Campus Master Plan 2008 Update:
Guiding Principles

University of Washington Tacoma Mission, Vision and Values           

Mission
The University of Washington Tacoma educates diverse learners and transforms communities by expanding boundaries of knowledge and discovery.

Vision
Within the next ten years, UW Tacoma will become a more comprehensive institution that will respond with distinction to the needs of the region, state, nation and the world.  UW Tacoma will achieve distinctiveness as an urban campus of the University of Washington through its commitment to three principles:

• Access to an exceptional university education;
• An interdisciplinary approach to knowledge and discovery in the 21st century;
• A strong and mutually supportive relationship between the campus and its surrounding communities.

As the campus grows, UW Tacoma will strengthen its learning culture, research, institutional structures, and academic and co-curricular programs necessary to embody these three commitments and to uphold the standards of excellence, shared governance and academic freedom that are hallmarks of the University of Washington.  It will also develop and implement assessment plans that serve as measurable benchmarks for institutional progress.

The core values of the institution—Excellence, Community, Diversity and Innovation—will shape the specific goals and methods UW Tacoma chooses to address these commitments and build its distinction as a campus.

Values
Our fundamental purpose is to educate students for life as global citizens.  UW Tacoma is a distinctive expression of the University of Washington that provides access to an exceptional education for citizens who choose to live and learn in the South Puget Sound region. 

We recognize that an excellent education connects knowledge across disciplines.  At UW Tacoma, excellence is founded on integrity, dedication and collaboration. We believe that learning is a vehicle that advances students toward fulfilling lives and meaningful careers. 

Our community of learners is strengthened by a diversity of voices.  Listening to the UW Tacoma community, we have identified four core values that guide us:  Excellence, Community, Diversity and Innovation.  We share these values and strive to live them. 

Guiding Principles of the UW Tacoma Campus Master Plan

To create a plan for a physical campus environment which supports the institution's mission, vision, values, and future needs, the Campus Master Plan's guiding principles use the three visionary principles and four core values from the UW Tacoma Strategic Plan as the framework.

