Buffalo State College Acclimates Incoming Students
I recently learned that Buffalo State College is offering freshman bus trips to the Galleria Mall all day this Saturday. Now, I'm not saying that these kids should never know where a mall is, but they just got here and it is the Elmwood Avenue Festival of the Arts weekend. If there was ever a time to show the incoming freshman class what their college neighborhood is all about, you would think that it would be this weekend. Instead, the new students have been notified that they have the option of being bussed out to the mall. Here are the details from Buff State:
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Weeks of Welcome: Shopping Express
10:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. | Grover Cleveland Circle to the Galleria Mall
'Want to go shopping? How about a movie? If so, come to Buffalo State College’s sizzling shopping spree. In the Galleria Mall you will find stores such as Coach, Bebe, Apple, Guess, Game Stop, Cheesecake Factor, Bristo, Forever 21, GAP, Express, Old Navy, Banana Republic, J-Crew, Victoria’s Secret, Foot Locker, Hot Topic, and many more. If you saved money in your piggy bank then break the bank, bring friends, and meet the Student Life staff at the Grover Cleveland Circle at 10:30 a.m. There will be pickups every hour after that.'
I called over to the Buff State Student Life department and they were not aware of a similar acclimation to any urban commercial district. The person that I spoke to did agree that it did seem odd to be shipping the students to a mall during the festival weekend. Nothing like training them early.
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Comment Options
sbrof
HAHA the funny and stupid part about this whole thing is the NFTA Bus 32 that ALREADY serves the campus which the students can use for free goes to the Gallaria Mall... Can we say waste and duplication of services...
This is just like UB's blue line which goes from South Campus to The BNMC... the exact route of the subway.. hello.. HELLO!!! we have a transit system for a reason but instead we would rather spend more money and instead of getting people used to taking a system that could serve them for years every day.. They come up with these independent routes and transit services...
Maybe our transit system sucks because we constantly undermine it.
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dpbflo
I think Newell and Amy Kedron should round up some volunteers and be waiting for the buses to pull up outside of the mall. Hand out the elmwood booklets, discuss shopping local and promote the art fest.
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stephenjames716
*slaps forehead*
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TranspoGuy
It is like they are deliberately telling these students to avoid the EV. Buff State does a poor job of community integration. Maybe they should have one of their student associations put together an Elmwood tour or something, it would sure beat a trip to a mall that has a fake cafe style streetscape.
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blackrocklifer
Sad, Buff State has seemed to lost its sense of direction, do we really want to encourage students to be good little consumers by sending them to a mall full of overpriced materialistic crap made by children in the third world?
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KenS
blackrocklifer...is the stuff on the Elmwood Strip underpriced, not materialistic, anything but crap and made in the USA? lol
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buffalo339
Gotta say it's pretty lame. Out of curiosity, what percentage of buff states freshman class are from out of town? If they're from the area they probably already know about elmwood.
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Rebecca
If they're from the area, they already know about the Galleria Mall. If they're from outside the city, the may not know about Elmwood. I met someone who went to school in Rochester and came to Buffalo all the time. He said he's never coming back. I talked to him more about it - the only thing he knew was Chippewa and had never heard of Elmwood, despite four years of regular trips to our fair city.
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sbrof
"If they're from the area they probably already know about elmwood. "
I think that statement alone says that there are at least some good things going on in our city. Not about this topic but when I was a kid.. people in Buffalo let alone the region didn't know about Elmwood and it certainly wasn't a place to be. You can't help but feel that finally! there is some positive cross political feelings.
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blackrocklifer
KenS- probably not but at least the shops are mainly locally owned.
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Aloha
As difficult as it is to believe, many people actually enjoy the mall. Some of them enjoy it even more than the Elmwood Village, especially when they're 18 to 22 years old and not from Western New York. Those people generally are not as concerned as most BRO readers about the local economy. Most of them would prefer to spend $30 on a pair of jeans at the mall instead of $50 or $60 (or more) on Elmwood. And, really, can you blame them? And as far as the UB shuttle duplicating services already provided by the NFTA, they're not exactly the "same service." How many people on BRO have actually taken the public bus to the Galleria recently? It's not the most pleasant experience in the world, and I am quite sure the UB shuttle is substantially less horrible.
By the way, I hate when people say, "Galleria Mall." A galleria is a mall. So Galleria Mall literally means "mall mall."
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AtwaterLouse
They should do both. Offering busses to Galleria is fine. Obviously many students love Galleria kinds of stores - sorry if that offends anyone. And yes of course they should also tell them about the Elmwood Fest.
