Senior Director of Space and Facilities: College of Arts and Sciences - UTK

The College of Arts & Sciences Senior Director of Space and Facilities oversees all space- and facilities-related matters for the College across approximately 40 buildings and various off-campus locations. The Senior Director has primary responsibility for strategic planning and implementation of college and institutional goals and priorities related to space and facilities, recommends and monitors space allocations for College units, promotes optimization of space usage, assesses requests for new space and makes recommendations regarding these requests, identifies and prioritizes the College's space and infrastructure needs, and oversees the college’s response to the annual space inventory. The Senior Director also manages staff who perform site inspections, oversees the preparation of renovation cost estimates, and tracks budget expenditures for renovations and repairs of offices, laboratories, or studios. Additionally, the position serves as the College's liaison to Facilities Services, UT Space Committee, UT System Capital Projects, contractors, architects, and lessors. The Senior Director collaborates with campus and UT System offices on developing Capital Projects Outlay proposals for major renovations and new buildings. This position serves as the College's central point of contact for staff and academic units on their facility needs, advocates for academic space needs, and leads coordination and communication on renovation and building projects affecting the College and its academic units.

 

-Space Planning & Analysis:

• Analyze CAS academic space and infrastructure needs and priorities in the context of CAS and campus-level strategic and master plans.

• Conduct research into best practices for space usage, allocation, acquisition, and renovation, and lead efforts, in partnership with stakeholders, to develop College standards and implement these best practices.

• Project future space, infrastructure, and classroom technology needs for CAS based on institutional goals and capacity demands.

• Serve as CAS’s lead contact on campus master planning, presenting the planning committee with requests for CAS, providing justification for prioritizing College requests.

• Represent CAS interests throughout the capital project programming and conceptual design process, reviewing designs for CAS buildings to ensure the need of impacted departments are met, and acting as the CAS project manager for College planning.

• Develop and coordinate communication plans for CAS staff and users regarding space-related projects, including construction, renovations, and relocations.

-Space Management:

• Serve as co-manager with other facilities representatives of interdisciplinary research buildings, including SERF and Senter Hall, which are spaces shared across colleges.

• Provide guidance to CAS leadership on space utilization and prioritization of needs for instruction and research.

• Receive and evaluate space requests from departments, consulting with college leadership and making effective recommendations to the Executive Dean for approval or denial.

• Represent the college in meetings of the UT Space Committee.

• Coordinate with UT Environmental Health & Safety on lab decommissioning, determining costs and who will pay, as well as establishing timelines and ensuring compliance with safety standards.

• Represent CAS in response to damaging events, such as unscheduled power outages, water leaks, and storm damage, occasionally inspecting damage and providing information to Facilities Services and stakeholders.

• Assist departments in submitting insurance claims to Risk Management, acting as the subject matter expert on claims, guiding departments on what information is needed, and acting as a liaison with risk management for questions about submitted claims.

• Other space- and facilities-related tasks as assigned.

-Renovations, Facilities, and Emergency Response:

• Work with Facilities Services, UT Capital Projects, college, departments, and consultants to develop project goals and timelines, complete and submit DB-70 funding requests and advocating for approval of needed College projects by providing data to support the funding submissions, and reviewing detailed designs for major renovations and new construction projects to ensure accuracy and compliance with safety standards and ensuring that plans meet the needs of the facility users, attending site inspections and informing of needed changes.

• Coordinate with departments and Facilities Services in planning and carry