Maggie Kinnaman is director of business administration for facilities management at the University of Maryland, Baltimore; she can be reached at mkinnama@fm.umaryland.edu. Gary Reynolds is director of facilities services at The Colorado College, Colorado Springs, Colorado; he can be reached at greynolds@coloradocollege.edu. Both are co-directors of APPA’s Center for Facilities Research Advisory Council.

It has been two years since the launch of an exciting new APPA initiative, the Center for Facilities Research (CFaR). The past two years have yielded many accomplishments that we’d like to share with you. First, though, let’s review the basic concepts of CFaR. 

Purpose of CFaR
The Center for Facilities Research was established to organize and consolidate research on facilities management issues concerning educational facilities within the APPA association. Research is broadly defined as the “deliberate search for knowledge.”

CFaR is intended to function as an instigator of research, a repository of information, a resource center for members, a means for information distribution, and as a means of recognition of APPA members for their research work and contribution. CFaR supports APPA’s desired outcomes of competence, credibility, and collaborative relationships by connecting our members to evolving research that will help to raise levels of competence and enhance institutional credibility. In addition, the initiative connects our members to others who have conducted research and have a story to tell.

Center for Facilities Research desired outcomes:

• Identify needed research areas
• Expand and strengthen the facilities body of knowledge
• Engage more constituents/stakeholders in research
• Ensure stability and continuity of the research initiative
• Consolidate existing and future facilities-related research
• Improve access to facilities research information

CFaR’s—Vision and Mission
The Vision is: “An internationally recognized resource supporting learning environments.”

The Mission is: “Advancing the body of knowledge of facilities management through research, discovery, and innovation.”

History of CFaR
In February of 2002 the APPA Board of Directors approved the creation of CFaR and the renaming of APPA’s Standing Committee to Information and Research. This alignment created a new reporting line integrating CFaR permanently into APPA’s governance structure. With this approval, and preliminary funding, a CFaR management and advisory structure consisting of two co-directors and four assistant directors and an Advisory Council were developed. The preliminary funding for CFaR came from significant and ongoing sponsorship provided by founding contributor Applied Management Engineering, Inc. of Virginia Beach, Virginia.

The work completed in the interim two years includes the development of the basic structure including a vision and mission statement, organizational alignment, policies, management and research procedures, an in-depth Researcher’s Guide and the creation and enlistment of a peer research review group. In addition, several research projects have been completed and published, website development has started, marketing materials have been developed for members and external constituencies, and research has been sponsored, such as the Stewardship Investment Model (SIM) and the Impact of Facilities on Student Recruitment and Retention.

We are in the second year of a five-year startup of CFaR. The initial activities, as outlined above, have been supported by donations to CFaR by interested Business Partners and for this support we are extremely grateful. In addition to the tremendous sponsorship we have received from Applied Management Engineering, we are also grateful to Facility Asset Consulting and Sodexho for their generous support of CFaR. These activities have permanently integrated CFaR into APPA’s governance structure, created an awareness of CFaR amongst our members and external constituencies and created the underlying support structure to conduct peer-reviewed research.

The development of information includes seed funding for research such as the SIM project and the Impact of Facilities on Student Recruitment and Retention research. The completion of these projects, along with several others that were completed and published under the auspices of CFaR, help to set a standard of high quality research and credibility for CFaR.

The delivery of information is an important part of CFaR’s mission. A key component in that delivery process is the development of a dynamic, Web-based library and search engine that allows CFaR to gather, classify, store, and deliver information on-demand. Also, other delivery mechanisms need to be developed including a peer reviewed journal, APPA Annual Forum delivery support, and delivery at other APPA educational venues.

Completed CFaR Projects
The following research projects have been completed under the CFaR umbrella.

