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Facilities Audits in Student Housing: The Scope of the
Process
Merrily S. Dunn
Edward A. Grandpré
MISSISSIPPI STATE UNIVERSITY
INTRODUCTION
Assessment in student affairs is no longer just a "hot" topic. It has become an established component of the operations comprising a student affairs division on most campuses. Shrinking resources and greater accountability demands by funding agencies, government officials, and consumers mandate accurate pictures of how resources are being used and the extent to which stated goals and objectives are being met. A number of books have been published to help accomplish this task effectively (Gray & Banta, 1997; Erwin, 1991; Upcraft & Schuh, 1996).
Within housing and residence life departments assessment takes many forms, such as resident satisfaction surveys, program evaluations, performance reviews, and facilities audits. Although many may view a facilities audit as a massive, arduous undertaking, few would dispute the necessity of knowing the physical condition of campus residential facilities. Multiple systems, subsystems and a variety of components, operations, programs and people come together to make a residence hall. Some components, such as heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC), electrical and plumbing, are mechanical. Others, such as walls, windows, and roofs are structural. Staffing and programmatic efforts are clearly human. Knowing their effectiveness, their appropriateness and, in the case of facilities, their current state of repair or disrepair, is crucial to maintaining a viable housing operation. It is important to remember that even the best program ever designed serves little developmental purpose in a building where the toilets do not flush and students feel unable to create any sense of "home."
This study focuses on facilities audits. It was designed to survey individuals responsible for assessing structural and mechanical aspects of housing facilities. The authors of this study intentionally did not define exactly what is, and is not, a facilities audit. The intention was to understand what those conducting facilities audits consider them to be. Residence halls, and residence hall activities, are complex and varied, yet very basic to human life and learning. It seemed important to see which parts of the total housing system were viewed as aspects of facilities and which aspects of facilities were deemed important enough to include in a facilities audit by housing professionals. There are several critical issues in understanding facilities audits. One is the lack of literature on this topic. Although exploring the impact of campus environments on students often is studied in graduate preparation programs in student development, college student personnel, higher education administration, or counseling, the specifics of assessing, evaluating, and maintaining the physical environment is for less likely to be discussed. Professionals trained in such programs are apt to have learned theories relevant to student development, organizations and groups, but are not as likely to have learned the rudiments of understanding the needs and structures of buildings that house the developmental process. These are often the professionals who eventually become senior housing officers, and suddenly, facilities are a primary consideration. Although specialized facilities staff members manage day-to-day operations, the need for overall direction, planning, and prioritization falls to the chief housing officer (CHO) and other senior staff. The issues of greatest concern in a facilities audit often are not addressed in traditional student affairs literature. There is a more specialized body of work that discusses these topics. One organization, APPA (The Association of Higher Education Facilities Officers), provides useful, relevant information on all aspects of the facilities audit in the book The Facilities Audit (Kaiser, 1993). As expected, the Association of College and University Housing Officers-International (ACUHO-I) provides insightful guidance related to the audit process in two publications: Successful Management of Facilities in College and University Residence Halls and Apartment Housing (Grimm & Mosier, 1992) and the ACUHO-I Talking Stick. Examples of Talking Stick articles include, “The Deferred Maintenance Problem: Start with an Assessment”(Grimm, 1998) and "Developing a Strategic Plan for Assessment" (St. Onge, 1998). Standards for housing and residence life programs also have been developed by both ACUHO-L (1 991 b) and the Council for the Advancement of Standards in Higher Education (CAS) (Miller, 1 997). Although these may not provide specific guidelines for an audit they can prove useful for other purposes. They may help in goal setting, in knowing the commonly understood scope of housing and residence life operations, or in developing instruments for use during the assessment process. They provide an "industry standard" perspective. Each of these sets of standards has a self-assessment guide to aid in implementation (ACUHO-I, 1991a; CAS, 1998). The factors that inspire an institution to conduct a facilities audit can vary. Whereas one institution may be mandated to do so as part of an institution wide assessment process, another institution may come to the realization that deferred maintenance issues are so significant as to require a multi-year maintenance, renovation, and financial plan to give a more complete picture and aid in the resolution of the problems.The goals of each facilities audit also may be different. For example, one institution may have built its facilities since the legal requirements for handicap accessibility were put in place, making compliance a nonissue. Conversely, accessibility may be a primary consideration for an institution with significantly older facilities. In another example, one institution may have unused rooms, allowing space to be converted for other uses, or the population density of a facility to be reduced. Another institution may have long waiting lists, making it more difficult to close units for needed renovations. Although the authors of this study chose not to narrowly define facilities audits, other authors have been willing to do so. Day (1992, p. 13) defined the facilities audit as "the process of identifying and describing deficiencies and needs in a systematic manner." Kaiser (1993), an often quoted source, provides a similar definition: “The facilities audit systematically and routinely identifies facility deficiencies and functional performance of campus facilities through an inspection program and observation reports" (P. 1). The purpose of this study was to determine the scope and method of actual audits of college housing facilities. The study also explored the opinions of the housing officers responsible for the audits about their satisfaction with various aspects of the audits and the results. Such information will be useful to housing professionals preparing to complete their own facilities audits.
METHOD Participants
Because this study was designed to examine actual audits, the authors needed a pool of institutions that had conducted audits, so a random sample of housing departments was not appropriate. Instead, a purposive sampling procedure was used. In a purposive sampling as defined by Lincoln & Guba (1985), subjects are selected according to specific criteria. To participate in this study, a housing officer must have completed an audit of their facilities within the previous three years, and consented to complete the survey and answer any follow-up questions from the researchers. Participants were recruited via electronic mail sent to the "Discuss" Housing and Residence Life list serve (discuss@saffairs.msstate.edu) hosted at Mississippi State University. List subscribers representing 1 3 institutions met the qualifications and volunteered to participate. The survey was sent to the participants via electronic mail and could be returned electronically, or be printed out, completed by hand, and returned by fax or mail.
Instrument
The questionnaire developed for this study was based on suggestions for items to be included in a facilities audit from two Publications (Day, 1992; Kaiser, 1993) and conversations with a representative from an architectural firm who recently completed a residence hall facilities audit (R. Luke, personal communication, October 10, 1999). Luke's suggestions about the breadth of an audit were used to develop the wide scope of the survey. Questions covered the reasons for the audit, use of consultants, use of professional standards, scope of the audit, satisfaction with selected aspects, general results and recommendations to other institutions considering facilities audits.
Analysis
The survey responses were subjected to various data analysis techniques suggested in the book Naturalistic Inquiry (Lincoln & Guba, 1 985). Some were simply counted, with the numerical results reported. Others were subjected to data coding to allow similar responses to be collapsed into categories. The small group of reviewers, including the authors, coded all the data. A majority vote decided any disagreements in coding. Finally, quotations from answers to openú-ended questions allowed for a fuller understanding of the results.
