In a groundbreaking announcement, University officials today unveiled a $1.6 billion strategic investment plan that will revolutionize Boston College and place it among the premier universities in the nation. Culminating years of studies and planning, the unprecedented 10-year plan will hire 100 new faculty members, establish new academic institutes, and increase the annual budget of academic departments by $43.5 million. In an effort to provide the necessary infrastructure for these initiatives, BC today submitted its long-awaited 10-year Institutional Master Plan Notification Form (IMPNF) to the Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA), which, if approved, will allocate $800 million of the strategic investment for the construction and renovation of campus facilities.

The announcement comes on the heels of a two-year study to investigate the methods of implementing the University's seven strategic directions established by the Strategic Plan in 2005. The plan calls for BC to become the leader in liberal arts education and student formation in the United States and the leading Catholic university in the world by focusing on the creation of new academic institutes and student life programs. Rooted in BC's liberal arts mission, these new academic centers will greatly advance research efforts, including an innovate initiative to promote collaboration among the sciences at a newly establish Institute for Integrated Sciences.

"All of this comes out of a desire to prepare BC and link up the twin goals of being the best institution of higher education we can be and make sure we stay faithful to our Jesuit heritage," said University President Rev. William P. Leahy, S.J.

BC will also look to promote already formed academic centers to enhance its profile on the national and international scene, with the Winston Center for Leadership and Ethics, the Institute on Aging in the 21st Century, and the Center for Human Rights and International Justice - centers that currently establish the University's prominence among researchers around the world. The plan looks to utilize the unique nature of BC's students - who go abroad in larger percentages than most other universities in the nation - by strengthening the Office of International Programs and BC's Jesuit networks abroad.

"BC students and faculty are at the forefront of this exciting strategic vision for the future of Boston College," said Patrick Stokes, chairman of the board of Anheuser-Busch and chairman of the BC Board of Trustees. "This plan will enhance our academic strength and research capacity and advance our leadership in student formation and liberal arts education both nationally and internationally."

As Leahy pointed out, these lofty goals were only the beginning. "Those were our academic goals," Leahy said in an interview with The Heights. "Then we had to ask what we needed to implement these goals. We need more faculty, more housing, and more academic buildings to support both current faculty and new hires. All of that got translated into [the Master Plan]."

To prepare BC to implement these initiatives, University officials spent the past two years meeting with engineers and developers from Sasaki Associates, neighborhood citizens, faculty, students, and alumni to establish the Institutional Master Plan. The final plan will change the face of the campus with $700 million in new construction - including four new academic buildings, a student center, a fine arts district, new athletic fields and facilities, and nearly a dozen new buildings for undergraduate housing - and an additional $100 million in renovations.

The purchase of the entire 68-acre Brighton Campus from the Boston Archdiocese over the past three years was the final piece in the Master Plan puzzle, giving University officials the space needed to expand. Under the plan, Brighton will become a center of activity for BC students, housing much needed athletic fields and buildings - including an underground athletic center which will house a track and tennis courts - a fine arts district, new undergraduate residence halls, and BC's newly created School of Theology.

"The plan is possible because we have the additional land in Brighton. We can shift fields and offices, we can add more beds for undergraduates, and we can build new academic facilities. That's all possible to do because we have room to maneuver," Leahy said.

Despite the extension into Brighton, which will stretch the campus into four distinct areas, designers of the plan stress that the creation of spaces for student unification and formation was a main goal. The demolition of McElroy Commons seems to open up Middle Campus by providing a clear path from the corner of Beacon Street and Hammond Street to the Quad. A skywalk over Commonwealth Avenue will connect a new student residence hall - which will replace Moore Hall on Lower Campus - with Brighton Campus, allowing students to walking from Upper Campus to the athletic fields on Brighton without leaving campus.

"One of our design principles is to have a campus that is welcoming and accessible. It promotes community gathering spaces and pedestrian access to campus," Leahy said. The ten or so new undergraduate residence halls will reflect the University's desire to promote student formation, with the new residence halls on Brighton Campus and Shea Field surrounded by student gathering areas and capped at four stories to promote interaction. With the new housing, BC will have the capacity to house 92 percent of its students - the highest proportion of students on any Boston campus.

