Kent State University's College of Business Administration’s Bright and Distinctive Future

The College of Business Administration’s Bright and Distinctive Future Kent State’s College of Business Administration is educating students who will transform their future industries. Our rankings are rising, and our approach to education has become more collaborative than ever - highlighting a need for a larger, more welcoming space on campus. A new building will support our community in Northeast Ohio and champion Kent State as a global beacon of business innovation.

Transforming Campus The College of Business Administration building is part of the university’s Gateway to a Distinctive Kent State, a $1-billion master plan to transform the Kent Campus and improve facilities over 10 years. The proposed College of Business Administration building will be located on Main Street and serve as an anchor in the transformation of Front Campus.

The university’s Board of Trustees approved this initiative in 2018 and several enabling projects have already been completed in preparation for this addition to the historic Front Campus. Future enabling projects will begin next summer to ready the way for the new College of Business Administration building, including the razing of the Terrace Hall Annex, the construction of a nearby parking deck and the redirection of Terrace Drive.

This new facility – a signature structure in a landmark location – will make a powerful statement about the stature of the college and the achievements of our alumni.

Rendering of “The Big Main” space

A College on the Rise Our undergraduate program rose 33 places in the 2018 U.S. News & World Report ranking – the largest jump among U.S. business schools – placing us among the top 100 public business colleges in the nation in the last year.

Kent State’s College of Business Administration has been educating students for more than 80 years and we are one of Ohio’s largest business colleges, with more than 3,700 business students across the Kent State system and another 4,700 non-business students enrolled in our courses. We have experienced double-digit enrollment gains since 2010 and our faculty are world-class. Our students are increasingly global, representing more than 60 countries around the world.

Our distinguished business graduates: • Lead Fortune 500 companies as CEOs and other C-suite executives • Create successful start-up businesses throughout Ohio and across the nation • Build the college’s international reputation as a global crossroads for business education • Take pivotal roles in international conglomerates, in both U.S. and foreign-based firms With business alumni exceeding 35,000 – a number of whom are internationally recognized business leaders and educators – the college is poised to capitalize on these successes and obtain unprecedented private support. Never before has there been a better time to leverage alumni enthusiasm in a capital campaign for a new business building.

“Active learning is quite different from traditional lecture-style learning. It is much more hands-on, with students working in teams as they learn to recognize and solve problems and test alternative solutions very quickly. This requires different classroom design, furniture, technology and tools.”

- Deborah Spake, Ph.D., Dean of the College of Business Administration

Ever Upward While we move ever upward in the rankings, there is one glaring “opportunity for improvement.” Our headquarters – the academic building where we teach students, house faculty, invite recruiters, host conferences and visiting executives – is obsolete and inadequate.

The current business administration building dates back to 1971 – more than 20 years before most of our students were born… and a full decade before the IBM PC began revolutionizing business technology. Our classrooms are outmoded and overcrowded. One-third of our classes are taught in other buildings and our hallways are cramped and often obstructed by students sitting on floors, while awaiting appointments with faculty and advisors. We have no room to grow, no room for students or faculty to converse, share ideas or exchange expertise.

Yes, we need a new building, but not for the sake of the structure itself. Rather, for the sake of the opportunities and advances it will create. In tandem with flexible, easily reconfigured classrooms and small-group study areas, our new building’s design is anchored by the “campus as classroom” model. We want our headquarters to mimic the real business world and prepare our students for life after graduation.

Rendering of Analytics Lab

Designed with Purpose The proposed $72 million capital project enables the construction of a multi-story, 165,000-square-foot building that will provide needed space for the college’s classrooms, administrative offices, outreach and research centers.

The process has included a design competition that resulted in the selection of Signet Real Estate Group as the developer and Perkins & Will, a global architecture and design firm, as the design team for the new facility.

Construction documents have been finalized and plans are in place to break ground as soon as $20 million in external funding is secured.

Among the primary outcomes is the opportunity to better practice “The New Pedagogy” – teaching and learning that emphasize collaborative, team-based problem solving – the type of engaged, participatory learning practiced in the world’s best businesses. An academic building designed around collaboration looks very different from one designed around old-style, lecture-based, “sage on a stage” teaching.

Within the new building will be highly visible, interconnected spaces to propel students to embrace active learning that includes team projects with businesses, a modern trading floor, and technology to analyze and visualize big data.

By immersing students in a modern, professional and exciting structure, we will ensure that our graduates – wherever they are from, wherever they will go – can walk into an interview or a job in any corporation, anywhere in the world, with the confidence that they will be comfortable and capable.

Rendering of Collaboration Stairs

Why is Philanthropic Support Needed?

Philanthropic support is more than simply important; it is essential if we are to make this vision a reality. We are engaging in an innovative, public-private partnership with a philanthropic component to secure the funds necessary to begin construction.

Funding Prospectus: • Total estimated cost - $72 million • External funds required to break ground (per Gateway Master Plan) - $20 million • Philanthropic gifts secured to date - $10 million+ The bottom line is simple: We need supporters who share our understanding of the facility’s importance – and our vision of the business school’s dynamic future – to lean forward and say “yes” to a project that is important and transformative, for our current students and faculty, and also for our alumni… and for the future of business education and business leadership in Ohio and across the globe. We need your support to make our future Forever Brighter.

At Kent State University, what sets us apart is how we come together. Together, we will make the world Forever Brighter.

www.kent.edu/cobabuilding

Rendering of Global Forum