he newly completed Rockwell Hall-West is a building with a vision that looks beyond its walls. “This is not just bricks and mortar for us,” says Dean Ajay Menon. “This is about shaping lives.” The 54,600 square-foot facility, with its broad open lounges, collaborative work spaces, high-tech classrooms, and sustainable design both reflect the values of the College of Business and informs its future.


Designed for Collaboration

Brian Erickson, lead architect on the project notes: “It address[es] not only the functional… but what contemporary business education is about… collaboration.” Open, brightly lit areas provide students opportunity to study, interact and network, or to break and relax amid a busy class schedule. Separate team rooms give the ability for groups to meet and take advantage of collaborative tools to work through problems and projects together. Laptop checkouts and pervasive high-speed wireless free student from being tied to a computer lab, giving them the mobility to work throughout the building. Classrooms are laid out to encourage discussion and dialogue between students and faculty, and are supported by technology that enables seamless connectivity with constituents around the world.


Building Community

The fostering of community was a primary goal in the building design. “We tried to make some sense that there was a gathering place on every floor,” says Erickson, “and I think that was very successful.” John Hoxmeier, Associate Dean and member of the building committee, highlights the importance of the common areas: “It gives us the opportunity to build culture [within the College of Business]. That is difficult to do when you are sending students all over campus.” Dean Menon acknowledges the vital role the University and its facilities play in the formation of life-long relationship between students and their peers. “That,” he says, “is what this building is about.”


Leading By Example

The College’s curriculum “places an emphasis on ‘Business for Good’,” according to Associate Dean Hoxmeier. “It’s about [fostering] people who lead based upon social responsibility… Rockwell Hall-West is an extension of that theme.” Designed to minimize the environmental impact through the use of sustainable techniques such as passive systems, energy conservation, and local material sourcing, to name a few, Rockwell Hall-West will attain LEED Gold certification. “It gives us credibility,” says Dean Menon. “It gives credibility to what we say is important… This LEED certification isn’t just so there is a plaque on the wall, it is about instilling in students some of the key elements that will help them become successful.”


Immersion of Technology

“I think what’s really incredible about this building is the immersion of technology,” observes Erickson. “It’s everywhere; you notice it immediately upon walking through the front door.” An understanding of the critical role of technology in the contemporary learning environment played a significant part in shaping the vision of Rockwell Hall-West from the early stages. “[The administration] understood the value proposition, understood the risks associated by doing something that was different and out of the box and it was important enough to them that it stayed on their radar all the way through the construction process,” says Jon Schroth, IT Director at the College.

Besides the high-speed wireless, electronic way finding, fully wired classrooms, and omnipresent digital signage, Rockwell Hall-West proudly boasts two technological crown jewels: the financial trading room and the central control room.

“I challenge anyone to find a better trading room anywhere in this nation within a business school,” states Dean Menon with uncharacteristic bluntness. “It is just that magnificent.” Giving the building an undeniable business flavor, a wrap-around electronic ticker running a constant full-color stream of stock information and news headlines sits atop a glass encased mock-trading floor. Three Bloomberg terminals sporting a 42-inch display surrounded by four additional 24-inch displays provide groups of students the ability to manage the College’s highly successful Summit Fund portfolio. An adjoining classroom, separated by a floor-to-ceiling glass wall, enables Finance students the ability to practice non-verbal communication in preparation for trading competitions. The fully-configurable classroom is set up with six displays and is technologically advanced enough to seamlessly allow a video conference with multiple participants spread around the world to be simultaneously recorded for future use through the building’s other jewel: the control room.

The control room acts as the technological nerve-center for Rockwell Hall-West. Giving the ability to control all classrooms through a central location offers a high level of service to constituents and provides opportunity for significant labor cost savings. IT Director Schroth believes, “it is going to be a very efficient and very effective way to support the classroom.” In addition, all classes can be recorded and streamed simultaneously by a small team of attendants. “Any content that we deliver in the classroom we can deliver to a distance learner,” says Hoxmeier, “[be it] to our undergraduate program, to our sustainability programs, or to our graduate programs… This is significant.” This unprecedented ability positions the College not only to meet current needs, but has set its feet onto the path of education in the future.


Focus on Excellence

“There is a huge focus on excellence and perfection in this building, and it’s shown in this building,” says Menon. “[T]he reason for that is that’s at the core of what we do… We will never become a global leader, with positive change as our focus, if we didn’t focus on excellence and perfection… to me, that is so, so important.”

“I see the building being a collective vision of where we see the College being in 20 years,” says John Hoxmeier. Whether the vision for the future is being addressed, the need for community and colleagues, or to uphold the values that are held so high, all agree: “I think we have done that.”

With students already occupying the building and classes to begin in the spring of 2010, Dean Ajay Menon is able to reap the rewards of the hard work put in by his team. “You can see students at a table talking to each other, you can see them working in groups in the team rooms… you find students huddled together; they’re studying,” he says. “Nothing gives me greater pride.”