What are the reasons for the new building?

After my blog posted last week, one of our students asked the question, “What are the reasons for the new building?” This question made me realize that maybe we have not done an adequate job of explaining why we need a new building. The simple answer is that we are out of space. All of our existing classrooms and offices are being used at near full capacity. Personally, I am OK to move classes outside since it is so nice here in Logan year-round – but my perspective is a bit skewed due to my 10 years of living in Minnesota (also known as the “frozen north.”)

Let me share some of the key data points:

1) In the past five years, student enrollment on campus has grown from about 1,600 students to more than 2,100 students.

Ken Snyder

2) To accommodate the increasing demand from students, we have added classes and, of course, faculty. Every faculty office in the current building is filled. We have 13 business school faculty and staff that are in offices outside of our current building. We would like them to be with us in the same building. If nothing else, it will reduce the number of times we have to walk across campus in sub-zero temperatures.

3) Some of the office space shortage is due to added staff to help run programs. In the past five years, we have added staff to run programs in global engagement, entrepreneurship, the Huntsman Scholar program, internships, career acceleration, etc. These programs have greatly enhanced the experiential education opportunities of our students. There was no space planned for these types of functions in the original design of our current building.

4) We are short on classrooms both within our building and on campus in general. We have had to move several classes to a 7:00 a.m. start time, and several others to late afternoon and evening simply because of the lack of classrooms. We are quickly running out of options; we thought a new building is a better option than having classes start right as Letterman and Leno give their opening monologues.

It should be noted that most of the money for the new building is coming from generous donors who understand our current space limitations. It should also be noted that none of the money for the new building is coming from student tuition.

Ken Snyder