The construction of student housing also relieves a major point of contention with the surrounding neighbors, who have complained about the growing number of BC students off campus.

All of these proposals, which were submitted to the BRA and the Allston-Brighton/BC Master Plan Task Force over the past two days, will now be considered by Boston officials including Mayor Thomas Menino. The BRA, Task Force, and the Boston Zoning Commission will review the proposal and send their respective recommendations to Menino, who has the ultimate authority to approve or deny the proposal.

Meetings with the Task Force have been a source of debate between the University and the local residents, who have expressed their concerns with bringing students closer to an otherwise quiet neighborhood. "We know there will be concerns on this development on this space which has been like a park for the neighborhood, and we have been meeting with them for a year and a half and have made necessary changes to the plan," Leahy said. Those changes include moving student housing farther away from Lake Street, which will use the natural barrier of the surrounding trees and gradient change to keep students and noise insulated within campus.

Thomas Keady, vice-president for governmental and community affairs, who worked with the Task Force during the process, stressed the importance of these meetings. "We want to thank the Allston-Brighton/BC Master Plan Task Force for working with us in helping to shape this Institutional Master Plan. We appreciate the time and consideration they have given to this important endeavor over the past two years," Keady said.

Unlike its turbulent history with the city of Newton, Mass. - which tried to prevent the construction of a student center through litigation 10 years ago - BC administrators have had a good working relationship with the city of Boston. "What the mayor and the city of Boston want is to get as many students on campus as possible," Leahy said. "The Mayor hasn't given his seal of approval on each individual proposal, but the concept is favorable to him because he likes having students on campus and likes the idea of recreational fields which can be used by neighbors."

If approved, BC could obtain land permits to begin construction on the city of Newton areas of campus as soon as the next fall. Leahy expressed the desire to begin construction as soon as possible after obtaining the necessary permits, continuing then with the athletic facilities and residence halls on Brighton Campus. The completion of this phase would begin a domino-like chain of events, with nearly each new building contingent on the completion of another. Construction on Shea Field, for example, cannot start until the facilities in Brighton are completed.

Construction of Stokes Commons and the other academic buildings on the city of Newton portion of the campus face a different set of hurdles. Rather than submitting a unifying proposal to the city of Newton for approval, the University must obtain permits for each individual project, meaning they must have completed the design for each building before requesting permits. Leahy said the University is currently in the design phase of Stokes Common, and he hopes to receive a permit for construction within a year. If all goes accordingly to plan, the University will break ground on Stokes Common, which is named after Patrick Stokes, the chairman of the Board of Trustees, shortly after receiving a permit in the fall of 2008.

Perhaps the biggest hurdle facing University officials is securing the funding necessary for such an ambitious plan. With an endowment just slightly larger than the entire cost of the strategic plan - $1.75 billion versus $1.6 billion - the University will be pressed to find outside sources of funding. While no fundraising campaign has been announced yet, Leahy stated that any plan to finance the costs would require at least $1 billion - nearly the same amount the endowment has grown since the beginning of his tenure. A significant portion of the construction costs will also be financed through acquisition of debt, which is the typical protocol for University construction projects. To date, BC carries $630 million in debt.

As many donations will come over the span of several years, the issuing of bonds will be a critical component of financing the project. Money raised through fundraising will be invested in the endowment, which earned 16 percent interest last year, and the interest derived from this investment will be used to pay back the debt used for financing construction and operating costs. The fundraising campaign would both provide the necessary assets for the University to undertake the strategic plan in the short run and provide long-term financial stability to sustain this growth by investing it in the endowment.

In 1996, Leahy took over the presidency of BC from the Rev. Donald Monan, S.J. During his tenure Monan not only kept BC from closing its doors, but he guided BC toward unprecedented growth. As Monan's tenure launched the University from local to national prominence, Leahy hopes the strategic plan will elevate BC from a competitive field of elite universities to become the top liberal arts university in the nation. For Leahy, the strategic plan is simply "a great university becoming greater."

Patrick Fouhy contributed to this report.

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