Some of the latest expansions have an eye toward interprofessional collaboration and short-term or accelerated offerings.
BUFFALO, N.Y. — About halfway between the library and the new health center on the D’Youville College campus, Nik Wallenda took a knee. The move would have been less jarring if the renowned daredevil wasn’t walking along a taut steel wire strung up between the two buildings, five stories above the ground.
“What’s up, Buffalo?” he called down, drawing out the last syllable. The crowd cheered back.
The stunt wasn’t his alone. Wallenda was walking the wire on a clear, blue afternoon in mid-June to mark the opening of the $27 million Health Professions Hub, a new feature of the private college’s programming and an attempt to extend itself into the neighborhood it has called home for more than a century.
Officials want the new center to be a resource for the city’s West Side community, which they say reports high rates of disease and poverty, as well as help address healthcare worker shortages that have affected the western part of the state and are documented nationally.
The D’Youville event, replete with food trucks and carnival games, wasn’t only meant to be a fun afternoon for locals.