University of Massachusetts Amherst

Buildings and Layout

Home to over 25,000 students, faculty and staff, the campus extends about a mile from the Campus Center in all directions. Significant amounts of land are owned by the university in the nearby town of Sunderland. In 2004 this prompted Governor Mitt Romney to propose an ambitious expansion project in which the size and population of the University would almost double as it took over the role of the state's community college system which Romney has begun to consolidate and dismantle. While this proposal received the support of the student government, town residents are exceedingly resistant to any such plan as it would increase the already critical traffic congestion in the center of town. The university also owns land throughout the Pioneer Valley for agricultural and ecological research.

Related Topics:
Sunderland - Mitt Romney - Pioneer Valley

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The campus may be thought of as a series of concentric rings. In the outermost ring are parking lots, the admissions center, playing fields and barns for the animal science program. In the middle ring there are the five residential areas and dining commons. The innermost ring had most of the classroom buildings and research labs.

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The Isenberg School of Management has its buildings in the southernmost part of campus near the Visitors Center and the Newman Center, the Catholic student center. In addition to being the site of the main administration building, Whitmore, the southeast side of campus has buildings mainly dedicated to the humanities and fine arts. Buildings include Herter, Bartlett, Mahar and the Fine Arts Center (Abbreviated "FAC"). Between Whitmore, the FAC and Isenberg lies the Haigis Mall, a local stop on both the PVTA and Peter Pan bus lines. The buildings on the southwest side of campus house the college of social and behavioral science. These include Totman, Dickinson and Tobin.

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The 26 story WEB Dubois library and the Old Chapel are the notable buildings in the center of campus. The buildings in the center of campus are mainly used by the Commonwealth Honors College, Goodell and Machmer. The Campus Center Hotel is the training ground for the University's Hospitality and Tourism Management students. The Student Union Building houses most of the student-run businesses and co-ops. Additionally, the Physical Plant and parking garage are in the center of campus. South College, the home of UMass' world renowned linguistics department, is the oldest building on campus. The library was intended to be an annex to South College.

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The north side of campus is mostly dedicated to science and engineering, and many buildings there are newer than their counterparts in the humanities. The Physics Department primarily uses Hasbrouck Lab, located at 666 North Pleasant Street. The Lederle Graduate Research Tower is the largest building on the north side, housing the Math department on its sixteenth floor. As a joke, the sixteenth floor is prominently labeled 4^2. The Computer Science department recently moved into an airy new building built for them on the edge of campus, though classes are usually taught elsewhere. Between the imposing concrete LGRT, the second-story walkway from it to its sister structure the LGRC, the glass-and-aluminum Computer Science building, and other new buildings for the Engineering and Polymer Science departments, the north part of campus has a more "high tech" look than the rest.

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On campus there are two major gyms, the Totman Center near Northeast and Sylvan and the Boyden Gym to the south. Major sporting events, such as UMass's hockey and basketball team games, are held in the Mullins Center, amidst the fields to the west.

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The UMass campus is large, and it takes approximately twenty minutes to walk from one end to the other. Even so, there isn't much space for cars. Some students choose to take the PVTA bus around campus.

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