• Workplace Violence in Higher Education
  
  Principal Investigator: Edward L. Rice, Kansas State University
  
  Executive summary published in March/April 2003 Facilities Manager
  
  “Workplace violence is more complex than an employee suddenly appearing at his or her workplace heavily armed with the intention of killing supervisors or other employees. In understanding workplace violence, administrators must be aware that violence can strike a college or university campus at any time. Administrators must also understand that the only effective defense against workplace violence is their campus employees. For the employees to be effective requires that the campus have a workplace violence prevention program and workplace violence training to support the program.”
  
• Implementing the Capital Plan
  
  Principal Investigators: William A. Daigneau, University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, and Jack Hug, APPA Past President
  
  Published as chapter in the APPA-NACUBO book, Planning and Managing the Campus Facilities Portfolio, 2003
  
  “Developing a comprehensive long-term capital plan to manage the facilities portfolio is a major challenge. Implementing that plan is yet another. Not all projects in the capital plan carry the same priority. Generally, most projects fall into one of two categories: 1) projects necessary to maintain the operational integrity of the institution; or 2) projects that have a strategic importance to the institution and those that further its mission and goals. Some projects may have elements of both categories; for example, the renovation of an older building to support a new program may also include a number of repair projects, such as a new roof and upgrades to the building façade, as well as necessary code compliance improvements.”
  
• Where Do You Lead From?
  
  Principal Investigator: Frederic J. Gratto, University of Florida
  
  Executive summary published in May/June 2004 Facilities Manager
  
  “In a profession as technical as facilities management, all the hardware in the world can be a mighty force. Nonetheless, the software of management skill matters more than ever before. Leaders have the biggest impact on any organization; employees tend to take on the characteristics of their leader. People do follow the leader. In fact, employees ascend or tumble to the level of the leader. Therefore, it is important for leaders in facilities management to consider how their behavior, attitude, and level of job satisfaction impacts the work environment and the performance of the people in it, including themselves.”

• Traversing the Culture Continuum
  
  Principal Investigator: Glenn Smith, Bryn Mawr College
  
  Executive summary published in May/June 2005 Facilities Manager
  
  “Change is essential to any improvement effort, and yet our institutions of higher education are, by their very nature, highly resistant to internal change. So where do we start? Perhaps at the very place where that resistance resides—the institution’s culture. The important point is to understand that the effectiveness of any efforts to change the output, product, or service of any organization is dependent upon the organizational culture—the interrelationships, interactions, and interdependencies of people, and the written and unwritten rules that govern them. Performance and success, however measured, is directly linked to organizational culture.”

Active CFaR Projects

• Building the Learning Environment Through Strategic Investment
  
  Principal Investigators: Douglas K. Christensen, Brigham Young University, and Rod Rose, Stratus/The JCM Group
  
  This project will provide a set of stewardship guidelines to help campus administrators understand the total cost of investing in and maintaining campus facilities over their full life from inception, construction, renovation or modernization, through decommissioning.
  
• The Effect of Educational Facilities on Recruitment and Retention of Students
  
  Principal Investigators: Gary L. Reynolds, The Colorado College, and David A. Cain, Carter & Burgess, Inc.
  
  This project will update and more fully explore the impact of the type and quality of educational facilities on student recruitment first seen in a 1980s report by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. At press time nearly 16,000 undergraduate students have completed the researchers’ Web-based survey.
  
• Structuring In-House Construction Rates in Colleges and Universities
  
  Principal Investigators: Donald J. Guckert and Jeri Ripley King, University of Iowa
  
  Phase I of this study has been completed and was summarized in the July/August 2004 Facilities Manager as “The Charge of the Rate Brigade: A Rate Template for In-House Construction Labor.” Phase II is underway and will determine the current ratio of recharge rates to direct wages, as well as the factors that influence the ratio.
  
• The Facility Condition Index as a Measure of the Conditions of Public Universities in the United States as Perceived by the End Users
  
  Principal Investigator: Robert J. Quirk, California State University, Long Beach
  
  This study will question the null hypothesis that there is no relationship between the FCI and the perspective of the end users, and the researcher also expects that these findings will provide additional credence to the FCI measurement and reveal an association between customer satisfaction and the condition of our public universities.
  
