Dolce Vita

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Dolce Vita

October 1, 2026
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Morning Waters

Standards West Virginia | 2024 Net Position $2.586B (Page 26)  | Master Plans

At the Library

West Virginia University is integrated with the city of Morgantown in a way that shares some strong similarities with many European universities, though not identically in every aspect.

Many classic European universities (e.g., in cities like Oxford, Cambridge, Bologna, Paris/Sorbonne, Heidelberg, or Utrecht) are deeply embedded in their urban fabric. Buildings are often scattered throughout the historic city center, with lecture halls, libraries, and administrative spaces intermixed among shops, residences, cafes, and public streets rather than being confined to a walled-off or peripheral “campus.”

In Morgantown the university and city feel like one continuous, walkable entity — the institution essentially helped shape or co-evolved with the town over centuries, creating a seamless “town-gown” blend where university life spills directly into city life and vice versa.

West Virginia University Drinking Water Sanitation Program

Overall, Morgantown is widely regarded as a quintessential American college town with very strong university-city integration — especially around the Downtown Campus — and it mirrors the European pattern more closely than many sprawling, isolated U.S. flagship campuses (e.g., those in big suburban or rural settings like Purdue, Ohio State, or Texas A&M). The relationship is symbiotic and visible in daily life, with the university embedded in the city's identity and physical layout.


 

 

 

 

Flagship public universities likely to cut more humanities, staff — especially in rural states

“Walking the Dog”

October 1, 2026
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https://standardsmichigan.com/136343-2/

https://standardsmichigan.com/music-almanac-of-the-western-tradition-autumn/

Morning Dog Walk

The Dog: A Natural History

Animals 300

Ædificare & Utilization

October 1, 2026
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New Construction Release Schedule: https://www.census.gov/construction/c30/release.html

Reports are usually released at 10 AM EST the first day of every month except this month. (May 2026)

There’s been a significant redesign of the look and feel of the monthly Census Bureau reports construction activity. Today we sort through the rather more granular statistics that inform our recommendations for facility spend.

 

December 1, 2025

It has been 20 years since we began tracking educational settlement facility spend.  Starting this month we will examine federal government data together with the best available data about space utilization to enlighten our response to the perfectly reasonable question: “Are we over-building or under-building or building ineffectively”.  Use the login credentials at the upper right of our home page.

United States: Schools of Architecture

The Society for College and University Planning (Ann Arbor, Michigan)

National Center for Education Statistics

The Financial Impact of Architectural Design: Balancing Aesthetics and Budget in Modern Construction

 

Homeschooling

2022 International Existing Building Code 

  • University College London

As reported by the US Department of Commerce Census Bureau the value of construction put in place by August 2025 by the US education industry proceeded at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $137.604 billion.  This number does not include renovation for projects under 50,000 square feet and new construction in university-affiliated health care delivery enterprises.   Reports are released two months after calendar month.  The complete report is available at the link below:

MONTHLY CONSTRUCTION SPENDING August 2025 (released two months after calendar month)

 

 


This spend makes the US education facilities industry (which includes colleges, universities, technical/vocational and K-12 schools, most university-affiliated medical research and healthcare delivery enterprises, etc.) the largest non-residential building construction market in the United States after commercial property; and fairly close.  For perspective consider total public + private construction ranked according to the tabulation most recently released:

$137.604 billion| Education Facilities

$155.728 billion | Power (Note data center buildout)

$69.625 billion | Healthcare

Keep in mind that inflation figures into the elevated dollar figures.  Overall — including construction, energy, custodial services, furnishings, security. etc., — the non-instructional spend plus the construction spend of the US education facilities is running at a rate of about $300 – $500 billion per year.

LIVE: A selection of construction cameras at  US schools, colleges and universities

Architectural Billings

We typically pick through the new data set; looking for clues relevant to real asset spend decisions.  Finally, we encourage the education facilities industry to contribute to the accuracy of these monthly reports by responding the US Census Bureau’s data gathering contractors.

Reconstruction of Ancient Agora

 

As surely as people are born, grow wealthy and die with extra cash,

there will be a home for that cash to sustain their memory and to steer

the cultural heritage of the next generation in beautiful settings.

