[Scott Casanova]

Hi Colleen,

 

We’ve been doing this for as long as I’ve been here (20+), possibly since the building opened in ’85.  Our current office, Student Engagement, is comprised of four units: Leadership (student orgs and government), Engagement (late night programming initiatives and student programming board), Operations (day-to-day facility management) and Event & Technical Services (event space management).

 

Breaking down the relevant units:

 

Operations: Current operational expectations require a professional staff member be present when Schine Student Center is open (7:30a-Midnight M-Weds, 24 hours starting 7:30a Thursday through Midnight Sunday).  Our Goldstien Student Center is 7:30a-Midnight M-F, and 9a-midnight Sa-Su, and can be managed by student Building Managers evening and weekends.

 

Ops is led by an associate director who is responsible for the operation of two student centers.  They manage the professional staff and act as a liaison with our facilities services (physical plant/custodial), campus security, and center tenants.  They assist with coordinating large scale maintenance or renovation to minimize impact on the rest of the center. 

 

The Assistant Director of events and Reservations reports to the Associate Director.  Their role is to oversee and manage reservations for the Schine Student Center as well as all non-academic use of Registrar spaces on campus.   The Assistant Director also provides reservation management to the student center conference rooms as well as taking a lead on the event spaces for Admin/Acad events due to our ETS staff not always being available to meet during university business hours. They also manage our Space Allocation process for future semesters in conjunction with our student government funding process.

 

Also reporting to the Associate Director are 3 Facility Coordinators and 1 Overnight coordinator.  The FC role is direct oversight of day to day operations and the Ops student employees (building managers and info desk). They provide back up to our student employees in setting/resetting conference rooms, greeting users, and AV support, and stepping in to be the primary when a student is absent or unavailable, or when we have multiple reservations beginning simultaneously.  They work with the students to create the staff schedule, and manage hiring, discipline, terminations, and payroll.  One Facility coordinator is assigned to the Goldstein Student Center which is located on our south campus in the center of a largely residential part of campus. This creates the challenge of getting consistent student staff overage during the day when most students are on our north campus.  The overnight coordinator is primarily scheduled for the three overnight shifts, and filling in where else needed earlier in the week. They are tasked with ensuring the health and safety of our overnight guests as well as cleaning and organizing tasks that are best done when occupancy is at a minimum.  They also assist student staff oversight.

 

Event & Technical Services manages operation of a 1,500 seat multi-use auditorium, a 450 max capacity club venue, and a 400 max capacity barn venue (standalone building).  They also support outdoor events for recognized student orgs and other divisional departments when available.  ETS as a whole provides live audio, theatrical lighting, video broadcast/recording, as well as venue set up and management.  Except for the balcony of our auditorium none of our venues have fixed seating and can be configured for banquets or dance floors I additional to theater style seating. 

 

The Associate Director of ETS is responsible for oversight of the operation of the venues as well as maintaining the AV equipment and infrastructure.  Additionally they handle invoicing for all of the department’s services, provide estimates for the same, process payments when received, and manage the student events box office (athletic events and the JMA Wireless Dome are ticketed through Ticketmaster).

 

The Assistant Director of ETS (reporting to the Assoc. Dir.) assists with day-to-day operational needs and also manages the ETS student employees including hiring, discipline, training, and payroll.  They also supervise two Event and Technical Coordinators whose roles are overseeing day-to-day operations, coordinating maintenance, assisting with student staff training and management and event support.

 

While the ETS student staff are the front line customer service providers; operating lights, sound, and video, all 4 professional staff members are cross trained in all three elements of AV to be able to back up the students or fill in when a shift isn’t able to be filled.  Each of the 4 are assigned to different events to take the lead role in meeting with the sponsor, creating the room diagram, scheduling the student staff for both set ups and event support, and coordinating rentals or outside vendors when necessary.  They also assist the Leadership/Engagement staff in advancing technical needs for contracted performers being brough to campus. While event assignments from professional staff are generally done with an eye to balancing the workload, there are times when a particular person is requested by the org having worked with them previously, or one staff member may be more proficient in a particular skill necessary for an event, or the staff member requests a particular event due to the content. 

 

Both Assistant Directors (Ops & ETS) work with the Assistant Directors from Leadership and Engagement to plan and execute our large scale semester orientations for all the student employees of Student Engagement, as well as work with a student committee to plan our end of year student employment celebration. 

 

Let me know if you have any questions!

