While demographic, environmental, and operational challenges reshape higher education, campuses must elevate the student experience to stay competitive and relevant. Facilities managers play an essential role in this transformation as they directly affect the environments where students live, learn, and pursue their passions.
In this article, we explore how a smart campus elevates the student experience and your campus’ reputation and attractiveness for incoming students and alumni. We will illustrate campus strategies for fostering student health, well-being, and success while also enabling campuses to meet their operational priorities and sustainability commitments.
The foundation for an elevated student experience
Higher education students seek out campuses that prioritize their health, well-being, and learning experiences; together, these form the foundation for their academic and personal success. Facilities managers help shape and create the campus environment, influencing students’ decisions about where to go to school, their day-to-day activities, and their long-term outcomes.
In short, campuses that focus on elevating the student experience via facilities management can attract and help retain more students and faculty in an increasingly competitive landscape.
Research underscores the importance and impact of these initiatives on student success. For example, the Center for the Study of Student Life at The Ohio State University recently published their report on the importance of involvement in campus life. They found that active involvement in campus life fosters a sense of belonging and enhances leadership skills, multicultural awareness, and overall well-being. Because these experiences extend beyond the classroom, they create more holistic educational experiences that better prepare students for life beyond graduation. And it all begins with the campus and facilities infrastructure.
Health and well-being
Campus facilities create physical spaces that promote students’ health and well-being, ultimately cultivating an elevated student experience. Consider how buildings that provide access to natural lighting and comfortable indoor environments have been shown to improve focus and reduce student stress. Likewise, flexible, technology-enabled campuses support collaboration and accommodate different types of learners while leveraging data, AI, and analytics to efficiently deliver the comfort, lighting, ventilation, and indoor air quality essential to health and well-being.
Safety and security have become increasingly important parts of the conversation. The combination of reliable fire and life safety systems and unified security solutions creates a comfortable, inclusive, and safe environment in which students are free to do their best learning and research to prepare them with workforce skills and ultimately for the careers of tomorrow. Conversely, a perception of campus safety risk to students or parents will significantly and negatively weigh on recruiting and retention efforts.
Enriched learning spaces and experiences
The Student Experience Project, a collaboration of several universities, has demonstrated how campus infrastructure enhances academic and student experiences when it promotes inclusion and fosters engagement. Yet, it is not always possible for campuses to transform their spaces on their own. Instead, many campuses find that working with industry partners means they are better able to co-develop impactful, enriched learning spaces and experiences, from innovation programs and maker spaces to programs that bolster campus sustainability goals.
For example, Flagler College in St. Augustine, Florida partnered with Siemens and leveraged the EMPOWER+ program to further develop a new biology major and lab on campus for study and undergraduate research. Students and faculty were able to research the local San Sebastian River for water quality and other environmental issues. This is one story of many that illustrate how these collective experiences can enhance and elevate the campus experience beyond traditional lectures.
A Historically Black University, Morgan State University in Baltimore leveraged EMPOWER+ to support academic programming to incorporate much-needed experience and career skills with the “Mechatronics: PLC Programming Training” in the School of Engineering. Using the Siemens S7-1500 Programmable Logic Controller (PLC), this Siemens S7-based learning system covers topics such as PLC operation, PLC programming, event sequencing, timer/counter PLC instructions and I/O simulators. In line with the goals of the newly established Mechatronics Engineering Program, this was the first such program offered amongst state universities in Maryland and the first also amongst Historically Black College and Universities (HBCUs).
Campus facilities and academic leadership are leading these efforts, bridging the need for operational efficiency with student-focused outcomes and providing valuable teaching and learning opportunities.
Higher education is changing
Higher education is changing, marked by broad shifts in key areas: student demographics, sustainability pressures, and operational readiness.
Student demographics
This year, 2025, is expected to graduate the highest number of high school students (3.5 million, by one estimate); from there, a “significant multiyear decline in the number of traditional-age college students” will follow. It has been coined the “enrollment cliff,” and whether or not it comes to pass, the higher education sector has been shrinking over the past few years, with nearly 100 campuses closing since 2022.
At the same time, Deloitte reports that public trust in higher education has been eroding. A growing number of university graduates now question the value of their bachelor’s degrees due to the combination of student debt and underemployment after graduation.
These factors will increase competition for students, and campuses will have to work harder to attract and retain students. A well-maintained, smart campus that fosters a sense of belonging and supports students’ growth and exploration may become the differentiating factor.
Operational readiness
Across all industries, facilities professionals continue to reach retirement age, often taking their decades of experience with them. As one author wrote:
It’s likely that … buildings have been renovated numerous times over the years. With every renovation, equipment may be relocated or replaced. Remembering all these details is tough, but veteran team members are called upon to find gas, water, and electrical shutoffs because no one else remembers. These calls can take place after hours or during the day, and if not quickly addressed, disasters like floods can devastate buildings and disrupt classes or cause evacuations.
In The Campus of 2030: Risks and Opportunities, APPA concurred, writing that “the facilities organization faces unique workforce challenges as the number of skilled trades workers continues to decline.” This generational shift demands workforce training and retraining as well as digital tools that can streamline and support efficient campus operations, create a culture of innovation and inclusion, and overcome labor market challenges – all while retaining institutional knowledge.
