It's time we learned how to sell campus housing

For decades colleges and universities in North Amercia were really the only players in the student housing market. Twenty years ago things started to change and today the student housing market is big business - a multi-billion dollar business.

My institution, uWaterloo, has witnessed the changes first hand over the past decade. The city of Waterloo is home to both uWaterloo and Wilfrid Laurier University, and our combined enrollment is approximately 50,000 students. This has proven to be a very attractive market for private investors interested in student housing. Rock Advisors have indicated that more than 9,000 off campus beds targeting students have been added in the past decade and more are coming.

To put this in perspective, there are about 9,000 purpose built beds targeting students in the rest of Canada combined! For students in the city of Waterloo this means they have more choice than students elsewhere in the country. For my team and I, more student choice means we must compete with other student housing providers.

Competition is not something we are accustomed to in our work as campus housing professionals. I suspect the trend will continue in Waterloo and elsewhere as more private investors look to enter the student housing market in the years to come.

In my role as Chief Housing Officer, I'm seeking to understand the implications of the changing market so I can provide effective direction to my team. One skill set I believe we'll need to develop is our ability to sell. Selling is something we are not accustomed to doing as campus housing professionals. Investors and property managers understand how to sell though so they can achieve their financial targets. To ensure our students understand what makes campus housing distinct from other types of student housing we will need to develop our ability to sell to continue serving our students well.      

Picture source

     

Re:educating Higher Education

Are we on the precipice of major change to higher education? The internet has dramatically altered the way we listen to music, access news, read books, view movies, buy products and much more. The way we learn has, so far, remained largely unchanged while other industries have been turned upside down and inside out. 

The signs that major change is coming to those of us in higher education are all around us. Consider these developments:

• Government debt levels are so high that public funding that has been available to higher education for the past half century will diminish significantly or even end altogether
• Knowledge and information is accumulating more rapidly, requiring people to learn and develop almost constantly to remain relevant in the workforce
• For-profit education institutions are much more active in the education field - The University of Phoenix is a high profile example
• Online education has been growing more rapidly than traditional forms of education - MOOCs, such as Coursera, are the latest evolution in online education

Shrinking resources are often a catalyst for change in an organization. When growing demand, increased competition and new methods to deliver services are added to the mix, change expands beyond an organization to a whole industry. 

Ironically, we are about to learn a whole lot about the higher learning industry in the coming years. In an effort to kick start the dialogue "the Globe and Mail will introduce Re:education [tomorrow], an ongoing series that explores the legacy of Canada's university system and identifies new opportunities to thrive in the 21st century. Re:education examines several threads of our current model from the evolution of the lecture hall to digital learning and the role of the private sector in overcoming financial strains. The series has been shaped with commentary and insights from industry influencers and thought leaders from Canada and abroad." 

Check out more here: www.ourtimetolead.ca and be sure to join the discussion beginning tomorrow (Saturday, October 6).
Image source

Campus housing now delivered in many ways

Up to 20 years ago campus housing was provided using one model: institution-owned-and-managed. The past two decades has seen new models being used and we can expect campus housing models to continue to diversify in the coming years.

In my my Our great-grandchildren's view of our work blog post I highlighted some of the macro factors that are now greatly influencing higher education and campus housing. The list included government debt, politics, more scrutiny of and interest in the campus housing model and emerging changes in enrollment patterns. Technology such as mobile computers and social networking are dramatically changing our society, not just higher education, so it should be included in the list of macro factors as well.

The macro factors formed the basis of a presentation I made at the OACUHO conference last month where I shared some of the themes that are emerging in the campus housing models that are available to institutions:  

• Public-private-partnerships are a viable option
• New models focus more on undergrad housing
• Models are becoming more complex – design to agreements
• Mix of models at more institutions
• On or near campus remains important
• Management of student life remains important
• Emerging model is partnering with properties that have been around for years

Would you add, subtract anything from the list or stress any particular theme as being especially important in all models? 

Here is the full presentation:

The changing student housing ...

More PowerPoint presentations from Glen

Our great-grandchildren's view of our work

In 100 years when our grandchildren and great-grandchildren describe the early 21st century what major factors will they identify as having the greatest influence on our professional world? Looking at our world through that lens will help us strip away many minor factors and day to day influences so we can focus on the big picture which can help with long-term planning.

