In this episode of Laying the Foundation, we sit down with Kent Lutz, a principal architect at CMBA Architects, to discuss the latest trends in higher education design. Kent shares insights into how institutions are addressing declining enrollment, increasing in-person class attendance, adapting existing facilities to meet changing needs, the importance of sustainability and green design in higher education spaces, and more. Listen to learn more about the challenges and opportunities facing higher education institutions today.
(Skyler): Welcome to another episode of Laying the Foundation. Welcome everybody to another episode of the Laying the Foundation podcast. Today we're back again with another leading the way, part of our mini-series where I sit down with one of the many principles of our company to talk about something that they're passionate about or some area that they really feel strongly about and really want to discuss. And today, joining me is a wonderful Des Moines principle, Kent. Lut. Lutz.
(Kent): Well, if you were German, you'd say Lutz.
(Skyler): Lutz.
(Kent): Lutz. Yeah. The only person that pronounces my name correctly is my daughter's German teacher.
(Skyler): Okay, so that is the. Okay, so that's the correct way to do it.
(Kent): Well, if you're German. It is German. But know I also live in Iowa, Skyler. And people call Nevada. Nevada.
(Skyler): Oh. That's true.
(Kent): Call Ma Madrid. Madrid. So it's like, you know, I think you can just pretty much say whatever you want.
(Skyler): You can just do whatever.
(Kent): That's right.
(Skyler): The old just don't call me late for dinner.
(Kent): Yeah. Yes.
(Skyler): Perfect. Well, so Ken, we talked previously and you really wanted to discuss, higher ed design and specifically kind of some of the trends within higher ed design.
(Kent): Sure. Yes, that's right. So there are some trends that we've seen over the last few years and some really interesting ones now that we're like maybe what, three or four years removed from COVID Yeah, some really interesting things that have come out of that and some of the ways that the higher ed institutions are dealing with them. the first one that comes to mind, is declining enrollment at four year institutions. Absoute. So a bunch of people went away, for Covid and they never came back.
(Skyler): Yeah.
(Kent): and so ever since then, the enrollment slowly started to climb back up. But most institutions aren't at pre Covid enrollment levels. Most four year institutions, so some of the things that they've done to combat that, we're all stealing from the same pool of students. Right. They're stealing from the same pool of students. So, one of the things that we've seen is, them lowering their admission requirements to try to attract more students. And that's really sort of hurt the community colleges, because now some of some of the students who could have gotten into a community college but couldn't get into a four year school could now get into the four year school. So they're going that direction.
(Skyler): Sure.
(Kent): that's one thing that was interesting. The other thing I thought was interesting that I learned at the last conferen that I was at is that a lot of the major institutions around the country, the brand name schools that we hear about all the time, are actually sort of opening recruiting offices around the country and staffing them, full time to try to recruit students.
(Skyler): Yeah.
(Kent): So those know, they're sort of like salespeople offering curriculum advice to school districts and to teachers, trying to build those relationships with the high school counselors, ah, in an effort to try to get students to come to their campus.
(Skyler): Interesting. So what benefit does it give to have those kind of scattered around in different areas, as opposed to just sending representatives out to, say, speak at different, high schools or going to, like, career fairs and things along those lines to kind of attract them in.
(Kent): It's that constant engagement.
(Skyler): Okay.
(Kent): And being local and a local resource. Absolutely'we. Think of it a little bit like an army recruiter.
(Skyler): Yeah.
(Kent): A way. Right?
(Skyler): Yeah. Got to be at every mall, and, ah, strip mall throughout the country to make sure you catch everybody.
(Kent): Come to the University of Illinois and see the world.
(Skyler): Awesome. Ah, that'd be impressing. so going from that, then, with these offices that are scattered all about, are they doing anything? Like, are they doing any of the academic stuff within those offices, or is.
(Kent): It strictly forly about admissions?
(Skyler): Okay.
(Kent): Yeah.
(Skyler): Because I know that, like, there's a lot of people that are doing some of the more remote learning through higher education to some extent. I wasn't sure if that tied into that at all.
(Kent): Well, it doesn't. But the remote learning thing is super interesting because another thing that happened is happening post Covid is that, unless it's a requirement for a grade, like, a lot of people just don't come to class. Right, Right. So the attendance in class is really low, and so a lot of instructors have started to require it as part of their grade.
(Skyler): I'm tired of not seeing people in here.
(Kent): There has to be a balance. And that seemed to be really clear from that discussion too, is like, okay, I get that they're not coming to class because for many factors. One, convenience. the list was really, really quite long, but the two or three that were at the top were convenience. the instructors are boring. That was one of my favorite ones. And they just wanted to kind of like, learn at their own pace and do their own thing.
