By Rebecca V. Frazee and Lisa Stephens of FLEXspace.org, EDUCAUSE!
To browse details, images, floor plans and more from spaces featured in this column, plus hundreds more, login to FLEXspace.org and visit the Gallery “HEAV – HEAV – Higher Ed AV Magazine Feature”
What an amazing gathering in Denver! After a long COVID-induced break, EDUCAUSE was back in full force enabling reconnection with hundreds of FLEXspace “friends and family” through presentations, meetings, braindates – and even a coveted Community Leadership Award for our FLEXspace Executive Director – largely in recognition for the global success FLEXspace has become!
Celebrating the FLEXspace Community
EDUCAUSE selected five members to receive awards from the main stage in front of nearly 6,500 of our friends.
Sue Workman, CIO from Case Western and Michael Berman, CIO from the California State University System each received recognition for their outstanding leadership. Both have recently begun a new chapter of their post-CIO careers, with Michael pursuing his music ambitions, and Sue now working with MOR Associates, influencing the next generation of leaders! Big bonus – Sue and Michael have been great advocates for FLEXspace for many years!
Keith “Mac” McIntosh, VP and CIO from Richmond University was recognized for growing awareness and implementation of DEI, and also served as moderator for the Kara Swisher conversation following the Awards. It was a lively discussion!
Joe Licata – a Product Management Consultant and former Associate CIO from Maricopa CCC District received the Rising Star Award for advancing innovation and cultivating effective/efficient teams. What a wonderful time we all had getting to know each other during the rehearsal!
The Community Leadership Award went to the FLEXspace Executive Director – Lisa Stephens, for cross-institutional innovation and collaboration and inspiring interest, talent, and energy toward a common effort.
“Each award recipient had one minute to thank their supporters – My friends know that I can barely say ‘good morning’ in a minute! So it was a fun challenge to formulate the words to honor the moment.” Below are Lisa’s comments from the platform.
Let’s unpack those Words!
“The opportunity to work with incredibly talented and dedicated professionals is like being the conductor of a world class orchestra.”
How true! To meet people from around the globe and demonstrate how FLEXspace can help inspire great learning environments is like every participant having a well-tuned instrument eager to make great music! Or, as a friend said, “Without the musicians, you’re just an idiot standing there with a baton!”
In addition to the database, the heart of the community seems to be the FLEXspace Shared Idea Board – where groups can tag spaces for discussion, and the Toolkit full of shared “quick hacks” can save time searching for ideas and references. It’s the epitome of sharing in Higher Education. Where else do you see large institutions openly and generously sharing ideas for the greater good? It really is beautiful music.
The California State University System, Foothill De Anza CC District, Penn State and Drexel University… each who, in addition to our amazing industry partners, have contributed time, energy and financial resources to keep this great asset available to all. But the people who originally enabled this effort – and continue to support it – are teams and leadership at the University at Buffalo and the SUNY System Provost’s Office. UB is home to an incredible learning environments team that works closely with campus facilities and design as well as a large group of campus wide advisors who help guide space investment. The “FLIPP” idea – the Flexspace Integrated Planning Pathway was rooted in these principles. Finally, credit for the original idea goes to former SUNY Provost David Lavallee who strongly advocated for technology enhanced learning spaces as the foundation for access to higher education.
“I wouldn’t be accepting this incredible honor without the contributions of friends, colleagues, and the leadership from the University at Buffalo and SUNY System Provost’s Office.”
“The largest collaboration to date has been FLEXspace and LSRS effort. I proudly accept this award on behalf of the 6,000 people across 1,400 universities from 75 countries contributing to this community of practice.”
Sometimes we hear, “Should I upload my space? There’s nothing really special about it.” YES! Each space has a unique story about the planning, technologies, and people working together in service to learners. This award belongs to ALL of us – everyone who uploaded a space, shared a toolkit item, and helped their campus or school district come together by using FLEXspace – this resource belongs to all of us!
“Many thanks to the leadership and staff at EDUCAUSE for YOUR hard work that enables us to make these connections, and to Moran Technology Consulting for supporting this award.”
If your campus is not part of EDUCAUSE, you may want to consider advocating for membership. The e-community resources and nearly weekly webinars keep us connected in-between conferences, and the staff are top notch! It seems that help is a Google search or phone call away when thinking, “I wonder how campus XYZ did that?”
