Why UB Needs a Physical Plan
Over the past 162 years the University at Buffalo has grown from a frontier medical school to a publicly assisted comprehensive research university with more than 28,000 students, 14,000 faculty and staff on three campuses, and membership in the prestigious American Association of Universities.
In 2004, with the installation of John B. Simpson as the 14th President of the University at Buffalo, the institution embarked on an ambitious program of improvement and growth whose initiatives are known collectively as UB2020 and are aimed at securing UB’s place among the best public research universities in the nation. In August 2007, the institution initiated work on the first comprehensive physical plan for UB since the design of the North Campus nearly 40 years ago.
Why does UB need a comprehensive physical plan now?
- The focus of UB’s pursuit of academic excellence are the interdisciplinary Strategic Strengths of UB2020. These initiatives bring together research faculty from across the university and across disciplines to generate new knowledge that can help us solve the pressing societal problems of our day. Such efforts require the planned improvement and expansion of academic facilities, particular for interdisciplinary work. | Academic & Strategic Strengths
- UB must make its campuses memorable places if the university is to succeed in creating vital intellectual communities and fostering academic excellence. The best faculty, the most talented students, and the most capable staff all have choices about where they work or study. In order to attract the best UB’s campuses must become places that people truly love.
- Significant growth in faculty, and by extension, in enrollment, is central to UB’s strategy for achieving prominence as a great public research university. A larger, deeper, more diverse faculty is the key to stimulating the kind of interdisciplinary research envisioned in our Strategic Strengths. The comprehensive physical plan will guide the provision of facilities to accommodate a thousand additional faculty members and ten thousand more students.
- The university’s physical plant is enormous, encompassing nearly 250 individual owned or leased buildings on three campuses and beyond. Altogether, they enclose nearly ten million square feet of instructional, research, office, and residential space. Even if UB did not intend to grow we would need a plan to manage the maintenance, modernization, and replacement of these university facilities.
- Making the most of scarce capital resources requires that UB create and follow an orderly process for setting institutional priorities and aligning physical development with our academic mission. The mechanism for achieving that is the Space Management and Facilities Planning Committee (described in Planning at UB). The road map they will follow is the Comprehensive Physical Plan.
- The relationship between university and community is vital for any institution of higher learning. The Comprehensive Physical Plan will provide a vehicle for UB to work with local governments and neighborhood constituencies to coordinate our respective plans and to ensure that the impacts of campus on community – and vice versa – are positive. Work with the City of Buffalo, Town of Amherst, Erie County, the Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority, Greater Buffalo Niagara Transportation Council and others is continuing to make sure these connections are strong.
- UB generates significant economic activity for the region and the state – currently estimated at $1.5 billion in economic impact each year. With growth planned under UB2020 the future impact of the university is projected to grow to $2.5 billion annually. UB will continue to focus on its core mission of excellence in teaching, research, and service, but its role as a major economic generator in Buffalo Niagara also requires careful planning. | The Impact on Buffalo Niagara Through UB
- Overall, UB aspires to become a model 21st century university. In the process, it will be necessary to set a standard for campus planning, involving the many elements of the UB community, creating memorable places, designing a modern “learning landscape,” finding new responses to the challenges of transportation and access, and charting a path toward sustainable energy and environmental practices.