Construction for the new home of the College of Business and Entrepreneurship, Crawford Hall, is almost finished.
Dean Deborah Spake of the Ambassador Crawford College of Business and Entrepreneurship has shared what business students can expect.
Completion of a fundraising goal in the fall of 2021 led construction to begin in the spring of 2022. The two-year project is almost finished, and the building will be used for classes starting in the fall of 2024.
Spake said she worked with the university architect, faculty and staff representatives from the college, as well as representatives from the architectural firm Perkins and Will to design the building.
“This whole building is designed to be quite modern and have a lot of technology that we’ll be using in the classroom to help students prepare for modern business professional jobs,” Spake said.
The dean said the team behind the building looked at practices used at other universities, and took pieces from many of those places to incorporate into their own.
50,000 square feet larger than the current building, she said there is a lot more space to work with.
Finance students can look forward to an entire trading floor and a modern financial analysis laboratory simulator.
Sales students will now have five sales labs to work in, four more than the last building.
Business analytics students will now have access to a data wall, helping them better visualize large data analytics.
Spake said the space will provide practical education for business students, so they will be ready for the world of work when they graduate.
Along with the new laboratory spaces, there will be a “Collaboration Stair,” a space for students to work with teammates and classmates.
A large atrium will provide lots of seating, and there will also be a café.
“The intention is to bring students to the building and then they stay,” Spake said. “They can stay and have lunch, they can stay and work with their teammates, they can go to their classes; everything is there.”
The dean said there is already an uptick in enrollment in the business school.
“I fully expect that it’s going to attract people to Kent State, because if you’re a business student, why wouldn’t you want to be in a state-of-the-art building, using the technology you’re going to use in the industry once you graduate,” she said.
She said a grand opening celebration is planned for the building on Sept. 27, and she is very excited about having this new building.
“It will allow us to do things that the current building doesn’t from an education standpoint,” she said. “I’m really glad that we’re able to provide this to our students.”
Lauren Cohen is a reporter. Contact her at [email protected].