FEATURE ARTICLE Strategies to Successfully Navigate the Design of STEM Facilities A Case Study at the University of Mississippi by Shirine Boulos Anderson and Maurice R. Eftink Successfully planning interdisciplinary, inter-college STEM facilities requires a special set of tools to navigate the challenges that arise when dealing with a diverse set of users. INTRODUCTION THE GROWING DEMAND FOR SCIENCE , technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) facilities in higher education mirrors the national need for graduates (President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology 2012) not only in the basic sciences and traditional engineering fields but also in emerging technologies and sciences that blur the demarcations between these disciplines, such as biomedical engineering, biotechnology, geochemistry, information technology, and robotics. What are the key components in planning a successful contemporary interdisciplinary STEM building? Our discussion focuses on three important aspects of planning a facility of this type, illustrated with examples from the University of Mississippi’s new STEM building. We also discuss one operational aspect that university and college administrators must concern themselves with well ahead of the building’s opening date. CASE STUDY BACKGROUND The University of Mississippi (UM) is a public flagship institution in a mostly rural southern state with a significant disadvantaged population. Yet, UM is the second fastest- growing public university in terms of enrollment in the United States, second only to the University of Alabama (Anderson 2015). This rapid growth needed to be addressed in the university’s strategic plan, which is revisited approximately every 10 years. The UM 2020 Strategic Plan proposed two major goals: » To lead the state and the region in preparing STEM professionals and leaders—especially from underrepresented groups—and improve the science literacy of the general public. » To construct a state-of-the-art learning facility for STEM and ensure that science, mathematics, and engineering instruction is designed to attract students to these majors, which are critical to the economic competitiveness of the state and the nation. Since 2006, UM’s enrollment growth in STEM disciplines has yielded a rise in undergraduate STEM degrees of eight percent annually, mostly in the School of Engineering. However, this enrollment growth has also resulted in the institution’s reaching maximum capacity in its lower-division science courses offered to entering freshmen. The limiting factor was the number of teaching laboratory spaces rather Read online at www.scup.org/phe Planning for Higher Education Journal | V45N4 July–September 2017 1 Shirine Boulos Anderson and Maurice R. Eftink