President Fretwell and Johnstone worked toward this end. But neither worked harder than Richardson to achieve this mission. The building program in the 1960s and 1970s tripled the number of buildings at the college. The result was a spreading of the faculty and functions that increased isolation of the faculty members from one another, so undermining the sense of community of the earlier day. As might be expected at a working class college, the curriculum was always strongly oriented toward post-college employment.
Buffalo State is only one of three institutions in the country offering an art restoration program.
Its Creative Studies Center has a national reputation and as do its teacher education programs. It has a Great Lakes Research Center with vessels for doing research. The extensive College Camp also provides opportunities for environmental education and research. However, ethnic and political content of many courses still remains. The turmoil of the early 1990s has left an element of instability.