A New $62 Million Building At Michigan State’s Broad College

A look at the newest addition to the Broad Business Complex

A MAJOR GOAL: TO DELIVER A SUPERIOR STUDENT EXPERIENCE

The Pavilion is devoted largely to learning, without a single faculty office in the building. Between the ground level and second floor of the building are more than 20 team rooms, each equipped with high-resolution video conferencing. A centerpiece of the Pavilion is what the school calls The Grand Staircase, which already has become a meeting space for students.

“We did not go into this project because we wanted more space but rather certain types of spaces that we did not have,” says Gupta. “We did no have a single team room in the entire business college complex. We wanted to be able to locate all of our career management services in one place. So the role of this project was driven by the need to have the right kind of spaces to allow us to become more successful in what we do. This is a facility that is 100% devoted to student learning and doing.

Dean Gupta says a primary goal of the investment has been to greatly enhance the student experience. “First and foremost, I wanted to make sure we deliver a superior student experience,” he says. “That embraces lots of different things, in and out of the classroom. That experience should be exceptional. A second dimension is that it should provide students with the kinds of spaces that they will eventually go to work in. So this is just a matter of habit. The third thing was it should be a space that not only fulfills this commitment to an exceptional student experience but that it is also something that inspires students to do their best work and achieve their highest potential.”

‘IN THE MIDWEST WE TEND TO BE QUITE UNDERSTATED’

Martinez, a U.S. Air Force vet who will graduate from Broad in 2021 with specialties in supply chain management and data analytics, is completely sold on the new building. “It emphasizes an open collaborative environment,” he says enthusiastically. “And all classrooms are wired for easy access to display information across the room and the classrooms can even be partitioned for small or larger classes.”

The addition to the Broad Business Complex has been a source of pride on campus. “In the midwest, we tend to be quite understated in the way we think of our accomplishments,” adds Gupta. “This notion of pride in where you come from. I hope this is going to be a way for us to explicitly state where we come from. We’ll take that midwestern pride in grit and work ethic but also in terms of our success.”