During a spring meeting from Feb. 6–8 in Washington, D.C., the University’s Board of Trustees began planning the construction of a new building on campus, catered to management and the arts. Construction of the new building at the corner of Coleman Hall Drive and Fraternity Road will begin during Summer 2019. The 79,500-square-foot facility is expected to be completed in the spring semester of 2021.

The new management and art building will aid in the expansion of the Kenneth W. Freeman College of Management, as it transitioned from the School of Management to College of Management in July 2017. This shift would not have been possible without the generous donation of more than $25 million from Freeman ’72 and his wife Janice.

The Freeman College of Management is now home to 600 students pursuing one of the four degree programs: Managing for Sustainability, Global Management, Markets, Innovation & Design, and Accounting & Financial Management. Building a new facility for the Freeman College of Management will help to facilitate the growth of management education at the University.

A temporarily anonymous benefactor donated an astonishing $26 million towards the construction of the facility. The University has decided to name the building after the benefactor in recognition of their charitable assistance in the development of this endeavor. The identity of this donor will be revealed with the name of the building. In total, the building is expected to cost $49.6 million. The remaining funding for the project will be attained through fundraising and existing low-interest debt.

Student input partially guided the planning of the new building. As a result, students can expect the new facility to have studio spaces for Markets, Innovation & Design students, a lab for Management 101, and even a lab for Business Analytics, the newly planned management major. In addition, the “Student Managed Investment Fund,” an experiential course that allows seniors and second-semester juniors to manage a $2 million fund, will be housed in an upgraded Moriarty Investment Center located in the new building.

“All Management 100 students in the fall of 2018 got the chance to give input on how we want the interior of the building to look and feel like,” Renne Venico ’22, a Markets, Innovations & Design major, said.

The building will not only house the Freeman College of Management, but also the Department of Art & Art History. With the creation of brand new digital arts labs, photography labs, and drawing and multi-use art studios, students and faculty will have modern teaching spaces that will promote the arts on campus. By housing the Department of Art & Art History with the College of Management, the University hopes to encourage interdisciplinary collaborations between different colleges.

“As a Markets, Innovation & Design major, I am definitely excited for the arts to be incorporated within the new management building because having more creative spaces on campus can help to inspire management majors such as myself,” Venico said.

With the recent construction of Academic West in 2013, Academic East scheduled to open in Summer 2019, and the new management building to be completed in 2021, the University is excited to offer new, modernized teaching spaces for students and faculty. These efforts continuously support hands-on learning experiences that distinguish the high-level of education at the University.