QE, why don't you phone the student life director (boss, not just whoever answers phone) over there and just nicely ask them to find some way to publicize the fest for Sat and Sun? It would have been smart for the fest's organizers to have sent some flyers over to Buff State, as well as the other area colleges. Maybe they did.
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Einstein
Seriouly, who the hell cares! We are showing new students to Buffalo State some of the attractions of the area. Maybe the new students want to pick up some clothes from Abercrombie and Fitch with their new credit cards, maybe they are into fondue, who knows and who cares.
Elmwood doesn't have the same stores, restaurants, or one-stop shopping experience that is offered by the Galleria. You can get your little bohemian panties in a bunch because it is "Outside the City Limits", but get over it already. I am glad that we have new students staying in the area, and I can bet that they will be buying beer and cheap wine from the locally owned "We Never Close", and will more than likely frequent most of the stores and restaurants in the five years that they are on campus.
Relax a little people!
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KenS
blackrocklifer...fair enough
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KenS
blackrocklifer...fair enough
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sbrof
Not against them going to the Mall because you unfortunately can't get everything you need on Elmwood. Sure it would be nice to get more people to Elmwood or the city but that will happen by proxy for Buff State. Unlike at UB where almost no one knows anything about the city let alone Elmwood.. If the EVA wants to give me some fliers I will happily distribute them throughout The Ellicott Complex.
While I have not taken the 32 recently I know someone who does, every day and I do take the 23, Train, 20, 25 and 44 on a regular \ daily basis and none of them are a negative experience so somehow I doubt it is really that bad. Sounds like a stereotype of buses and public transit are icky.. Odds are, it is fine. Maybe the students could get a little reading \ homework done on the ride and multi-task. That's how I got most of my reading done.
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Sexy_Beast
These kids already know the malls! They are the same everywhere. Why this weekend when it's the festival and their first taste of Buffalo?
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crisa
At the festival, the college kids would empty their piggy banks. At the "mall mall" they will max out their credit cards. Money goes where the monied send it.
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NBJOHN
I guess the Main Place Mall was too busy.....
When is our City leadership going to wake up about this place, force Main Place Mall to change it so it is something worth while and draws peple
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PaulBuffalo
NBJohn, Main Place Mall had an occupancy rate of 98% in the 1980s, but foot traffic started to decline and folks with money took their shopping elsewhere. Foot traffic then declined dramatically. This mall has little chance of recovering because the shoppers simply don't have the money to fully support downtown retail. The city has no responsibility to Main Place Mall, but should focus on every opportunity to bring more residents downtown.
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jen
The timing could have been better on Buffalo State's part, someone should send them an e-mail pointing this out, and maybe next year (if the Elmwood Arts festival has a date for the 2009 festival already in place that is) they could plan for welcoming students with a "block party" on Elmwood tied in with the festival. Who knows when the planning of the bus trip took place? Maybe it was planned for last year?
As for people being too lazy to take a walk from campus down to Elmwood, I mean, who's fault is that? Buffalo State's? Please. This person would have to live in a bubble, talking to no one, living in their dorm room, engaging in nothing local and I find that hard to believe.
Why do we think people always need the hard sell? Would it please people if someone visited the Buffalo State Campus, grabbed students by the head, and shoved their face into Elmwood Ave. Brochures while screaming "look at all the cool places just down the block from you!!!!" Would that be enough awareness creation for everyone? Or can we trust that people are naturally curious about new environments and like to explore and discover?
Course, there is no mandate that one visits, shops, or eats on Elmwood. If someone prefers to hang out on Chippewa every weekend, then so be it. Personally, I would find that boring, but it's everyone's independent choice what they choose to do with their free time.
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STEEL
Since the mall is always there and the festival is only on this weekend it would have made sense to schedule the Mall tip for another weekend and instead let the kids know about a spectacular neighborhood festival just down the street. My sense is that this mall event was set up by someone not very familiar with the neighborhood in which the school sits. That is unfortunate and probably says a lot about why Buffalo State does not have a stronger positive impact on the area.
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needles
"By the way, I hate when people say, "Galleria Mall." A galleria is a mall. So Galleria Mall literally means "mall mall.""
Aloha,
Care for some shrimp scampi?
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MJWorthington
Who is saying shove their faces in it?
Why not just promote your neighbor first before shipping the kids off to the mall? Malls are very easy to look up and find as it is. Should we yell at BS for shoving thier faces into the Walden Galleria?
