university of virginia strategic framework for academic space
The strategic framework for academic space centered on understanding how the university’s complex portfolio of buildings is used and managed today in order to contextualize individual schools’ growth projections and space requirements, and to create a rigorous framework for future capital-investment decisions. The key findings were that replacing UVA’s current decentralized approach to space planning and capital development is a high-value strategic opportunity; that optimizing the use of existing resources is critical so as to enlarge the pie for potential reinvestments for active learning and interdisciplinary research; and that the university could better drive positive culture change if it had an integrated governance structure for academic, financial, and physical planning, supported by data, tools, and processes that empower transparent, analytical, and rigorous decision making. Our work focused on three key tasks: a detailed analysis of the university’s instructional portfolio, with recommendations on future management, configuration, and use; a synthesis of 30 studies completed between 2015 and 2018 on program needs for the various schools; and on generating policy recommendations.