As staffing, budget and capital renewal challenges continue to grow, traditional approaches to facilities management are not sustainable. Solutions that are less budget and staff-dependent are required. The same APPA report writes, “Institutions that fail to be fully immersed in digital services won’t survive.”
Sustainability pressures
Students, faculty, and communities expect higher education institutions to lead in sustainability efforts. In fact, one research study revealed that 85% of undergraduate respondents believe that a college’s sustainability practices are very or somewhat important.
Net Zero and other campus climate commitments add to the pressures, accelerating facilities managers’ need to explore energy-efficient operations and technologies that reduce carbon emissions. These efforts not only support campuses in achieving their sustainability goals, but also enhance institutional reputations. Moreover, they can generate energy and operational savings that can be re-invested back into facility improvements, academic programs, student-led activities, and other programs on campus.
Adapting to these changes
Creating a smart campus – that is, the process of integrating innovative digital solutions into every facet of operations – can support colleges and universities as they adapt to these changes, respond to interconnected challenges, and prepare for the future of higher education. More importantly, however, smart campuses prioritize a student’s health, well-being, and success, elevating their experiences and fostering an environment that inspires environmentally conscious development and sustainable practices.
What does a smart campus look like?
A smart campus is connected and digital, operates sustainably and efficiently, and leverages technology to do even more. At the same time, a smart campus is the foundation of an elevated student experience, and the wealth of available infrastructure operations data can be used to create living labs, cultivate workforce and leadership opportunities, and so much more. Every day, we see more opportunities emerge through smart campus technologies, including:
Campus sustainability
According to the United Nations 2023 Race to Zero Progress Report, approximately 1,200 universities now participate in the campaign; of these, 97% have Net Zero emissions targets. But only 45% have published their transition plans. This gap demonstrates “a lack of execution capabilities.” Still, smart campus solutions can effectively support higher education in their sustainability efforts through data-driven strategic planning, infrastructure modernization, building services, resource management, electrification, and so on. By taking the right steps today, it is possible to transform existing educational infrastructure so that it is safer, smarter, and more sustainable.
Energy management
Implementing a smart campus energy management program can help track and reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. So, too, does employing onsite and offsite renewable energy resources, energy storage, and electrification of buildings and transportation. Together, these initiatives enhance the campus’s reputation as a responsible environmental steward—and this infrastructure and its data can offer learning opportunities that help students prepare for the clean energy careers of the future.
Efficient, predictable campus operations
Smart campus technologies, system integration, and digital services combine with facilities planning to enable efficient, predictable campus operations and a safe, secure, comfortable environment for students to do their best learning and research. Aided by data, cloud-based analytics, remote services, machine learning, and AI, campus operations can be continuously optimized within the staffing constraints existing at most campuses. By addressing today’s priorities and leveraging smart campus technologies, colleges and universities can anticipate–and therefore prepare for–tomorrow’s needs.
Smart space optimization
Viewing campus facilities as dynamic, service-oriented spaces enhances flexibility, supports more contemporary learning models (informal learning spaces and adaptive classrooms), and fosters innovation and inclusion that align with evolving academic and student needs. It is a concept explored in the 2024 Thought Leaders report, and one that’s exemplified by the smart campus approach. That is, advanced data analytics and real-time monitoring of space utilization can help higher education institutions optimize their space allocation, room scheduling, and layout design, as well as energy consumption. In this way, campuses make the most of their available space; for example, continuously overused and underused areas can be easily identified and repurposed for more strategic uses.
Campus safety and security
Smart campus safety and security solutions help elevate the student experience by reducing security risks and protecting students on campus. A unified approach to security integrates access controls, video surveillance, and notification platforms to create a safer, more secure learning environment. Digitally-enabled fire and life safety systems confirm the operational reliability and resilience of these essential platforms, while enabling continuous and remote monitoring that unburdens local facilities staff.
Campus safety also encompasses the air we breathe. Smart indoor air quality solutions, based on real-time monitoring, go a long way toward creating healthier learning and research environments.
Research and training excellence
IoT, digitalization, and digital learning continue to reshape how, when, and where students learn, live, and explore. Smart campuses can leverage data and digitalization to foster innovation, accelerate learning, achieve excellence in research and training, and set a new standard for what educational environments can achieve.
Paving the way towards a smarter, more resilient future
Southern Methodist University (SMU) in Dallas, Texas, is well on its way to operating as a smart campus, elevating its infrastructure to improve the student experience while dramatically improving energy management and use, enhancing system reliability, and addressing deferred maintenance issues. Their ambitious goals have been transformed into reality via digitalization, data-driven maintenance, strategic energy supply, and infrastructure modernization. And these savings have been directed to improve campus infrastructure further, both renovating existing buildings and building new buildings.
Conclusion
Ultimately, a smart campus represents a forward-looking approach to higher education and enables institutions to meet today’s challenges head-on while enriching and elevating the student experience by:
- Prioritizing strategies that deliver both student comfort and operational efficiency
- Aligning evolving expectations and sustainability objectives to generate long-term ROI
- Leveraging new digital capabilities to continuously optimize campus operations, while reducing maintenance burdens
- Reducing risk of failure and improving campus safety and security
- Fostering an environment for student learning, innovation, and belonging
Fred James is the head of education markets, and Steve Hoiberg is the director of EMPOWER+ programs at Siemens Smart Infrastructure. They can be reached at [email protected] and [email protected], respectively.
