Ask a CASP - Jack Shaw, CASP

Jack Shaw is the Assistant Vice President for Auxiliary Enterprises at Shepherd University.

1. What are some tips you can provide institutions for best utilizing space when students aren't on campus?

Engage your recreation department in making their expertise and competition fields available during down times in the summer and during academic breaks. Consider the value added services like nutrition as a component of any athletic training.

Work with Res Life to develop some extended stay pricing with minimal services (linen rental) to host conference groups, dual enrollment students, internship students, and others (e.g. Elderhostel type travelers) who may be on your campus for certain extended periods of the summer. Res Life can be competitively priced to make money, yet still be a significantly lower priced option for the guest versus a local hotel.

2. Do you have any advice for generating some auxiliary revenue during the summer months?

Have a marketing plan by sport that makes sense based on that program’s market for youth sports. If you have kids or follow youth sports you know that each sport has a unique developmental process. For example, there is a great deal of time commitment for travel soccer and you may not have great success at attracting large numbers of kids to a week-long camp unless you have a very successful program. You may have better success at one day clinics, day camps, or assisting local coaches in having their teams have supervised practices on campus.

Teams are always looking for places to play and practice so renting competition fields is another opportunity. Some sports such as softball and baseball may have seasons that extend into June, so managing summer camps may be difficult for those programs and the main travel season for those sports is the summer. For those programs, fall clinics may be more successful.

Hosting team camps for football and basketball is a great way for high schools to work within the parameters of their state’s acceptable practice schedules while receiving college level feedback. Understand the local guidelines for those sports and find a way to help. This also gets potential students onto your campus.

Be the host site for coaching and refereeing clinics. If you have a pool be a host location for CPR, Lifesaving, Lifeguarding training, swim lessons, etc.

Develop academic camps based on your area’s need and the expertise you have on hand at your university. Is your school big in the arts? Have theatre and music camps. Robotics is BIG for many middle and high school students and many parents want to see their child move into programming. A robotics program can be a big success because of the demand particularly as a "next step" beyond First Lego leagues. Programs angled towards writing, leadership, development of self-efficacy can be a big success as well. Not everyone can get into the state’s Governor’s School, but many families want to see their kids participate in a "Governor’s School" type of activity.

Develop a pricing schedule for academic space rental and be available to companies, governmental agencies, and other organizations for space rental.