Building Leadership

The pieces are falling into place for the new School of Business building. New York State has allocated $54 million. Dean Paul A. Leonard has been named Dean Emeritus and will serve as the point person in the president’s office to shepherd building efforts. Alumni have stepped up, providing leadership gifts to support the capital campaign.

But like the overnight success who was years in the making, construction plans didn’t happen in a heartbeat. Dean Leonard said that he envisioned the new building two months after he was appointed dean. He said,” The building is part of a comprehensive plan. Since late fall of 2003 we’ve known what we wanted to do with the school. We started out talking about programs and faculty and ran into space constraints. The new building is something we needed to advance to improve all areas of the school.”

From the start, the project has been a public-private partnership: New York State funding coupled with alumni gifts.  Exploratory work started in 2004 under President Karen Hitchcock and came to fruition under Interim President George Phillip, who has been a strong advocate.

We received a big boost at UAlbany Day at the Capital this spring. Over 400 alumni, students and friends met with legislators, including nine who are UAlbany alumni, to talk about the university’s needs, including the top capital priority – the School of Business building. Among those in attendance was Senator Hugh Farley, a former School of Business professor, whose son Robert Farley has recently started teaching law at the school.

Beyond UAlbany day, the university lobbied hard to obtain state funding in a financially tough year. Many came to our aid: Senators Farley, Joe Bruno and Neil Breslin, and Assemblymen Sheldon Silver, Jack McEneny and Ron Canestrari, the governor’s office and SUNY Central.

The signature building will increase School of Business visibility in many ways, including serving as an entryway building on Collins Circle, a counterpoint to recently constructed University Hall, which houses administration offices. The 90,000 square-foot state-of the-art academic and research facility will be twice the size of the old building. Groundbreaking is expected during the 2010-2011 academic year.