South Campus will, finally, receive renovations - school officials have laid out plans for expansions and improvements that will open apartment-style housing on South Campus, in addition to remodeling the residence halls currently available.
The plans, announced at an Amherst Town Board meeting Monday night, call for the transformation of Goodyear Hall into apartments, construction of brand-new apartment buildings, and the renovation of Clement Hall and Harriman Hall. Following five years of concentration on the needs of students living on North Campus, the university's plans are a welcome idea.
However, the university must consider the social ramifications before ground is broken. One of the most attractive features of the University Heights district has always been the low cost of living, compared to the dorms and the on-campus apartments. If no care is taken to make the cost of the new apartments within the reach of all students, the upper/lower economic divide on South Campus could easily deepen class segregations. While it's unlikely the construction of new apartments will detract from the surrounding community, the university has expressed a desire for greater community involvement, and it must put its money where its mouth is.
Cheap rent only scratches the surface. The benefit to improving the aesthetic appeal of the campus - admittedly, already the more attractive of the two - is in the improvement to the value of the surrounding property and the further appeal UB will have to prospective UB students. The renovations collectively make a statement that the university is ready to devote resources and consideration to both the campus itself and the area in which it is located.
The university's plan to remodel Harriman Hall into a more student-friendly center speaks to this statement; the North Campus has the Student Union, but South has long lacked a centralized gathering location to focus the community it hosts. Providing students, faculty and staff with such a place can only foster the sense of relationship and "home" that every good university gives its students, and that can only help UB in the long run.
Where the administration succeeds in planning a hub for the South Campus community, though, it fails in planning a tangible housing situation for freshmen. While not all freshmen choose to live on South Campus - for many, South Campus's dorms are the last resort in housing - many embrace the urban atmosphere and traditional feel the campus offers.
Should Goodyear Hall be converted from a primarily freshmen residence hall into upper-classmen apartments, a large percentage of displaced students would be forced to live on North Campus. The Ellicott and Governors complexes cannot accommodate the amount of students that would have been previously divided between the two campuses.
Administrators would be wise to strike a balance between keeping students on-campus in attractive housing and allowing them to explore (and spread their money) around the city of Buffalo. UB is heading in the right direction but administrators must remember their responsibility to the students by setting fair prices and maintaining a decent standard of living, while remaining true to the urban community that has been ignored for so long.
