Cooke Hall

The 1970 campus plan called for the construction of 20 identical, linked towers to house the health sciences on the new North Campus. After the decision to keep the health sciences at the original South Campus, only these two were built.  Their extensive teaching and research facilities include small classrooms and large lecture halls, as well as laboratories and faculty research offices.

Walter Platt Cooke (1869-1931) was a Buffalo attorney active in university life. He was chair of the University Council from 1920 to 1931 and received the Chancellor's Medal in 1926. Cooke recognized the university as the community's most potentially important institution. An expert fundraiser, Cooke organized two endowment drives in the 1920's, earning millions of dollars from subscribers. Director of Depew Lake Em. Water Company, Western N.Y. Water Company, People's Bank of Buffalo, Buffalo General Electric Company, Buffalo Abstract and Title Company, Buffalo and Susquehanna Railway Company, and Frontier Telephone Company.

In his role as UB Council chair, he was responsible for bringing Samuel Capen to UB and is credited with spurring the development of both the physical campus and the College of Arts and Sciences as a distinct entity. He also led the university through two unprecedented successful endowment campaigns in the 1920s. Earlier, he enjoyed a distinguished diplomatic career, at one point serving as president of a tribunal at the Hague set up to settle reparations disputes in the aftermath of World War I.