Finally, I can’t leave the stage without thanking my wonderful west coast partner Rebecca Frazee, and my ever patient and encouraging educator and husband Jim.”
“Slow down, you’re working all the time” – it seems to be a trademark of people in Higher Education. Most of us are on our laptops long after work hours, working on reports or emailing ideas to help faculty and students. Frequently, our partners and families hear, “Yup, be right there!” and an hour dissolves when we should be helping tackle a home project. Thankfully, our friends and family seem to be our biggest cheerleaders in supporting the greater good!
“Business partnerships are like marriages – you have to work at them.” Yes, but every now and again you’re fortunate to work with people who make the partnership nearly effortless. Our partners who have generously helped “stitch” LSRS into FLEXspace and visa-versa have taken these free resources to a new level: Julie Johnston, Adam Finklestein, Tracy Birdwell, Malcolm Brown, Shirley Dugdale, Barbara Brandt, Rich Holeton, Crystal Ramsay, Bob Smith, Bob Beichner, Joe Cevetello, Linda Jorn, Elliot Felix, Phil Long, Andrew Milne and Carole Meyers. Many of these folks played “both sides of the fence” supporting LSRS and FLEXspace simultaneously – which is helping to make it easier to combine them into a “one stop shop” platform.
Our sponsor-partners have enabled FLEXspace.org to remain free to our community. The portal development (which we are entering a new phase of) and hosting costs real funds, and the entire community appreciates the partners who have stepped up over the years to bring us to this happy day! We would not have gotten off the ground without you Herman Miller, Shaw Contract, Crestron, Wolfvision, MediaSite, Computer Comforts, Jaffe Holden, Leo A Daly, Smart Desks, and of course EDUCAUSE!
Are you aware of a person or team who should be put into the limelight as the result of their leadership? By all means, take a look at the Awards Guidelines at https://www.educause.edu/careers/awards-program
We look forward to many more conversations from the “EDUCAUSE Award Class of ‘22”
The FLEXspace Team
Assistant Dean, Digital & Online Education
School of Engineering & Applied Sciences, The University at Buffalo
Project Director, FLEXspace.org
LISA STEPHENS, Ph.D.
Assistant Dean, Digital & Online Education
School of Engineering & Applied Sciences, The University at Buffalo
Project Director, FLEXspace.org
Lisa serves as Assistant Dean at the University at Buffalo School of Engineering and Applied Sciences leading the Office of Digital & Online Education, and also serves as Senior Strategist for Academic Innovation in the Office of the SUNY Provost. She enjoys an appointment in the UB Department of Communication as an Adjunct Associate Professor. Her SUNY portfolio includes leadership of FLEXspace.org™ and serves as the SUNY Partner Manager for Coursera.
Faculty, Learning Design & Technology Program
San Diego State University
Associate Director, FLEXspace.org
Rebecca teaches in the Learning Design and Technology program at San Diego State University and is the FLEXspace.org Manager. She enjoys experimenting with new technology tools and techniques to support active learning and team collaboration in higher ed and the workplace. Rebecca is a singer and songwriter and has been having fun with asynchronous ‘socially distanced’ recording projects this year. Contact Rebecca at rfrazee@sdsu.edu, and Twitter at @rebeccafrazee.
The Flexible Learning Environments eXchange (FLEXspace.org) is an award-winning community and open digital repository for higher ed that houses a growing collection of user-contributed content “by campuses for campuses,” with detailed examples of formal and informal learning spaces ranging from multimedia studios, maker spaces, computer labs, hybrid/flexible classrooms, and huddle spaces to large exhibit spaces, simulation labs and renovated lecture halls. FLEXspace was launched in 2012 as a collaboration between SUNY, the CSU Cal State University system, and Foothill-DeAnza Community College District and has since grown to include over 5000 members from 1400 campuses around the world, with PennState joining the partnership in 2019. FLEXspace won the Campus Technology Innovators Award in 2016, and the California Higher Education (CHEC) Collaborative Conference Focus on Efficiency Award in 2018.
FLEXspace users include practitioners, experts, and decision-makers in higher education, K-12, libraries, and museums who are focused on campus planning and facilities, learning technology, A/V systems integration, instructional design, teaching, and research. The FLEXspace portal provides a sophisticated suite of features that enables users to document and showcase their own campus learning spaces, share research, best practices, and tools for planning.