TO: Dr. Henry Trueba, Senior Vice President, Academic Affairs

Mr. Dennis Boyd, Senior Vice President, Administration

FROM: John C. Butter, Geosciences, NSM

Holly Sterneckert, Associate Vice President, Plant and Operations

DATE: March 15, 1995

RE: A Proposal To Establish a Systematic Set of Procedures for the

Maintenance of General Purpose Classrooms

In the Spring Semester of 1995 there are a total of 190 general purpose classrooms with a total seating capacity of nearly 12,500 on the UH Space Inventory. Much, but certainly not all of our formal class instruction takes place in these areas. As these classrooms are not on college or department inventories a set of procedures has had to be established by the Associate Deans that allows efficient and systematic assignment across college boundaries.

Given the oft expressed concerns by students and faculty alike about the general, condition of these rooms, we propose the following steps be taken to establish a systematic set of procedures for the maintenance of these classrooms at the University of Houston.

 

> Establish a special account which would fund painting, major cleaning (walls and ceilings), minor repairs, carpet replacement and seat replacement (in particular those fixed seats in the large auditoriums). Each year $100,000 of HEAF funds would be transferred to this account; these funds could only be used as stated above. Any positive fund balance remaining at the end of a fiscal year would be carried forward and could be used to take care of unexpected problems; for example, the repair of the mechanical drive for the blackboards in room 116 Science Research. If a Minor Capitol Improvement Program (MCIP) is established, the general purpose classrooms would be eliminated from that funding source.

 

> At the end of each fiscal year the Vice President of Plant and Operations would prepare a summary of fund expenditures, any amount to be carried forward and the total amount available for unexpected problems. This report would be sent to the two Senior Vice Presidents.

> It would be the responsibility of all instructors at the University of Houston to report problems encountered in classrooms to their department chairman. Those problems that arise in the general purpose classrooms would be reported to the college dean who would report them to the Director of Building Maintenance and Operations.

> Problems arising in classrooms on departmental and/or college inventories would be handled following current procedures.

A summary of data used in our deliberations is attached along with an example of a work schedule. The actual schedule would be established following the analysis of the Facilities Audit that is currently underway.

We are ready to meet with you at your convenience.

cc: Dr. Andrew Szilagyi, Associate Vice President for Planning