Campus Master Plan

The Campus Master Plan for Eastern Kentucky University provides a physical framework for the implementation of its strategic plan, Make No Little Plans, A Vision for 2020. The plan supports the institution’s goal to be a national model for learning and engagement, while embracing its responsibilities as a regionally engaged university. The plan maximizes existing campus infrastructure to accommodate growth, plans for sustainable systems to anticipate long term growth, stewards the rich heritage of Eastern Kentucky, and celebrates the campus’s unique sense of place.

Over the year-long planning process, Hanbury’s team conducted over sixty meetings with stakeholders in on-site workshops with campus committees, focus groups, executive leadership, faculty, and staff. Additionally, the planning team used a web-based student survey and open campus forums to encourage broader feedback. 

A comprehensive space utilization study was performed that documented the utilization of classrooms and class laboratories, analyzed the space currently needed on campus and space needed at projected enrollment levels in the future.  Simultaneously, an inventory and analysis was performed of student life spaces, athletics and recreation, campus landscapes and open space, as well as transportation, and utilities infrastructure. 

Multiple iterations of analysis and options informed by input from the Master Plan Committee, Executive Committee, and broader university community provided key decisions in a timely manner. Progress updates were regularly presented to the President’s Executive Council to maintain momentum and ensure that the University’s vision remained at the forefront of the Plan. In June 2016 the Board of Trustees gave final approval.

Several key outcomes of the Plan include:

• Programmatic zones around a student-life core that is centralized in the north campus reinforcing pedestrian circulation paths and nodes.
• Academic growth that is focused in three primary areas, Health Sciences, College of Education, and areas activating the Ravine.
• Growth of residential space on the north campus strengthening residential communities that are proximate to the campus core and to downtown Richmond.
• Sustainable development of the south campus for support space such as residential parking while maintaining a land bank for future growth, and preserving and enhancing riparian areas along watershed corridors.
• Parking shifts to the periphery of main campus to maximize open space, valuable building sites, and the pedestrian experience in the core campus to encourage student engagement.