• Facilities Reinvestment
  
  Principal Investigator: Harvey H. Kaiser, Harvey H. Kaiser Associates, Inc.
  
  Support for facilities reinvestment is enhanced by linking an institutional strategic plan with the development of a facilities strategic plan and long-range capital plan, applying an array of assessment and analytical tools. The researcher presented initial findings at most of the annual meetings of APPA regions in 2004.
  
• The Effect of Facility Condition Index on National Science Foundation-Funded Research Grants in Higher Education
  
  Principal Investigator: Theodore J. Weidner, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
  
  Federal research expenditures for science and engineering have increased over 92 percent between 1991 and 2001. This study will create an outcomes-based metric that may be used in future discussions with higher education administrators to address accumulated deferred maintenance issues.
  
• Negotiating Win-Win A/E Professional Services Agreements
  
  Principal Investigator: Donald Chrusciel, assisted by Christopher K. Ahoy, Kelly McCool, and Dean Morton, all of Iowa State University
  
  When combining the interest of being a good steward of the institution’s physical assets, along with the interest to obtain design services better, cheaper, and faster, these paradigms come together at a focal point when an institution goes into the negotiations with an external architect/engineer vendor. This study will serve to discover the factors most influential in this negotiating process.

Future Initiatives

• Creation of an APPA Award for Principle Investigators of Level 3 Synthesis and Level 4 Creation research
• Completion of a dynamic website to ensure that our members have access to a repository and resource center capturing and making available the results of evolving research

Why CFaR is an Important Initiative for You

• When you’re faced with a challenge at work, CFaR can become your “go to” resource to gather information about the challenge and how others have addressed it. This information is all available at your finger tips. Check out the APPA website under research and see how you can search archived APPA list discussions, completed research, archived Facilities Manager articles, etc.
• When your institution has a perplexing facilities issue that no prior research has addressed, CFaR is the place that an APPA member can go to conduct their own research which will be added to the facilities body of knowledge.
• CFaR can provide you with a roadmap that helps guide, review, legitimize, and publish your research.
• CFaR gives our members an opportunity to participate in and contribute to research much the same way as our academic communities are doing.
• CFaR can help a prospective researcher by connecting them to potential revenue streams to help support their research.
• CFaR can connect a prospective researcher with others who might also be interested in participating on a research team.
• Conducting research adds to member professional development.
• CFaR research can provide knowledge that will help to create better learning environments.

We encourage you to take a look at CFaR and think of ways that it can help you make better decisions and formulate more effective strategies. In the words of Thomas A. Edison, “Opportunity is often missed by people because it is dressed in overalls and looks a lot like work.”

Don’t let the CFaR opportunity pass you by. Embrace it and help us expand the body of knowledge related to our facilities profession.

For more information, visit www.appa.org/cfar or e-mail cfar@appa.org.

CFaR Advisory Council

Directors

Maggie Kinnaman                             Gary L. Reynolds
University of Maryland, Baltimore        The Colorado College

Assistant Directors

David A. Cain                                    Harvey D. Chace
Carter & Burgess, Inc.                       University of New Mexico

Douglas K. Christensen                     L. Scott Turley
Brigham Young University                  University of Arkansas

APPA Board Liaison

Michael J. Sofield
Smithsonian Institution

At-Large Members

Craig M. Bell                                    Robert G. Brooks
Sodexho/Wabash College                 Applied Management Engineering, Inc.

Jeffrey L. Campbell                           Doug Kincaid
Brigham Young University                 Applied Management Engineering, Inc.

Rod Rose                                        Theodore J. Weidner
The JCM Group                                University of Nebraska-Lincoln

APPA Staff

E. Lander Medlin                             Steve Glazner
Executive Vice President                  Director of Knowledge Management