University realigns structure of facilities, services

In an effort to increase efficiency and better serve the University community, the office of the Executive Vice President of Princeton University recently announced a plan to realign the responsibilities of the Facilities Organization and University Services.

University President Shirley Tilghman has approved the plan.

Up to this point, the Facilities Organization, led by Vice President for Facilities Michael McKay, has not only been in charge of the operations of Grounds and Building Maintenance, Design and Construction, University Architect and Real Estate Development, but has also taken charge of Dining, Housing and Conference and Event Services.

With the new plan, Dining, Housing and Conference and Event Services will consolidate with University Services, allowing Facilities to focus on stewardship of the campus and allowing University Services to become a more integrated service institution.

Executive Vice President Mark Burstein provided several reasons for this new plan.

Regarding the transfer of Dining, Housing and Conference and Event Services to University Services, Burstein noted, “This new plan will make us more in tune with our peer Ivy League schools in terms of structural organization.”

Further, both McKay and Burstein noted that Facilities has grown exponentially within the past five to 10 years with the recent addition of Real Estate Development to the responsibilities of Facilities.

Thus the reassignment of responsibilities will allow both Facilities and University Services to specialize in their respective areas.

“I think the time has come for reorganization,” McKay said. “We are outliers compared to other schools in terms of where housing and dining services are placed.”

McKay also said that while this newly announced plan is geared towards restructuring, students should benefit from the likely increase in efficiency that restructuring will bring.

Burstein gave one example of a case where the new plan will bring an increase in efficiency.

The usage of Tiger Cards is currently under the supervision of the University Services, while Dining Services is still under the supervision of Facilities.

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The consolidation of these two areas into one Service organization, he explained, is one case where the new plan to integrate and consolidate the services under one office will bring a welcome increase in efficiency.

The ultimate goal of the plan is for Facilities and University Services to be able to continue doing the work it has been doing for the past 10 years — but on a more efficient level, Burstein explained.

The consolidation and integration of all services under one umbrella is expected to better serve the University community, he said, noting that he hopes that “our new Services division will be a vanguard of how services divisions are structured in other schools because of how integrated we plan on making our Services institution.”

The Office of the Executive Vice President is currently searching internally for a Vice President of University Services, while McKay will remain in his position of Vice President of Facilities under the new plan.

Burstein noted that, currently, the University is looking to hire the Vice President of University Services by this winter and to have the two newly structured divisions fully integrated by the end of this academic year.