The Golisano Community Engagement Center at Roberts Wesleyan University, designed by SWBR, is a hub for community interaction, student life resources, and the university’s expanding custom training and education programs.

Following several campus expansions, the private university located near Rochester, NY recognized the need for a center to function as both a campus hub to serve students and a business hub to better serve the community.

Campus Connection
This project represents a key phase of the university’s north campus expansion, linking student housing to the north with the academic campus to the south and strengthening connections, pathways, and future growth. It also provides a convenient destination between the academic and residential areas of the campus with easy access for the greater community.

Flexible Student and Community Hub
The mixed-use center is the first building on campus to provide centralized meeting space for student groups, food service for adult and commuter students, and easy access to career development, student life services, and student institutes.

Designed with a vision beyond the campus, the center extends itself as a resource for the greater community. The facility serves as an outreach hub, connecting students, local businesses, and community partners through events and networking, creating valuable, mutually beneficial opportunities.

The 26,000 square-foot center offers two stories of multi-purpose community engagement spaces, collaboration rooms for tutoring, meetings, training, and technologies to support campus and community events.

The first floor includes a 3,000 SF flexible event space for up to 300 people, with folding acoustic walls for smaller training sessions. A central 6,000 SF multi-purpose area supports breakout sessions, study, and games. An adjacent commercial kitchen and grab-and-go food service.

The second-floor features Roberts’ commuter lounge and administrative offices for The Community Institutes, which offer professional training programs—Business Solutions, Justice and Security, Intellectual and Spiritual Humility, and Westside Psychological Services—to support workforce development, mental health, and civic engagement.

Blend of Traditional and Modern Design
The building’s contemporary design complements the traditional campus with red brick, cast stone, and glass. Its round arches echo other campus buildings and honor a 100-year-old tradition where students walk under a free-standing arch as freshmen and again at graduation, connecting past and present.

The public entry with custom welcome desk is a pass-through between north and south campus. Large felt acoustic tree tables reinforce the connection to the outdoor commons and define the pathway to the event space.

Exposed steel and patterned finishes, like acoustic walls and carpeting, evoke bridge structures, symbolizing the university’s community connection. Porcelain tile patterns link indoors to the outdoor commons. University colors—reds, warm grays, and browns—fill the interior. A quiet second-story prayer lounge, with custom stained glass, offers students a warm, peaceful retreat.

Warm and inviting, the center creates a social connection throughout the campus and the community.

Design: SWBR
Photography: David Lamb