 

Scott

 

Scott Casanova ’99
(Pronouns: he/him/his)
Associate Director
Student Engagement

T 315.443.4458   F 315.443.4617
srcasano@syr.edu

124 Schine Student Center, 200 Waverly Ave., Syracuse, NY 13244
scps.syr.edu

Syracuse University

 

——————————————-
Original Message:
Sent: 1/26/2024 2:40:00 PM
From: Colleen Kelly
Subject: Facility Management Staffing Structure

Hey everyone!

We are working on restructing our organization so that event support and execution (reservations, planning, set up, day of support of special events) is separate from facilities operations (daily monitoring and access of the building, emergency response, support for our meeting and conference rooms). I’d love to hear if there are others that have a structure similar to this. If so, can you please share:

• Positions (Full time staff vs. student staff) and job responsibilities
• # of staff employed in each position
• Staffing levels throughout the day 

Thank you in advance!

——————————
Colleen Kelly
Asst Director for Facilities
University of South Carolina-Columbia
Columbia SC
(803) 777-3901
——————————

[ckelly1]

This is very helpful thank you!

Do you mind expanding a bit on your student building manager role? I’m especially curious about their responsbilities, typical schedule, and how many you might have any given point during the day. I imagine it might ebb and flow based on peak times??

——————————
Colleen Kelly
Asst Director for Facilities
University of South Carolina-Columbia
Columbia SC
(803) 777-3901
——————————
——————————————-
Original Message:
Sent: 01-29-2024 15:45
From: Scott Casanova
Subject: Facility Management Staffing Structure

Hi Colleen,

 

We’ve been doing this for as long as I’ve been here (20+), possibly since the building opened in ’85.  Our current office, Student Engagement, is comprised of four units: Leadership (student orgs and government), Engagement (late night programming initiatives and student programming board), Operations (day-to-day facility management) and Event & Technical Services (event space management).

 

Breaking down the relevant units:

 

Operations: Current operational expectations require a professional staff member be present when Schine Student Center is open (7:30a-Midnight M-Weds, 24 hours starting 7:30a Thursday through Midnight Sunday).  Our Goldstien Student Center is 7:30a-Midnight M-F, and 9a-midnight Sa-Su, and can be managed by student Building Managers evening and weekends.

 

Ops is led by an associate director who is responsible for the operation of two student centers.  They manage the professional staff and act as a liaison with our facilities services (physical plant/custodial), campus security, and center tenants.  They assist with coordinating large scale maintenance or renovation to minimize impact on the rest of the center. 

 

The Assistant Director of events and Reservations reports to the Associate Director.  Their role is to oversee and manage reservations for the Schine Student Center as well as all non-academic use of Registrar spaces on campus.   The Assistant Director also provides reservation management to the student center conference rooms as well as taking a lead on the event spaces for Admin/Acad events due to our ETS staff not always being available to meet during university business hours. They also manage our Space Allocation process for future semesters in conjunction with our student government funding process.

 

Also reporting to the Associate Director are 3 Facility Coordinators and 1 Overnight coordinator.  The FC role is direct oversight of day to day operations and the Ops student employees (building managers and info desk). They provide back up to our student employees in setting/resetting conference rooms, greeting users, and AV support, and stepping in to be the primary when a student is absent or unavailable, or when we have multiple reservations beginning simultaneously.  They work with the students to create the staff schedule, and manage hiring, discipline, terminations, and payroll.  One Facility coordinator is assigned to the Goldstein Student Center which is located on our south campus in the center of a largely residential part of campus. This creates the challenge of getting consistent student staff overage during the day when most students are on our north campus.  The overnight coordinator is primarily scheduled for the three overnight shifts, and filling in where else needed earlier in the week. They are tasked with ensuring the health and safety of our overnight guests as well as cleaning and organizing tasks that are best done when occupancy is at a minimum.  They also assist student staff oversight.

 

Event & Technical Services manages operation of a 1,500 seat multi-use auditorium, a 450 max capacity club venue, and a 400 max capacity barn venue (standalone building).  They also support outdoor events for recognized student orgs and other divisional departments when available.  ETS as a whole provides live audio, theatrical lighting, video broadcast/recording, as well as venue set up and management.  Except for the balcony of our auditorium none of our venues have fixed seating and can be configured for banquets or dance floors I additional to theater style seating. 

 

The Associate Director of ETS is responsible for oversight of the operation of the venues as well as maintaining the AV equipment and infrastructure.  Additionally they handle invoicing for all of the department’s services, provide estimates for the same, process payments when received, and manage the student events box office (athletic events and the JMA Wireless Dome are ticketed through Ticketmaster).

 

The Assistant Director of ETS (reporting to the Assoc. Dir.) assists with day-to-day operational needs and also manages the ETS student employees including hiring, discipline, training, and payroll.  They also supervise two Event and Technical Coordinators whose roles are overseeing day-to-day operations, coordinating maintenance, assisting with student staff training and management and event support.

 

While the ETS student staff are the front line customer service providers; operating lights, sound, and video, all 4 professional staff members are cross trained in all three elements of AV to be able to back up the students or fill in when a shift isn’t able to be filled.  Each of the 4 are assigned to different events to take the lead role in meeting with the sponsor, creating the room diagram, scheduling the student staff for both set ups and event support, and coordinating rentals or outside vendors when necessary.  They also assist the Leadership/Engagement staff in advancing technical needs for contracted performers being brough to campus. While event assignments from professional staff are generally done with an eye to balancing the workload, there are times when a particular person is requested by the org having worked with them previously, or one staff member may be more proficient in a particular skill necessary for an event, or the staff member requests a particular event due to the content. 

 

Both Assistant Directors (Ops & ETS) work with the Assistant Directors from Leadership and Engagement to plan and execute our large scale semester orientations for all the student employees of Student Engagement, as well as work with a student committee to plan our end of year student employment celebration. 

 

Let me know if you have any questions!

 

Scott

 

Scott Casanova ’99
(Pronouns: he/him/his)
Associate Director
Student Engagement

T 315.443.4458   F 315.443.4617
srcasano@syr.edu

124 Schine Student Center, 200 Waverly Ave., Syracuse, NY 13244
scps.syr.edu

Syracuse University

 

Original Message:
Sent: 1/26/2024 2:40:00 PM
From: Colleen Kelly
Subject: Facility Management Staffing Structure

Hey everyone!

We are working on restructing our organization so that event support and execution (reservations, planning, set up, day of support of special events) is separate from facilities operations (daily monitoring and access of the building, emergency response, support for our meeting and conference rooms). I’d love to hear if there are others that have a structure similar to this. If so, can you please share:

• Positions (Full time staff vs. student staff) and job responsibilities
• # of staff employed in each position
• Staffing levels throughout the day 

Thank you in advance!

——————————
Colleen Kelly
Asst Director for Facilities
University of South Carolina-Columbia
Columbia SC
(803) 777-3901
——————————

[Meredith Ciesemier]

Hi Colleen,

We have three full time staff who are dedicated to Facilities and Operations, and one more who has us and a few other areas in their portfolio. I oversee a Facilities Manager, who does all our day-to-day maintenance and manages a small team of students in our maintenance shop (3-4 students), and an Operations Manager, who manages our Center Managers and Center Desk student teams. There is always one CM and two desk attendants on shift while the building is open, but otherwise our professional staff keeps a pretty standard schedule (though leaning a bit early as it’s always easier to do facility work before the building gets busy). I oversee much of the building access, daily hours, emergency planning, and monitoring facility requests that have to be handled by our campus facilities team or external vendors. My supervisor is more focused on long-term major facility projects, and stepping in when others need coverage.

Separately, our Event Planning and Event Operations team has a handful of full-time event planners, who oversee five student staff that work on reservation details, and two full-time staff who oversee our student set-up team of about 30 students. Those two professional staff also have offset hours so we have better coverage at night and on weekends, and we always have at least two students on the set-up team in the building for any last minute needs. During peak hours we have up to five students on that team on shift at a time.

For reference, our main building is about 100k sq ft (175k including all the mechanical spaces), and we have 7 satellite venues that we have at least some oversight of across campus.

——————————
Meredith Ciesemier
Assistant Director of Facilities
Northwestern University
Evanston IL
(847) 467-0023
——————————
——————————————-
Original Message:
Sent: 01-26-2024 14:39
From: Colleen Kelly
Subject: Facility Management Staffing Structure

Hey everyone!

We are working on restructing our organization so that event support and execution (reservations, planning, set up, day of support of special events) is separate from facilities operations (daily monitoring and access of the building, emergency response, support for our meeting and conference rooms). I’d love to hear if there are others that have a structure similar to this. If so, can you please share:

• Positions (Full time staff vs. student staff) and job responsibilities
• # of staff employed in each position
• Staffing levels throughout the day 

Thank you in advance!

——————————
Colleen Kelly
Asst Director for Facilities
University of South Carolina-Columbia
Columbia SC
(803) 777-3901
——————————