During the 2022–23 academic year, faculty received a survey from Faculty Senate that asked them to share their concerns. When responses came in, concerns about facilities ranked near the top. For some, this was unexpected.

“I think it surprised those of us who work in buildings that have been recently renovated,” says Dr. Scott Zimmerman, associate professor of biomedical sciences and incoming chair of Faculty Senate. “We all do our jobs day to day, and we get out less than we’d like.” This means that someone who works in a remodeled space like Kampeter Hall or Ellis Hall may have a very different perspective than someone who works in an older building.

Focusing on Facilities

The survey results brought this discrepancy to the surface. Dr. Michael Hudson, associate professor of sports medicine and athletic training (then-chair of Faculty Senate) and Dr. Beth Walker, professor of agricultural science and conservation (then-chair-elect of Faculty Senate) relayed the information to the leadership of academic affairs.

A Key First Step

As a first step in addressing the issue, Provost Dr. John Jasinski proposed a series of building tours. The goal was to gather a group of representatives from Faculty Senate, Staff Senate, academic affairs and the division of administration and finance (including team members from the departments of facilities management; planning, design and construction; environmental management; and support services).

It was important, Jasinski notes, for the group to tour buildings together so that they could develop a collective understanding of the highs and lows — and the realities of budget constraints. This shared knowledge could then serve as a foundation for the prioritization of future building projects.

Jasinski reached out to Matt Morris, vice president for administration and finance, and Morris brought Jen Cox, university space manager/director of support services, into the conversation. “We had a meeting to talk about the goals, and then we got tours of academic spaces on the calendar,” Cox says.

Developing Collective Understanding

The deans of each college curated tours that highlighted their colleges’ points of pride and pressing needs. Major milestones — like the renovation of Blunt Hall, where Zimmerman says CNAS Dean Dr. Tamera Jahnke “did a terrific job” of explaining building improvements — served as touchpoints for what can be accomplished. Areas of concern, like buildings that experience water intrusion during heavy rain, were evaluated collectively.

It was important that personnel from different areas shared this experience. Team members from the division of administration and finance got to evaluate maintenance requests in the context of working conditions. And people who’d put in requests saw that their requests were heard. “I did get some feedback from faculty who were pleased that they saw the group come through,” Zimmerman says. “Someone cared enough to come over.”

Jasinski says he’s grateful that Faculty Senate raised this issue. “The work of managing and maintaining facilities is tremendously complex on a campus this size,” he says. “As we address maintenance issues, we must be sure that we’re putting equal care into communicating to faculty about these efforts.”

The Hard Part

The tours succeeded in establishing collective insight, which will be critical for prioritizing maintenance needs. But now comes the hard part. As Cox puts it, “The funding piece is going to be a challenge.”

The current list of deferred maintenance needs is estimated to cost $178 million. This is the estimate for deferred maintenance costs across the university — not only in academic buildings — and it includes the Fruit Experiment Station at Mountain Grove. The current annual budget for maintenance is a fraction of this number, less than 1%.

This may sound like an impossible gap to bridge, but Cox offered some optimism. “We’re working through strategies that will help,” she says.

Innovative Strategies

One example of these strategies: vacating the Park Central Office Building (PCOB). Getting out of PCOB saves the cost of the space as well as the cost of ongoing maintenance. These savings have been approved to go back into the maintenance budget, opening up more funding potential in the future.

The decision to sell Meyer Alumni Center also relieves maintenance needs. Construction projects that are funded by capital campaigns or large donations offer additional relief. For example, Cox says, building the Judith Enyeart Reynolds arts complex “will take care of a whole list of needs in the current Art Annex. That was much-needed work, and having the new building will decrease our overall list of deferred maintenance.”

Beyond this, Cox says some maintenance needs could be addressed as the university develops new immersive learning environments. With the shift to more interactive or tech-based learning modalities, some academic spaces will be transformed, as funding allows. This kind of innovation can accomplish two goals at once — chipping away at the list of maintenance needs while also setting up learning environments for future success. Such upgrades are within reach; Jasinski says that research into immersive learning environments is ongoing, with tangible steps coming soon.

All of which means that yes, maintenance needs are significant. So are the care and creativity being applied to address them.

Prioritization

Still, Cox knows this may not comfort someone who’s waiting on word about a specific maintenance issue. “We know that we have $178 million that needs to be done,” she says. “We have to prioritize that list. A reasonable order might be: life-safety, structural building and envelope items — like roofs — building systems, utility structure and repair, and replacement of worn building foundations.” 

The kicker is that many top-priority items are, as Zimmerman puts it, “invisible. It can seem like they aren’t glaring issues because we don’t see them until something fails.” And when someone’s waiting on a visible maintenance request, this dynamic gets frustrating.

“When we were on the tours, a lot of the things that were concerns for people fall toward the end of the prioritization list, which is a challenge for people,” Cox says. “You might have a request that seems simple and wonder why it’s not getting addressed as quickly as you’d like. When we zoom out and see the whole campus, when we see that life-safety has to be the priority and that funding is an issue, you can see the whole strategy.”

Jasinski says this is why it’s so important to be transparent about the prioritization and communicate it in a clear and timely fashion.

Zimmerman agrees. “When you want faculty support for something, it’s crucial to bring faculty in at the beginning of the conversation,” he says. “We look forward to being part of the conversation about priorities, and those priorities have to start with safety.”

Current Project List

For reference, Cox shared the following list of current projects with us.

From the maintenance budget for the 2024 fiscal year:

• Inspections related to life-safety and code compliance, which must be completed each year
• Repairs to utility tunnels
• Repairs to the exteriors of Carrington Hall and Strong Hall, which will address water intrusion
• Replacing the elevator in Carrington Hall
• A stormwater project at Kemper Hall
• Building envelope repairs to Faurot Hall in Mountain Grove

In October 2023, the Board of Governors approved an additional $6 million to address deferred maintenance projects. These funds will address the following:

• Improvements that were recommended by the university’s insurer for risk mitigation
• Replacing the fire pump at Hammons Student Center
• Funds for fire pump monitoring at the Power House, along with fuel system improvements
• Accessibility improvements, such as sidewalk grinding and, as necessary, sidewalk replacement
• A locker room project that supports Title IX compliance
• Projects that facilitate the kinesiology program’s move to Kampeter Hall and future improvements to McDonald Arena

Leaving PCOB opens up funds that make additional work possible. These savings are being applied toward projects at the Kings Street Annex.

Around Campus…

Cox encourages all employees to utilize resources that will help them register concerns about facilities and learn more about ongoing projects.

Request Maintenance

To make a maintenance request, use the work order system. Any employee can make a work order request — it doesn’t have to be filed by a building manager or academic unit leader.

If you have a non-emergency work request, please use this work order system to make the request. This will help document your issue and provide a specific order number that can be used to track it.

Follow Construction Updates

On a weekly basis, the planning, design and construction team shares updates on most projects. Typically, these updates are published on Fridays. They help clarify which parts of campus are currently experiencing construction activity and why this activity is happening.