Celebrating the start of the Freeman School expansion and renovation project were, left to right, Darryl Berger, E. Pierce Marshall Jr., Tulane President Mike Fitts, Bill Goldring, Freeman School Dean Ira Solomon and Jerry Greenbaum.
Work on the historic expansion and renovation of Tulane University’s A. B. Freeman School of Business continues at a
feverish pace as the building — to be called the Goldring/Woldenberg Business Complex — draws closer to its January 2018 opening.
The start of the project was formally recognized in September 2016 with a ceremonial groundbreaking in Goldring/Woldenberg Hall II. Joining Freeman School Dean Ira Solomon in celebrating 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 six years, the Freeman School has experienced surging enrollments at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. Nearly one out of every three undergraduate students at Tulane University is currently enrolled in the business 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, will add 85,000 square feet of new and renovated space to the school.
“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, 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, the 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 be a part of the new structure.
Other leadership donors to the project as of July 2017 include Meredith (NC ’93) and Jonathan (A&S ’92, MBA ’93) Angrist, Sean (MBA ’98) and Karen Aron, Stacey (A&S ’76, MBA ’78) and Evie Berger, Kim (BSM ’96) and Geoff (BSM ’94) Block, Russell (A&S ’72), Barbara and Diana (BSM ’14) Brown, the P. and C. Carroll Foundation, Philip (G ’61) and Charlene (NC ’59) Carroll, James Sr. (MBA ’74) and Melinda Carter, Loree and John Eckstein (Parents B ’17), Mark (BSM ’92) and Margo Fogelman, Francis L. Fraenkel (BBA ’54), Freeman Graduate Business Council, Benjamin (A&S ’80, MBA ’81) and Teresa Joel, Lake Lawn Metairie Funeral Home and Cemetery, Fran and Alan Levin (Parents B ’19), Andy (BSM ’83) and Nancy Mills, Susan (BSM ’88) and David (BSM ’87) Moore, Mark E. Nicol (MBA ’79), Frances (BSM ’89) and Alan (BSM ’89) Offenberg, Maria (BSM ’93) and Darren (BSM ’92) Olagues, David E. Rainbolt (MBA ’80), John (BSM ’92) and Leigh Anne Raymond, Debbie (NC ’76, MBA ’77) and Rick (A&S ’75, MBA ’75) Rees, George (MBA ’65) and Fay Rizzo, Daryl and Irwin Simon (Parents B ’17), Patricia Stern (MBA ’82) and Scott Satterwhite (MBA ’81), Ira (BSM ’87) and Shelley Taub, Wayne J. D. Teetsel (A&S ’87, MBA ’90), Tulane Association of Business Alumni, and Giffen (BSM ’82) and CiCi Weinmann.
