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Facilities Manager | march/april 2014 | 27 WHAT WERE THE DRIVING FORCES THAT LED CAMPUS PERSONNEL TO EXCELLENCE? According to Burke & Associates (2004), the higher education sector has three key stakeholder groups that define excellence and serve to drive institutions to pursue excellence: 1) the state priority that represents the public interests, 2) the market force that represents the individual interests of the people that have the power to choose, and 3) the academic concern, which repre- sents the faculty and administrators who have strong views about how education should be delivered. In the Spellings Commis- sion report of 2006, the U.S. Department of Education high- lighted the provision of quality, affordable, accessible, and ac- countable education as the driving forces for U.S. institutions of higher education. Surprisingly, these forces were not significant drivers for study participants. Instead, the impetus for pursuing the AFE was the instruction or direction of the vice president, the senior facilities officer, and/or facilities leaders. Additional reasons cited by the participants for pursuing the AFE were narrowly focused at the facilities department level and include 1) the aspiration to improve the perception of the team through positive recognition internationally, regionally, and from their campus community; 2) the requirement to improve the overall performance; 3) the need to accomplish the departmental vision and goal; and 4) the need to gain more credibility with an exter- nal organization. Participants also mentioned pursuing excel- lence as a way to alleviate being worried about outsourcing. The concern for outsourcing appeared to be market force related. WHICH CHANGE MODEL OR THEORY IS RELEVANT? To discuss change, one must ask, change from what to what? Participants recognized that there were differences between the pre-Award for Excellence culture, a culture that existed before the AFE process began and the culture of excellence, as de- fined by achieving the AFE. Participants of the study identified Established in 1988, the Award for Excellence is APPA's highest institutional honor and provides educational institutions the opportunity for national and international recognition for their outstanding achievements in facilities management. Award for Excellence nominations are evaluated using the same criteria applied through the Facilities Management Evaluation Program (FMEP) in the areas of: leadership; strategic and operational planning; customer focus; information and analysis; development and management of human resources; process management; and performance results. For additional information, check out http://www. appa.org/membershipawards. by Joseph K. Han, Ed.D.