Page 51 - College Planning & Management, March 2018

Benedictine University
Administrators at Benedictine Univer- sity, a private university 30 minutes from Chicago in Lisle, IL, have a goal of building a better world through business. One example of their efforts is the Daniel L. Goodwin College of Business, a 125,000-square-foot facility that opened in October 2015, with a construction cost of $40 million.
Visitors step into a 6,000-square-foot “Global Hall” entrance area that includes an etched glass globe, digital stock ticker, and billboard-sized high-definition media wall by Planar that broadcasts business news from across the world.
“The beauty of the media wall,” says Kate Yurko, AIA, LEED-AP, NCARB, higher education leader and principal with DLR Group, the international firm that designed the building, “is in branding. The display can be changed depending on how the building is used, and it is used for both public and private events.”
Further inside is a 620-seat audito- rium with tiered seating focused toward a material-rich stage and surround that can be used for guest speakers, digital media experiences, or instructional lectures. “This space includes a huge projection screen that has amazing resolution,” Yurko says. “Plus, there are monitors suspended from the ceiling as the seating moves back so everyone is able to see the display. We were able to position the monitors to avoid blocking anyone’s line of sight.”
For the business students, a state-of- the-art Bloomberg Trading Lab provides access to peer-ranked investment simula- tions, public and private company account- ing and international economic data, and other real-time financial information. This
INTERIOR SPACES ARE STRATEGICALLY DESIGNED TO PROMOTE FLEXIBILITY, SCALABILITY, MOBILITY, AND ADAPTABILITY.
LET’S GET DOWN TO BUSINESS. The Daniel L. Goodwin College of Business at Benedictine University in Lisle, IL, is home to the university’s graduate and undergraduate business programs. The state-of-the-art facility includes a 6,000-square- foot global hall with live digital stock ticker and a billboard-sized, multi-screen high-definition media wall; a 40-seat state of the art Bloomberg Trading Lab, and LED touch-screen displays for checking class schedules, location, and event information. Technology-rich and interactive, the design intent for the facility was to deliver education with transparency and provide access to learning for the entire student body.
technology gives students access to the same information platform used by key decision- makers in business, finance, and govern- ment and helps to educate students how to analyze financial markets, assess economic scenarios, and interpret key news develop- ments impacting the global economy.
The entire building is interactive. Interior spaces are strategically designed to promote flexibility, scalability, mobility, and adaptability, such as a 250-seat open flexible seminar room on the top floor that partners up to the balcony/deck overlook- ing campus. Classrooms are designed with no limitations, and collaboration flows through the air media system, allowing every student to connect and share his/her work digitally and wirelessly.
Next on the college’s docket toward meeting goals is completing a master plan and using program needs to complete an unfinished portion of the building.
What are your goals for delivering edu- cation and meeting students’ needs? How are you going to use technology to help you meet those goals? CPM
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PHOTOS © JAMES STEINKAMP PHOTOGRAPHY, COURTESY OF DLR GROUP ARCHITECTS/ENGINEERS