California Lutheran University

BACKSTORY

California Lutheran University is a small liberal arts university founded in 1959 on 225 acres of picturesque land in Thousand Oaks California.

With 3000 undergrads and close to 1300 graduate students, CLU is a nonsectarian university and one among 26 that are affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

In 2012 U.S. News & World Report ranked Cal Lutheran 14th among regional universities in the Western United States. On top of that, the school was included in the 2015 “America’s Top Colleges” by Forbes and Time Magazine’s “Best Colleges For Your Money 2017.”

CLU’s current endowment is $98.5 million.

Students represent 45 countries and can choose from among 37 majors and 41 minors with an average class size of 15. The graduate programs are housed in four major schools including: the Graduate School of Education, the School of Management, the Graduate School of Psychology, and the Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary.

Within these branches of graduate study, students are awarded doctorates in educational leadership, higher education leadership, clinical psychology and theology and master’s degrees in education, psychology, business, economics, information technology, public policy and administration, divinity, and theological studies.

PROCESS & APPROACH

DCI and Cal Lutheran have a long-standing partnership, and we’ve worked together on numerous projects in the last decade.

In Fall 2016, the CLU housing team contacted us with a new project that presented some unique challenges and opportunities.

RESULTS

During the quoting phase of the project we wanted to deliver the most cost effective solution. One area we identified for cost savings was installation.

To lower installation costs, CLU suggested that we use the University’s summer housing staff (many of them football players) to assist with the installation.

Here’s how it played out. DCI provided a foreman and one experienced installer to oversee CLU’s crew of young, strong, hard-working students. In the end, they did much of the heavy lifting and moving.

CLU’s point person in the facilities department managed the 10-14 student workers, and they did an amazing job, stayed motivated, and worked as a team.

By the end of the project, the students were all well-seasoned installers. In fact, we wished we could have taken them to our next job!

In the end, all the careful planning on the front end of the project paid dividends when it came time to install the project. The furniture fit perfectly and functions well in the space while meeting all the project specific requirements. And a bonus…we had fun to boot.