Freeman celebrates groundbreaking of expansion project
Work on a $35 million renovation and expansion of Tulane University’s A. B. Freeman School of Business officially kicked off over the summer, but that didn’t stop the Freeman School from celebrating the start of the project with a ceremonial groundbreaking on Friday (Sept. 9).
Joining Freeman School Dean Ira Solomon in recognizing the occasion was a distinguished list of guests, including Board of Tulane Chair Darryl Berger (L ’72), Tulane President Michael Fitts and Board of Tulane member and Business School Council Chairman Jerry Greenbaum (BBA ’62) as well as Board of Tulane and Business School Council members Bill Goldring (BBA ’64) and E. Pierce Marshall Jr. (BSM ’90)
“The incoming class at Tulane University this year is the strongest we’ve ever seen academically in all of the different criteria we look at,” said President Fitts. “And this business school is so much a part of why students are coming to Tulane University.”
In the last five years, the Freeman School has experienced surging enrollments at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. One out of every three undergraduate students at Tulane University is currently enrolled in the Freeman School and an additional 900 students are pursuing graduate degrees. The building project, which will unite the business school’s two buildings into a single structure to be known as the Goldring/Woldenberg Business Complex, will add 85,000 square feet of new and renovated space to the school. Construction is scheduled to be completed in early 2018.
“This project is central to our future,” said Freeman School Dean Ira Solomon. “As our student body, our programming and our faculty grow, matching that growth with innovative spaces for learning, for collaboration and discovery is critical to the continuing Freeman success story.”
Project donors in attendance were Jenny (N ’83, MBA ’84) and Bob (BSM ’81, MBA ’83) Kottler, Sally (N ’78) and Jay (L ’77, MBA ’78) Lapeyre, Jimmy (MBA ’72) and Lillian Maurin, Pan-American Life Insurance Group, Suquet Family Charitable Fund, Charles (A&S ’75, MBA ’77) and Karen Swanson, and representatives from the Ella West Freeman Foundation, Goldring Family Foundation, The Marshall Heritage Foundation and the Woldenberg Foundation.
The event concluded with a golden shovel ceremony in Goldring/Woldenberg Hall II. The platform party also signed a steel beam that will eventually become part of the new structure.
Other leadership donors to the project include Sean (MBA ’98) and Karen Aron, Meredith (N ’93) and Jonathan (A&S ’92, MBA ’93) Angrist, Stacey (A&S ’76, MBA ’78) and Evie Berger, Kim (B ’96) and Geoff (BSM ’94) Block, James Sr. (MBA ’74) and Melinda Carter, Francis L. Fraenkel (BBA ’54), Andy (BSM ’83) and Nancy Mills, Susan (BSM ’88) and David (BSM ’87) Moore, Frances (BSM ’89) and Alan (BSM ’89) Offenberg, Debbie (N ’76, MBA ‘77) and Rick (A&S ’75, MBA ’75) Rees, George (MBA ’65) and Fay Rizzo, Ira (BSM ’87 ) and Shelley Taub, Daryl and Irwin Simon (Parents of BSM ’17), Wayne J. D. Teetsel (A&S ’87, MBA ’90), Giffen (BSM ’82) and CiCi Weinmann, and Lake Lawn Metairie Funeral Home and Cemetery.
