Reducing paper demands, leveraging the expertise of the GW faculty and staff as in-house consultants, and increasing the use of university housing and other facilities are among six new projects selected for a program that has generated millions in savings and new revenue for reinvestment elsewhere around the university.
The six new initiatives join 11 others green-lighted earlier by the Innovation Task Force, an initiative created by President Steven Knapp in 2009 with the charge of identifying $60 million in annual, recurring savings and new revenue through improvements in GW business operations and new academic programs. The newest enterprises will bring the ITF past the two-thirds mark toward that goal, with $43 million identified.
“The first two years have gone very well. We continue to make solid strides forward,” said Dave Lawlor, senior associate vice president for finance and co-chairman of the ITF steering committee.
“This is a long and ambitious journey we are on together but we have great momentum,” he said. “Without the incredible sponsorship of senior leaders at the university, dedicated faculty, staff and students we would not be where we are today. GW is changing a paradigm with ITF.”
More than $11 million in ITF funds has been budgeted for reinvestment in the 2012 fiscal year to benefit the university’s top academic priorities. Beneficiaries of ITF funds to date include the Columbian College of Arts and Sciences’ undergraduate advising service, which in 2010 was able to double its number of professional academic advisers, to 18, and add additional pre-professional advisers.
The six new initiatives, expected to generate more than $5 million per year beginning in fiscal year 2015, are:
- Housing Optimization: Increasing occupancy—especially in the summer months and in the spring semester, which trends slightly less than the fall—could add an estimated $2.6 million in revenue.
- Cloud Computing: The university will look for opportunities to migrate some services into the type of centralized, shared and web-accessible computing resources known as the “cloud.” Areas to be evaluated might include infrastructure-related services—like data storage and telephony—as well as hardware and software that could be more efficient. The results are estimated to save the university $1 million.
- Reducing Paper: Saving paper, of course, is environmentally friendly and saves on the cost of paper itself. But by reducing paper use, the university also will save on associated costs, such as ink, printers, copiers and maintenance. The ITF envisions cutting paper costs through: a paperless graduate admissions process; increasing electronic course evaluations; switching P-card documentation to an electronic format; printing fewer copies of the University Bulletin, which exists online; increasing the use of electronic syllabi and course materials; and the launch of a GW-wide document scanning and retrieval system. Together those changes are estimated to result in savings of $600,000.
- More Efficient Customer Service: The university will explore ways to more efficiently answer the frequently asked questions of students, parents, faculty and staff, which might include new web-based solutions. The initiative, estimated to save $300,000, is aimed at offering users consistent and reliable information, and decreasing the load of phone and email inquiries, which will allow departments to better utilize staff.
- Expanding Use of Facilities Beyond Academic Year: Some facilities on the Foggy Bottom, Mount Vernon and Virginia Science and Technology campuses are not fully utilized during the summer. For example, attracting conferences, nonprofit groups and students to utilize the residence halls, classrooms, and dining and leisure facilities at Mount Vernon in the summertime could yield an estimated $400,000.
- Leveraging In-House Expertise: Even a modest reduction in the use of external consultants, in favor of the expertise of faculty and staff members, is estimated to save the university $200,000. To do this, the ITF initiative calls for the creation of an inventory of internal experts that could be considered as an alternative.
One of the benefits of calling upon in-house experts, said Mr. Lawlor, is that “you have many individuals who are passionate about GW’s mission and eager to share their expertise in new ways. This provides another way in which they can do that. They understand the infrastructure, the players and the culture.”
It’s an idea that has been key even to the success of the ITF itself. Nearly 200 members of the university community so far “have stepped up and participated and offered their expertise,” said Craig Linebaugh, co-chairman of the ITF steering committee and senior associate provost for academic operations.
“When you talk about people who have a vested interest in the university and care about the welfare of the university and moving it forward,” he said, “there’s no better exemplar than the way people have stepped up and gotten involved in the ITF initiatives—serving on the exploration committee, helping steer the effort in a variety of ways and serving as champions for ITF initiatives.”
As this batch of initiatives moves into the detailed planning phase, the ITF will begin vetting ideas for the next round, which will be decided on in the spring.