Butler Unveils New Building for Lacy School
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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowThe president of Butler University says the new building for the Lacy School of Business will create better engagement for students and faculty. The university unveiled the building Wednesday on the Indianapolis campus. James Danko says the new facility adds five times the classroom space and square footage for the school, which previously didn’t have enough space for half of its classes.
In an interview with Inside INdiana Business Reporter Mary-Rachel Redman, Danko called the facility an "astounding building" which has a focus on interactive space.
"(That’s) important for students to be able to engage with each other and with faculty," said Danko. "The whole learning environment is more contemporary and that really supports the education of our students. We’ve got a career services office all centralized here so we’ll have a lot of recruiters on campus; we’ll have the business community here. We really have a place that supports that engaged education, connecting theory with practice, that’s so important at Butler."
Danko says, while the building is great, it’s what is happening inside the building that is most important. He says the building will allow students and faculty to further engage and use technology in a more advanced way. He hopes the students take away a great education from the new facility.
"I just ran into three students upstairs that are returning and they are so excited. You can just see it; you can hear them as they talk about it. You want students that are excited about their education; you want students that can engage in education that really allows them to be well prepared for their lives and for their careers. That’s what this building is meant to do."
Indianapolis-based FirstPerson has invested in the career services space in the Lacy School of Business. Founder and Chief Executive Officer Bryan Brenner says it’s not easy to bring the business community together with students, which is the goal of the new building.
"If you think about it, where else on a university campus does that really happen?" said Brenner. "Most spaces are built for classroom-only; they’re really not collaborative in nature; there’s not a lot of open space; we have more open space in this building than we had total space in the building before. So the idea that the business community can spend time here, create those natural run-ins, as well as just want to be here because it’s beautiful; it has space that’s suitable for business engagements. I think it’s a game changer."
Inside INdiana Business received a sneak peek of the building earlier this month as Danko appeared on Inside INdiana Business with Gerry Dick. You can watch the full interview by clicking the link below: