ALWAYS ON
The Buttery
"In First Court, what we call the Buttery (an old word) is a café during the day and a bar in the evening, so it's one of the main social areas in College and a source of sandwiches, snacks and pastries outside of canteen meal times. The team make everyone welcome, and the café is subsidised and so cheaper to use than the equivalent coffee shops in town."
Ædificare & Utilization
Essential-works construction is the closest we come to a $100+ billion perpetual-motion machine. In the Monthly Construction Spend report, the $136 billion spend rate makes it the largest market in the world. With upwards of 45 million square feet, the University of Michigan has more square footage than any other campus in the world; hence our 35+-year interest in managing costs through the global standards system.
Quadrivium: Autumn
Educational settlements should be magical places. The stack informing the beauty of these "cities-within-cities" changes 100 to 1000 times per day globally. We monitor the action continuously to formulate response to public consultations. Topics appear on our CALENDAR and explored every day at 15:00 UTC.
Bulletin Board
Curated list of open consultations and calls for information from state, federal and global agencies.
$3 Billion Miami-Dade County Campus
First: Michael Bloomberg's $1.8 billion Johns Hopkins gift in 2018. Second: Phil and Penny Knight's $2 billion gift to Oregon Health & Science University in 2025. Now comes a $3 billion Ken Griffin gift -- $1 billion to strengthen CMU in Pennsylvania and $2 billion to build a new CMU campus in Florida -- the largest in United States history.
Gallery: School Bond Referenda
"In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he made school boards." -- Mark Twain (1835 - 1910)
Schenkingen
The world's most efficient business model: "Give me your money." Today at the usual hour we scan ad hoc guidelines, standards and regulations covering charitable giving and receiving (receiving, say, a herd of buffalo). We title these sessions with the Dutch mnemonic for the same which--phonetically--sounds like the English word "shakedown".
Naming & Signs
Most educational settlements are not overloaded by signage by design but distracted management (overlapping temporary signs, inconsistent styles) or large footprints supports the perception. Today at the usual hour we explore the literature covering exterior and interior signage with emphases on coherence and necessity.
Board Meeting
September 23, 2026 meeting on insurance. With link to Accounting Standards for Not-for-Profit Entities (Topic 958) Clarifying the Scope and the Accounting Guidance for Contributions Received and Contributions Made