Another Business School Lands a Major Building Donation
Credit: aimintang / Getty Images- The University of Delaware landed a $71.5 million donation for a new business school building.
- The new Siegfried Hall will focus on experiential learning and modern classrooms.
- The donation comes as business schools roll out ambitious construction projects.
- Schools like Northwestern and Purdue have launched building projects in recent years.
The business school building frenzy is continuing into 2025.
The University of Delaware landed a $71.5 million donation to construct a new building for its Alfred Lerner College of Business and Economics. That’s the largest donation from an individual or family in the university’s history, dating back to before the Revolutionary War.
That new donation will be used to build Siegfried Hall, named for donors Robert L. Siegfried Jr. and Kathleen Marie (Horgan) Siegfried, and the national entrepreneurial leadership organization, The Siegfried Group.
Siegfried Hall stands out as encapsulating a trend in business education: New buildings to embrace a tech-focused, modern-learning landscape.
Siegfried Hall will bear the hallmarks of the modern business school buildings that are going up at some of the nation’s leading colleges and universities: It will be student-focused with modern classrooms, a student success center, and a focus on experiential learning.
President Dennis Assanis called the donation a “transformative moment” in a press release and emphasized the role the new building will have in an ever-evolving educational landscape.
“The Siegfrieds’ generosity will significantly advance Lerner’s critical mission of preparing the next generation of leaders, change-makers, and entrepreneurs to make an impact in the rapidly evolving world of business and economics,” Assanis said.
The new building will also be home to the Siegfried Institute for Leadership and Free Enterprise, a new leadership-focused institution that “will contribute to developing the capabilities and characteristics of effective leadership, while further studying the critical role basic principles of limited government, rule of law, and free enterprise play in supporting individual freedom and leadership.”
The institute is another example of business schools branching to focus on policy and emerging sciences. Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management likewise recently rolled out an “enlightened disagreement” institute to focus on bridging divides and healthy discourse.
“Our vision for the college is to shape and serve the future of business and society by driving impact through an ecosystem of pioneering scholarship and inspirational education — all within an inclusive environment,” Lerner College Dean Oliver Yao said in the release.
“The new Siegfried Hall will put us on the fast track to achieving our vision.”
Siegfried Hall and its accompanying institute are still in their earliest stages, but they reflect a bigger picture emerging across business education.
Business School Building Spree
Lerner joins stalwarts like Kellogg and Purdue University’s Mitchell E. Daniels, Jr. School of Business in its ambitious building project.
Kellogg last year launched a $600 million fundraising campaign. The centerpiece of the campaign is a state-of-the-art building on its Evanston campus. That new building will have a global focus, with classrooms designed for hybrid learning and built-in guest suites for in-person residencies.
Daniel McCrudden, director of facilities administration at Kellogg, previously told BestColleges that lessons from the pandemic were key in designing a virtual-focused building.
“We learned a lot about hybrid learning through the pandemic, and that was a big consideration as we looked at the design and creating of our classrooms,” McCrudden said.
Purdue in early 2024 landed a $50 million grant from the Lilly Endowment to help with the $168 million construction of a new building for its business school.
That 164,000-square-foot building will feature experiential learning labs with a focus on financial trading and data visualization. Like Kellogg and the University of Delaware’s planned building, Purdue’s new building will focus on student experiences.
Other business schools are expanding their reach: Vanderbilt University is planning a $520 million campus in West Palm Beach, Florida, that would include its Owen Business School.
The University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business is also building far from home: The school is planning a new campus in downtown Los Angeles following the success of its longtime L.A. executive master of business administration program.
“This is what we see as a great way to capitalize on the momentum we have and build from it,” Ross School Dean Sharon Matusik told BestColleges in a previous interview.
Business schools across the higher education landscape are rolling out (and wrapping up) building projects:
- Texas A&M University’s Mays Business School received a historic $25 million donation for a new graduate education building in 2024.
- Western Kentucky University in 2023 broke ground on a $74 million, 113,000-square-foot building with a focus on experiential learning.
- Washington College in Maryland is constructing a new building as part of its new, liberal arts-focused Warehime School of Global Business.
- North Carolina Central University, a historically Black university, opened a new business school building with a focus on cybersecurity and artificial intelligence in early 2024.