Featured Image: The Business Administration building at the University of Tennessee at Martin. (Photo Credit / UT Martin CBGA Facebook page)
Students and faculty at the University of Tennessee at Martin had the opportunity on Wednesday, March 4 to share their ideas about the future of the university’s business facilities as planning continues for a new business building on campus.
The new building will replace the current Business Administration Building and will be constructed on the same site once the existing structure is demolished. University officials say the project is part of a larger effort to modernize academic spaces and support the continued growth of the university.
The design process is being led by the architecture firm Perkins&Will, which is working with campus leaders to create a facility that reflects how students learn today.
Architect Jill Vowels said gathering input from the campus community is an important part of the early design stages.
“We’re just gathering feedback for the new business school building,” Vowels said. “We’re looking for broad input from across the campus community.”
During a campus engagement event, students were invited to review concept ideas and provide feedback by placing markers next to features they considered most important. Designers also encouraged participants to complete surveys using QR codes to help measure which priorities were most common among attendees.
Vowels explained that the project will involve constructing an entirely new facility rather than renovating the existing one.
“It will be constructed on the existing site,” Vowels said. “The current building would be demolished, and the new building would take its place.”
Feedback from students and faculty highlighted several key priorities, including flexible classroom spaces, improved technology and additional areas for collaboration.
“We’ve heard a lot of comments about focusing on flexible types of classrooms,” Vowels said. “There’s also been feedback about the lack of community space in the existing building.”
Flexible classrooms, which often include movable seating and technology designed for group collaboration, have become increasingly common in modern academic buildings. Designers say these types of spaces allow instructors to easily transition between lectures, discussions and team-based learning.
While the new business building is still in the planning stages, university officials say it is one of several major facility improvements happening across campus.
According to Karen Elmore, who has worked at UT Martin for about 50 years, the number of recent construction projects represents a significant moment in the university’s history.
“We’re getting a new academic building,” Elmore said. “It’s been about 40 years since we built Gooch, so to get buildings back-to-back like this is surprising.”
Elmore noted that the new business building will be located near the site of the original Moody building and is part of a larger group of campus upgrades, including the addition of a new testing hub.
“We’re getting three new facilities,” Elmore said. “In six months since we finished the book about the university’s history, so much has already changed.”
Having worked at the university for decades, Elmore has seen both periods of growth and times when campus expansion was difficult.
“I’ve seen good times, bad times, needing buildings and not being able to get them,” said Elmore. “Programs were growing and we were taking up closets to fit students in.”
Now, she says the current wave of construction is exciting for the university community.
“We’ve ground broken on two of them already,” Elmore said. “I’m just overwhelmed. It’s exciting to see where the university is headed.”
As planning continues, designers will use the feedback gathered from students and faculty to shape the final design of the new business building. University officials say the project will help create modern learning spaces that better serve students, prepare them for careers in business and related fields and contribute to the continued growth of UT Martin.
