College is First Two-Year School to Receive Industry Accreditation for Facility Management Associate Degree

PHILADELPHIA, Oct. 22, 2010 —The Facility Management program at Community College of Philadelphia has become the first associate degree program in North America to be accredited by the International Facility Management Association Foundation.

The College officially received the maximum six-year accreditation at the national conference of the International Facility Management Association (IFMA), Oct. 28-29 in Atlanta, Georgia. IFMA is the world’s largest and most widely recognized international association for professional facility managers with more than 19,000 members.

The IFMA Foundation, a nonprofit corporation that is separate from IFMA, works for the public good by promoting priority research and educational opportunities for the advancement of facility management. The foundation created the Accredited Degree Program in 1996 to promote excellence in facility management undergraduate and graduate degree programs.

Worldwide, the only other IFMA Foundation accredited associate degree program is Temasek Polytechnic, a three-year technical school in Singapore. The IFMA Foundation has accredited a total of 17 degree programs.

Miles Grosbard, chair of the College's Department of Architecture, Design and Construction, said other community colleges seeking IFMA Foundation accreditation are using Community College of Philadelphia as a model. “We have been contacted by community colleges in Wisconsin, Michigan and Florida who are interested in recreating our degree program at their institutions,” he said.

“Since its inception, the IFMA Foundation and the International Facility Management Association have vigorously supported the educational needs of current and future members as well as non-member facility management professionals,” said Steve Lockwood, the foundation’s director of academic affairs.

Facility management is a profession that encompasses multiple disciplines to ensure functionality of the built environment by integrating people, place, process and technology. The College first offered the associate degree in Facility Management in 2007. As a result of the accreditation, current and future students in the College’s program can apply and compete for scholarships from the IFMA Foundation.
To learn more about the IFMA Foundation, visit www.ifmafoundation.org. For more information about IFMA, visit www.ifma.org.