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chicagotribune.com >> Business
Biz schools looking for a breakout
U. of C. joins study room push
By Ameet Sachdev
Tribune staff reporter
Published August 19, 2004
The latest trend in management education is driving architects a little crazy.
Business schools have fallen in love with breakout rooms, where students can meet to work on group projects, a standard part of management curricula. These little conference rooms are proliferating like cupholders in mini-vans, as schools try to outdo one another in building state-of-the-art facilities.
The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in 2002 opened its new academic center with 57 group study rooms. The year before, Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management in Evanston debuted a new wing with 50 such rooms.
The University of Chicago Graduate School of Business will have 31 group study rooms in its new Hyde Park Center--about three times as many as its old facilities have.
The $125 million building, which U. of C. officials began planning in 1999, will open Sept. 23--the start of classes for the fall quarter. It is a long-awaited upgrade from the antiquated classrooms in five buildings that had housed nearly 1,600 business school students, faculty and staff.
"One of the biggest complaints of students over the years was the lack of group study space," said Richard Leftwich, deputy dean for faculty. "Students had to fight for space at the library."
But the rooms present aesthetic challenges to architects.
"Architecturally, these are not the most exciting parts of the building," said Rob Chandler, an architect at the Boston firm of Goody Clancy, who refers to them as "little cells."
"But individual breakout rooms are important to the schools."
In designing the new building at Purdue University's Krannert School of Management, Chandler clumped 25 meeting rooms near a central atrium so students would not feel isolated. Being close to the atrium also allowed the rooms to receive some natural light.
And at night, when the group study rooms are lit up, the building glows, Chandler said.
Students can't live without them. Amanda Venier, a second-year MBA student at the University of Chicago, said she was part of a study group for every class she took last year. The groups often met in students' homes because there wasn't enough space on campus.
Working in teams is an essential part of graduate business programs, as schools try to mimic the real worldbusiness environment. But only in the last decade or so have facilities caught up with teaching methods.
When Kellogg redesigned its space 12 years ago to include 15 to 20 breakout rooms, student demand was overwhelming, said Bob Magee, a senior associate dean.
The need became greater as demand for an MBA degree exploded in the 1990s, as workers went back to school to claim their share of the spoils of the economic boom.
Despite tuition that can top $40,000 a year at top-tier institutions, an MBA degree is the second-most-popular graduate degree, after education. In 2002, more than 120,000 MBA degrees were awarded, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.
Flush with more tuition dollars and generous private donations, business schools embarked on a building boom. In addition to group study space, new facilities included expansive student lounges, cafeterias serving gourmet food and interview rooms for recruiters.
The goal, educators say, is to create a second home for students, where they can spend the entire day instead of shuttling back and forth between classrooms and home. When Kellogg added a new wing three years ago with more study rooms and student lounges, administrators noticed a change in how students used the building.
"They tend to live here now," Magee said. "They arrive at 8:30 in the morning and may not leave until 9 p.m. or later."
The University of Chicago wants to create a similar environment with the Hyde Park Center. Faculty and staff had been housed in different buildings. And when students had interviews with recruiters, they had to walk across campus to the career center.
Now, they will have a locker room where they can change into business attire, and a career center upstairs large enough to house 42 interview rooms.
The highlight of the 415,000-square-foot building is a six-story glass atrium that rises through the center of the building, topped by curved steel beams that form Gothic arches, a signature element of the campus' architecture.
New York architect Rafael Vinoly said his aim for the atrium, which he prefers to call a "winter garden," was to create a courtyard similar to the campus quad.
"The challenge was how to create a sense of unity," Vinoly said. "Here you're going to have people constantly circulating around it."
Twelve classrooms and the group study rooms are in the basement, one floor below the atrium, but still receive natural light.
The building already is earning raves from rival schools.
"It's a palace," said Logan Jordan, associate dean for administration at Purdue's Krannert. He added jokingly, "I hope it doesn't leak in the winter."
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Hyde Park Center
What is it? The new home of the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business
When will it open? Sept. 23, the start of fall quarter
For whom? Will house 1,100 full-time MBA students, 110 PhD students, 200 staff and 167 faculty
Size: 415,000 square feet
Cost: $125 million
Features: 12 classrooms, 2 seminar rooms, 31 group study rooms and 42 interview rooms
Architect: Rafael Vinoly of New York
Copyright © 2004, Chicago Tribune
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