During its May meeting this weekend, the Board of Trustees gave the nod to the construction of a $40-million addition to the Fuqua School of Business' Keller Center and approved a $1.7-billion operating budget for the upcoming fiscal year.
The Fuqua addition is intended to provide much-needed classrooms, team meeting rooms, offices and an expanded library for business students. Construction crews will break ground in the fall.
"The bottom line is that we are out of space," Fuqua Dean Douglas Breeden said in a statement. "With the projected growth of our programs in leadership, ethics, nonprofits, health sector management, entrepreneurship and innovation, it is more important than ever that we have adequate space for our students."
The 87,000-square-foot addition, which is slated for completion in July 2008, will extend from the Keller Center outward toward Science Drive, literally changing the external face of the School of Business. The new library will be twice the size of the existing Ford Library.
Fuqua has seen only limited renovations since the Fox Student Center was added about four years ago. Eight years ago, the school added a number of new offices for faculty members.
But the new addition is designed with students in mind. While the Fox Center improved social life for business students, the Keller Center addition aims to improve academic life for them, said Mike Hemmerich, associate dean for marketing and communications.
"What we're most excited about is the new classrooms," he said. "This project is going to have a direct impact on the quality of academic life."
The University's operating budget for the 2006-2007 fiscal year, which starts July 1, will see a 5.3 percent increase in revenues from the current fiscal year. The Duke University Health System, including Duke Hospital, are budgeted separately.
According to the new budget, the University will increase institutional support for need-based aid by 5.8 percent to $58 million. The average grant for financial aid recipients is currently projected to be more than $24,000.
"This budget reflects the University's evolving values and priorities, including those emerging from our new strategic planning process now drawing to a conclusion," Provost Peter Lange said in a statement.
A number of other multi-million-dollar construction initiatives were also approved by the Board, including $30 million for renovations to Perkins Library-part of the University's larger plan to improve the library system on campus.
Three academic departments will relocate to the former East Campus Museum of Art. The Board approved $10 million for the project, but has not yet announced which three departments will move to the newly renovated building.
The Board also approved $8 million for a computer data center that will be added to an existing West Campus building and $2.8 million for a chilled water pipeline, which will extend from Duke Hospital to Flowers Drive and provide air conditioning to buildings along the way.
In addition, the Department of Psychology: Social and Health Sciences and the Department of Psychology and Brain Sciences will merge to form a new Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, the Board announced.
The Board also spent time hashing out ideas for the strategic plan, an 80-page document that has been discussed for more than a year and will be completed in the fall.
"I think the good news is that everyone on the Board thought that [the strategic plan] was really going in the right direction," said Robert Steel, chair of the Board of Trustees.
"I think the different news is that everyone had some observations, and everyone wanted to adjust the seasoning a bit," Steel added.
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