Graduate Certificate in Facility Management (KU Edwards Campus)

Facility Management

Facility managers today cover an increasingly broad variety of specializations within their regular duties and responsibilities. Each of these specializations is based on a rapidly growing body of knowledge, much of which is technical and time-consuming to locate, absorb and understand. At the same time, most facility managers possess a formal educational background that prepares them for some, but not all of these responsibilities. Much of what needs to be known in order to handle the day-to-day, round-the-clock challenge of managing a complex of buildings and the people who maintain and use them is learned on the job. As valuable and effective as this experiential kind of knowledge may be, it lacks structure and is often difficult to integrate with the other changing fields in Facility Management that a professional must cover.

The Program

The KU School of Architecture and Urban Planning has recognized the changing professional educational needs of facility managers in the Kansas City metropolitan area for over a decade. In the 1980s and 1990s, it offered a handful of courses at the old KU Regents Center and at the KU Edwards Campus dealing with the technical and managerial issues that are covered by facility managers. During the last 10 years, the School has offered a course on Facility Management software packages as an elective for students in the Graduate Program in Architectural Management.

The Graduate Certificate Program in Facility Management, based at KU’s Edwards Campus and open to local professionals represents a much broader and more structured attempt to address the graduate educational needs of facility managers. The certificate program is not intended to serve as any kind of substitute for a fully developed accredited degree in Facility Management. The central purpose in this program is to keep practicing professionals abreast of the most innovative developments in each area of Facility Management and to assist practitioners in developing more specialized knowledge in areas important to their individual careers.

Who Should Enroll in this Program?

The curriculum for the 15-credit Graduate Certificate in Facility Management is designed to serve the needs of four groups:

Facility Managers Who Do Not Hold an Accredited Facility Management Degree. The proposed introductory and capstone courses offer perspective and explore the connections that exist among bodies of knowledge within Facility Management. They also give the practitioner a view of current trends in all areas of practice and provide an opportunity to explore current developments within a specific area of practice in greater depth.

Certified Facility Managers. The core of the program is made up of highly focused workshops that relate to a specific area of knowledge within Facility Management and, on a rotational basis, address how current trends and a changing outlook for the future affect that specific area of practice. These workshops allow the accomplished facility manager an opportunity to explore current topics in different areas of practice in more depth than would be allowed in a single continuing education or professional development workshop.

Architects, Engineers, Interior Designers and Other Construction and Design Professionals Engaged in Facility Management on a Contractual or Consulting Basis. Contractors and consultants need to stay on top of changes in the entire array of services that Facility Management offices must provide and the combination of specialized workshops and more general courses in this program provides that knowledge.

Architects and Other Design Professionals Enrolled in KU’s Graduate Program in Architectural Management. A number of students in the Architectural Management degree program are directly engaged in areas of private practice that overlap with Facility Management. These individuals may wish to complete Facility Management classes as electives in their 36-credit Architectural Management degree program. Credit cannot be awarded retroactively for completed courses that might otherwise count toward the Graduate Certificate in Facility Management. Beginning in 2008, Architectural Management students who choose to pursue the Graduate Certificate in Facility Management will be admitted simultaneously to both programs of study.

This program is designed for professionals who are engaged in demanding positions. Travel schedules often make it difficult to schedule more than a month in advance and the bulk of the program, with courses of five-weeks length, was constructed with this in mind. Employed professionals cannot carry the same class load as a full-time student and for most people no more than 3-6 credits is possible during a typical semester. This program is designed to be completed by most people in 4 semesters.

The Curriculum

The 15 credits of course work that make up this program are divided into three components: an Introduction, a Core of workshops, and a Capstone, research-based seminar.

Component 1: Introduction to the Program (3 credits)

An introductory, 3-credit, semester-long class provides a starting point. Focused on current issues and comprehensive in its coverage of the various areas that are generally included within Facility Management, this course helps to establish a common base of knowledge for participants from the four groups mentioned above. It provides a useful context for the highly focused technical workshops that constitute the Core of the program. This common introductory course is described as follows.

Facility Management: Issues and Overview (3 credits).
This class is designed to cover emerging issues that are affecting the practice of Facility Management (globalism, increased security concerns, breakthroughs in building technologies, etc.) and how they influence the critical areas of Facility Management, such as planning, project management, business procedures, and facility operation and maintenance. The course runs an entire semester with 15 three-hour sessions, each meeting one evening per week at the Edwards Campus. The class involves numerous guest speakers and students are assigned readings, team-based projects, and other directed learning activities.

