Issue link: http://digital.corporatepress.com/i/416289
Facilities Manager | november/december 2014 | 21 principles are self-reflective, narcissistic, and focus on who we are. To be successful as a built environment, a research environ- ment, and a teaching campus, we need to recreate the frontier, break down the silos, bureaucracy, and stratification. We need to create more spontaneity, more of the virtues of smallness, while being as being as big as we are." Suri suggested that faculty and administration need to connect more. "We need to ensure that what is happening at universities is always experimental and spontaneous," he said. We can't be locked into old ways—a certain system for parking, a certain way to use build- ings despite huge changes in technolo- gy or subjects. "We don't study history just to replay the past," he said, "but to think about alternative ways of doing what we do." Institutions need to develop more public spaces, more spaces for faculty to interact with students and with peers, and even, if possible, less space given to private faculty offices. Suri admitted that the changes that are needed are more likely to be accepted if new hires in both faculty and admin- istration deeply understand the mission of the university and are more amena- ble to these new approaches. "You will be the ones who will figure this out," he told the APPA audience. MANAGING TO THE MISSION The biggest need for APPA and its members, he said, is to train leaders who are not just technically competent, but who also understand the univer- sity's mission—what it's about. The people who manage day-to-day affairs must have this depth of understanding, not just the presidents. "Remember these values, find ways to achieve them effectively, focus on the few issues that will accomplish more, rather than trying to do everything," Suri said. "And make sure your bosses know you cannot do everything." "American society will remain great if our universities continue to be frontiers for immigrants and strivers," he said. "Everything we do has to be about creating new frontiers." Very few people have a bird's-eye view of what the university is about. It falls to you to create the environment; you have to integrate the faculty, labs, and classrooms to work together. "You will build the frontiers," Suri concluded. "You will build the pathways to them, and you will move people along them. I thank you for all you do." Anita Blumenthal is a freelance writer based in Potomac, MD. She can be reached at anitablu@earthlink.net. View Suri's entire plenary session at www.appa.org/appa_celebrates100years.cfm.