Miami Student

Issue date: 8/26/08 Section: Campus

The North Campus Parking Garage offers free parking through Sept. 30. Guidelines can be found on the Miami homepage.

An array of familiar sights and sounds will welcome back Miamians this fall, including those famous red bricks, popular songs emanating out of Pulley Tower, and of course, construction across campus.

While most students will be hard pressed to navigate between classes without passing a construction project of some sort, perhaps the biggest undertaking is the new Farmer School of Business located at the corner of High Street and Patterson Avenue.

The business school's new home, which is scheduled to officially open in July 2009, will be 212,000 square feet and will feature a 500-seat auditorium, just short of the capacity of Hall Auditorium.

The new building will be the largest academic building on campus and will include several state-of-the-art facilities, that, according to the Farmer School's Assistant Dean for Administration Ted Pickerill, will keep Miami competitive within the university's peer group. This group consists of schools like Indiana University, Penn State, and the Ohio State University, as well as several smaller private colleges.

"In the new building, unlike the current facilities, everything associated with the business school will all be in the same building," Pickerill said. "Currently it's split between Laws and Upham (halls)."

Among the new facilities will be a three-dimensional projection room, a mock trial room and a trading room that simulates a stock exchange.

"The ability to have a classroom that meets the pedagogical needs of the students is what we have," Pickerill said referring to new ergonomically designed classrooms.

Pickerill emphasized that while the building will be the headquarters for the Farmer School of Business, non-business students will also use many of the facilities.

The new building costs about $66 million, though about 75 percent of that sum, or $49.5 million, comes from donations and gifts-primarily from the Farmer Family Foundation.

"The number of dollars donated for this building is far greater than any other project," Pickerill said.

Construction will also continue this month on Warfield Hall, where the interior and exterior of the building is being completely renovated.

Continued...

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