Hodge Hall
It’s a big day over at Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business today (Sept. 19). The home of Kelley’s new undergraduate business school, Hodge Hall Undergraduate Center, gets its official dedication by Dean Idalene “Idie” Kesner.
For Kelley, it’s a propitious time to have the extra space, an additional 90,000 square feet. The school just welcomed the largest freshman class in its history.
Classes began last month in new areas of Hodge Hall, an expansion of the 48-year-old 140,000-square-foot building that housed the entire school for decades. The $60 million project continues with the renovation of older areas.
The building is named for James Hodge, a native of Marion, Ind., a 1974 graduate of the Kelley School and president of Permal Asset Management. Hodge’s $15 million gift was a centerpiece of the support this project received from alumni and corporate partners.
IU President Michael A. McRobbie will preside over today’s event with Dean Kesner. Other participants will include Hodge, IU Bloomington Provost and Executive Vice President Lauren Robel, Kelley Undergraduate Program Chair Ramesh Venkataraman and IU Foundation President and CEO Dan Smith, who also played a crucial role in the project as Kesner’s predecessor as Kelley dean.
In addition to Hodge’s gift, a $33 million grant from Lilly Endowment Inc. and another $12 million in private gifts from other alumni and strategic partners have supported the building project. The total cost of the expansion and renovation of Hodge Hall will be met without using tax revenue or tuition dollars.
“A VISBLE AND IMPRESSIVE EXAMPLE’ OF THE SCHOOL’S MOMENTUM
“Momentum is something we’ve been talking about a lot lately at the Kelley School,” Kesner said in a statement. “We strive to teach our students how to recognize and cultivate those moments in their lives that could lead to opportunity — how to create momentum. Our new Hodge Hall Undergraduate Center is certainly a very visible and impressive example.”
McRobbie noted that with the support from Lilly Endowment, Hodge and many others, the Kelley School remains one of the world’s leaders in business education as well as a key contributor to Indiana’s economic vitality through its graduates and research programs.
“This remarkable facility, made possible through individuals who share the university’s vision of excellence in teaching and research, will enable the KelleySchool to maintain its strong international standing, while dramatically transforming the important role Indiana University plays in undergraduate business education,” McRobbie said in a statement. “Through its enhanced classroom and collaborative spaces and state-of-the-art technologies, Hodge Hall will enable our students to more easily connect with top business leaders and companies around the state, nation and world, preparing them for their own successful careers in the global marketplace.”
Planning for the project began in 2005, and construction started two years ago with the building’s expansion, followed by renovation of the existing building. The final phases of the project will be completed next year.
Hodge Hall
The new structure features 20 additional classrooms as well as new meeting rooms, student collaboration space, a student commons and a 2,000-square-foot room for large gatherings.
A focus of the building project was to create facilities that enable a technology-mediated experience, allowing Kelley students to interact with companies from across the state and around the world on actual business projects.
As a result of the building expansion, the Indiana Business Research Center, which has provided a wide range of economic and demographic information services to the state since 1925, will move back on campus.
Other building features include the 3M Sales and Communications Lab; a behavioral research lab for researchers; a new Kelley student-managed apparel store; and the Dan and Maureen Aron Investment Center, which is a stock trading room with state-of-the-art informational resources.
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