Dodge Construction Network that reveals that only 17% of contractors use technologies that monitor the behavior of their vehicle and equipment operators and help to identify risks. This leaves contractors with minimal insight into operator behaviors, how they

Al-Based Camera Systems and the Future of Construction Fleet Management

Second limited public review for the revised draft IICRC S590 Standard for Standard for Assessing HVAC Systems Following a Water Fire or Mold Damage Event. Comments due by July 30.

IICRC S590 Standard Available for Limited Public Review

The US Department of Energy DOE today announced the winners of the 10th annual Collegiate Wind Competition. Kansas State University rose above 12 other competing teams to claim first place in this annual competition which aims to prepare the future wind energy workforce...

Kansas State University Winner of DOE's 10th Annual Collegiate Wind Competition

Several years ago, the industry buzzword was “Big Data.” All of us jumped in—feet first—and agreed: Big Data is the future. We needed more and more data so we collected more and more data. Just think of what we could do with all this data…

FM Highlight - Informatics: A Journey to Data Visualization

Helping our education partners set the stage for excellence

They say diamonds are forever; so is building maintenance and renewal. Are you ready to work smarter?

Today’s Push-to-Talk over Cellular delivers nationwide voice and video group calling and GPS dispatching.


Remember Nextel? Hytera HALO is the new nationwide radio service.

Learn more about one of the world’s largest and most advanced cast iron foundries.

Explore Charlotte Pipe’s New Oakboro, NC Foundry

Elevate your enterprise with cutting-edge facility maintenance and asset management software.