New Campus Master Plan Will Shape the Future of Campus

Planning process will include many opportunities for students, faculty and staff to participate and share insights on campus buildings and facilities.

On June 17 the University of Kansas will kick off the process of creating a new Campus Master Plan, which will guide management of buildings and physical spaces on the Lawrence campus for the next five years. The master plan is designed to align the physical campus with the institutional strategy to ensure buildings, facilities and infrastructure support KU’s mission, values and priorities.

KU’s current 2014-2024 Campus Master Plan was developed over a 13-month period, during which hundreds of individuals were engaged in meetings, focus groups, interviews and community forums. Creating the new master plan will follow a similar process of campus engagement, along with extensive analysis of building and facility use, historic patterns, land use, program accommodation, sustainability and other areas. The process is intended to give all stakeholders — students, faculty, staff, and others — multiple opportunities to contribute ideas and feedback.

As with the current Campus Master Plan, the new plan is intended to be regularly updated and adjusted based on changing campus needs and resource availability. Flexibility within the plan is achieved by focusing on established planning principles that embody KU’s historic excellence and aspirations for the future.

The future needs of the university are likely to be quite different than the past, as enrollment and employment trends change how we learn and work. While assessing the need for new facilities will be part of the plan, the Campus Master Plan also will focus to a significant degree on existing facilities and their place within the strategic vision for campus.

Buildings and physical spaces on campus are not just classrooms or research facilities, they are vitally important to the recruitment and success of students, faculty and researchers. Our buildings and landscaping are unique to the University of Kansas and integral to our identity and sense of community.

In combination with the Jayhawks Rising strategic plan, the Campus Master Plan will guide our priorities and inform decisions for how we invest resources to ensure our physical campus meets future needs and supports KU’s mission and vision.