Freshmen Get Oriented by Piecing Together a Giant Puzzle-Map of North Campus

BUFFALO, N.Y. - The University at Buffalo rolled out a giant "welcome map" today to help members of this year's incoming freshman class and transfer students solve the puzzle of how to get around UB's 1,192-acre North Campus, where classroom buildings, residence halls and parking lots are interspersed with meadows, lakes, and woodlands.

The map was completed when randomly selected students and parents participating in an orientation session put together the more than 600 pieces of a giant jigsaw puzzle on the main playing floor of Alumni Arena. The puzzle weighs a total of 3,000 pounds.

The event opened UB's annual month-long "September Welcome" events for students.

Typically, new students arriving at UB have no idea where they are on the North Campus, which has a total of 139 buildings.

They don't know where to pick up a cuppa joe, a library book or a handy kiosk. They don't know how to find UB's bronze bison, the bike path, registration information or a bus ride to the South Campus. And they certainly don't know one another - yet.

Barbara Ricotta, UB associate vice president for students affairs and dean of students, said planners of "September Welcome" decided that one good way to promote a group "mingle" was to get folks together to construct a giant jigsaw map of the North Campus, which is where most undergraduate classes are held.

And what a map it is! It's brilliantly colored, 70 feet wide, 27 feet long and comprised of 608 laminated pieces. It will be assembled on the floor of Alumni Arena following an orientation breakfast and concert in the arena's main lobby.

Ricotta explained that as each member of the audience entered the arena proper, 607 of them were handed a blue, pink, yellow or green card. One person received a lucky gold card.

The puzzle was assembled between brief welcoming remarks by UB President William Greiner; Provost Elizabeth Capaldi; Dennis Black, vice president for student affairs, and Cindy Forte, a student orientation representative.

After each speaker, individuals holding cards of a specific color were called to the playing floor. As they stepped onto the floor, they were handed numbered puzzle pieces that they placed in corresponding numbered spaces on the floor.

Some spaces indicated that persons holding the corresponding puzzle piece received special gifts - UB mugs, sweatshirts, gift vouchers, t-shirts.

The last piece of the puzzle was placed by Dan Booke, a freshman from Rochester, who was the holder of a gold card and who was surprised with a special gift of a new computer and printer donated by UB Micro.

The puzzle construction activity took a total of 40 minutes. Afterward, audience members left Alumni Arena for a variety of orientation activities all over the campus.

As they left, each new student received a personal map of the North Campus that is a replica of the giant puzzle.

"We were looking for something fun that would break the ice and involve parents, students, faculty and administration in a collective activity," says Ricotta. "The puzzle is factual and informative in one sense, but more important, its assembly symbolically involves the entire campus community.

"We hope everyone left our puzzle-making venture with an appreciation of the fact each one of us has a very important role in building and maintaining that community."

The jigsaw map was designed by the UB Office of Publications and constructed by Render.

Robert Nehin, owner of Render, noted: "It took a team of eight people 40 hours to cut out the pieces using a high speed router. We first thought of printing the map itself using an inkjet printer, but that would have taken 240 hours. We got the printing time down to 40 hours by using an electrostatic printing solution instead."

"September Welcome" events span the first month of the new academic year and will include cookouts, concerts, football, cheerleading and marching band expositions, a talk by former senator but ever-an-astronaut John Glenn, resource fairs, a massive stadium pep rally and dozens of other events.