Student Housing Business is the voice of the student housing industry.
Issue link: https://studenthousingbusiness.epubxp.com/i/564824
VIE W FROM THE ACADEME JULY/AUGUST 2015 STUDENT HOUSING BUSINESS .COM 80 BUCKEYE BOOM With approximately 3,800 beds opening over the next two years, Ohio State University's Molly Calhoun has her work cut out for her. Interview by Randall Shearin W With a goal to bring its second year students on-campus, Ohio State University (OSU) in Columbus has an ambitious construction project underway to build 3,872 beds. About half of those are opening this fall, and the remainder will open in the fall of 2016. All of the new hous- ing is located in the campus's North District. At OSU, all facilities for student life fall under the realm of Associate Vice President Molly Calhoun, who has been at the university since she was an undergraduate student. SHB recently interviewed Calhoun to fnd out more information on OSU's student housing expansion, her department and the unique way that the university works with off- campus student housing providers. SHB: You have been at Ohio State University for 29 years; that's a long time. Tell us a little bit about your experience there, and how you have grown up through the ranks. Calhoun: I was a student at Ohio State in industrial design. My junior year, I was look- ing for an internship or some work experi- ence, and student life had a student position that I applied for and got the job. At that time, they were contracting out project manage- ment and they were renovating the stadium dorms — there used to be a residence hall in the Ohio State stadium. The university needed someone to do the oversight on that, and they hired me as a student to oversee the interior design work. I worked with the uni- versity for a few years on projects and design work, and when I graduated, they ofered me a position and I said yes. I thought I'd prob- ably work here for a few years — that I would ultimately go work for an architectural frm — so I told them I would work for two to three years. That was 29 years ago. It's been an awe- some experience. The facilities department at the time was maintenance and housekeeping operations for the housing and dining depart- ments. At that point, we were starting to renovate our buildings, given the age of our buildings, so the project list got longer and longer, and it gave me a great opportunity to build the team to oversee the construction and operations of the housing and dining. I worked my way up through the organiza- tion starting as a designer and then assistant director, associate director, director, and then assistant vice president and now associate vice president. SHB: What do you oversee at OSU today? Calhoun: When I started, the facilities depart- ment was just for housing and dining facili- ties; housing is a part of student life. As the department and its expertise grew, the vice president of student life increased our responsibility to all of the student life facili- ties. We have about 6.2 million square feet of space that we manage, and handle the reno- vations and construction with that, as well as operations with maintenance, housekeep- ing, and building automation. My portfolio also includes risk and emergency manage- ment and technology services for student life. Our team also supports the of-campus and commuter students. Our team is composed of eight directors and about 250 people and about 6 million square feet. It's a lot of fun! SHB: That's a huge amount of space, and within that you have 11,000 beds of housing? Calhoun: Yes, we have 11,000 beds right now, and it's going to be about 14,000 beds. SHB: You have a massive project going on that is adding 3,872 beds to the campus in the next two years. That is almost a third of your current housing. Can you tell us about that project, and how that came to be? Calhoun: In 1965, we added all of the North District housing; at that time it was about 3,000 beds. In 1965, the university had a board resolution that students would be living on- campus for two years. That only lasted for about two years because enrollment at the university grew too quickly, so we were not able to house all the frst- and second-year stu- dents. Technically speaking, we have had on the books that students were required to live on-campus your second year since 1965, but we couldn't sustain that, so we just let people out of their contracts and have only required frst-year students to live on-campus. In 2007, when President Gee returned as president for the second time, that was a big initiative for him. He understood and valued the second year live-in experience, and wanted us to fnd a way to make that happen on our campus. At that point, we had a retention rate of our sec- ond year students in student housing at about 38 percent. We fgured out that we needed about 4,200 additional beds to allow for every second year student to live in. We also have a signifcant Greek organization, which had about 700 or 800 students that lived-in last year as second year students, so we were sup- porting the Greek philosophy. We don't man- age all of the Greek facilities, but we antici- pated that about 1,000 students would want to live in the Greek community, which meant we needed to provide 3,200 beds. We did an extensive survey of our three basic areas for undergraduates: the North District, which is where this current project is occurring; South District; and the River District. We were in the midst of renovating around 2,000 beds in the South District in 2007, and we were adding about 1,000 beds in order to keep up with an increase in enrollment. We've done signifcant " We decided that we needed a program for second year students to follow before we built the buildings in the initiative. We designed what we call the Second Year Transformational Experience Program (STEP) before we got into the actual building program.