Landmark Rutgers building offers impressive technology, corporate setting to business school students and faculty

Rutgers Business School Dean Glenn Shafer will attend as will vice deans from the business school and members of the school's board of advisors. Rutgers University President Robert Barchi and Nevin Kessler, president of the Rutgers University Foundation, are also scheduled to attend the afternoon's events.

The $85 million building, which opened at the start of the fall semester last month, has impressed students and faculty with its design and technology as well as the new convenience of having the business school consolidated, for the first time, into one building on the campus.

Designed by architect Enrique Norten to serve as a landmark entry way to the expanding campus, the dramatic building establishes the business school's presence on the campus and helps to raise its stature across the larger university community. The 143,000 square-foot building will accommodate up to 3,200 undergraduate students.

In addition to its striking, corporate headquarters-like design, the building has other distinguishing features: It is one of the most technologically advanced academic buildings and the latest example of the university's commitment to renewable energy.

A nearby geo-thermal field designed to heat and cool the building and two solar fields that generate the bulk of its power helped to qualify the structure for the U.S. Green Building Council's Sustainable Design Silver LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification.

The building is equipped with $4 million worth of technology, most of it built into classrooms and lecture halls to enhance teaching – and learning. There are also 91 WiFi access points throughout the six stories, ensuring that students and faculty can connect to the Internet from many different spots inside.

"Our new building at 100 Rockafeller Road provides, for the first time in decades, the facilities to meet the demand for business education at Rutgers in New Brunswick," Rutgers Business School Dean Glenn Shafer said. "The building will help us attract the most committed and qualified students at all levels and to retain and attract outstanding faculty and staff to work with them."

A ribbon-cutting and formal dedication is scheduled to begin at 4 p.m. outside the main entrance. It will be preceded by the investiture, which will take place in the first-floor auditorium. The investiture ceremony will begin at 3 p.m.  

At Rutgers Business School, Professor Vikram Nanda will focus his research on financial institutions, teach corporate finance and guide PhD students and junior faculty members.

"We are extremely fortunate to have Professor Nanda join us," Shafer said. "His scholarship and demonstrated capacity for mentoring students and junior faculty members takes the Finance and Economics Department to the next level."

Nanda said he was honored to be chosen as the first recipient of the Gamper Chair. "The finance and economics department at Rutgers has some significant strengths," Nanda said. "My objective is to help the department build on these strengths and to enhance its reputation as a strong research and teaching group."

Before coming to Rutgers, Nanda was the Russell B. and Nancy H. McDonough Chair in Finance at Georgia Tech's Ernest Scheller Jr. College of Business. He held previous academic positions at Arizona State University, University of Michigan and University of Southern California.

Albert Gamper, who retired as chairman and CEO of CIT Group in 2004, will be among the guests attending the investiture ceremony. CIT Group and Gamper, who currently sits on the Rutgers Board of Trustees, announced the establishment of the $2 million chair in 2004. In 1999, Gamper was inducted into the Rutgers Hall of Distinguished Alumni.

Other guests will include Piscataway Mayor Brain Wahler and Meme Omogbai, chief operating officer and co-interim director of the Newark Museum.

For more information about Rutgers Business School, go to www.business.rutgers.edu.

SOURCE Rutgers Business School