When Design Strategy Meets Occupancy Analytics: A Conversation with Shannon Dowling - Part 1 of 2

Video recorded November 2025 in the United States.

In Part 1 of this two-part Bow Tie Tuesday conversation, CampusIQ’s Alyson Goff sits down with designer, educator, and researcher Shannon Dowling to explore how learning environments must evolve — and why design strategy and occupancy analytics can no longer operate in separate worlds.

Shannon brings a rare blend of research-driven design insight and firsthand campus experience. Together, Alyson and Shannon unpack how student behavior, scheduling realities, and hidden institutional assumptions shape space planning more than most leaders realize.

If you’re working in higher education space planning, facilities planning, or occupancy analytics, this conversation will challenge how you think about classrooms, student spaces, and the future of the physical campus.

✨ WHAT YOU’LL LEARN

✨ Why the traditional “butts in seats” model is eroding — and what comes next
✨ How self-paced, mastery-based learning disrupts space planning
✨ Why flexible furniture alone doesn’t create active learning
✨ Where design and teaching practices are misaligned
✨ How to start affecting change on your campus, even when constraints feel fixed
✨ Why not all solutions are physical — policy, scheduling, and human realities matter too

⏱️ KEY TIMESTAMPS

00:00 — Why design strategy + occupancy analytics matter now
00:55 — Introducing guest expert Shannon Dowling
01:04 — How research, design, and teaching inform Shannon’s work
01:57 — The coming shift away from the Carnegie unit
03:12 — What “scheduling transformation” really means for campuses
04:07 — What makes a learning space truly successful
04:56 — The biggest misconceptions in classroom design
06:22 — Why design, faculty practice, and training often misalign
07:00 — Where institutions should start if they want change
08:00 — Why not all solutions are physical
08:50 — Closing + preview of Part 2 (analytics + post-occupancy)

⚡ Ready to move beyond politics and make truly data-informed decisions?
Learn how CampusIQ empowers campus leaders and facilities teams to unify data, streamline space management, and ground their biggest capital decisions in objective utilization metrics. Visit www.campusiq.com to learn more.