What We’ve Heard, So Far…

In our first set of Master Planning Workshops, we presented Chancellor Holub’s vision for UMass Amherst, “… to be among the very best public research universities in country…. And match the excellence of the public universities that are members of the prestigious Association of American Universities (AAU).” See http://www.umass.edu/chancellor/frameworks.html for complete vision.  We then asked participants several questions:

First – What needs to be built on our campus to meet this vision?
Second – Map the campus tour that will be given to applicants in 2040?
Third – Why will students attend UMass in 2040?

This exercise gave people an opportunity to tell us what the campus needs and how to improve the physical environment, including eliminating elements that don’t contribute positively to the campus.  By creating a tour, participants were able to tell the story of what UMass Amherst should be, which often made them think of more things that we need, or identified areas that need improvement.  Finally, when making the list of why students will attend UMass, everyone got down to the real reasons why we are all here and care so much about this institution.

From this exercise, several common themes emerged.  This is what we’ve heard, so far…

•       Build a beautiful pedestrian friendly campus
?         Remove cars from pedestrian areas
?         Expand the super block
?         Plant trees
?         Build more WOW’s and small spaces
?         Remove surface parking from within the loop
?         Create a strong positive visual character

•       Add and upgrade facilities
?         Additional Classrooms
?         Additional Beds
?         Larger/New Student Union
?         Wellness and Health Center
?         Swimming Pool
?         Admissions Center
?         Laboratories
?         Find uses and renovate historic structures
?         Infrastructure to support excellence

•       Develop a mixed use campus 24/7/12
?         Academic uses in the loop with campus life
?         Add more housing in the loop
?         Remove non-essential uses from within loop
?         Create an environment to attract more summer programming

•       Tours started at new admissions center
?         Within the Massachusetts Ave. corridor

•       Connections to host communities and region
?         Different alternatives for public –private ventures
?         Connection to downtown Amherst
?         Make the campus welcoming and accessible

•       Demonstrate New England Sustainability
?         Wind turbines
?         Solar panel
?         Local farming
?         Shuttle Buses

•       Students choose to come to UMass
?         A great value
?         Quality education
?         Diversity of experience
?         Many neighborhoods one city
?         They are able to start a career
?         Proud to be at the Flagship
?          “When I came to UMass, the world opened up to me…”

We’ve also been hearing from people through our online mapping application called “Likes and Dislikes” (http://www.umass.edu/cp/sites/cp/apps/places/index.html) which allows people to put markers on the map and add comments about what they think.  What do you think?  Please let us know by doing the Likes and Dislikes exercise, participating in this blog, or contacting us directly.  You can find out more about the Campus Master Plan process by logging onto our website at http://www.umass.edu/cp/.

Welcome

Welcome to the UMass Amherst Campus Planning Blog.  We are pleased to announce the commencement of our first Campus Master Planning process in nearly 20 years and by far the most comprehensive process in the history of our great institution.  It is the most comprehensive Master Planning effort because we intend to involve the greatest number of people in our Campus Community through an inclusive, transparent and open process that will include many targeted stakeholder meetings, open forums, interactive internet applications, facebook and this blog.  We hope you will take the opportunity to join us on this journey into the future by sharing with us your ideas for making UMass Amherst the best it can be.

So why do a Campus Master Plan you ask?  The Chancellor has provided us with a Vision, Mission, and Goals for our strategic academic planning in his Framework for Excellence available at http://www.umass.edu/chancellor/frameworks.html.  But we need a plan to translate that vision into physical features on the ground for the following reasons:

  • To ensure the look, feel and function of our campus is reciprocal with our academic mission.  The spaces and places that we create on campus must not only foster the love of learning and pursuit of knowledge, but it must also attract the best and brightest students, faculty and staff.
  • So our short term decisions are part of a long term vision for the campus.  Each day there are many small and large decisions made by hundreds of people across the campus that have an impact on our future.  We want to ensure that each dollar spent on the physical plant moves the ball forward in support of the University’s mission.
  • To create a shared and supported framework which will inform our planning decisions campus wide.  Through a highly participatory process we want to create a culture of planning on campus and get buy in and support for a plan that lives on through the changing of people on campus.
  • To create a document which can help us meet our goals, raise our aspirations, and help raise funds.  Creating a visionary planning document gives us a powerful tool to do many things, not least important of which is the ability to more effectively raise money.  For example, once the University of North Carolina, Charlotte had developed a Master Plan, they used it to pass a statewide referendum bond bill that gave them over $3 billion to create that vision on their campus.

So, please give us your help and support in this process by getting involved.  Send us your comments and ideas via this blog, or log onto one of our interactive online tools and tell us what you like and don’t like about the campus, or find out when our next open forum will be by checking the “contact us” section of our website.