Tag Archives: D1

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Educational Settlement Finance

Giovanni Paolo Panini, An architectural capriccio with figures among Roman ruins

The post-pandemic #WiseCampus transformation requires significant capital to meet the sustainability goals of its leadership.  Campuses are cities-within-cities and are, to a fair degree, financed in a similar fashion.  Tax-free bonds are an effective instrument for school districts, colleges and universities — and the host community in which they are nested — for raising capital for infrastructure projects while also providing investors with, say $10,000 to $100,000, to allocate toward a tax-free dividend income stream that produces a return in the range of 2 to 8 percent annually.

An aging population may be receptive to investment opportunities that protect their retirement savings from taxation.

Once a month, we walk through the prospectuses of one or two bond offerings of school districts, colleges and universities and examine offering specifics regarding infrastructure construction, operations and maintenance.  We pay particular attention to details regarding “continuing operations”. Somehow the education industry has to pay for its green agenda.  See our CALENDAR for the next Finance colloquium; open to everyone.

The interactive map provided by Electronic Municipal Market Access identifies state-by-state listings of tax-free bonds that contribute to the construction and operation of education facilities; some of which involved university-affiliated medical research and healthcare delivery enterprises.

CLICK ON IMAGE FOR INTERACTIVE MAP

 

If you need help cutting through this list please feel free to click in any day at 11 AM Eastern time.  Use the login credentials at the upper right of our hope page.  We collaborate with subject matter experts at Municipal Analytics and UBS.

Issue: [Various]

Category: Administration & Management, Finance, #SmartCampus

Colleagues: Mike Anthony, John Kaczor, Liberty Ziegahn

*We see the pandemic as a driver for a step-reduction in cost in all dimensions of education communities.  We coined the term with a hashtag about two years ago.

*College and university infrastructure projects are classified with public school districts under the rubric “municipal bonds” at the moment.  CLICK HERE for more information.

 


More:

Duke Law Review:  Don’t ‘Screw Joe the Plummer’: The Sausage-Making of Financial Reform

An Expanded Study of School Bond Elections in Michigan

Lingua Franca

Plain Writing Act of 2010

White House: Designating English as the Official Language of The United States

 

“The English genius is essentially eclectic;

it borrows from everywhere and from every time.”

— Peter Ackroyd | 2004  Albion: the origins of the English imagination

“The Tower of Babel” 1563 | Pieter Bruegel the Elder

 

“Wer von Fremdsprachen nichts versteht, kennt seine eigenen nichts.”

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

 

Disagree with someone and cannot persuade them?  Do you need to hide your intransigence or ulterior motive? Then change the basis of discussion by changing the subject with a different definition.

This happens routinely in political discourse and rather frequently in best practice discovery and promulgation in building construction and settlement infrastructure standards[1].  Assuming all parties are negotiating in good faith resolution may lie in agreement on a common understanding of what a satisfying agreement might look like.

Admittedly, a subtle and challenging topic outside our wheelhouse[2] hence the need to improve our organization of this topic starting with today’s colloquium; with follow on sessions every month.

Starting 2025 we will organize our approach to this topic, thus:

Language 100.  Survey of linguistic basics for developing codes, standards and regulations.  Many vertical incumbents have developed their own style manuals

Language 200.  Electrotechnical vocabulary

Language 300.  Architectural and Allied trade vocabulary

Language 400.  The language of government regulations; the euphemisms of politicians with influence over the built environment

Language 500.  Advanced topics such as large language models or spoken dialects such as “High Michigan” — arguably, the standard American dialect where it applies to the standards listed above.

Naming & Signs


It may not be obvious how profound the choice of words and phrases have on leading practice discovery and promulgation.  For example, “What is Gender” determines the number, placement and functionality of sanitary technologies in housing, hospitals and sporting.   The United States has a Supreme Court justice that cannot define “woman”

As always, we will respond to public consultation opportunities wherever we can find them.  Some organizations are better than this than others.

Large Language Models

Glossary: Education

Examples of Variations in Translations of Homer’s Odyssey

Banished Words 2024

Today we limit our discussion to language changes in the catalogs of ANSI-accredited standards developers whose titles have the most influence over the interoperability of safety and sustainability technologies that create and sustain the built environment of educational settlements.

American Institute of Architects: Definitions for Building Performance 

ASHRAE International

Language Proficiency

International Code Council

Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers

National Fire Protection Association

Qu’est-ce qu’une nation?

Using tasks in language teaching

print(“Python”)

Love and Mathematics

The Guy Who Over-Pronounces Foreign Words

Every building construction discipline has its own parlance and terms of art.

This is enough for a one-hour session and, depending upon interest, we will schedule a breakout session outside of our normal “daily” office hours.  Use the login credentials at the upper right of our home page.

ΒΙΒΛΙΟΘΗΚΕΣ

Starting 2024 and running into 2025 we will break down this topic further, starting with construction contract language — Lingua Franca 300:

“Standard” History

History of the English Speaking Peoples

Language Proficiency

Geomatics

Large Language Models

Travels with the Sundry Folk

Reflections on the verb “to be”

Banished Words 2024

Forbidden Words

Using tasks in language teaching

William Tyndale: The Father of Modern English

“Music does an end run around language” — James Taylor

Electropedia: The World’s Online Electrotechnical Vocabulary

Standard Definition: “Developing” Country

The Guy Who Over-Pronounces Foreign Words

ANSI Acronymn Dictionary

Footnotes:

(1) The United States government defines a “Green Building” as a building that has been designed, constructed, and operated in a way that reduces or eliminates negative impacts on the environment and occupants. The government has established various standards and certifications that buildings can achieve to be considered “green.”