• Enhance and Develop the Campus
  • Create a Unique Sense of Place and Identity
    Create an aesthetic quality appropriate to the campus as a whole. In response to enrollment growth, the campus should retain and improve the character of the existing campus, open spaces, and views, while developing new facilities and outdoor spaces to support anticipated future needs for programs, activities, services, and gathering. Identify the elements and character of the existing buildings that should be expressed throughout campus as it grows.  Design beautiful buildings and landscapes that consider and embody state of the art campus and urban planning as well as architectural best practices in an historic, multi-use district.
  • Develop Quality Facilities
    Provide facilities that inspire, function well, and are flexible and efficient.  Develop facilities, outdoor spaces, and infrastructure that are flexible, adaptable, enduring and responsive to technological advancements
  • Respect Its Stature
    Honor the stature of the University of Washington and the historic structure of downtown Tacoma through a harmonious marriage of environmental design, planning, spaces, and form with the surrounding community.
  • Ensure Stewardship
    Ensure stewardship of the existing campus, maintaining and protecting the value of UW Tacoma's physical resources, character, history, and open space.  Changes to the campus should improve and enhance the value and quality of the campus, encouraging preservation of historic resources while allowing for the development of new forms and styles of building ultimately creating a rich, multi-faceted, inspiring learning environment.
  • Cultivate Funding
    The development of a compelling, comprehensive, well-conceived, inspiring plan is essential to the cultivation of funding.  Support communication of current needs, as well as long term plans tied to student enrollments and projections and regional economic and workforce benefits to stakeholders and funding decision-makers.  Explore opportunities for public-private partnerships particularly for buildings and spaces that lend themselves to such ventures such as student union, performing arts, library, or sports and recreation facilities. Recognize that a growing campus presents many opportunities for the naming of buildings, interior features, objects, spaces, or outdoor areas in recognition of individuals or organizations who are the University's benefactors.
  • Communicate Resources
    Provide a variety of communication tools and methods (maps, wayfinding, signage) to inform, orient and direct diverse users of campus resources as well as the casual visitor.
  • Respect and Conserve the Environment
    Value the environment and strive to promote sustainability through the conservation of existing buildings, adaptive reuse and design of new resource-efficient structures, and the operations and practices implemented throughout the campus.  Strive for natural light in buildings.  Become a model and learning laboratory of sustainability.
  • Include Public Art and Sculpture
    Provide sources of inspiration for students, faculty, staff and the community.
• Provide Access to an Exceptional University Education
  • Create a Model Environment of Innovation
    Develop a learning laboratory of sustainability; represent an outstanding example of conserving historic buildings and adapting them to contemporary use.  Provide new buildings to facilitate and support innovations in learning, research and service to the community.  Innovation can be realized through an environment which is flexible, economically open to change, and responsive to new directions in learning and the nature of new disciplines.
  • Develop Interactive Learning Spaces
    Provide collaborative, flexible, multi-functional classrooms and other learning spaces of varying capacities capable of supporting a variety of pedagogical approaches to teaching and learning.
  • Provide Accessibility
    Ensure access to and within the campus, maximize appropriate vehicular travel, emphasize universal access pedestrian routes, and promote the design of environments usable by all people to the greatest extent possible.
  • Promote Safety
    Create a safe and healthy environment, with personal and workplace safety considerations integral to planning and design of circulation elements, buildings, and open spaces.  Employ design elements that support emergency response/preparedness activities; provide service access that does not conflict with pedestrian traffic.
  • Encourage Efficiency
    Encourage efficiency and economy in campus operations, with advantageous locations for facilities and adjacencies of uses.
  • Maximize Flexibility
    Provide the maximum amount of flexibility in order to best accommodate future growth and be able to respond to and take advantage of unforeseen opportunities.
  • Anticipate Trends in Technology
    Develop the campus that over time will remain at the cutting edge.  Incorporate infrastructure that is flexible and adaptable.
• Connect Knowledge Across Disciplines
  • Activate the Campus
    Support the transition to a full-service, 4-year university, with the development of a 24-7 campus environment inclusive of student housing, student services, activities, recreation, and culture.  Ensure spaces that promote active and passive activities which are safe.
  • Create a Live/Learn Community
    Create a live/learn community through the integration of academics with student life, housing, recreation, and culture.  Support learning, sharing, and discovery that occur within and beyond the classroom.  Prepare students for participation in a global economy.
  • Provide Adjacencies that Promote Collaboration and Interaction
    Maximize opportunities for interaction between students, faculty, staff, and the neighboring community.  Create a level of density and proximity of disciplines that overlaps and blurs  boundaries. 
• Create Bonds with the Community
  • Value the Community
    Recognize the importance of the surrounding communities, and strive to achieve synergistic working relationships with these communities.  Promote community access and participation that is diverse to improve the quality of life and public benefits for all.
  • Develop Community Interaction
    Encourage and support the development of student, faculty and staff housing in the adjacent community.  Subscribe to work-study relationships and possible development of adjacent business incubator space.  Provide learning opportunities, cultural activities, and recreational activities on campus that are accessible to the community.  Support appropriate commercial activity. Encourage collaborative ventures with the community through public-private partnerships as one option for the funding of facilities.
  • Support Public Circulation through the Campus
    Support the pedestrian, bike and wheelchair access along and through the railroad right-of-way.  Continue to support improvements to public transportation and maintain porous campus boundaries.
• Support Diversity
  • Grow a Diverse Student, Faculty and Staff Community
    The UW student body includes a significantly diverse community, representative of different ethnic groups, cultures, ages, and family structures.  Provide a wide variety of services to support the needs of these students.
  • Celebrate and Enhance Diversity
    Identify locations for activities, exhibits, memorials, art, and other cultural activities representing a diversity in form and tradition.  The campus should express the nature of a dynamic institution of higher learning serving a diverse student body in an urban environment.