At the OACUHO conference earlier this summer at McMaster I shared the macro factors I see having the greatest influence on higher education in the coming years and how these factors are influencing the model we have used to deliver housing to students for the past half century. My list of macro factors included the following:

• Government finances & politics, specifically debt and how it is being managed
• Greater influence of groups such as student unions and developers
• Enrollment pattern changes which broadly indicates a leveling off of enrollment nationally

In short, student affairs and higher education can expect to see less money, less students (generally) and more scrutiny. The result will no doubt be that our work will be accomplished in different ways in the future. At the ACUHO-I International Symposium pre-conference workshop earlier this summer one of our colleagues from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland shared with us that one of his residence buildings was initially built in 1680! I'm pretty confident that student affairs as a field had not yet developed 350 years ago.

What macro factors do you think our great-grandchildren will talk about when describing our work?


Image source: http://skillsfor21stcentury.wordpress.com/

The Value of Campus Housing

The most popular topic to discuss further, by far, at both the Canadian Chief Housing Officer summit this past Novermber and the CAUBO student housing workshop in April was the value campus housing adds to post-secondary education.

At the CAUBO workshop Mike Porritt, McGill's ExecutiveDirector of Residences and Student Housing, did an excellent job of setting the stage to discuss the value added by campus housing by highlighting research as well as McGill data related to the residence life. With his permission here are the slides he used to kick start an hour long discussion:

More PowerPoint presentations from Glen

In broad terms Mike highlighted, on slide four, the biggest influence on retention rate shown by research comes from:

• Engagement with faculty
• Engagement with peers / residence life staff

More specifically, Mike highlighted, on slide five, that the retention rate for students at McGill is higher when they live in residence which his consistent with the broad research findings. At the most recent OACUHO conference Western University shared similar retention rate results and during my time at Ryerson we found similar retention rate results. With retention rate being one of the key performance indicators used to measure an institutions performance campus housing professionals have a prime opportunity to point these types of findings out to colleagues and decision makers.

What have you done to tell others about the value student housing adds to your institution?





.

Meet, Read & Observe: 3 Primary New Job Actions

What to do when starting a job anew? Week one of my new job at uWaterloo is now complete. I have continued to ground my initial actions around three basic concepts that I first used in the interviews: Meet, Read and Observe. When describing this a little further in my conversations I've simply stated that I want to "meet as many people as I can inside and outside the department, read whatever material I can to give me a better understanding of what is happening and observe as many actions as possible so I know how things happen."

Actions related to meeting and reading are self-explanatory whereas observing could be interpreted in different ways. The most frequent example I've used to explain observing is: I would like to apply to residence. The marketing staff have also engaged me in an "Undercover boss" type video where I have been able to directly observe a variety of tasks across the department such as cleaning a washroom, working at a desk, inspecting a vacated unit, responding to email, live-chat and phone queries and updating the website. 

Onboarding is one of the major projects currently underway in the department given the turnover that happens in a large housing department, especially in the residence life roles. As one of the early staff through the program I have benefited from some of planning that happened prior to my arrival. The major benefit has been the number of meetings that were already scheduled when I started. Day one involved most of the day with my supervisor. Day two included one-on-one meeting with my direct reports. Other actions in my first week included meeting staff around campus, getting set up to be paid, getting my WatCard. I also had time to get my digital brain set up which included setting up my voicemail, Outlook, Evernote and my computer in general.

GTD will continue to serve as the foundation for organizing my work. To enhance my approach I have recently subscribed to Harvard Business Review as well as Manager-Tools. I also found this great resource (from my previous employer) at Ryerson University: A Leader's Guide to Onboarding

What have you learned about onboarding in a new job or helping others onboard into a job on your team?


Image source: http://www.icims.com/blog/post/2009/09/17/Onboarding-at-Full-Throttle.aspx

Strengthening the Foundation of the Campus Housing Profession

It is well known among student affairs professionals that it is difficult to describe what we do day to day in our jobs to those outside of our field. We often rely on the powerful stories students share about the impact our work has had on their experience and development. With an increasing focus on accountability and dwindling resources we need more than stories to demonstrate the importance of our work and value we add to higher education.

