New headquarters for the Heller College of Business coming in June

Posted: 03/19/2012

On floors 10, 11 and 12 of Roosevelt University’s new Wabash Building, the Heller College of Business is building a new headquarters where students with a head for business soon will roll up their sleeves and get to work.(Heller College Dean Terri Friel is pictured above in a 12th floor training classroom where finishing touches to construction are now underway).

With its clean lines, the latest in technology and plenty of open space for both team building and problem solving, the college won’t be an average learning workplace.

“When you walk in to the Heller College, you will immediately think global business,” said Dean Terri Friel, who will move with her team into the new facility in June to get ready for classes that begin there in the fall.

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That first step off the elevator on 12, into Heller College’s new main entrance, is sure to dazzle, with its electronic ticker board flashing the latest in stock prices in digital reds, greens and yellows from exchanges around the world. Near the reception station, a spacious training center (above), with seating for 32 students, promises to be a showpiece for team learning – which is one of Heller College’s hallmarks.

COBConfFriel A boardroom for cutting-edge tele-presence conferencing (Friel and Laura Janota inspect at left), small spaces where students and faculty can work as teams, an experimental market where student entrepreneurs can start businesses and sell products, as well as a new Social Entrepreneurship major – the first of its kind in the region and Midwest – will round out reasons why most will be impressed with Heller College’s new beginning in Roosevelt’s 32-story vertical campus at 425 S. Wabash.

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“This new facility is impressive, and anyone who walks in here for a look will immediately say ‘Wow!’ said Friel, who helped design unique learning spaces nearly a decade ago for Butler University’s College of Business, today ranked among top business schools of its size in the U.S. (At right is a depiction of what tele-presence conferencing can look like, courtesy of Cisco Systems).

Heller College offers undergraduate degree programs in accounting, finance, management, human resource management and marketing, as well as the MBA and master’s degrees in accounting, accounting forensics, human resource management and real estate.

“One look at our new facility, and people are going to know that our business school is the place to be,” said Friel, who has been working for more than a year with architects, consultants, engineers and telecommunications professionals to create an environment at Heller that fosters real-world business know-how.

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“It will be an environment that exudes confidence,” she added. “And anyone who studies with us will feel good about becoming whom he or she wants to be and the fact that Heller College will be the catalyst that makes it possible.”

Many business schools tout training spaces where business problems can be solved by students. Most times, however, that work is done in lecture halls where the professor is at ground level looking up at students in stadium-style seating. That is not the case at Heller, where training space is being designed specifically for team learning (another view of Heller's new LearnLab training space is pictured above).

Developed in conjunction with the Steelcase WorkSpace Futures Group, the College of Business’ new LearnLab environment features innovative design strategies, products and applications that improve functionality of the classroom and support frequent collaboration and communication between individuals and among groups.

“This new space will support multiple teaching and learning styles and it will dramatically improve student engagement,” predicted Friel. In the new LearnLab, students, seated at tables of six to eight people each, will work in teams as the stock ticker, flashing the latest quotes, gives their work a sense of vitality and global immediacy.

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Working in teams, similarly to how professionals in the corporate workplace often handle projects and problem solving, students at each table will have access to individual laptop connections as well as a projector, big screen and touch-sensitive white boards. (Above is a depiction of what a functional LearnLab can look like, courtesy Steelcase WorkSpace Futures Group). And when it’s time for individual teams to present their findings/solutions to the overall group, engagement will be enhanced thanks to swivel chairs that make it easy for students to turn from one team and presentation to the next. "We believe this kind of environment is going to expand and encourage our students’ creativity,” Friel said.

Other features inside the new Heller College include:

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A boardroom for small audio-visual teleconferences, featuring the cutting-edge Cisco Telepresence System that brings life-size images and voices, possibly of Heller business advisory board members at the Schaumburg Campus or even a prospective international student in another country, to the conference table from the waist up on a life-size screen.

A new home built from sustainable materials, including recyclable paper countertops and cork and bamboo floors, for Heller’s Marshall Bennett Institute for Real Estate. (At right, Institute Director Jon Devries inspects).

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The Institute’s new Urban Retail Properties Professional Development and Research Center will have more space for the program’s growing library (pictured at left), which has the best collection of real estate texts in the region, keeping graduate MBA and real estate students on track to meet, study and learn job skills together.

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An experimental space for student entrepreneurs (inspected by Friel at left), the only one of its kind in the United States, will be located on College’s 11th floor. Students will be able to store, exhibit and sell their own inventions and business products from the space. The concept, being implemented in conjunction with introduction of Heller College’s new Social Entrepreneurship major for undergraduates and MBA students, is expected to encourage students to start businesses. It also could one day open the door to new opportunities in which budding student entrepreneurs gain access to loans, grants and other forms of seed money to get their businesses and products off the ground!

Eight break-out rooms on the 10th floor where six to eight students per room can meet to discuss, collaborate and work together on team projects.

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Eight tiered classrooms (example of one is pictured at right) , with projectors, screens and seating in each for up to 75 students, on floors 10 through 12, which will be used for some of the University’s largest courses, including psychology as well Heller College’s Executive Education and graduate business classes.

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Individual work spaces in the dean’s office for Heller College’s growing number of graduate assistants (at left), who receive full tuition and a stipend in exchange for providing tutoring, student support, research for faculty members and other special projects.

Chicago 430 S. Michigan Ave.Chicago, IL 60605(312) 341-3500 Directions & Maps

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Roosevelt Online http://www.roosevelt.edu/ruonline/