Rowan University builds a home for its growing business school

Rowan University business students returning to campus this week found a new home. Their four-story, 98,300-square-foot building on Route 322 is open for business.

"People are giddy; they're just so excited," Sue Lehrman, the dean of the Rohrer College of Business, said Tuesday, the first day of classes.

As she spoke, students and professors went through the rituals of a first day in a new place. Professors unlocked classrooms; students explored new hallways; people gathered in open spaces they had never had before.

"It's a more positive environment," said Matt Dougan, 24, a senior accounting student. "It's definitely more businesslike."

In one of 23 "collaboration rooms" available for anyone to use, a group of students leaned in for a selfie to celebrate the new building.

Students now have a place to work and hang out between classes, said Dougan, who drives to campus each day from his home in Carneys Point, N.J., and used to jockey for space in the limited lobby of Bunce Hall, which the business school shared with other disciplines.

"It's more convenient for sure," Dougan said of the new building's common spaces, furnished with small tables and benches.

Local politicians and university administrators held a dedication ceremony Wednesday for the $63.2 million building. Nearly $46 million came from a state fund for higher-education construction and infrastructure projects, anchored by a $750 million bond approved by voters in a 2012 referendum.

"This is an investment in our students and their futures that will pay off for New Jersey for decades to come," Senate President Stephen Sweeney (D., Gloucester) said in a statement.

The business school building is one of two major construction projects at Rowan being funded by that state pot; the other is a second engineering school building that is to be dedicated next week.

"Our old space was, you know, a wonderful old building … a lovely, historic building," Lehrman said of Bunce. "But not a building for a modern, growing business school."

The business school has certainly grown.

Ali A. Houshmand, the university president, has set an aggressive 10-year growth plan for the university. As part of that plan, he targeted undergraduate business enrollment to double.

Undergraduate enrollment has increased 77 percent, from 1,020 students in fall 2012 to 1,807  this year.

As the number of undergraduate students reaches its target in the next few years — helping fill out the building — Lehrman hopes to also triple the number of graduate students at the business school.

The school has had an MBA program; this year, it introduced a master's degree in finance and an hybrid online/on-campus MBA program out of the Rowan College at Burlington County campus in Mount Laurel.

Lehrman hopes to start a master's degree in organizational leadership in a year and an MBA in health systems after that.

"My real focus on growth right now is at the graduate level," she said.

The building has several spaces dedicated to new programs aimed at improving the student experience: the Hatch House on the second floor for promoting entrepreneurship, the Center for Professional Development on the first floor to prepare students for the job market, the Center for Responsible Leadership on the second floor to encourage sustainability and inclusivity alongside profit.

Houshmand said the school is nearing full enrollment, and approaching the point where further growth would undermine quality.

"We don't want to get to the point where it suddenly starts dipping," he said. "And I don't think that is very good for the reputation of the institution. … So the question is, how far can you grow without losing the selectivity and the quality too much?"

Houshmand has a model in mind for the business school.

Across from the business school is the engineering school, both its original building and the new 90,500-square-foot addition.

"My goal is, I want people to view and respect our business school the way they do our engineering school," Houshmand said. "The engineering school is a standard we have set."

Asked about reputation, Lehrman immediately noted the business school's rankings and said she hopes to improve them.

"We want to continue to serve a growing regional population, but we want to have a national footprint as well," she said.