Andrew Sama Email & Phone Number

Mishawaka, In, Us

A Manager in Huron’s Higher Education Strategy & Operations practice with over thirteen years of higher education administration experience in the areas of space management and graduate admissions. Recently completed projects include:+ Managed a space governance project at a public R2 institution in Texas to assess the current state of space management and provide recommendations and draft policies and procedures to optimize the use of academic, research and administrative space.+ Led a space management assessment at a private R1 institution in Philadelphia that reviewed management practices and utilization across two specific schools and generated 18 near-term and long-term recommendations for improvement. Analyses identified the potential for tens of thousands of square feet of recoverable space and millions of dollars in potential savings. + Led a project at a public R1 institution in Virginia focused on understanding space utilization and impacts of flexible work within in-scope administrative space and offer recommendations for how institutional leadership could improve efficiency and effectiveness, optimize service levels, and/or reduce costs. + Led the review and assessment of a system-wide Capital Planning and Project Management (CPPM) office for a New England-area university system. + Led assessment project at a public research institution in California that helped the institutions Housing Custodial team prepare for planned expansion of 3,000+ new beds. Led the development of an Excel-based custodial staffing model that estimated labor costs and times-to-clean for current and future state residential space and an executive level report to summarize findings from interviews & focus groups. Throughout my career, I have led projects focused on cross-department collaboration, organizational design and performance improvement and have also successfully built a business case for technology investment in the GIS and space management areas.

The Higher Education Facilities Management Alliance (HEFMA) is a professional organization comprised of university space management professionals for the purpose of networking, collaboration, information-sharing and professional development. Membership is primarily Big Ten institutions with select other Midwestern partner institutions including the University of Notre Dame. My responsibilities for HEFMA include policy development and data survey development and administration in addition to my Treasurer role.

Notre Dame, In

Responsible for the creation and management of a new university business unit tasked with the management of facilities information across all university properties.Directly supervised team of 2 FTE's that collected and maintained building floor plans, departmental & individual employee occupancy data, space use data and host of other related building and space data and documentation. Implemented numerous process improvements and technology upgrades, in collaboration with partners from across the University, to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of this team. Examples include:- Integration with HR personnel actions tools to create address validation for all University employee office addresses. This improves the accuracy of our occupancy data and reduces time spent on audits.- Collaboration with OIT to launch comprehensive data sets & reports for University space data via dataND online portal. First time this data has been available in on-demand format for dept. users. - Creation of first-ever enterprise GIS platform for administrative use at the University; successfully led a large-scale pilot with partners from across academy and administration and launched gis.nd.edu in 2020. Provided direct support to University senior leadership for strategic space planning activities in the form of data collection and analysis. Member of University Space & Project Review Committee.

Notre Dame, In

I held an appointment as a concurrent assistant professional specialist in the First Year of Studies department. Since the programs inception (with one gap in AY 2020-21 due to my work in the COVID Response Unit) I facilitated a section of the Moreau First Year Experience which is required of all first-year students. The Moreau course is designed to assist students through the transition to the undergraduate experience and encourages the holistic formation of the student within the educational mission of the University. The focus is on health and wholeness, cultural competency, academic success, spiritual development, and personal discernment. Moreau facilitators help students to engage the material and each other and play a direct role in building the special community that is Notre Dame.

Volunteered in August 2020 to assist with the COVID Response Unit (CRU) at the University of Notre Dame. During the Fall semester, I led a small team that created and then managed a safe, efficient process to release students from quarantine & isolation stays. This team successfully processed more than 11,000 releases during the 2020-21 academic year. Over Winter Break, I stepped into a larger leadership role overseeing the coordination of all quarantine & isolation operations including housing, transportation, food delivery, quarantine test scheduling, release and room cleaning. During Winter Break and Spring semester, I implemented a series of process improvements that balanced campus safety with student health & wellbeing and ensured consistent communication across the dozens of staff members doing this important work.

Selected for the Notre Dame Rotation Program, an employee leadership development program that develops individuals to take on leadership responsibilities within the university. Participants experience three six-month assignments in departments across campus. These assignments allow the participants to learn about the university from a new perspective, while providing valuable work to the host department.Completed projects include:Office of Strategic Planning & Institutional Research: Coordinated a campus-wide survey (ImproveND) & led a strategic planning process for an auxiliary revenue-producing unitOffice of the Vice President for Research: Coordinated a process improvement project for Technology Transfer office and completed comprehensive Research Administration Training Program Hesburgh Libraries: Provided launch support for CurateND digital repository system. CurateND is a multifaceted research repository and portal designed to manage and preserve Notre Dame research and associated data so that it can be globally discovered, accessed and shared.Department of Athletics: Conducted benchmarking & designed pilot program for a student-athlete assessment initiative in the Student-Athlete Welfare & Development office. Office of the Executive Vice President: Completed project work as assigned.

Developed and implemented innovative admissions strategy and tactics to recruit high quality candidates for the University of Notre Dame full-time MBA programs.Voting member of the MBA Admissions Committee and assisted in the coordination of the MBA fellowship award process.Motivator and informal leader for four full-time staff members and official manager for the department operational budget. Managed the end-to-end admissions process including all recruiting activities, evaluation activities and yield activities. Created and executed e-mail, print mail and PURL campaigns to increase the number and quality of the overall applicant pool. Included specific outreach to women, military veterans, non-U.S. citizens and underrepresented minority groups.Worked proactively with the Mendoza College of Business Marketing & Web team to develop and manage marketing tools including print, online and social media.Traveled domestically and internationally to recruit MBA candidates and represent the University of Notre Dame MBA program.

Alexandria, Va

Managed 7-person team responsible for strategic planning, business process improvement and performance management support to internal Directorate of a U.S. intelligence agency

Hurlburt Field, Fl

Performed disaster response planning, training & logistical duties for the special operations arm of USAF; analogous to “emergency management” in the civilian sector

Mba, Marketing

Activities and Societies: Chairman of MBA Student Activities, MBA Chairman for Late Night Olympics

Ba, Communication

Activities and Societies: Lead Producer - Marist College TV (MCTV), Radio Show Host - Marist College Radio (WMCR)