Building coordinators: MU's 'eyes and ears' on campus

t started out 30 years ago as simply a way for Business Services’ administrators to keep track of access to, and use of, MU’s growing number of buildings. The university’s building coordinator program today serves a vital role in keeping MU faculty, staff and students abreast of matters affecting campus buildings.

MU's building coordinators gather for a biannual meeting hosted by Campus Facilities at the Reynolds Alumni Center. The meetings are opportunities for buildng coordinators and alternates to learn about facility issues around campus, such as ongoing and upcoming construction projects and building security.

Communication is key

“Building coordinators serve as our ‘eyes and ears’ to keep us informed about concerns that may come up in campus buildings,” said Phil Shocklee, associate director of Campus Facilities, and himself a building coordinator. “They also communicate pertinent information to building occupants, such as upcoming construction or maintenance work, road closings, utility outages and peak alerts — anything that impacts their workplace.”

In addition to being communicators, building coordinators are also involved with building security. They approve key request forms and grant electronic-card access to building occupants.

More than 260 MU employees serve currently as building coordinators and alternates, in addition to their regular job duties. Appointed by deans or department heads, they are usually staff members who work regular hours, year-round, in the buildings to which they are assigned. Campus Facilities maintains a list of these people and makes it available to other service and support units, such as Business Services, the MU Police Department and Environmental Health and Safety.

Left, Campus Facilities associate director Phil Shocklee presents the annual calendar and service guide at the meeting. Right, buildng coordinators survey renderings of future campus construction projects.

“They’re our contact people. We need to be able to reach them at home, if there is a power outage or emergency after hours in a campus building,” said Shocklee. “We don’t have the manpower to make numerous phone calls in the middle of the night. For instance, if there is an unscheduled power outage and the power is going to be off for an extended period of time, we will contact the building coordinator. We have no way of knowing whose work it could impact, but the building coordinator knows who to notify.”

Building coordinators also submit the bulk of service calls to CF’s Maintenance unit. While anyone can submit a service request, notifying the building coordinator first cuts down on duplicate requests.

“It helps us better serve our customers if one person calls in the service requests,” said Shocklee. “That way, we can let the building coordinator know the status of the job, and in turn they can relay that information to others in the building.”

How it all began

The building coordinator program was created in the early 1970s as a way for Administrative Services to better track keys and after-hours room reservations, according to Patsy Higgins, manager of Business Services.

“At that time, master and submaster key requests had to be approved in the Business office,” said Higgins. “We didn’t feel comfortable signing for submaster keys for buildings when we weren’t in them, so building coordinators took on that role because they would have a better idea of who would be using the keys.”

Building coordinators also had a better idea of how their buildings were used outside of regularly scheduled classes. By assigning one person, and an alternate, to watch over each building, Administrative Services could ensure there were no scheduling conflicts for after-hours reservations and that, when events ended, the buildings would be locked.

Building coordinators authorize the use of electronic-access cards and track about 87,000 keys on the MU campus. The university is switching to electronic access to improve security of campus buildings.

Technology facilitates communication

The task of maintaining the growing list of building coordinators and alternates fell eventually to Campus Facilities, the primary user of the list.

“The list gives us a central point of contact for each building,” said Shocklee. “It’s a two-way system of communication. We contact building coordinators any time there is a facility-related issue that could affect their building, and they let us know if there are any concerns.”

Advances in technology have improved the way Campus Facilities communicates with building coordinators.

Until several years ago, Campus Facilities contacted individual building coordinators by telephone and campus mail — an inefficient way to reach a large group of people. To make the system more efficient, Campus Facilities, with Telecommunications, developed the university’s first automatic telephone dial-up system.

“It was a good way to quickly reach a large group of people at once,” said Shocklee. “The only problem with it was that we would get a list of numbers that were busy or couldn’t be reached.”

E-mail solved the problem. Campus Facilities’ Systems Development unit this year developed a bulk notification system to reach building coordinators, alternates, and specific departments within buildings.

“The bulk e-mail program gives us the opportunity to communicate with almost all building occupants on campus,” said Shocklee. “We’ve never had the capability to do this before — it’s an 80- to 90-percent quantum leap from what we’ve been able to do in the past. We are now able to assist building coordinators so that building occupants who need to know about a facility-related event will be contacted immediately.”

Technology is also making it easier for building coordinators to keep track of some 87,000 keys and electronic-access cards. By using Maintenance’s online key request system, building coordinators can submit requests over the Web, automatically update the key database and eliminate paperwork.

“It helps us keep the database accurate,” said Melissa Lester, office support staff III in Maintenance. “Now, building coordinators can track and generate reports about all of the keys in their buildings, and flag lost or inactive keys.”

After the September 11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, D.C., MUPD called a special meeting for building coordinators and alternates to discuss campus security.

Face-to-face

E-mail might make communication more efficient, but it still takes a back seat to face-to-face contact. Twice a year, Campus Facilities hosts a meeting for the university’s building coordinators and alternates, and updates them on campus facility issues. The meetings are also a chance for building coordinators to meet one-on-one and interact with Campus Facilities’ staff.

“I think the meetings are very interesting,” said Bob Almony, assistant director of libraries and building coordinator for Ellis Library and annex. “I always learn something new about the campus.”

The biannual meetings also allow MUPD and EH&S to present security and safety information to building coordinators — issues that took on a new urgency this year after the September 11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, D.C. In addition to the regularly scheduled meetings, MUPD this year also called an emergency meeting soon after the incidents to discuss the university’s plans to tighten security on campus.

“Building coordinators have taken on many more responsibilities since the program was first started,” said Shocklee. “Sometimes it seems like the only thanks they get is a cup of coffee and a doughnut twice a year. We really can’t thank them enough for all that they do for the university."