12.12.22

Woolsey Hall

New home of the W. Frank Barton School of Business is “blooming”

By Emily Mullins ’17/20

Wayne and Kay Woolsey Hall threw open its main doors to the public at its Sept. 30 grand opening. Larisa Genin, dean of the business school, was among those welcoming guests into the building. “This,” she says, gesturing to take in the whole of the $60-million, leading-edge facility, “is the beginning of a new and blooming journey.”

A month earlier, when classes began again at Wichita State, students stepped through the doors of Woolsey Hall for the first time. From freshman to grad students, they sat through lectures in brand new chairs and took notes at desks never before used, and their laughter echoed off the freshly painted walls of the soaring atrium. While these fall semester students will be the first to leave their marks on Woolsey Hall, the building carries a budding legacy, one that took root years ago.

Many Shocker alumni remember taking classes in Clinton Hall, the former home of the Barton School of Business. Opened in 1970 and originally called the Neff Hall Annex, it was the first building constructed at WSU after becoming an official state university in 1964. Clinton Hall served the needs of the business school for decades, but as time passed it became abundantly clear the facility wasn’t keeping pace. Conversations about constructing a building started more than 10 years ago.

It was the generous support of Wayne and Kay Woolsey that progressed those conversations to final blue-print planning, and it was the additional support of 215 other donors that carried the project across the finish line into bricks-and-mortar reality.

Designed with the intention and purpose of creating a welcoming, nurturing place for students, first and foremost, but also faculty, business community members, industry partners and campus visitors alike, Woolsey Hall features state-of-the art technologies, classrooms and meeting rooms where students have the space and the inspiration to learn, explore and grow into the professionals they aspire to be.

“All of the classrooms here are in this open layout, so when you come out you’re all in one main area together with other students,” says Jacob O’Connor, a Barton School senior who’s already leaving his entrepreneurial mark in the local business ecosystem. “You can bump into people and have spontaneous conversations. With so many places to hang out, it’s hard not to run into someone to make new friends and collaborate.”

That potential for spontaneous collaboration, for network building and idea generation — backed up by real-world, hands-on applied learning opportunities — is precisely the educational point that ties together the Barton School’s past with its future. It is what’s blooming at Woolsey Hall.

With its state-of-the-art technologies, classrooms and meeting rooms, Woolsey Hall provides the just-right environment for equipping students with the skills and tools to graduate and step into their chosen careers professionally prepared. In addition, Woolsey Hall is a powerful tool in fostering new industry partnerships. And with its location on the Innovation Campus, Woolsey is perfectly situated to nurture the research and collaboration needed to address the changing needs and challenges of today’s workforce — helping grow the overall prosperity of Kansas and beyond.