The most widely recognized green building certification in the United States is the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification, which is administered by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC). To achieve LEED certification, a building must meet certain standards related to sustainable site development, water efficiency, energy efficiency, materials selection, and indoor environmental quality.

In addition to the LEED certification, there are other programs and standards that can be used to measure and certify the sustainability of buildings, such as the Green Globes rating system and the Living Building Challenge.

Overall, the goal of green building is to create buildings that are not only environmentally sustainable but also healthier, more comfortable, and more efficient for occupants, while reducing energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. By promoting green building practices, the U.S. government aims to reduce the environmental impact of the built environment and move towards a more sustainable future.

(2) The U.S. Green Building Council is a conformance organization.  See the discussion our ABOUT for background on incumbent stakeholders.

History of the English Speaking Peoples

Michigan Central

Since so much of what we do in standards setting is built upon a foundation of a shared understanding and agreement of the meaning of words (no less so than in technical standard setting) that time is well spent reflecting upon the origin of the nouns and verbs of that we use every day.   Best practice cannot be discovered, much less promulgated, without its understanding secured with common language.

Word Counts

2024 Alumni Awards

Cambridge: English language education in the era of generative AI

Latte Macchiato

2019 ProPublica Non-Profit Explorer | IRS 990 Net Assets $90.194M

Standards Tennessee

Trevecca Dining


Tennessee

Fellows Coffee Shop

“I have found that it is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk

that keep the darkness at bay.”

— J.R. R. Tolkein

 

 

Annual Report and Accounts 2023/24: £1.310 billion

Tolkien, author of “The Lord of the Rings” and “The Hobbit,” completed his studies at the University of Birmingham in 1915. He graduated with first-class honors in English Language and Literature. After graduation, Tolkien went on to serve in World War I before embarking on his distinguished career as a writer and academic.

Old Joe: Campus Romances

Old Joe Clocktower | Fixing Old Joe

Home

Roger Scruton “Why Intellectuals are Mostly Left”


Coffee

How Coffee Loves Us Back

The Perfect Cup of Coffee

Best Coffee Spots Near Campus

Social Experiment: Giving College Students Coffee

Bruin Café

 

International Plumbing Code

The International Plumbing Code (IPC) is developed to harmonize with the full span of ICC’s family of building codes.  The IPC sets minimum regulations for plumbing systems and components to protect life, health and safety of building occupants and the public. The IPC is available for adoption by jurisdictions ranging from states to towns, and is currently adopted on the state or local level in 35 states in the U.S, the District of Columbia, Guam, and Puerto Rico.

CLICK HERE for the 2021 Public Access Edition 

SOURCE: CLICK ON IMAGE | Contact ICC for most recent IPC adoption map

 

The IPC is developed in the ICC Group A Code development framework and concluded its revision cycle in late 2021 under the circumstances of the pandemic.  The 2023 International Plumbing Code revision cycle will not begin until early 2023 but it is never too soon to understand the issues from previous revision cycles to enlighten approaches to the forthcoming Group A revision cycle.   The complete monograph of the Group A Codes is linked below, with comments on IPC proposals starting on Page 1417 of this 1613 page document:

2021 IPC | Group A Public Comment Monograph

Because transgender issues are on the agenda of many facility managers we direct you to Page 1424 of the rather large document linked above.

As always, we persist in encouraging education industry facility managers (especially those with operations and maintenance data) to participate in the ICC code development process.  You may do so by CLICKING HERE.

Real asset managers for school districts, colleges, universities and technical schools in the Las Vegas region should take advantage of the opportunity to observe the ICC code-development process during the upcoming ICC Annual Conference in Las Vegas, October 20-23 during which time the Group B c Public Comment Hearings will take place.  Even though the IPC has moved farther along the ICC code development process it is still enlightening to observe how it work.   The Group B Hearings are usually webcast — and we will signal the link to the webcast when it becomes available — but the experience of seeing how building codes are determined is enlightening when you can watch it live and on site.

Issue: [16-133]

Category: Plumbing, Water, Mechanical

Colleagues: Eric Albert, Richard Robben, Larry Spielvogel

#StandardsNewMexico

 


LEARN MORE:

Neutral Public Bathroom Design

Top Five Coffee Shops in Madison

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)

 

Animals 300

Office of Laboratory Animal Welfare

Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals

 

“The Peaceable Kingdom” 1833 Edward Hicks

Today we scan the status of literature that informs the safety and sustainability of the built environment for animals large and small.  Animals are found in education communities as pets. sporting partners, agricultural research and teaching settings, as medical research subjects and clinical care facilities.  ANSI-Accredited standards developers with a footprint in this domain are listed below:

American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers

Agriculture

ASHRAE International

Plant and Animal Environment

Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers

Animal Kingdom: A Large and Diverse Dataset for Animal Behavior Understanding

International Code Council

Form v. Function | Function v. Form

National Fire Protection Association

Animal Safety

Underwriters Laboratories

Government agencies at all levels borrow from best practice recommendations in the catalog of the foregoing standards developers.  Conversely, those same standards developers borrow from the best practice recommendations from the same government agencies.

Use the login credentials at the upper right of our home page.

Sunday, Animal, Farm, Agri august

More

The Ethics of Farming Animals

Animal Welfare Act

National Research Council: Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals

National Library of Medicine: Regulation of Animal Research

Most education communities use the foregoing regulations upon which to build their own standards.  For example:

George Washington University

Stanford University

University of Michigan

Michigan State University


 

Terrestrial Animal Health Code

Rewind: Animals 100

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