Massive and eye-catching new Wichita State business school nears completion

The massive and eye-catching new business school at Wichita State will welcome students when classes start on Monday.

It’s the first new classroom building since Elliot Hall was built in the 1990s.

Power tools were running on Friday as workers put in some final touches. Signs and landscaping aren’t expected to be completed until the end of September. Still other small touches will likely pop up — for example, a piece of stair trim that has been glued multiple times popped off during a tour Friday.

The uniqueness of the space is evident, especially when compared to other buildings, including the 1970 Clinton Hall that used to hold the W. Frank Barton School of Business. There’s a pond and bridge, classrooms with different arrangements including one with couches in front, a cafe, collaborative spaces or individual study rooms, study pods, and even a wall that changes patterns based on the weather or someone walking by.

Wayne and Kay Woolsey Hall is more than double the size of Clinton Hall.

Artwork from Kansas artists and WSU students lines the walls of the building. Groundwork has been laid for a multi-tier garden on the south side of the building.

Entering the building that’s adorned with wood panels feels as much like walking into a tech company as it does a classroom setting. The atrium has swag lights near the entryway and more lights shining down from the fourth floor. There’s a huge platform with wood bleacher seats as well.

Each detail of the building was carefully considered. It took input from students and faculty along with what WSU officials saw during tours of colleges and businesses around the country. Even the process of picking out chairs for the building took two days of touring and sitting at a 14-story furniture mart in Chicago.

Dorothy Harpool, the director of student and community initiatives at WSU and a senior marketing lecturer, has been reveling in the new space.

‘It’s not Clinton Hall, is it? she said while giving a tour. “Thank God.”

The old building lacked many of the features the new one will have. The student space was basically two hallways with classrooms down each hall. It could not accommodate all its students, so it was common to have business classes across campus at Devlin Hall.

Harpool said the new space will be open to other WSU colleges and students. Staff outside of the business school already have signed up to use the building’s 11 classrooms.

The new building has been several years in the making. A $10 million donation by the Woolsey family, the largest ever made to WSU and its foundation, boosted the private funding endeavor. The family, which made its money in oil and gas, also donated another $1.5 million as an endowment for the Kay Woolsey Garden.

“I’ve been fortunate to find success in a field that I enjoy a great deal, and I view this gift as something that will help develop other successful entrepreneurs and business leaders,” Wayne Woolsey said in a news release. “A great business school facility at Wichita State will strengthen our workforce and our economy, and that is worth investing in.”

Students rejected a plan in 2019 to raise fees to help pay for the business building.

Groundbreaking on the building was in October 2020.

Harpool said the building was designed while keeping in mind its location, between the main part of campus and the innovation campus that houses companies like aerospace firm Airbus and tech firm Hexagon AB, among others.

“We really wanted the atmosphere to look like a corporation,” she said.

She added:

“Different generations are really looking for a different experience. … Students today like to hang out together. They like to have an environment that’s conducive to that. They like to have a home away from home so the warmth of this building, it’s not all metal and cold, is about the idea that this needs to be their academic home or we hope it will become their academic home and the faculty feel this is their professional home.”

Emily Patterson, WSU executive director of facilities planning, said they designed the building with three points in mind:

• Warmth, which is evident in the soft corners of the building.
• A place people would come together, which led to collaborative and open spaces.
• An eye on its night appeal, which led to lighting that can be seen as people drive around campus. The bridge lights up at night, as does the unique wall that changes patterns based on the weather. Eventually, the art out front will also be lit. She said keying on night appeal also reinforced the open space that makes students taking night classes feel safer.

There are roughly 2,100 students in the business school.

Other features of Wayne and Kay Woolsey Hall:

• A 100-person multi-purpose ballroom
• A 300-seat auditorium with micro-perforated wood panels that enhance acoustics
• 12 Bloomberg terminals that provide real-time financial data. Harpool said 12 is a “significant number for any university.”

Clinton Hall will go under renovations shortly and eventually will serve as a centralized area for student services. Those renovations are expected to be done in spring 2024.