ACUHO-I is creating a great foundation for campus housing professionals around the world to gain a deeper understanding of our work which gives us the tools to tell others what we do and the contributions we make. Consider these developments:

• More than 25 years ago the ACUHO-I Professional Standards and Ethical Principles were launched which have been updated six times and are about to go through another review in the coming year.
• Last month the ACUHO-I Core Competencies, or body of knowledge for campus housing professionals, was published. 
• At last week's ACUHO-I annual conference and exposition it was announced that in the coming year a six volume book set titled Campus Housing Management will be completed which contains more than 50 chapters on topics that campus housing professionals manage. In excess of 80 campus housing professionals contributed content.

Together these three foundational documents outline what campus housing professionals need to know, need to do and need to consider to be effective in our work. When the information contained in these documents is combined with our students' stories it would seem that we will be in a much better position to articulate what we do and the value we add to the student's experience and development.

Navigating higher ed through Ontario's financial labyrinth

Ontario's financial fate could mirror that of Greece according to articles in both the Globe & Mail and Macleans. Hardly an enviable comparison! With a debt of $230 billion now in place the government sought advice through the Commission on the Reform of Ontario's Public Services. The Drummond Report, as its become known because Don Drummond was chairperson, was made public last month.

One of the 20 chapters in the extensive report was dedicated to post-secondary education (PSE). A total of 30 recommendations for PSE are made which are grouped into the following seven categories:

1. Contain government funding and institutional expenses;
2. Use differentiation to improve post-secondary quality and achieve financial sustainability;
3. Encourage and reward quality;
4. Revise research funding structures;
5. Maintain the current overall cap on tuition-fee increases, but simplify the framework;
6. Re-evaluate student financial assistance; and
7. Generate cost efficiencies through measures such as integrating administrative and back-office functions.

It is encouraging to see the report acknowledge the important role PSE plays in Ontario and that resources are required to address five critical challenges that lie ahead, such as the need to "educate a rising share of the population; help equalize economic and social outcomes across the population; provide an important component of lifelong learning; be an engine of innovation; and deliver quality education in an efficient manner."   

Responses to the report continue to be published. Here are links to responses to four prominent PSE related groups:

• Council of Ontario Universities
• Canadian Federation of Students-Ontario
• Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance
• Colleges Ontario

Strategic Planning Using the TEDx Approach

TED, TEDx and TEDTalks have been gaining attention rapidly in recent years. Understandably so given the inspiring nature of the presentations. Several schools have been adding life to their campus thru TEDx and I recently adopted the TED approach in strategic planning to leverage its ability to share ideas and stories.

Given that my role as a Director is smack in the middle of the management structure I see my purpose as providing clarity for my staff. Using well know models when managing is one way to provide clarity, especially when examples are readily available, popular and relevant to a wide variety of people. TED satisfies all of this criteria and the model seemed to be ideally suited as a way for my staff to share ideas, generate dialogue and help us with our strategic planning efforts.

My responsibilities involve overseeing four areas - Student Housing Services, Tri-Mentoring Program, International Services for Students and the Office of Student Community Life. In my first two years overseeing these four areas, which includes over 20 full-time staff and 150 student staff, we did not gather as a large group often. My strategic planning focus in year one and two was on each unit, but the time had come for a wider discussion. In general, staff understand a lot about their own unit, but little about other units so the logical place to start was exchanging ideas and raising awareness of the issues affecting each unit. I wanted staff to be engaged in this process which made the TED approach ideal. 


My staff were given more than three months to plan and told that we would be using the TED model. To reinforce some of the TED principles I stressed that each unit had 15 minutes to present, the material had to be relevant to their work and the sessions must encourage dialogue and the exchange of ideas. 

Our TEDx Student Community Life or TEDx SCL, which was the name we adopted, was held this past Friday. The sessions were impressive. Historical video was used in one case and hours of video captured of current students in another case  Staff spent hours in deep discussion about their purpose in third area while another group orchestrated a well choreographed presentation that allowed everyone to contribute to the unit's story. TED is known for its "extended breaks" to allow for dialogue and discussion to take place and TEDx SCL was no exception. In fact, one of the highlights of the day for me was seeing staff interact and exchange ideas in the first break. Everyone was engaged and people that did not know each other prior to our event were exchanging ideas. There was a buzz in the room.

Pre and post event surveys are being used to assess the event and help us learn how well the TED approach worked. My instinct is that the event was well received given the effort that staff put into preparing and the interest everyone exhibited throughout the day. If you are looking for a model to help your staff exchange ideas for strategic planning then I would certainly encourage you to consider using the TED approach.