(Skyler): Sure.
(Kent): Right. So it's like, that's super interesting to me. But it's like, to me, I learned better with other people helping me too. which is kind of another Segue. So the graduation rate, and people that start college and finish college has really gone down as well since COVID And so another trend that we're seeing is, active mentorship. So ass.
(Skyler): What does that mean?
(Kent): Assigning incoming students a mentor.
(Skyler): Oh.
(Kent): You know, how we kind of mentor our staff and teach them about the profession as they graduate from college. It's the same thing with students. Mentoring new students and trying to get them engaged in college, get engaged in the community, get engaged in their major, just to help them stay, keep them around.
(Skyler): Here's a connection that you have.
(Kent): There's up to. In this seminar, we learned that it's up to 57% at one campus of, an improvement when they've assigned mentors versus not having mentors. So that thought that was an interesting thing.
(Skyler): That is an interesting. Yeah, absolutely. Getting a dedicated person to kind of, yeah. Walk you through the college experience and make sure that you're accessing everything that you need or you have direction and so on and so forth. It's an interesting direction to take, for sure.
(Kent): It is one of the other ones that I thought was also quite interesting. And we think about maybe may because we're in a profession that requires constant continuing education, you know, as part of our registration, licensing. But, a lot of higher ed institutions are, they call it reskilling or, upskilling. Working with their alumni, to like, do lifelong learning. saying that, sort of saying that, hey, the workforce is changing, the needs for the workforce are changing, the skill sets need to change too. And the skill set that maybe you got in college or aren't getting in your career needs to be upgraded or changed or repurposed somehow throughout your career. So I thought that was an interesting thing.
(Skyler): Interesting. And how are they doing this? Like, how are they implementing lifelong learning?
(Kent): A lot of them are doing it through their alumni base. So they're reaching out to. To one night and saying, hey, we have these programs, know for this. And then the other way they're doing it is, working with the private sector and saying, hey, what do you need these people to know how to do?
(Skyler): Sure.
(Kent): How can we help teach, the workforce to support industry.
(Skyler): Interesting. So being able to work directly with the company, to essentially train somebody to some extent on what the company needs them to do, in a sense.
(Kent): Right. And that corporate partnership, also can provide another funding stream for the university.
(Skyler): Absolutely. That's interesting. That's. I mean, hey, you got to take those kind of clever routes. You got to look at the opportunities and look a little bit outside the, the box that we've built.
(Kent): Right, right. And again, that all kind of ties back to that doing more with less because the funding's been a challenge.
(Skyler): Right.
(Kent): And higher ed, honestly, at least the last 20 years that I've been working in higher ed.
(Skyler): Absolutely, absolutely. So kind of jumping back a little bit. Right. So you said we saw you declining enrollment that's eventually, you know, inst. Steadily climbing back up to the original areas. What are we seeing as far as like dormitories, obviously with fewer students on campus. And maybe this also kind of ties in a little bit to the remote learning that a lot of students have been trying to maintain, taking advantage of and things along those lines. Is that harming the need or the otherwise like use of these like dormitory spaces that we put together?
(Kent): It's interesting because it seems most campuses, and the campuses that we're familiar with struggle to have enough space for student housing.
(Skyler): Really.
(Kent): They do. And I think there is a high demand for student housing. There just is. And a, you know, some schools have a requirement when you're a freshman or a sophomore that you have to live on campus. So that's one thing. But I think one thing that's sort of, that they really look at with student housing, especially on campus now, is an opportunity for it to be about wellness. Wellness is like, you know, that's a huge topic. It has been for a number of years now. Especially after Covid.
(Skyler): Absolutely.
(Kent): they look at the student living as an opportunity to create communities.
(Skyler): Yeah.
(Kent): So, it's not the dorm of my days where there might have been a TV somewhere on the floor in a community room. It really is about community spaces and amenities. And one of the things I thought was most interesting about that is that of the campus that was talking. One of the campus people that was talking about that, mentioned that they're now allowing students to bring their pets.
(Skyler): Oh, wow.
(Kent): To live with them on campus.
(Skyler): Sure.
(Kent): You know, it's a $250 deposit person.
(Skyler): Right, right.
(Kent): Of course. To bring, ah, to bring your best friend with you to college. But they've seen huge improvements in mental health.
(Skyler): Absolutely.
(Kent): And just. And it's just a nice community thing. And you know, pets are part of our family.
(Skyler): Absolutely. And it's one of those things that, as you know, the architects and designers of these projects, I guess that's something to look into is hey, there's a big trend that's moving towards being able to have pets. In your dorm room. Let's make sure that we're using materials that won't, you know, get ruined the second that it has an accident on the floor.
