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Campus master plan in action
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by Darryl Schnell
Wednesday, March 2, 2005
University of Wisconsin students raised questions and expressed their opinions about campus aesthetics and transportation at the Campus Master Plan Town Hall Meeting Tuesday night at the Memorial Union.
The Associated Students of Madison sponsored the meeting, which was attended by representatives from UW’s master-plan consultant group, Ayers Saint Gross.
“We’re looking for a lot of student feedback,” Adam Schlicht, ASM secretary, said.
Gwen Drury, a UW graduate student and member of the division of Facilities, Planning and Management, talked about the importance of student feedback. Drury organized all of the Campus Master Plan meetings held around campus over the past several months.
“I think it’s great that [current students] are giving advice for things that are going to benefit people in the future,” Drury said.
George Alexiou, a representative from Ayers Saint Gross, said the plan would not be completed all at once but during a 20- to 30-year period. He said the projects would be completed based on their order of importance due to funding issues.
Funding for the plan is divided into six-year intervals and is included in the campus budget.
Students at the meeting addressed their desire to have a “beautiful” campus.
“It’s important to maintain the consistency of buildings in certain areas,” Schlicht said. “I would also like to see [the Campus Master Plan] address campus ugly space.”
Gary Brown, director of the Office of Planning and Landscape Architecture for the Campus Master Plan, addressed the building inconsistencies at UW.
“In the ’60s and ’70s, things were literally thrown up overnight,” Brown said. “We can’t renovate these buildings. Hopefully, over the next 20 years, we’ll be able to replace them.”
Brown said design guidelines would be in place for the university architect, who Drury said UW would hire in the next two weeks. Brown said design guidelines help with building consistency.
“The design guidelines will specifically address the building guidelines,” Brown said. “They will tell the architect what colors, structures and types of materials to use on each building.”
Students present at the meeting also raised concerns about campus transportation.
Associate Vice Chancellor for FPM Alan Fish said the focus of the transportation plan would address how to get into and around campus using as many alternative methods as possible.
Alexiou said there were two main objectives with transportation. The first is to make public transit the main way for students to get around campus, as opposed to walking or driving. The second would create an east-to-west bus route that will cross campus in a short amount of time.
However, a 10-minute cross-campus bus route is not something to look for in the immediate future. The plan will try to address transit efficiency problems like crowded buses and inconsistent bus scheduling in the meantime. Alexiou addressed the issue of quick and cost-efficient short-term changes.
“We’re trying to achieve a lot with reasonable improvements,” Alexiou said.
Anonymous (March 2, 2005 @ 10:33am):
Holy crap, how many "Master Plan" news stories are you going to run? They are all exactly the same! 1) Master plan meeting, 2) students "concerned" about input into plan, 3) students "concerned" who's paying for it, 4) in reality, students don't give a shit and are much more concered about where they'll be getting drunk on Saturday. Repeat ad nauseam.
Anonymous (March 2, 2005 @ 10:55am):
As someone who attended last night's meeting, I was continually impressed by the input from the 60 or so students who attended. Students are interested in shaping what campus will look and feel like in the future. A comprehensive Campus Master Plan has not been conducted to this scale in over 30 years. It is important for students to participate in this process -- and for those who didn't participate to know what was going on.
Anonymous (March 2, 2005 @ 3:14pm):
Is Santa Claus giving UW-Madison the Master Plan, or will someone have to pay for it? If the latter, what's the impact, in dollars, on future costs per student?
