By Stephanie Reyes, Staff Writer
The Paul L. Foster Campus for Business and Innovation is nearing its completion, just in time for the fall semester.
Today the new business school will welcome more than 3,300 undergraduate and graduate students in addition to 200 staff and faculty members.
In addition, the school will measure 275,000 square feet, which expands the current size of the Hankamer School of Business by 40 percent.
Among the students taking classes in the new school will be Harker Heights senior Carina Yebra, a public administration major.
“I’m just excited because it’s a new building and hopefully it will be better because most of our classes were so filled up that we all had to squeeze in them,” Yebra said.
El Paso businessman Paul L. Foster, B.B.A. ’79, provided a $35 million gift to support the Baylor’s $100 million campaign to build the new structure.
More than 530 other donors contributed to the new building as well.
According to the Foster Campus fact sheet, the campus is designed to accommodate innovation, flexibility and interaction. Features of the building include 41 classrooms, 36 team rooms and seminar spaces for students and faculty.
In addition, it hosts a 10,000 square-foot atrium with a café, which will provide an area for students to collaborate and socialize.
Yebra is excited for the new spaces and features the new building will provide for all business students.
Yebra, who switched over from being medical humanities and pre-med major hopes the future is bright for the new business school.
“I hope it expands the business school.[There are] a lot of great programs that a lot of people are nervous to do because they don’t know much about business,” Yebra said.
She said she believes the school will provide not only ample study space, but collaboration, innovation and working with collegueages with thrive there as well.
“I hope more people will give the business school a chance and they’ll be more interested being in the business school because it is a new building and it is way cooler than any other building,” Yebra said.
