STAFF EDITORIAL: Undoing Trammell Crow

The building management firm's failure is a cautionary tale on the unproven merits of outsourcing at Penn. Last week, the experiment ended in failure. When Penn signed with Trammell Crow, many considered the deal a true innovation in the field of higher education. The University, it was thought, could reap cost benefits and see better service by focusing on its educational mission and leaving non-academic tasks to external contractors. But Trammell Crow, while cutting costs, did not improve service in nearly two years of operations. In college houses and academic buildings, officials reported consistently poor housekeeping and long service delays. These persistent problems attest to the fact that the firm never really outgrew its initial growing pains. Penn's decision to take back management of on-campus facilities from Trammell Crow -- leaving the firm with control over retail and off-campus residential units -- is thus a good one. Though Penn's track record managing its faclities in-house was far from perfect, we hope that it will provide better service in the future. That the Trammell Crow deal failed does not condemn the concept of outsourcing in general. Indeed, if the University could achieve cost and efficiency gains by finding someone to perform these non-educational tasks faster, cheaper and better, then it should explore doing so. But the administration has to take a hard look at why it failed to benefit from the Trammell Crow deal. It is imperative that Penn determine what went wrong during its two-year relationship with Trammell Crow and consider its options vis-^-vis existing outsourcing contracts. It is to the administration's credit that it did not allow Trammell Crow's unsatisfactory level of service to continue any longer. This decision exhibits a level of responsiveness to students' and faculty members' concerns that we find encouraging.

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