The student unions that anchor many higher education campuses today were designed for patterns of student life that have fundamentally changed and for a very different kind of campus experience. As students move through their days more asynchronously and independently, the rhythms of campus life have shifted, with many experiencing greater social isolation than previous generations. For student life professionals and campus leaders, this transition has made the union itself even more central to campus life, while increasing pressure and heightening the stakes for how renovations are approached.
At the same time, institutions are being asked to do more with what they already have. New construction is often not an option: universities face unprecedented spatial and budgetary constraints while the buildings that have anchored student life for 50 or 70 years carry a symbolic weight that new facilities struggle to replicate. Renovation has become a primary means for reinvesting in student life infrastructure. As student life becomes a more strategic factor in enrollment, retention, and campus identity, the union is now an argument for why students should choose and choose to stay at an institutio
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Lloyd Henley is director of student engagement, facilities, and media at the University of Massachusetts—Amherst, where he has spent his career since attending as a student from 1979–1983. He has a bachelor’s degree in arts management and last year became the second inductee into the UMass–Amherst Minuteman Marching Band Hall of Fame.
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Joe Klocek is senior director of planning, design, and construction at Lehigh University, with over 25 years of experience in architecture and project management across both public and private sectors. He has worked at Lehigh since 2019, earned a Bachelor of Arts there, and received the Williams Prize for Design.
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As member of firm leadership and associate principal at Shepley Bulfinch, Amanda Vigneau (IIDA, NCIDQ) is an experienced interior design professional whose interests lie in the relationship between architecture and their interior spaces, with a focus on educational, student life, and workplace environments. Shepley Bulfinch is a women-led, national architecture and design firm founded in 1874.
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Bob Mohr, AIA, LEED AP, is a principal at Shepley Bulfinch, driven by a belief that architects should always act as responsible members of society and stewards of our planet. His design practice over the past 20 years has spanned the United States and globally, including Europe, North Africa, and Asia.
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