Component 2: The Core of the Program (9 credits)

Individuals in this program will already have varying degrees of experience in the management of facilities. As noted above, some will have general business backgrounds while others may have more specialized training in engineering or architecture and others might be more proficient in construction, interior design or safety and security issues. To accommodate these differences in training, background and experience and to allow for constant updating of the more specialized content of this program, the central or Core component of the curriculum consists of 9 different categories of workshops , each of which addresses important topics within one of the principal knowledge areas that make up a standard Facility Management degree.

Because students in the program have experience in Facility Management, they are not required to cover all 9 of the different topical workshops. Instead, they may select a mix of workshops that meet their own specific needs and even substitute other appropriate graduate-level classes in order to meet the 9-credit Core requirement.

Two or three of these one-credit, five-week workshops are offered each semester. The entire set of 9 workshops is offered over a four-semester period and the cycle is repeated every two years. The focus or subject matter of the workshops in each of the 9 categories may change each time they are offered, depending upon the recommendations of the program’s professional advisory committee, faculty availability and expertise, and student demand. The goal of each workshop is to build upon basic practical knowledge within each category and to address specific Facility Management challenges, practices and problems that are affected by emerging issues in the profession. For example, Workshop G: Planning and Project Management could cover methods of forecasting and managing space usage the first time it is offered and, the next time it is taught, it might focus on new software packages that are useful in managing small internal construction projects. The idea is to craft each of the workshops to current topics and local demand.

The nine categories of topical workshops are listed below.

Workshop A: Operational and Maintenance Issues (1 credit).
This workshop may cover topics related to:
1) life safety and security issues and crisis management;
2) building systems and maintenance assessment; and
3) building information modeling, computer-aided facility maintenance.

Workshop B: Business Issues (1 credit).
This workshop may cover topics related to:
1) organizational issues for facility managers;
2) human resources issues; and
3) risk management, contracts and other legal issues.

Workshop C: Real Estate and Property Issues (1 credit).
This workshop may cover topics related to:
1) site planning, analysis and selection;
2) real estate development and planning; and
3) master planning.

Workshop D: Financial Issues (1 credit).
This workshop may cover topics related to:
1) financial analysis of facility decisions (e.g., life cycle costing, etc.);
2) budgeting procedures and techniques for facilities offices; and
3) constructing and implementing a business plan for facilities.

Workshop E: Human and Environmental Factors (1 credit).
This workshop may cover topics related to:
1) the impact of facilities/environments on individual and group performance, behavior and satisfaction;
2) environmental health and safety issues, regulation and liability; and
3) facility needs of diverse user groups.

Workshop F: Facility Assessment (1 credit).
This workshop may cover topics related to:
1) the application of research skills in solving facility problems;
2) post-occupancy facility evaluation; and
3) presentation, interpretation and evaluation of research/assessment results.

Workshop G: Planning and Project Management (1 credit).
This workshop may cover topics related to:
1) general project management procedures, issues and software;
2) facility documentation, inventory, forecasting and programming ; and
3) linking facility plans to larger business plans.

Workshop H: Communication Techniques (1 credit).
This workshop may cover topics related to:
1) effective personal and professional communication skills;
2) the use of current electronic communication media; and
3) interpersonal communication, conflict resolution and group communication.

Workshop I: Technological Innovation (1 credit).
This workshop may cover topics related to:
1) recent advances in intelligent building systems;
2) the achievement of sustainability through intelligent building systems and appropriate building materials; and
3) the promotion of health and wellness through design and technological innovation.

Component 3: The Culmination of the Program (3 credits)

Following or concurrent with the completion of the Core workshop requirement, participants in the program will complete a Capstone Seminar in which they will have an opportunity to use, in a highly integrated and very practical fashion, the knowledge, methods and techniques covered in the Introduction and Core of the program.

Capstone Seminar: Solving Facility Problems (3 credits)
This final class is led by an instructor who will work with each participant to identify, focus and carry out a contained individualized project that uses information, most likely collected from the student’s place of employment, to solve a facility problem using the formal methods, strategies and knowledge covered in the Core of the program. The product will be a professional report, presented within the seminar. In some cases, these integrative capstone research projects might be carried out by teams, particularly if they have a high degree of complexity and a significant breadth of managerial and planning issues.

