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Campus Master Plan

One of the most important things for university to do is to ensure that it plans its future infrastructure needs carefully and coherently. We are approaching the end of our current 5-year master plan, and we have achieved almost everything that was laid out in that document, which you can check out on the web here. So now we need to move forward with developing a new master plan, consistent with our new Powers of 10 goals and our developing strategic plan.

Since our campus residence halls are already filled and our applications are already up by 13% for next year and admissions are up by 16% it is essential that we move forward as quickly as possible. The construction of our new residence halls must carried out in a manner that best fits the needs of the campus over the next five years and beyond. A goal of bringing student life and related organizations into a more central role would allow us the opportunity to create a more vibrant and integrated campus.

If you look on ChargerNet you’ll see under the 'Strategic Planning Process that a Campus Master Plan Committee exists. This group recently sent out a request for proposals (rfp) to engage a professional planning company to create the next 5-year plan. The rfp is available on the Master Plan Committee web page. If you look at that web page you can see how complex such a planning operation is going to be and why it is necessary to seek external help top augment the architectural, facilities and financial expertise that already exists on campus.

After reviewing several proposals, the committee has selected KPS of Birmingham to oversee the planning process. KPS recently completed the campus master plan for the UA campus in Tuscaloosa and you can see the kind of work that it has performed at its web site (http://www.kpsgroup.com/). KPS will also utilize JH Partners, a local firm, involved with the previous master plan which will allow valuable experience from work while not restricting new thoughts and ideas for the current endeavor.

Such a planning process must be campus wide. We need input from everyone on campus. Students must feel involved in the planning of their residences and their on-campus life. Everyone must be concerned about how to make our campus a safer place to walk and ride. We must solve the ever-thorny problem of campus parking so that students can park close to their rooms, faculty and staff can park close to their departments and research centers and everyone can walk or ride between classrooms with equal ease – and without getting in a car.

In addition to addressing major issues such as residence halls and parking, we must ask questions like:

How do we make the best use of the new campus entrance and the beautiful lakes to bring the external community onto our campus?

How do we better integrate the north campus (mainly undergraduates) with the south campus (mainly graduates)?

Holmes Avenue is a barrier to easy and safe movement around campus; how do we overcome this?

Can we bring all student athletic activities onto campus and combine this with an arena for convocations, graduations and concerts? If we can do this where should such an arena be placed?

There are no obvious gathering places on campus where students, faculty and staff naturally congregate; do we need such places? If so, how many and where should they be positioned?

How do we improve the campus environment, providing an enhanced student life standard for students, faculty and staff, along with a campus attracting new growth and programs

So to begin this process of campus-wide involvement in the planning process we will soon send out a brief survey to everyone on campus. The KPS staff will then begin a pro-active campaign initiating discussion with the campus community. Details will be placed on the master-planning website. Please take the time to get involved and give us your opinions.

In five year’s time this campus will be a very different place. We hope that it will be an intrinsically better place to live, learn and work. We can only succeed if the planning process is an open yet in-depth operation and involves active participation of everyone on campus.

Give Dave your comments here!