The Way Back: A 21st Century University

When students stepped onto the Forty Acres this fall, they answered a question that the Campus Master Planning Committee had asked more than 30 years before: What will UT look like in 2026? The red-tiled roofs and tree-lined malls that figure in the memories of so many Texas Exes were carefully selected before most of us were even born. Architects Cass Gilbert in 1910 and Paul Cret in the 1930s established the architectural concept that still shapes the core campus today. But in the 1960s, UT saw a significant increase in enrollment due to the Vietnam War, as young men went to college to avoid the draft.  

“The University tried to accommodate a rapidly growing student body, faculty, and staff with buildings that answered immediate needs, without consideration of the campus plan,” according to the May|June 1996 issue of the Alcalde. “This trend resulted in a fragmented campus that isolated some buildings both functionally and aesthetically.”

The committee—comprised of 19 representatives from across campus, including then–executive director of the Texas Exes Jim Boon, BBA ’69, MBA ’72, Life Member—was tasked with bringing the diverse architectural styles of the construction boom closer in line with Gilbert’s and Cret’s vision, as well as preparing for the looming 21st century. Over 14 months, the committee collaborated with Cesar Pelli and Associates on a $1.1 million project (around $2.4 million today) that was very likely the most money an American university had spent on an architectural plan to that point.  

Many of the committee’s recommendations were prescient. We will always need more student housing and parking, it seems. But while the East Mall was successfully built, a north mall stretching from the Main Building to 26th Street never materialized.

Perhaps the greatest synchronicity comes from then–UT president Robert Berdhal, in a quote echoed this month by the school’s new Vice President for Student Experience Miguel Wasielewski. “Our effort is to give people an attachment to the campus,” Berdahl said. “A sense of belonging.”

CREDIT: Alcalde (2)