Interview: Andrew Parr, Associate Vice-President, Student Housing and Community Services
Andrew Parr, Associate Vice-President of Student Housing and Community Services, speaks to the challenges and opportunities posed when balancing fiduciary duty with climate action. A resource for UBC Faculty to identify a co-lead for their project, or to identify who to contact for approvals.
What is the operational role of your unit on campus?
SHCS is responsible for the business and community service operations of Student Housing, Food Services, Conferences and Accommodations, UBC Bookstore, Parking, and Child Care Services. We are an ancillary division of UBC, meaning we are fully self supporting and self funded, including all costs of operations, capital investments and mortgages, via revenues generated from operations. We are responsible to build, maintain, and steward our assets (including over 14,000 student residence bed spaces on both campuses), to foster safe and caring communities through residence life programming, services and supports, and to deliver high quality services that meet or exceed the needs of the UBC community and visitors to both our beautiful campuses.
What are your most urgent and pressing challenges?
There are few urgent and pressing challenges we are facing right now:
- Fiscal viability in light of the COVID-19 pandemic – provision of long term sustainable business operations that meet the needs of the community, allow us to apply our commitments to sustainability, and meet our financial commitments.
- Student Housing Demand – despite $.5B in investment and 5000 new beds on the Vancouver campus, demand continues to exceed supply. Building and operating sustainable, high quality and affordable housing continues to be a focus and challenge.
- Food insecurity and sustainable food systems – we operate a $50M food operation at UBCV; we have food values built on culinary excellence and sustainability – meeting marketplace needs while continuing to be leaders in the provision of a sustainable food system has its challenges. Find out more about our Food Vision and Values.
- Sustainable Transportation Management and the impact on Parking at UBC – we are supportive of having more sustainable transportation options to and from UBC (including the Skytrain) and of changing behaviours associated with commuting, but also recognize the financial implications of a significant reduction in vehicles travelling to and from campus from a parking perspective.
- Climate action – through SHCS-lead developments, capital renewal, and operations how do we best balance our financial and operational needs while supporting UBC’s commitments to climate action.
What potential research opportunities excite you the most, with regard to your unit’s function?
We are supportive of research associated with any of the above challenges and priorities. Not noted above but a topic of interest to us in SHCS is the impact, challenges, opportunities and strategies associated with behaviour change. We support a community of over 14,000 student residents and serve the entire community of both the UBCV and UBCO campuses. With this comes an opportunity, perhaps a responsibility, to influence the long term behaviour of those we serve, particularly students who live in student housing.
What are your operational constraints in incubating on-the-ground research?
Three come to mind:
- Financial – doing the right thing comes at a cost that is not sustainable under current conditions.
- Livability – we must ensure that decisions associated with climate action (reducing energy load for example) do not create a physical environment that is not accepted by current users.
- Access to resources – both human and financial resources – to give time and energy to these very real and challenging issues.