More

National Center for Educational Statistics

AIA: Billings Index shows but remains strong May 2022

National Center for Education Statistics

Sightlines: Capital Investment College Facilities

OxBlue: Time-Lapse Construction Cameras for Education

Architectural Billing Index

IBISWorld Education Sector

US Census Bureau Form F-33 Survey of School System Finances

American School & University

New Report from Occuspace Finds U.S. Campuses Face Significant Underutilization

Global Consistency in Presenting Construction & Life Cycle Costs

Carnegie Classifications

The University Farm as Micro-City

October 1, 2026
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Top Five Coffee Shops in Madison

October 1, 2026
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Standards Wisconsin

University of Wisconsin System Financial Report | $6.4B (2023)

University of Wisconsin | Dane County


Democrat Wisconsin Secretary of State refuses to remove RFK from ballot

“Liberal woman WILL NOT date conservatives” – Bombshells

Coffee

Heather McDonald: The feminization of the American university is all but complete

Heather McDonald: Why have young women been so prominent in the recent campus chaos?

Facilities Planning & Management

 


The Breakdown of Higher Education: How It Happened, the Damage It Does, and What Can Be Done (John Ellis 2020)

 

A Procedure to Estimate the Energy Requirements for Lighting

October 1, 2026
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A Procedure to Estimate the Energy Requirements for Lighting

Giuseppe Parise – Luigi Martirano – Luigi Parise

Sapienza, University of Rome

Abstract:  The amount of the electrical energy used for the interior lighting of medium and large buildings is generally considerable. The European Standard EN15193 was devised to establish conventions and procedures for the estimation of energy requirements of lighting in buildings by an energy performance numeric indicator. This methodology is based on the three derating factors that consider the influence of the daylight exploitation, the occupancy behavior and, if present, of a constant illuminance sensor. The factors are evaluated by a statistical approach on the basis of general reference data tabulated by the same Standard, not considering more detailed parameters of the control system that can impact severely in the effective energy savings. The Standard methodology appears extremely useful for a preliminary evaluation. For a more accurate evaluation, this paper suggests an improvement of the procedure that considers the effective operation time and occupancy behavior, the type of control and lamps, the number of control groups, the technique of modulation (dimming or switching), and the delay in turning off. The suggested procedure is compared with the Standard one to highlight the improvements.

CLICK HERE to order complete paper

Related:

Energy performance of interior lighting systems

Energy performance of buildings: An useful procedure to estimate the impact of the lighting control systems

Topology of Continuous Availability for LED Lighting Systems

$3 Billion Miami-Dade County Campus

October 1, 2026
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First there was Michael Bloomberg’s $1.8 billion Johns Hopkins gift in 2018

Then there was Phil and Penny Knight’s $2 billion gift to Oregon Health & Science University in 2025

Now comes $3 billion Ken Griffin gift — $1 billion to strengthen CMU Pittsburgh and $2 billion to build a new CMU in Dade County Miami Florida.

Schenkingen

Naming & Signs

 

[FSC 003242]

Education Management Systems

October 1, 2026
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2026 UPDATE

The ISO 21001 project has matured considerably since our original 2019 coverage. ISO 21001:2018 has been withdrawn and replaced by ISO 21001:2025, Educational organizations — Management systems for educational organizations — Requirements with guidance for use. The second edition continues the effort to adapt management-system principles to schools, universities, training organizations and other providers of education and learning services. Responsibility resides with ISO/TC 232, Education and learning services.

The supporting infrastructure is also expanding. In June 2026 ISO published ISO/PAS 25171:2026, providing guidance for auditing ISO 21001 management systems, including suggested questions, evidence and measures for evaluating conformity. The development is
significant: what began as an effort to translate lessons from industrial quality management into education now has a second-edition requirements standard together with dedicated auditing guidance and an increasingly mature conformity-assessment framework.

ISO Focus: Education Enterprise | M. Anthony & Richard Robben

Update: 2019-07-03

“The Attributes of the Arts and the Rewards Which Are Accorded Them” | Jean Baptiste Siméon Chardin (1766)

 

“Education is simply the soul of a society as it passes from one generation to another.”

