Latest Reports

Fairfield University has added a new residence hall to its campus, filling in the surrounding quad and providing students with modern amenities. The 65,000-sf 42 Langguth Hall houses primarily freshmen and sophomores in the Ignatian Leadership Residential College. The L-shaped facility houses 202 students—in 190 double rooms and 12 singles, plus three resident director suites. Fully accessible unisex bathrooms and showers are on floors one through three. The interior affords expansive open spaces and a spacious common area, with three floors of dorm rooms and a partial basement of supporting functions. The corner of the L is framed by a glass tower that connects to the quad and serves as a beacon.  

To produce more food for more people with fewer resources, due to climate change and population growth, agricultural bioscience research will need to adopt new research models, including interdisciplinary projects and corporate partnerships, to help fast-track product discovery and development. Timing will be important. “When I first started in agriculture, if you came up with a new corn hybrid, it could be 10 or 12 years before you would grow that hybrid commercially,” says Stephen Briggs, launch director for the North Carolina Plant Sciences Initiative. “You can’t afford to do that in a 12-year timeframe now. You have to shorten that to two or three years.

Founded at the intersection of health science and education, the Henderson County Health Sciences Center is building bridges between patients, students, and healthcare professionals. The three-story facility provides an enhanced experience for patients through a complex network of professionals working together. The facility is the result of a strategic partnership between Pardee Hospital, Blue Ridge Community College, Wingate University, and Henderson County. Henderson County coordinated and funded the project through a public-private partnership that expands space, funds, and resources for the three entities and the surrounding community.

Universities typically build or acquire new academic space sparingly, after long deliberation. When changing economic conditions dropped a whole campus into Lehigh University’s lap, the challenge has been to use that space in ways that support today’s education. Industrial giant Bethlehem Steel didn’t go formally bankrupt until 2001, but the writing was on the wall as early as 1987, when the company sold the majority of its “Mountaintop” research facility to Lehigh, which has since acquired two more buildings there, including Mountaintop C. That massive building’s three high bays attached to a curved bank of offices, is now home to student-driven projects in an environment that seeks to keep elements of the industrial feel and keep large bays as relatively rough, unfinished space.

Higher education facilities executives are rightly focused on the needs of students, faculty, and administrators, but what about prospective students and their parents? Targeting facility and campus improvements to boost the campus tour experience has a positive impact on recruitment, enrollment, and retention. A formal evaluation process—resulting in a detailed scorecard and a set of recommendations presented in the form of a prioritization matrix—might enhance the all-important first impressions and intangibles that are impossible to quantify.