RESULTS
Of the 13 housing officers who expressed interest in participating in the survey, 11 completed and returned their surveys for a response rate of 85%. All were the chief housing officers (CHOS) or chief facilities officers (CFOS) of housing departments. The average housing capacity for the 11 institutions is 3,509. All are public, four-year institutions. Ten (91 %) are from the United States of America, and one (9%) is from Australia. Although all of the institutions had in-house facilities staffs, four (36%) relied on an institutional physical plant for heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC) needs; three (27%) used their institutional physical plant for some special projects; two (18%) mentioned using outside contractors for elevator repairs, fire and security systems, and other highly specialized projects; and @o (18%) relied on the institutional physical plant for almost all of their maintenance. When asked why they had conducted facilities audits, five (45%) respondents indicated they wanted to determine the current state of their facilities to develop some type of long-range facility renovation and finance plans. Three (27%) indicated it was part of an institution-wide audit of all campus facilities. Two (I 8%) indicated they had conducted the audit at the request of their state governing board. One (9%) emphasized the need for an outside reviewer to give an objective appraisal of the condition of the residence halls, and one (9%) noted the audit was conducted as part of a regular, two-year cycle of facility reviews. Respondents were asked about their use of outside consulting agency(ies) and were asked to rate their satisfaction with the agency(ies) on a 5-point scale (1 = very unsatisfied; 5 = very satisfied). Eight institutions (72%) used an outside engineering firm. The engineering firms received a mean satisfaction rating of 4.5. Five institutions (45%) used an architectural firm, and gave the firms a mean satisfaction rating of 5.0. Three (27%) used their institution's physical plant department, and gave those departments a satisfaction rating of 3.7. One institution (9%) used an outside heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC) firm, and gave that firm a satisfaction rating of 5.0. One institution (9%) had no external assistance. Five respondents (45%) indicated that they used some form of professional standards in conducting their audits. Of these, two used the ACUHO-I Standards (1991), two used the APPA Standards (Kaiser, 1993), and one used the CAS Standards (1 998). Interestingly, in discussing the results of the audits, and making suggestions for other institutions considering audits, only one mentioned using published standards the next time. Items included in facilities audits are listed in Table I. All I 1 audits included fire/safety systems. Ten (91%) audits included electrical systems, elevators, HVAC, plumbing, and structural integrity in their audits. At the other extreme, only three (27%) included Ethernet and two (18%) included telecommunications systems.
TABLE 1
Item |
n |
% |
Fire/Safety |
11 10 10 10 10 10 9 9 8 6 6 6 6 6 5 5 5 5 3 2 |
100 |
n= 11
Respondents were asked whether they used student-to-service ratios as assessment criteria. Seven (64%) responded affirmatively. They had examined the number of students per shower (36%); per bathroom, common space, and Ethernet ports (27% each); and per kitchen, study lounge, and computer lab (9% each). Four (36%) respondents had not considered any student-toú-service ratios in their audits.
DISCUSSION
The purpose of this study was to increase understanding of the processes used in facilities audits so that this knowledge could be used to construct a model to help staff at institutions considering conducting such audits. Although it is risky to make generalizations based on a small a sample of I 1 institutions, the experiences of others could be useful if they are flexible enough to adjust to one's own housing system. Although there is not one right way to complete a facilities audit, it is recommended that the process begins with goal setting and that plans be developed to communicate and apply the findings. Why is the audit being performed? What do we want to learn? What are the real goals? Who are the best people to be involved in the process of the facilities audit? What are the most effective and efficient means of collecting the data needed? How will we communicate these results? What decisions will be made based on these results? What will happen if the outcomes are not desirable, or as expected? Although there were uniformly high levels of satisfaction with the audits and with the consultants hired, respondents to this survey recommended that consultants be well-versed in residence hall audits. One way to do this would be to ask potential consultants for references in the student housing field. One respondent noted that one of the consulting engineers used in their audit had retired several years earlier from the university physical plant. The knowledge and experience of that individual proved invaluable in the audit. The individual, being retired, was also free of the politics of the institution. It is critical that these consultants be trustworthy individuals. Their expertise and knowledge are so different from that of most housing professionals, and so critical to an accurate audit, that trust becomes an essential component of the relationship. Time and care need to be taken in the process of selecting these consultants and in developing appropriate working relationships. Interestingly, two of the newest features of university residence halls, telecommunications and Ethernet access, were least likely to be included in the audits reported in this survey. Given the fast rate of change in these technologies, it seems important that they be included in an audit even if they were recently added to the facilities. The 'information environment" is becoming an important part of the physical environment. One respondent noted that in a recent conversation with a student about his decision to return to university housing the following year, he considered his housing fees to be "for the T-1 Ethernet connection," and the room was "just a free perk." It is also interesting to note that only 5 of the 11 audits examined landscaping and that 6 examined other visual aspects of the facilities, such as the external image or 'curb appeal" of the facilities. Room furnishings were examined in only five audits, and common area furnishings were examined in only 6. When marketing residence halls, an attractive image can be important. Students and parents see the exterior of the residence hall before anything else. Further, furnishings can be critical to making spaces look comfortable and inviting. No matter how well the plumbing works, if the facility is not seen as attractive, it will be seen as less desirable. These areas also are important to keep in mind when selecting consultants. If the only consultants are from engineering firms, they may not have sufficient training or expertise to look at curb appeal and furnishings.