(Kent): Yeah. Or not that that would ever happen. Right?
(Skyler): Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no.
(Kent): Yeah. We're creating outdoor spaces where the pets can, you know.
(Skyler): Yeah.
(Kent): Walk them and play with them and interact with other students. So.
(Skyler): Sure.
(Kent): That's definitely a different than it was. Now the other thing I would say about that, sort of that wellness heading, that big wellness heading that we talk about, is that it's really multldifaceted. It used to be very, very just focused on students and now it's focused on the whole community, from administration to staff to faculty. it's a resource for everyone because, attracting and entertaining students is one thing, but it's the same with staff.
(Skyler): Yeah, absolutely. And when you say trying to like, create those opportunities, for the full community, what kind of things are we looking at?
(Kent): You know, they're doing, putting groups together, support groups together. just talking about it honestly has't been a big help. there's all kinds of resources from everything from financial literacy, sort of training they're doing for wellness to, sort of life coaching and health coaching. So, lots of interesting opportunities there.
(Skyler): Yeah, yeah. Make full use of the campus. I mean, there's a lot of resources on any given college campus and it's great for anybody involved to be able to kind of take advantage of those resources. For sure. when it comes to like, let's look at like, the flexibility and adaptability of. Of the facilities. I know we've kind of talked in previous episodes about, you know, this space originally, you know, might be a library. For instance, was a library as a place to go, be quiet, checkout books, so on and so forth. But we're starting, as I understand, seeing a lean towards these spaces being used for kind of a bit more multip. Purpose.
(Kent): That's right. I think, libraries, formally as they're known, where storage warehouses for books.
(Skyler): Right.
(Kent): For people to be quiet and do serious study work at. And there's still in need for those kinds of spaces. Sure. Believe it or not, there's still books.
(Skyler): Yes.
(Kent): On campus. I happen to love books, so I'm happy to hear that Kent knows what.
(Skyler): All the books are.
(Kent): There's also, less need for books, which provides an opportunity to, recapture that space and repurpose it. and a lot of times we see that used as, sort of student commons type space or active learning type space. Okay. And those become an opportunity for groups of people to get together and do work together. And the thing that's important about that, going back to trends in higher ed is just that the way that we teach now used, to be very singular. Your work, this is your work. You're doing your own work, You're m graded on your own work. And that's not really how we work in the real world. We work in teams.
(Kent): And so having that kind of space for teams to get together is really important because that's how they're teaching the classes now.
(Skyler): Absolutely. And that's gonna change what the classroom is gonna look like too, because having everybody kind of just sat in sort of a theater esque or within their own little chair sections, we're going toa be looking at some trends that are going toa open things up to a bit more like group spaces.
(Kent): Sure. And this has been a trend for quite some time now. But having the lecture be sort of something that you watch on YouTube.
(Skyler): Right.
(Kent): And then you come to a lab class where you talk about it with a group.
(Skyler): Sure.
(Kent): So those classrooms, it's what's interesting about them. The first few ones that we did that were really technology rich. The technology costs were just astronomical.
(Skyler): Right.
(Kent): And now, 15 plus years later, the technology costs are very, very, easily achievable.
(Skyler): Yeah.
(Kent): Right. Well, it used to cost a quarter of a million dollars for a classroom. Now maybe costs 40,000.
(Skyler): Yeah. Wow. That's insane. That's crazy to think about. Yeah. We constantly see. Yeah. Everything kind of progresses to be higher quality and then bringing the cost down as we kind of evolve the technology and then also evolve the way that we're able to manufacture it.
(Kent): Yeah. And maybe the coolest part of that technology piece is that it was like, tough to get some of the older instructors to embrace that technology.
(Skyler): Right.
(Kent): And now it's just sort of like a, second nature. Because I feel like maybe the next generation of instructors and you can't make a blanket statement because there are some instructors that have been teaching forever that really took that bull by the horns and wrestled to the ground.
(Skyler): Absolutely.
(Kent): I feel like the expectation of that technology working and the expectation to easily be able to use it and not see it as a barrier has really, really changed.
(Skyler): And I like to think that there's a level of excitement too, being able to see how technology is being used throughout society and being like, how do I, as a professor teacher take advantage of that? And use it and make use of it in my classroom to help my students to better grasp what it is that I'm trying to share with them.
(Kent): That's right. And the biggest thing. And we talk about it at every event I go to. It seems like it's a topic but they talk about AI.
(Kent): and how it's used. And I think that's certainly not anything that's going to go away. And I think everything froment using chat GPT it's a research tool for them to write papers. Absolly to coming up with policies on ethical uses of it. it's a real interesting topic.
