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New College of Business Building Groundbreaking Ceremony to be Held March 4

A groundbreaking ceremony for the new University of Nebraska–Lincoln College of Business Administration building will be held on March 4 at 3 p.m at the Esther L. Kauffman Academic Residential Center Great Hall, 630 N. 14 street. The site for the new facility at 14th and Vine Streets is anticipated to open prior to the fall 2017 semester.

The new $84 million, 240,000-square-foot College of Business Administration building is the largest academic building project in the recent history at UNL. Designed by Robert A.M. Stern Architects of New York and Alley Poyner Macchietto Architecture of Omaha, the building will allow the Big Ten college of business to offer interactive learning in state-of-the-art classrooms, including a finance lab with unique technology and data software that will enable cutting-edge education in finance and investments. The building will also enable one-stop student support services, innovative technology and space to host many events in the future.

“The new facility will allow us to grow in ways that otherwise could not happen and become a central hub of business education for this campus and for the Nebraska business community,” said Dr. Donde Plowman, James Jr. and Susan Stuart Endowed Dean of the College of Business Administration. “This project is a testament to our alumni’s generosity and the strength of our college’s community. The building is funded by private donations from our alumni for future alumni.”

The new building will celebrate the college’s 100-year legacy of educating business leaders by providing a place for innovative teaching and student engagement.

“It’s time we have a new facility for the College of Business Administration. Today’s student body has more collaboration and interaction than those of us in the timeframe where I attended,” said Howard Hawks, University of Nebraska Regent. “It will be more than new classrooms and will have a personality of its own that would cause you to want to be there.”

New Building Rendering
The new building will also have an impact on recruiting top students and faculty to join the Big Ten college of business.

“The new building is a great opportunity to create a 21st Century learning environment that will help us attract the best and the brightest,” said CBA Capital Campaign Chair Tonn Ostergard. “Yet the building itself is not the most important thing. It is all about having premier programs and faculty to lead and attract the best students.”

Funding for the new building is exclusively from private donations from CBA alumni and business partners.

“The momentum of this new building campaign reflects the positive trajectory of the college. We have continued to grow our enrollments of first-time freshmen each of my years at Nebraska, and our business minor program for non-business majors has nearly 1,300 students in just two years,” Plowman said. “To account for these increases, we added 36 new faculty in the last four years and are recruiting another 20 this year. With all of this positive growth, I am proud of the great programs we are growing to go inside this new building.”

Dean Plowman, UNL Chancellor Harvey Perlman, University of Nebraska Interim President James Linder, University of Nebraska Regent Howard Hawks, NU Foundation President and CEO Brian Hastings and CBA Capital Campaign Chair Tonn Ostergard will speak at the groundbreaking ceremony. The college’s students, alumni, donors and business partners are invited to attend. RSVP by Wednesday, February 25 at http://cba.unl.edu/groundbreaking.

To donate to the building, contact the University of Nebraska Foundation at 402-458-1100 or visit http://cba.unl.edu/building.
Published: February 17, 2015