The Student Housing Matters blog explores ideas with leaders in higher education and the student housing profession. This is the place to find stories from those who have worked in the field for many years, podcast interviews, and videos about relevant topics in the student housing world.

It’s about matters relating to on-campus student housing, as well as why quality on-campus student housing really matters. We want this blog to serve as a forum for sharing ideas and insights about how your on-campus student housing can do things beyond simply housing students. How it can be used as a more powerful tool to recruit and retain students on your campus. We look forward to you joining us in the conversation.

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Posts by: Alton Irwin

The Current Financial State of the US Higher Education System

February 3, 2015

Our first podcast guest of 2015 is Lee White, Executive Vice President and Manager of the Education and Non-Profit Finance Group, George K. Baum & Company.  Lee is active in all areas of public finance, with a special emphasis on higher education.  He is regarded as the industry’s leading expert in the area of privatized…

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Mitigating The Risks Associated With An Un-User-Friendly Crisis Plan

January 27, 2015

In the first blog I wrote here, we talked about being proactive with our crisis response protocols.  In this post, we’re addressing why its important to make that plan very user-friendly. Many large universities and organizations have a crisis management plan, and some have taken the time to distribute them to their administrators and department…

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From Wasting Time to Tasting Wine: Vacation and Wellness

January 13, 2015

Have you seen the MasterCard “One more day of vacation” commercial[1] yet? Elementary aged school kids look at the camera in disbelief as they talk about all the unused paid vacation days each year. As one of the children says in the commercial, “That’s the stupidest thing I ever heard. They’re paid vacation days.” I…

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Top Five Suggestions/Tips for Effective Use of Downtime

January 7, 2015

I know what you are thinking! “Downtime… What’s that?”  While some departments and sites experience downtime during the break season, others are busy all year round.  Eventually, we all hope to have downtime at some point throughout the year; so don’t stop reading!  After a brief survey of colleagues at different locations and within different…

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Podcast

Podcast | The Best Of The 2014 Student Housing Matters Podcast

December 23, 2014

2014 was such a fun year on the podcast that we decided to put together a “best of” episode to recap everything. Going through everything was a fairly large task, but we came up with a few of the clips that we thought you would enjoy hearing again. Unfortunately, with so many episodes, some really great stuff…

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We Have Lost a Friend

December 18, 2014

Words cannot express how saddened I was to learn early this morning about the passing of Dr. Stephen Kopp, president of Marshall University. It was a privilege to first meet him in 2006, when Capstone was fortunate to be selected to partner with the University on the new First Year Residence Halls and Recreation Center. …

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The Best Time To Think About Your Crisis Response Protocol Is Before You Need It

December 9, 2014

The key to effective crisis communications and issues management is planning – in advance of any crisis or an issue that your university could face. Anticipating the types of challenges your institution could encounter and planning for them proactively will provide peace of mind knowing that any situation can be handled strategically and efficiently. Most…

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Work Life Balance: Maintaining Both Sides

December 5, 2014

Here at Capstone, we make it our goal to respond to all emails within 24 hours of receiving them. The point of this policy is to help with efficiency and to make sure that everyone is getting back the responses and information that they need. I have always viewed it as a positive idea, and…

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Nick Morgan’s 5 Secrets to Successful Speech Writing

December 3, 2014

Speech writing or public speaking is something that most everyone has done, or will have to do at some point in their professional career.  Back in 2011 Nick Morgan (who we’ve had on our podcast twice) had an article both on his Public Words blog and at Forbes on How to Write a Great Speech: 5 Secrets for Success.…

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10 Things to Consider When Working in a Leasing Trailer

November 13, 2014

You’re building a new Residence Hall or Apartment Complex. Great! Unfortunately, that means you won’t have a permanent office space until the project is near completion. No problem, a trailer can be a perfect home for the next year or so and in some ways may be better than your permanent office. There are things…

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Podcast

Podcast | Finding the Right Work-Life Balance

November 5, 2014

Joining the Conversation today is Ron Campbell, the Executive Director of the National Association of College Auxiliary Services, or NACAS. This is Ron’s second time joining us on the podcast after we originally interviewed him in 2012. Today Ron joined us, not only to catch up on what is going on with NACAS, but to share…

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Top Halloween Costumes Based On Online Ad Spending

October 31, 2014

For a little fun today, I thought our readers might enjoy this article about the top 20 Halloween costumes based on online ad spending. Top 20 Halloween Costumes by Paid Search Spend Surprised that Frozen (Elsa) was at the top? Not if you have a daughter 10 or under. So where does our costume fall in…

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