Husson undertakes master plan to guide growth
After enjoying years of steady growth, Husson University in Bangor recently completed a new master plan aimed at identifying how to best serve the needs of its rapidly expanded student population over the next 10 years.
"It seemed like the perfect opportunity to look ahead to the next 10 or 15 years and build upon the vision of growth that we've been working on to this point," said John Rubino, Husson's dean of the college. "We have to ask what size do we want to be in the future, and how do we make the campus more enriching, more engaging and student-centered."
The 150-page phased master plan, presented to Husson's board of trustees earlier this week, is the work of Sealander Architects of Ellsworth, in collaboration with Coplon Associates landscape architects of Bar Harbor and Sustainable Design Studio civil engineers.
The five-member Sealander firm also designed the 26,000 square-foot renovation of Peabody Hall, built in 1967, that houses the university's new pharmacy school. Husson also operates schools of business, health, education and science and humanities, and its campus is home to the New England School of Communications and the independent Bangor Theological Seminary.
The university last revised its master plan in 2004, as the institution, then known as Husson College, was experiencing significant growth both in the number of students and campus buildings under the dynamic leadership of its former president, William Beardsley.
"Husson crossed a critical threshold when it reached 3,000 students," architect Mike Sealander told Mainebiz. "The campus was realistically designed to hold closer to 2,500 students. Husson University knew it had to think about its short-term space needs. It needed a road map of sorts if it were going to continue to grow and to add buildings that had a coherent, unified theme."
Sealander began the master plan process by collecting as much information as it could about the facilities and space needs of the 200-acre university campus.
"We set up working groups with representatives from academics, athletics, student services and infrastructure," Sealander said. "They all told us about the state of their facilities and what worked and what didn't. Then we did a comprehensive analysis of the existing space on campus. No one really knew the square footage on campus, and how much was devoted to what uses."
Having assembled a slate of potential projects, Rubino said, the groups then began the process of establishing a schedule of priorities. Improvements in dining, housing and parking topped the list of short-term goals, while the medium-range outlook focused mostly on what the university should do in the next five years to most effectively accommodate the academic needs of a student population that is projected to grow about 4% annually.
"Then the last part was to develop an organized master plan that looked at growth of the campus over the next 15 years," said Sealander, whose wife, Robyn Sealander, founded the architectural firm in San Francisco in 1997. "We had to consider what buildings would invite human interaction, for instance, and how to create a collegial feel. We also advised the university on how it could preserve open space and become a more green campus in the future."
Although the master plan does make provisions for new academic and student-services buildings, Rubino said the university presently has no major construction plans in the works.
"We're not proposing any specific shapes for buildings, we're just discussing options," Sealander said. "A master plan is a living document, and this is really the first step in its evolution. I'd say it's more realistic than ambitious. Husson University has had a lot of success with balancing its growth with its existing resources, and the master plan reflects that."
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