Maybe they promote things within walking distance on another day.......but the mall is open 365. EAF is 2 days a year.
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sbrof
Or go to the ATM Machine...
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buffaloweiner
HAHA the funny and stupid part about this whole thing is the NFTA Bus 32 that ALREADY serves the campus which the students can use for free goes to the Gallaria Mall... Can we say waste and duplication of services...
It is like they are deliberately telling these students to avoid the EV. Buff State does a poor job of community integration. Maybe they should have one of their student associations put together an Elmwood tour or something, it would sure beat a trip to a mall that has a fake cafe style streetscape.
Sad, Buff State has seemed to lost its sense of direction, do we really want to encourage students to be good little consumers by sending them to a mall full of overpriced materialistic crap made by children in the third world?
These are all things I have said over and over about Buffalo state and its [deleted]. She is absolutely oblivious to the community outside Buffalo State because she is so utterly out of touch with the responsibilities of being President of a College. She is so [deleted] in her performance that private developers are building dormatories for college students. Knowing how risk averse private developers are in Buffalo...that should say alot about how long Howard has avoided doing any semblence of her job.
[Deleted]
[Deleted]
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Dan
needles> "By the way, I hate when people say, "Galleria Mall." A galleria is a mall. So Galleria Mall literally means "mall mall.""
Fived. This has been one of my pet peeves for a long time. It's the :"Walden Galleria", People instinctively "Mall" because every enclosed shopping center in the area uses it as a suffix; there's no Places, Town Centers, Fashion Squares, or anything like that. Just "mall" and "plee-yah-zuh",
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Dan
Typos. Damn the keybounce of this Mac! t
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DrZacko
I think some of you are being a tad overdramatic. Why can't the students do BOTH? There are some things that student's may need (and I'm new faculty at Buffalo State and can say this with some authority) that just are not available in the Elmwood Village. The EV is FANTASTIC, but it certainly can't satisfy ALL a person's needs (especially if you are on a budget). Thank God for Target!
I won't even comment on the racist drama posted by "buffaloweiner". Those are some scary words...and also totally untrue.
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KenS
IMO...It would have been nice if flyers of the Art Festival were distributed on campus, but did it dawn on anyone that the majority of 17 and 18 year old kids could not care less and would probably choose the trip to the Galleria any day of the week?
Next time maybe the festival organizers should be MORE PROACTIVE in terms of getting the word out instead of reacting to hearing about the Galleria bus trip and then having a hissy fit because the school is not touting their Elmwood Art Festival alternative.
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blackrocklifer
DrZacho- I don't see how anything at the mall could be a "need" but agree Target might qualify. A better field trip would be to Amvets, teaching the kids how to budget, recycle and develop a unique identity.
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wizardofza
This just proves how indifferent the staff of Buff State is to the surrounding community.
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KenS
blackrocklifer...I hope you are joking. You want to take a bunch of incoming freshmen on a trip to Amvets. That would go over really big.
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al-alo
in defense of Blackrocklifer, i gotta tell you, as a Buff State Alumni, i was all about the Amvets. man those college discount days (Tuesday, if i recall) were great! made that student loan go a little farther. . .
and i know i wasnt alone. many apts on Bird or Claremont had the finest furniture that Amvets (and bulk trash day) had to offer.
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thinker
al-alo, also a Buff State alum, I enjoyed Amvets and the like and our generation is likely the same or similar... the post-80s (the greed era) when individuality wasn't frowned on. Then again, everyone being an individualist was really the same as everyone dressing the same, right!!!
Anyway, Buff State has failed miserably in getting into its community, I will agree to that. With a geography and planning department, they've failed to focus any initiative into the community.
As for this trip, so be it. Elmwood when I was in school was really a college place... little grimy, little edgy and more of a blue collar atmosphere that mirrored Buff State's feel and atmosphere. I walked to Home of the Hits on numerous Tuesdays at noon to grab a newly released CD and if I couldn;t get it I'd drive down New World. That's what college kids are in to, not martinis and sushi surrounded by umpteen faux intellectuals in dark framed glasses and work attire.
Elmwood has transformed into a high-end, artsy, boutique locale that the average Buff State student won't identify with. And an art festival for 18-year-olds, get real. Don't balme Buff State for choosing a mall trip over an art festival. Let's see.... mall for clothes, music, movies, and eye candy or the art festival to stare at things I can't afford?