(Skyler): Yeah, absolutely. And it's going to be ongoing. The more the AI continues to evolve, the more ways that students could use it and the more that we have to ye kind of put policies in place of how are you allowed to use it and what are we not okay with you using it as and so on and so forth. It'it's going to get more and more tricky for sure as time goes on. Yeah.
(Kent): The better and better it gets, Right.
(Skyler): Yeah, absolutely. what about sustainability? What kind of trends are we seeing within sustainability and green design?
(Kent): Yeah. So you know, I think this is interesting because as big of a sort of. I called it an arms race back in the day there was sort the campus is like making the best facilities possible to try to attract students. And I feel like that's happening in sustainability too. And I feel like that's sort of a kind of a social justice issue that students, especially those people graduating from high school right now are thinking about because they have to live with this planet for a lot longer than some of us do.
(Skyler): That's true.
(Kent): Yeah. So you know, you think about the campuses, they're big places. if you took the two major regions institutions in Iowa and they'd probably be in the top 15 cities sty cities in Iowa. Right, right. And so they have a pretty big carbon footprint.
(Skyler): Oh absolutely.
(Kent): So there's a lot of opportunity there for them to do things that maybe ah, a city or municipality couldn't do. and they do do that and they are doing it. I think the interesting thing that helps attract students more is a lot of those students, especially going to an Iowa State, a good engineering school and no offense to you engineers from the University of Iowa, I know you're out there. A lot of that research to build the next generation of electrical systems and power systems and energy systems is happening on those campuses. Yeah. And I Think there's a real push for them to lead by example.
(Skyler): Absolutely. I mean, it just makes sense. Right? That's cool. And it's exciting to see. And you're 100% right. I think students that are coming into colleges right now have a much higher expectation of their universities to look into options and to take advantage of options that would help to bring down that. That footprint.
(Kent): Yeah. Across the board. And, just talking about it and having recycle bins, in the corners isn't enough anymore.
(Skyler): No, no, not at all. It's nice, but it's. It's definitely not where we. We draw the line.
(Kent): Right.
(Skyler): And. Yeah. And it's exciting, you know, seeing, you know, some of the projects that we've worked on where we've been able to achieve, you know, net zero and things like that for certain spaces. It's amazing to see what's out there and what's available to take advantage of. And how are you, a college or university, taking advantage of?
(Kent): Yeah, it's been our experience, at least with the institutions that we work with, that they are leaders in that field. And, you know, they do think about sustainability in a couple of different ways. And one way, that maybe a lot of people don't think about is that they build buildings that, you know, typically last 50 to 100 years without major maintenance.
(Skyler): Sure.
(Kent): And we also build buildings that can be, you know, used for something else when maybe that purpose is worn out. And those are two really sustainable things to not, you know, not rebuild something every 20 years after.
(Skyler): Exactly. You don't think about, you know, we're so focused on we can recycle paper, we can recycle cardboard, but we don't think about entire buildings that we can recycle. And in fact, I think we just did a post at the time of recording this, for Northwestern College, and we took an old. I think it was like an auto parts building, and we've basically turned that into a new, program facility for them, which is, again, recycling a building that was already there, rather than tearing it all down and bringing in new resources that had to be harvested and took up energy to do all that. Making an old building into a new building.
(Kent): Yeah. What could be more engineering like, than that for an engineering school?
(Skyler): I know it really came full circle for that. That was really. It's really cool to see that project coming together, and I believe it'll be finished by the time this episode comes out. So definitely something really exciting. And that's just for now, obviously, things will change in the future. We talked about. AI is constantly changing and obviously, you know, green and sustainability, topics are going to be changing as time goes on and new things are goingna come into place. New technologies. So, this is, this is a great episode and there's a lot of awesome topics, but I'm sure we'll probably end up doing a part two down the road because.
(Kent): Oh, great.
(Skyler): Things will change. Yeah. But I'll let you, I'll let you initiate that once you feel like.
(Kent): There'Sn once I have more. We, I wrote four down today and we talked about them all.
(Skyler): Thank you so much, Kent, for being on the show, for sharing your expertise within the world of higher ed and the higher ed trends that are kind of coming our way.
(Kent): Appreciate it, Skyar. Thank you so much.
(Skyler): If you'd like to find out more about the Laying the Foundation podcast, you can head over to any podcast streaming platform such as Spotify, itunes, Google podcasts and others. You can also find out more about CMBA Architects through social media such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. Additionally, you can head over to the CNBA website at cmbar. If you're an architecture or design professional or an intern looking for an internship within those fields, please be sure to check out our website and click on the Careers tab to find out more about what opportunities we offer. This has been another episode of the Laying the Foundation podcast. We'll see you next time.