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News Byte: Inside Higher Ed Features New York Tech Campus Reopening Plans
September 22, 2020
An article in Inside Higher Ed highlights New York Tech’s efforts to create and implement a safe, comprehensive reopening strategy for its New York campuses while also planning for long-term sustainability.
Since March, a team of New York Tech leaders, including Suzanne Musho, chief architect and vice president for capital planning and facilities management, has worked to address the short-term challenges of bringing students, faculty, and staff back to campus for the fall semester. At the same time, Musho has been leading efforts to address longer-term issues like sustainability in the plans.
“We’re preparing for the future at a time when the present is extremely present,” says Musho. “The question we keep asking is, ‘What can we be?’”
New York Tech’s fall reopening plans include a four-point LEAD strategy for the New York campuses with an integrated emphasis on health and communication, including activating a health-screening app that enables students and other campus visitors to self-report their temperature and answer three state-mandated screening questions on a daily basis.
On the Long Island campus, for example, developments include “pop-up parklets” featuring seating, tables, and shade umbrellas, as well as expanded WiFi and portable A/V units for outdoor gathering spaces.
But thinking extends well beyond the pandemic. “In the big picture, we’re interested in decreasing our use of fossil fuels, using less artificial lighting, increasing our use of solar energy, and engaging more in the outdoors,” Musho explains. This fall, among other planed sustainability initiatives, the university is installing meters that assess the amount of energy being used and will gather data to develop a profile of energy usage and ways to reduce it.
Read the entire article.
This story is part of an initiative in which New York Tech has partnered with Inside Higher Ed, and is the fourth and final sponsored content article to be featured. The August 31 story highlights five student-focused initiatives to help weather uncertainty. Also, see the August 3 story about one faculty member’s innovative teaching approach to support his students’ success during the pandemic, and the July 6 story about the Entrepreneurship and Technology Innovation Center’s E.R.R.S.E.L.A. robot.