–G.K. Chesterton

 

Since 2013 we have been following developments in an International Organization for Standardization committee: ISO 288 – Educational organizations management systems – Requirements with guidance for use;  a committee spun off from the committee that develops the more widely known ISO 9000-family of quality management standards prepared for industries and global regulatory agencies.  The global Secretariat is South Korea; with 40 participating member nations and 11 observing nations.  The status of this project can be tracked at the link below (You will need login credentials)

ISO Working Area

ISO_21001_-Briefing_Note

It is noteworthy that the US education industry is not a participant in this global standard which will likely have implications for standards setting for all aspects of educational organizations including the management of Massive Open Online Courses which we have covered in previous posts.

Click on image

Link to 2016-2018 Coverage

The ISO/TC 288 has reached a milestone with its May 1st of the First Edition of ISO 21001:2018 (Click on image).  A Spanish translation is still ongoing under the auspices of PC 288, once it will be delivered, ISO/PC 288 will be disbanded.  Another ISO Committee — TC 232 — is currently requesting to have its scope modified (enlarged) to be able to standardize subject pertaining to formal education too (its current scope is limited to non-formal learning and education). The result of this request is expected for the end of December.  Should it be granted, TC 232 will be able to take care of ISO 21001 maintenance (e.g. revision of the standard) in the future.

We are happy to discuss any ISO consensus product any day at 11 AM Eastern Time.  We also walk through the developmental status of all international standards once per month.  See our CALENDAR for the next teleconference; open to everyone.   Use the login credentials at the upper right of our homepage.

Issue: [13-100]

Contact: Mike Anthony, Christine Fischer, Jack Janveja, Rich Robben

Category: Academic Interest, Management, Finance & Administration, International Standards

 

LEARN MORE:

@ansidotorg 

Korean Standards Association

 

Gallery: School Bond Referenda

October 1, 2026
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In terms of total spend, the US elementary and secondary school industry is about twice the size of the higher education industry according to IBISWorld. About $100 billion is in play every year for both (which we cover during our Ædificare colloquia); with higher education spending only half of what elementary and secondary school systems spend on facilities.

Note that some districts are including construction for faculty housing.

Our focus remains on applying global standard to create educational settlements that are safer, simpler, lower-cost and longer-lasting — not on the hurly-burly of local school bond elections.  We recommend consulting the coverage in American School & University for more detailed and more timely information.

Declining Enrollment

October 1, 2026
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Standards Michigan ABOUT

  • Boulder Valley School District, Colorado — especially useful because the district itself has an excellent “Resilient Schools: Responding to declining enrollment” page. On September 22 it approved closing Douglass, Mesa and Flatirons elementary schools for 2027–28, along with relocations and consolidation. Boulder Valley School District
    Boulder Valley — Resilient Schools Plan
  • Duval County Public Schools, Florida — four elementary schools closed for 2026–27: Don Brewer, George Washington Carver, Hyde Grove and Hidden Oaks. The district explicitly describes the process as “right-sizing.” Duval County Public Schools
    Duval County — Consolidations and Closures
  • Miami-Dade County Public Schools, Florida — approved nine closures/consolidations for 2026–27 after enrollment fell about 4% in one year. The district expected roughly $10 million in savings. K-12 Dive
  • Houston-area districts, Texas — particularly striking: districts across the Houston region closed 26 campuses over the past year, citing combinations of declining enrollment, aging buildings and budget deficits. Houston ISD itself approved 12 closures. Houston Chronicle
  • Poudre School District, Colorado — very current. Its planning committee recommended nine school closures and two consolidations this week. Superintendent Brian Kingsley points directly to fewer births, high cost of living and fewer families residing in the area. KUNC
    Poudre school-closure report
  • Norfolk Public Schools, Virginia — particularly valuable for the long view. Enrollment fell from 34,023 in 2005–06 to 24,754, a 27% decline. Norfolk consequently adopted a phased plan to close and consolidate nine schools through 2034. Norfolk.gov
  • Salem-Keizer Public Schools, Oregon — plans to close as many as eight elementary schools in 2027. District enrollment, recently above 40,000, is projected to fall toward 35,000 over five years.

 

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