Awesome Facilities

Capital planning is a career field that has many rewards, such as: seeing a campus grow, planning for the future, helping recruitment efforts, and beautifying the campus. It also comes with many struggles, such as: budgeting, lack of funding, difficult choices, and making decisions that can last for decades.

The rewards are all intrinsic to a capital planner. It is a job of pride in a job well done because they want to see the campus grow and succeed. They have an opportunity to create history within a college campus and to have an impact on the layout of campus that can stay for generations to come. These rewards are what helps capital planners go about their days in their career and motivate them to keep planning the campus’ future.

On the other end of the spectrum, capital planners must make difficult decisions. They have to decide whether to preserve history at a high cost or demolish history at a low cost. They have to decide how to properly spend their limited budget resources and what buildings are beyond the point of repair and remodeling. Capital planners have to make these difficult decisions in order to reap the benefits and rewards of being a capital planner. If they make the right decisions then their job is very rewarding. If they make the wrong decisions then their job can be a disaster that could have a long-term impact.

I think that BG’s capital planning is closely related to Akron University’s capital planning of a few years ago. I remember when I was doing a college visit over there 4 years ago they were building quite a few new buildings, including a new football facility. The tour guides said that a lot of the buildings were built in the past few years in order to beautify the campus and keep up with other university’s capital planning spending. The campus looked really nice and modern once it was completed and almost had me as a student. I see Bowling Green as being like Akron because of all the construction and new facilities on campus in order to better attract incoming freshman.

The event I went to for the No Impact Man author visit week was the author presentation. Author Colin Beavan discussed some motivations for writing his book, anecdotes to help explain some key points, and some statistics to help support his ideas. The presentation lasted about an hour and wasn’t too bad. I especially enjoyed the anecdotes that he told to relate the topic to us as college students.

The presentation influenced my thoughts on how the Earth is impacted by people such as myself in a small, but meaningful way. I never really thought about how much I waste through everyday activities. I often just throw things away and I don’t look at how much waste I actually accumulate. I have started to look more at how much waste I have been using and what I could have recycled. I think that taking it in small steps to change my lifestyle will help me out in the long run. I have never been one for recycling and reducing waste, so changing from that lifestyle to the opposite lifestyle will be hard. I think just realizing how much I waste and what I can do to help the Earth is a good step and a good influence on changing my lifestyle.

I think that this presentation related well with the course concept of building facilities according to LEED certification standards. The entire presentation was on how we can be more resourceful in the environment and reducing our waste to a near zero level. LEED certified buildings are about as sustainable as they get and they help reduce waste. It fits in well with the presentation because the author talked about how we need to start taking responsibility for our own waste and start the trend of being sustainable. LEED certified facilities help start that trend in the hopes that more facilities will follow the trend in the years to come.

Unfortunately I was not able to obtain any materials to prove I was at the presentation. I forgot to grab a pamphlet or a photo from the presentation. It was in the ballroom in the Union and I st on the left-hand side facing the speaker. There was a book signing booth directly in front of my section and the podium was in the middle. There were a few hundred people in attendance but certainly not near the amount of people that there was seating available for. Hopefully that kind of proves that I was there.