Beyond Classroom Maintenance

By Mary Romano, 2009 RMA Institute Scholarship Recipient
Structural Trades Analyst/Outage Coordinator
University of Colorado at Boulder

In 2005 several changes within facilities management at the university challenged us to look at our areas of responsibility, including our classrooms, from a different perspective. The most influential change was the hiring of a new director for our division and the changing of our name to Facilities Operations, along with the implementation of FAMIS as our new CMMS.

To help us proceed in a common direction a strategic plan called the Programs of Emphasis was developed by our leadership team, the first of which is Improve Campus Appearance and Functionality. We all know that classrooms can help recruit and retain students and faculty. They are the trenches, if you will, of the university. Their maintenance and improvement help show our commitment to stewardship and the campus community.

Our longstanding annual classroom tour had already revealed aging and inconsistent classroom finishes. With buildings ranging in age from one to one hunderd years old, the wide variation in our classroom design and technology became apparent. Once these needs were identified and a new emphasis placed on classroom appearance and functionality, we used this as an opportunity to see how we could develop and implement a procedure to audit, rate and track the condition of all of our classrooms in a consistent manner. This process would help us to identify remodeling needs and necessary repairs, as well as, develop a strategy to bring them up to a consistent standard.

During this same timeframe Facilities Operations (FO) also changed the organization of our trades groups from a geographical zone to a central shop model. Sounds like a lot of change and it was! This reorganization challenged us to find new ways to accomplish some of our work.

We now had to consider the way in which we would address the auditing of our classrooms on campus for upgrades and remodeling needs and how we could then accomplish this work. There was no consistent audit process or universal tracking mechanism for classroom needs in use in the zone system. The Facilities Operations division had not really participated in the classroom renovation process beyond supporting some minor structural upgrades. Previously, the Planning, Design and Construction (PD&C) division had the budget and responsibility for this program. Facilities Operations had only cared for the day to day maintenance of the 182 Centrally Scheduled Classrooms.

We were now being asked to extend our scope to include the 88 departmentally scheduled classrooms and 285 teaching labs, which we had not been maintaining beyond trouble calls. These areas had traditionally been taken care of by the specific departments that used them or with our help upon request for cost sharing or, more commonly, were not being taken care of at all. It became apparent from their appearance that these rooms were also becoming victims of shrinking budgets across campus. Our charge now was to look into ways to incorporate these additional spaces into our auditing and remodeling program. This would require us to figure out how to allocate human resources and funding to incorporate and accomplish this additional work.

We devised a method to accomplish what we needed to do for our general fund classroom maintenance and expand our tasks to include improving a larger number of classrooms overall. We were fortunate enough to be able to reallocate and dedicate a trades position to do campus wide building auditing and inspections. Part of the job duties would include the classroom auditing program.

There are real time constraints on gathering the information and completing the work once it has been audited and funded. It takes a lot of planning and scheduling. We are on a traditional two semester calendar school year with additional "maymester" and summer sessions. With 30,000 students using the classrooms five days a week from 8:00a to 10:00p, plus many weekend events held by the Campus community and off campus groups, the high traffic and usage creates quite a challenge.

The auditor created a spreadsheet to use during field inspections to rate and track the conditions of our centrally scheduled and departmental classrooms as well as our teaching labs. The existing finishes and classroom components in each room are also entered into FAMIS as room notes to assist our technicians and project managers as a reference database during future maintenance and renovation. Using the project aspect of FAMIS allows us to track the progress and costs of the project through phase work orders and project reports. The reports we can generate from FAMIS provide a clear picture to help us stay on schedule and within the budget.

We have scheduled a preventive maintenance (PM) work order to be issued from FAMIS for each room to be audited during a predetermined time period prior to the two school breaks that occur during the year. This enables us time to plan and accomplish the work during the class breaks. After communication with building users and Academic Scheduling, we can order materials and schedule our employees or, when needed, acquire estimates from contractors.

One effect of the recent budget constraints has been lower staffing levels which sometimes results in the use of our standing order contractors to accomplish work that is beyond general fund maintenance. The auditor is in the field on a regular basis doing audits of other conditions that allow us to gather data for deferred maintenance (DM) and indirect cost recovery (ICR) projects, and therefore has the opportunity to do additional on-going classroom auditing throughout the year as well.

A floor to ceiling approach has been taken with the inspections which occur formally on a semi-annual basis. In addition to maintaining the existing finishes, we have added items to the rooms such as chair rails to protect walls, ceiling fans to aid with air flow, stainless stell electrical faceplates for amore durable finish, and upgraded and standardized classroom signage, including ADA Braille standards. We have replaced worn carpets and ceiling tiles, removed outdated wall coverings and upgraded window coverings as well as moveable and fixed classroom seating.

We encourage classroom users to conserve energy and support our sustainability efforts by adhering conservation stickers on the light switches, windows and temperature controls.

Updating lab furnishings in our teaching labs is one of the next areas we hope to begin to address. We have begun to collaborate with our PD&C division and the campus ITS department on major classroom remodels and technology upgrades, helping to create a rotational remodel schedule and advising on the maintainability of design and finishes.

123 of our classrooms are currently “Smart” with plans to upgrade 40 more during the upcoming fiscal year. With the annual PD&C renovation budget, DM funding and cash carry forward operational funds dedicated to this work we are producing a concerted effort that is making vast improvements to our classroom space. Working together we hope to achieve responsible fiscal management of our classroom renovation dollars and attempt to keep up with technology needs in the 21st Century Information Age.

The collaborative focus on our classrooms has made a big difference in the appearance, functionality and comfort of the classrooms for our students. Faculty, building proctors and department personnel report their appreciation for our more focused efforts in the classrooms. You know you are hitting the mark when the director states that “he sees the difference” and continues to commit funds towards our efforts! The economic downturn and shrinking State budget have caused us at the University of Colorado at Boulder to reassess our priorities and the allocation of resources. If this program was not successful and making a difference, I doubt we would have the continued support for our efforts.