Additional Available Courses

A variety of other courses closely related to the Core workshops listed above are offered regularly on the Lawrence Campus and, through various graduate programs, at the Edwards Campus. Each semester, the School of Architecture and Urban Planning schedules a dozen or more elective classes, many of which carry graduate credit and focus on such topics as Intelligent Building Systems, Laboratory Design, Lighting Systems, Building Acoustics, Power Systems and the like. Some of these courses are also offered in the evening. Students may request to substitute courses such as these, where appropriate, for Core workshop credits in the Graduate Certificate Program in Facility Management. Similarly, a number of classes are offered each semester in the Architectural Management program at the Edwards Campus including courses in Project Management, Legal Issues, Financial Management, Construction Management, Construction Bidding and Estimating, and the like. These classes may also be substituted for Core workshop credits in the Certificate Program, where appropriate and with permission. Other Edwards Campus classes in graduate programs ranging from Engineering Management to Communications and Public Administration may also be available on a permission basis and may be substituted for Certificate Program requirements, if appropriate.

Please Note: The Graduate School of the University of Kansas does not allow courses taken at other institutions to be applied toward the requirements of a graduate certificate program.

Faculty

Neal Angrisano, M.Arch., AIA, Johnson County Facilities Management
Jae Chang, Ph.D., KU School of Architecture and Urban Planning
Dana D’Alessio Farrington, M.C.M., AIA, KU School of Architecture and Urban Planning
Robert Gardner, J.D., TerranEnergy
John Gaunt, M.Arch., FAIA, KU School of Architecture and Urban Planning
Eddy Krygiel, B.Arch., AIA, BNIM Architects
Jeff Minor, M.B.A., HNTB Architecture
Keith Diaz Moore, Ph.D., AIA, KU School of Architecture and Urban Planning
G. William Quatman, J.D., FAIA, Burns & McDonnell
Mahbub Rashid, Ph.D., KU School of Architecture and Urban Planning
Teena Shouse, B.A., CFM, Facilities Engineering Associates
Carol Sindelar, M.U.P., SMPS, TranSystems
Kent Spreckelmeyer, D.Arch., FAIA, KU School of Architecture and Urban Planning
Michael Swann, Ph.D., Hon. AIA, KU School of Architecture and Urban Planning
David VanSickle, M.Arch., Hallmark
Frank Zilm, D.Arch., FAIA, Frank Zilm & Associates

How to Apply

1. Submit an Application. Begin by visiting www.graduate.ku.edu. Select “Apply” under “Quick Links” and follow the process for submitting an online degree-seeking application. You will be advised on how to submit the application fee ($45 online). You will also need to contact the last school that awarded you a bachelors degree or a graduate degree and arrange to have transcripts submitted, as directed. To be admitted to a graduate certificate program, you must present proof of an undergraduate degree.

2. Get Your KU Online ID. Once you have been notified of your admission, you’ll need to obtain your KU Online ID so that you can access enrollment and other services through “Enroll & Pay” (for enrollment and bill payment). To create and/or update your Online KU ID, go to www.technology.ku.edu/accounts.

3. Enroll. Go to www.edwardscampus.ku.edu and select “Enroll & Pay” listed under “Quick Links” on the homepage. Log in to “Enroll & Pay” with your KU Online ID and password. Select “Student Center” and enroll in the classes you need. Before enrolling, it would be helpful to contact Michael Swann (mmswann@ku.edu) about the courses you wish to take or to review course information that is given to you beforehand by the Facility Management program. You might also visit the “Timetable” section of the KU web site www.timetable.ku.edu to obtain course numbers and information concerning class meeting times, locations and other details relevant to enrollment.

4. Pay Tuition and Fees. Once you have created your KU Online ID and password, and you have completed your enrollment, log in to “Enroll & Pay” at: https://sa.ku.edu. Navigate to: Enroll & Pay > Manage Account > Payment/Acct Inquiry/KU Card or go to “Student Center” and select the Payment/Acct Inquiry/recharge KU Card link within the “Finances” section. You may pay online by check or credit card. You may also mail your payment. There is a fee added for the use of a credit card. If your employer will be paying your tuition and fees or if you have further questions about the fee payment process, visit http://www.bursar.ku.edu/ for more information.

Please Note: If you have any questions about the admissions, enrollment or fee payment process, please contact Mary E. Ryan, Associate Dean, KU Edwards Campus at (913) 897-8409 or at mryan@ku.edu.

For Further Information

Write, call or e-mail

Michael M. Swann, Associate Dean and Director
Graduate Certificate Program in Facility Management
School of Architecture and Urban Planning, Marvin Hall
The University of Kansas
1465 Jayhawk Boulevard, Room 205
Lawrence, KS 66045-7614
Tel: (913) 897-5652, ext. 3180 or (785) 864-3180
e-mail: mmswann@ku.edu