UCI Web Site Offers Information About University Community

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- The ongoing effort to revitalize neighborhoods around the University at Buffalo South Campus and beyond has taken a turn into cyberspace.

The University Community Initiative (UCI), formed to revive and stabilize urban and suburban neighborhoods in the area, has gone online to make its presence better known in Western New York.

UCI, a unit of the UB Office of the Vice President for Public Service and Urban Affairs, created the Web site after members of the initiative's development group sought a more accessible way to promote information about the neighborhoods UCI is focusing on, and receive feedback from members of those communities. Members of the development group wanted a resource to which they could direct people interested in finding out what is going on in the university community, says Danis Gehl, UCI's project director.

The Web site, which has been up and running since April at http://wings.buffalo.edu/uci was designed by Sackda Viravong, a graduate of the UB School of Architecture and Planning.

"I was able to create a picture: 'If I were an average person in the neighborhood, what type of information would I like to see?'" says Viravong, an AmeriCorp VISTA community support specialist who's been working on the project since January.

Viravong says he searched Internet sites for several cities, trying to get a sense of what to include on the UCI site, while keeping in mind a user-friendly design. "You don't want to make it too complex," he stresses.

Gehl says the site was created with the assumption that the primary user would be located off campus.

"UCI had the goal to be more visible in the community at large" and wanted to "find a way to share information collected" by the organization, she says. "(The Web site) seemed like a good marriage between the two."

The finished product is impressive, with information and maps of the "university community," which includes parts of the City of Buffalo and sections of the towns of Amherst, Cheektowaga and Tonawanda. The site profiles demographics and features of the various neighborhoods, such as population, median income, housing styles, schools, businesses, churches, health services and block clubs.

The site outlines the chief goals of UCI: To sustain the attractiveness of its neighborhoods and to address the future of the neighborhoods surrounding the university's South Campus, and to stabilize, revitalize and reinvent the neighborhoods to ensure they "remain attractive places to live, work and play, well into the future."

The "UCI Discussion Board" offers users a place on the site where they can post their thoughts about the site or on any community issue, and where others can read those comments and respond to them. The site soon will feature a calendar of UCI-sponsored events.

The Web site remains a work in progress, Gehl points out, and one of the priorities is to improve the visual content. "Our goal is to have a virtual tour of the neighborhoods" so visitors to the site can get a better feel for the communities, she says.

The site, which receives between 700 and 800 "hits" per month, provides a comprehensive look at the university community, she notes.

"For most users, even internal to the university…it really is a good source of information, not only about the project, but about the community in general," she says.

Viravong adds that the site's simplicity is what makes it compatible with the community at large, and Gehl agrees. "We have to assume that the (user's) equipment isn't always going to be the fastest," she says. "We had to figure on the lowest common denominator of hardware." Keeping the site design uncomplicated is what makes it easy for the user to navigate, Viravong says.

Gehl says that now that information is available about UCI online, the next step is to promote the site.

"We have to increase the visibility of the site, try to talk about it (in the community)…," she says. "We want to let people know how it's useful to them."