Although the majority of the respondents in this study chose not to involve students in the audit, at least one author (Hallenbeck, 1993) recommended including their input as long as there is a well-defined mechanism for their inclusion. Conversely, one respondent to the survey noted that this was an audit of facilities, not a student satisfaction survey. Deciding the role of students in this process becomes an important part of planning for an audit. If students will be involved, what will be their role? What will be gained from their involvement? What will be lost if they are absent from the process? Will separate input be needed from student staff (such as residence assistants)?
Some of the results were discussed with the architect that assisted with the survey. He commented that it seemed many of the institutions had taken a somewhat narrow view of their respective audits. Is this narrow focus the result of a lack of knowledge in the area of facilities audits, or a desire not to "get out of a comfort zone' and look broadly at one's facilities? (R. Luke, personal communication, March 15, 2000). Housing professionals may also have been reluctant to delve into certain areas out of concern for what might be discovered. In other words, what they did not know could not hurt them. This can be a very dangerous practice. Leaving an area out of a facilities audit does not make problems go away or resolve themselves. Areas that are ignored may often simply worsen over time. In conclusion, facilities audits are a critical part of a housing department's assessment program. Ideally, the physical facility is a home and co-curricular classroom for many residence hall students. If we expect student learning and development to take place, we must put an appropriate emphasis on the "place" where we want it to happen: the residence hall buildings. In Maslow's (1954) hierarchy of human needs, the first two levels, physiological needs and needs for safety and security, must be met before the needs for belonging and social interaction, self-esteem, and self-actualization can be met. In residence halls, all these needs are important, but only if the first two levels are being met can students living in university housing have the chance to meet the higher needs.REFERENCES
Association of College and University Housing Officers-International. (I 991 a). Self-assessúment guides for standards for college and university student housing. Columbus, OH: Author.
Association of College and University Housing Officers-International. (I 991 b). Standards for college and university student housing. Columbus, OH: Author.
Council for the Advancement of Standards in Higher Education. (1998). Housing program standards and guidelines: Self- assessment guide. Washington, DC: Author.
Day, J. F. (I 992). Planning for campus housing facilities upkeep and maintenance. In J. C. Grimm & R. E. Mosier (Eds.), Successful management of facilities in college and university residence halls and apartment housing (Pp. 9-19). Columbus, OH: Association of College and University Housing Officers-International.
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Grimm, J. C., & Mosier, R. E. (Eds.). (1992). Successful management of facilities in colúlege and university residence halls and apartment housing. Columbus, OH: Assoúciation of College and University Housing Officers-international.
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Kaiser, H. H. (1993). The facilities audit. Alexandria, VA: The Association of Higher Education Facilities Officers.
Lincoln, Y. S., & Guba, E. G. (1985). Naturalistic inquiry. Beverly Hills: Sage.
Maslow, A. H. (I 954). Motivation and personality. New York: Harper & Row.
Miller, T. K. (Ed.) (1997). CAS: The book of professional standards for higher education. Washington, DC: Council for the Advanceúment of Standards in Higher Education.
Pleskoff, B., & Grimm, J. C. (Eds.). (1 995). Residence hall and apartment safety and security. Columbus, OH: Association of College and University Housing Officers-International.
St. Onge, S. (1998, June). Developing a strategic plan for assessment. Talking Stick, 6-8.
Upcraft, M. L., & Schuh, J. H. (1996). Assessment in student affairs. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
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