Building Projects Keep Pace With Growth

About the only thing obsolete at UM is the campus map.

UM continues to grow, constructing new buildings and adding to others as the University keeps pace with the world around it.

The face of the campus is changing -- from the $4.5 million Gilkey Center for Executive Education, to a $14 million addition to the Skaggs Building that is home to the College of Health Professions and Biomedical Sciences, to the $12 million Anderson Hall that will house the School of Journalism.

"It's going to put all our programs under one roof for the first time," says Jerry Brown, dean of the School of Journalism. "We'll be able to deal with any changes that come in the future of news delivery systems, while keeping the traditional values of reporting and accuracy that have made our school nationally recognized."

The 59,000 square-foot addition to the Skaggs Building will make UM a premiere biomedical research center. Dean Dave Forbes said a 1998 addition to the building provided needed space, but didn't offer additional lab space, which is more expensive.

The new expansion will change that and could double the number of graduate students enrolled in the doctoral program.
And the School of Business Administration, which already enjoys a marvelous facility in the Gallagher Business Building, will step to the next level with the Gilkey Center.

"What the Gilkey Center will do is give us a much higher profile," says Dean Larry Gianchetta. "As an example, one of the things surfacing is the need for executives for nonprofits. We can provide training for that. It will also house our executive lecture series that Harold and Priscilla Gilkey started and create the opportunity to bring high-level executives to campus."

When NASDAQ president and CEO Robert Greifield visited as the first speaker in the series earlier this year, hundreds were turned away from the 250-seat auditorium in the Gallagher Building during his public talk. The Gilkey Center will fit them in.

Likewise, the Skaggs Building addition will attract Nobel Prize-winning speakers with its state-of-the-art auditorium, as well as accommodate more cutting-edge research.

Anderson Hall will provide much-needed lab space, allow the school to become all-digital in photography and up-to-date in video editing equipment, and house the Native American Journalism Center and UM's landmark programs, the Native News Project and Reznet.

Most remarkable -- the financing of all this growth.

UM may have to pay to change its campus maps, but the buildings are being paid for almost exclusively by private donations.

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