No matter how Creighton grows, St. John’s Church is and will remain the heart of campus, the university president said.

The Harper Center, located about four blocks to the east, is the front door to campus, the Rev. John P. Schlegel, S.J., said.

“A lot of people have front doors in different locations, and some front doors are further from the dining room than others,” Schlegel said. “But I think we use the Harper Center as the front door primarily because that is where new students and families will go. Financial Aid and Admissions are your first points of reference and that’s how we’re using it as our front door.”

For many of Creighton’s 130 years as a university, the campus was limited to the west side of 24th Street. With the Boyne Dental School and the Creighton University Medical Center, campus expanded across Highway 75. The law school, which opened in the 1970s, was one of the first big pushes east. The eastward creep continues, with an eventual extension of the campus as far east as 17th street.

The expansion obviously increases the physical size of campus, but some are concerned some of the community feeling will be lost in a larger campus.

Michaela Kraft, Arts & Science sophomore, said one of the main reasons she came to Creighton was because of the small-campus feel when she was making her college decision.

“The campus was just the right size,” Kraft said. “It doesn’t take long to walk to any of my classes and I feel more connected to other students because I see them everyday.”

Three to five years from now, students may be walking a bit farther to reach certain areas of campus. There will be at least four more archways to campus located around 19th Street that will signify entries into campus, Schlegel said.

While the larger campus may worry some students, it cannot expand any further east than 16th Street. Others control the property east of 14th Street, and First National Bank, which works collaboratively with Creighton, mainly controls 16th Street, Schlegel said.

“Seventeenth Street or 16th Street seems to be about as far as we are going to be going. You might see more Creighton activity to the North and to the West,” Schlegel said.

Tomás Maxwell, a business school freshman, said he thought it was a good idea to expand the campus east because of the increase in facilities that will be available to students on campus.

“I don’t think it will take away from the community feeling to expand out,” Maxwell said.

Schlegel said the beginning signs of expansion will be seen with the construction at 30th and Burt streets, where, on the other side of the hospital, there will be new buildings starting approximately mid-way through the summer.

While the university is working on expanding the size of campus, it is not expected to grow in population, Schlegel said.

“Our sense of community is what is distinctive, and I will protect that as best I can,” he said. “We are simply trying to provide more opportunities for that to happen.”