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Andrew
Canisius has a shuttle to the Galleria every weekend. Last year I was working on a management project with a junior from Syracuse. We were collecting data at the co-op and the kid told me he had never even herd of Elmwood Avenue until I told him where we are going.
I think it might just be that some college students seldom leave the little bubble they inhabit.
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buffalo339
I agree, as a UB student living in the heights for years, I seldom left main st unless it was towards north campus. I missed out on a lot then.
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bfloghost
Well, this is Buff State we're talking about, not exactly the "swiftest" run institution out there.
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sonyactivision
I say, send them to the Galleria and then have them write a ten page essay on the distorted replication of the human experience that malls and their designers employ to manipulate people into a false, aspirational reproduction of values for the sake of a 2% comp.
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winkandthegun
This makes me want to puke! Seriously, Buff State kids have no idea how lucky they are in regards to where their school sits and they want to bus them to the mall? ugh.
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Dan
How about a shuttle to Ikea in Burlington?
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phrank
Dan - Funny you mention Ikea. I was there this afternoon. I spent more on gas than I spent there. Well, okay, I wasn't over there just for Ikea....
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al-alo
Thinker,
id have to agree with everything you said. when i first arrived at Buff State (and Buffalo itself), Elmwood seemed a bit more like the quintessential college strip: divey bars, used book stores, music stores, and sort of shabby chic (the kind that you dont pay a lot for), cheap food, and all nite diners . . .
its certainly has gentrified, and perhaps shifted into a bit of a hip place to be seen or pick up a gift. not that its necessarily a bad thing - its just a thing.
surprisingly, Amherst St has not really gotten any of the spillover as the gentrification of Elmwood spread. Between Elmwood and Grant, most of the storefronts are in decent shape with a relatively good occupancy rate. The location is literally a stones throw from campus, and cheap housing abounds. Perhaps the very pedestrian unfriendly overpass over the 198 is more of a barrier than a bridge, and alternatives should be explored.
The other surprising part, is the failure of Grant St to even maintain its state, let alone improve. some of the worst stretches are just adjacent to the college. some seem to degrade by the day. the only exception seems to be at Lafayette. im not sure why the college would even allow such disinvestment at its back door to go on unchecked. if you were a conspiracy kind of person, you might think they were waiting for rock bottom so they could buy everything up cheap and anything they would propose would be see as an improvement. other than that, i got nothing.
---
as far as the shuttle thing goes, when you move into anywhere you need stuff. an extension cord, a mircowave, telephone, mirror or alarm clock. not traditional Elmwood type things - i know u can find them, but not as cheaply or easily. i was at target tonite, it was nuts. carts full of plastic milk crates, linens, etc.
if anything, the bus could have easily serviced Target in north Buffalo, K mart on Hertel, or even Home Depot on Elmwood (and next year, Khols). OK, Amvets, too.
Hey, those places might have even underwritten some of the costs in return for getting customers dropped at their door.
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Joshua
I'm sorry - there were too many comment - so I'm sorry If I repeat anything that anyone said...
A bus to the Walden Galleria? You've got to be kidding me. What is, or should be, important for Buffalo State College is to support it's LOCAL ECONOMY. Plus, the fact that there are wonderful restaurants and retail that needs to be supported on Elmwood, Hertel, Main, Allen etc.. etc... Apparently, Buff State just doesn't care about the surrounding community. Possibly we should call it Cheektowaga State College, huh? This is just too funny that I can't believe it. Maybe, I just can't wait to see the death of malls like the Galleria or I just hate malls or I just really enjoy shopping in the City. I think that someone from the EVA needs to contact Buff State to get their students to stay in the City and explore.
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Clarkface
I was a Buff State student not from the area and I was able to find the fun in Elmwood without any help from the school. If students have any curiosity about their surroundings, they'll find EV. It might not be during the festival (which they are largely not going to be interested in anyway because, as gorgeous as they are, there is just no room in the dorm for one of those handmade lawn sprinklers in the shape of a martini glass!), but they are bound to go barhopping sooner than later and some will get drawn into the village.
But lets get real here, when the streets become crowded with students spending their money and acting like young people, we'll all cry about how they're taking over our lovely community.
I'd love to shop Elmwood at a time that it won't make my wallet cry.
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GDC
I'm sure the students and Buff State would luv to support EV even more if it had Big Named Retailers to shop at. Local is cute to a limit, but not everyone shops at the local boutique for all thier clothes and accesories, they can't afford to give out the discounts like the big names can.
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crisa
You're kidding about stores like Amvet"s, right? AV is the store to go to BEFORE hitting the Target!
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