GEEC ready for dedication

Tenth Street and Fee Lane have finally been put back together as workers put the finishing touches on the new Graduate & Executive Education Center, a facility the Kelley School of Business dean calls "a technological wonder."\nThe GEEC boasts two full computer labs, data ports for laptops throughout the building and two-way audio and video links. These links will be used for students to transmit lectures and presentations across the globe.\nThere will also be a finance trading room and information system/information technology laboratories that Dan Dalton, dean of the Kelley School of Business, hopes "will be the envy of any business school."\nThe GEEC, a project that has been in the works for several years, will finally give a home to the Kelley School's Executive Education offices, which until now had been off-campus. Similarly, many of the business school's institutes and centers such as the Leadership Development Institute and the Indiana Business Research Center were also housed off-campus.\nThe need for expansion also comes from the fact that in past years, the Kelley School has restricted its MBA program to only 280 students per year. This expansion will allow them to increase their admissions to more than 400 annually.\nEvery year, close to 650 companies and corporations hold 19,000 interviews here on campus, according the Kelley School of Business Web site. But because of the limited enrollment, supply exceeds demand and many companies leave without employees.\nFaculty, staff and administration at the Kelley School see the GEEC as the solution to this problem.\nThere are high hopes for the new center.\nAt the groundbreaking ceremony, Dalton promised "the GEEC would rise as a testament to the many friends of IU and the Kelley School of Business."\nSince then, alumni have contributed $18 million, which was added to the $12 million provided by the state. The $35 million price tag covers not just the structure itself, but much of the bells and whistles found inside it.\n"The building is a technological wonder," Dalton said.\nThe building project was supervised by the architects at Beyer, Blinder, and Belle of New York, the same firm that led the restoration of Grand Central Station.\n"(The building) is commanding inside and out," Dalton said. "Beyond that was GEEC's attention to the tradition of the great buildings of Indiana University."\nChancellor Sharon Brehm sees the new building as part of a bigger plan that includes improvements to the Central Heating Plant north of the school, expansion of the Psychology building and upcoming improvements to the Service Building. \n"Like the Neal-Marshall Center last year, the graduate business school building has significantly improved the campus look in an area of campus that, to exaggerate a little, was an eyesore," Brehm said.\nAll of these projects are centered around a place that was funded by a $1 million gift from James Robert Waller, an IU alum and best-selling author.\nMany undergrads in the Kelley school are also anticipating the GEEC's opening.\n"I think that it will give the undergrads the opportunity to use the resources previously available only to the grad students," said Matt Hollosy, a junior.\nThe building will serve more than 900 MBA students and 450 students in the Accounting Graduate program.\nThe GEEC is still waiting to identify a donor after whom to name the building. This will be announced at the Nov. 22 dedication ceremony, where the keynote speaker will be Nick Scheele, the President of Chief Operations Officer at Ford Motor Company.