Category: News

In fiscal year 2013, total spending on operations and maintenance at SMU was 20% more than the industry average in higher education. On March 2, the Facilities Initiative team held their inaugural meeting and began working to help the University save between $6 and $10 million in annual facilities and energy spending and improve service delivery across campus.

The primary work of this team will be to identify how to deliver best-in-class facilities efficiency across the entire University while seamlessly supporting SMU’s academic mission. The group will be divided into three sub-teams. Energy Usage will conduct a campus energy audit to identify savings possibilities and recommend long-term energy-efficient strategies for SMU. Space Utilitization will explore paths to improve usage of space for offices, classrooms and other academic spaces and to establish campus-wide targets based on best practices. Service Delivery will evaluate savings opportunities in the areas of contract consolidation, duplicative work, procurement of outside vendors and administrative efficiency.

Dr. Sam Holland, dean of the Meadows School of the Arts, and Dr. Tom Barry, vice president for executive affairs and professor of marketing, will serve as executive sponsors of the Facilities Initiative. Philip Jabour, associate vice president and University architect for Facilities Planning and Management, will serve as project manager for the team.

The team members are as follows:

Energy Usage
• Team Lead: Scot Montague (Dedman College)
• Steve Yeager (Dedman Law)
• Duane Harbin (Perkins)
• Jay Meister (Business & Finance)
• Aaron Conniff (Provost)

Space Utilization
• Team Lead: Jay Hengst (Meadows)
• Darah Rippy (Provost)
• Scott Boone (Business & Finance)
• Marilyn Swanson (Simmons)
• Bill Bridge (Dedman Law)

Service Delivery
• Team Lead: Bill Dworaczyk (CUL)
• Allison Day (Student Affairs)
• Denton Bricker (Business & Finance)
• Kris Harris (Athletics)
• Aaron Molkentine (Business & Finance)

Dear SMU Colleagues,

As of yesterday, all vice presidents, deans and the athletic director have shared their new organizational structures with their staff and notified employees in affected positions. I believe the changes we have implemented through the OE2C Organization Design Initiative will help us ensure the long-term success of the University, but I know they have required a great deal of perseverance from our SMU community.  Thank you for your patience and flexibility throughout this process.

The structural changes implemented over the past few weeks were created by vice presidents, deans and the athletic director with input from their leadership teams where appropriate.  Each leader thoughtfully designed their organization to deliver appropriate service levels while providing financial resources to be reallocated to our academic mission. As other OE2C initiative teams design solutions that streamline work processes, there may be additional staff changes on a smaller scale that will be handled with equal care.

As these changes take place, the need for increased sensitivity continues.  Some of our staff members in eliminated positions will remain with us for varying lengths of time. We must continue to respect their privacy and be as helpful as possible with their transition. Also, other employees have been given new responsibilities and will need time to adjust to redefined roles.

The strength of SMU is our people. We will emerge from these demanding changes as an organization better prepared and equipped to serve our community and advance our mission.

Sincerely,

R. Gerald Turner

President

Mary Tays and her Perkins Administration Building (PAB) colleagues couldn’t stand the thought of throwing away perfectly good binders, paper clips and folders, some of which had been stashed in supply cabinets and in the attic for years, gathering dust.

Tays, the PAB building manager, knew there had to be a better way to handle abandoned office supplies. She wanted to figure out how to connect the supplies with the people who could use them. Colleague Bonnie Bazley, assistant to the vice president in SMU’s division of Student Affairs, agreed. Together they created a building-wide event to put supplies in the hands of their coworkers.

The Office Supply Swap was born.

With just a few tables, some well-placed fliers and a couple of staff email messages, Tays and Bazley pulled it together. They encouraged everyone in the building to clean out their supply closets and bring the items to the break room on the ground floor. Employees responded and brought in office supplies of every kind. Items from the building’s lost-and-found collection were added, such as scarves, gloves, reading glasses, etc.

“Over three days in January, people dropped off supplies they didn’t need and picked up supplies they did,” said Tays. “It was fun. It was free. People loved it!”

Because everything was free, there was no need to assign any staff to watch over the tables.

When it was over and the employees had their fill, boxes of leftover office supplies were donated to the Interfaith Housing Coalition in Dallas.  “We had to get a donor form filled out and signed by the president, as there are usually some tax issues with donating goods,” said Tays. “But it was worth the effort and Interfaith Housing was happy to receive the supplies.”

Tays and Bazley hope the idea spreads to other buildings on campus. “It’s a great way to save money in your department,” said Tays. “Why spend more money getting things that are already here? Plus, it’s fun!”

Tell us about savings successes in your area or share your idea for saving money by sending an email to oe2c@smu.edu.

Related News

• Procurement Initiative Begins Work to Save SMU Millions in Annual Spending

In fiscal year 2014, total spending on IT at SMU was 50% more than the industry average in higher education. On February 4, the Information Technology (IT) Initiative team held their inaugural meeting and began working to help the University save between $6 and $9 million in annual technology spending and improve service delivery across campus.

The primary work of this team will be to identify how to deliver best-in-class IT service at the lowest possible cost. The group will be divided into three sub-teams. Operational Computing will explore possible scale benefits associated with campus-wide delivery of desktop computing, help desk, A/V, network and web development services. Academic Computing will examine best practices for school-specific applications or hardware tied to teaching and mission and support for research, including high performance computing. Both of these teams will focus on service delivery, governance and organization of their respective areas. The third sub-team will evaluate SMU’s enterprise resource planning (ERP) software to ensure that our system minimizes transactional activities across campus. All three teams will aim to increase customer satisfaction and make service levels and delivery more useful and efficient.

Dr. Marc Christensen, dean of the Lyle School of Engineering, and Dr. Jim Quick, associate vice president of research and dean of graduate studies, will serve as executive sponsors of the IT Initiative. Greg Ivy, director of the Underwood Law Library, will serve as project manager for the committee, and Joe Gargiulo, chief information officer, will serve as an advisor to the team.

The committee members are as follows:

Operational Computing
· Team Lead: Jason Warner (Meadows)
· Mary Boyd (CUL)
· Allen Gwinn (Cox)
· Rachel Mulry (OIT)
· Tim McLemore (Perkins)
· Doug Tucker (Lyle)
· Kerensa Williams (Student Affairs)

Academic Computing
· Team Lead: Thomas Hagstrom (Dedman College)
· Richard Briesch (Cox)
· Tony Cuevas (Simmons)
· Elfie Kraka (Dedman College)
· Mitch Thornton (Lyle)

ERP
· Team Lead: Ron Lujuan (OIT)
· Becky Hood (Simmons)
· John O’Connor (Business & Finance)
· Joe Papari (Provost)
· Rhiannon Roark (HR)