Space, the final frontier

Everyone has submitted their projections for the kind of space they’d like to see in our new Huntsman Hall. They calculated and recalculated, thinking of what life could be like in 2025. Each group making recommendations figured out such things as:

• how many classrooms they need,

Ken Snyder

• what kind of classrooms (tiered or flat) will work best,

• how much office space is necessary,

• how many meeting and break-out rooms would be optimal,

• how much open space for students should be part of the plan,

• and where we might plug in a place to get some nourishment (eats).

We took all those estimates and gave them to our architects to see just what kind facility we were cooking up. We have funding for a building that will be about 90,000 square feet. When our architects estimated how many square feet it would take to meet everyone’s forecasted needs, it came to about 123,000 square feet. Our vision exceeds our resources.

Am I surprised? Nope. This is exactly what we predicted. Most of the schools I visited experienced the same thing. Part of doing great things with this new building will be figuring out where to say no and where to say yes. It’s time to prioritize.

The engagement and contributions of our advisory teams have been impressive. We will be turning to them to help us separate our needs from our wants. Because I have seen their unified desire to focus on how to best serve our students, I am confident that our next step will not be about giving up things but refining our ideas so that even better ones can come forward. Stephen R. Covey, the Jon M. Huntsman Presidential Chair in Leadership, calls this synergy, or, as he describes it, when one plus one can equal three. When it comes to this building, we need it all to equal 90,000 square feet.

It’s all good. We’ve got the right people in place so that, in our case, I am confident space will not be the final frontier … only the beginning.

- Ken Snyder