The Minnesota State Colleges and Universities (MnSCU) contracted with Paulien & Associates to perform a space utilization study of all of the system’s 36 institutions, which are comprised of 53 campuses and include state universities, community colleges, and technical colleges. We prepared room-by-room facilities inventories for seven state university and 46 community and technical college campuses, prepared classroom and laboratory utilization analyses, and prepared a set of guidelines for the system to use in quantifying capital needs. The study had three components: to inventory the academic space on all of the campuses by function, size, and capacity; to analyze existing academic space utilization data and produce findings for the entire system as well as findings for each institution; and to develop system-wide protocols for the space inventories, data collection and analysis, and space utilization standards.
After having completed the utilization study for the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities (MnSCU) 36 institutions, Paulien & Associates was contracted to do a follow up study to track the utilization trends for the campuses.