Monday, October 24, 2005
News 3A Students honor
Gandhi with day of
community service
Opinion 4A
Elliott Mallen on the
AAPD in action
elri iyun a?
0One-hundredfeen years of editorialdfreedom
Arts 5A Clooney finds 'Good
Luck' with latest film
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www.michigandaiy.com
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Vol. CXVI, No. 16
@2005 The Michigan Daily
Brand-new B-school
building OK'd
Design izn
0 sync with
B-school
phiosophy
AUSTIN
DINGWALL
hink of the University's top-
ranked Business School and
its prestige.
Fifty years ago, it would be easy
to design a Business School building,
solid and distinguished.
Imagine an iconic building that
lets the world know that its key func-
tion is the cultivation of business
minds. Singular, central and perma-
nent, the architecture would reflect
the fashions of business hierarchy
and elitism. But alas, it is now 50
years later, and the plan for the new
Ross School of Business building
was not born out of these ideals. In
fact, the design put together by New
York's Kohn Pederson Fox Associ-
ates and approved by the University
Board of Regents last Friday is a
symbol of the changing nature of
business, keeping the Ross School
of Business on the cutting edge of
its field.
Think e-Trade and e-Bay. Think
international corporations. The
world of business is fast becoming
a digital phenomenon of nonplace
transactions and relationships that
supersede ancient territorial borders.
Hierarchies have given way to net-
works, and interaction has proven
more successful than dictation. In
many ways, a building housing busi-
ness cannot simply embody stabil-
ity anymore because it would be
I misrepresenting the emerging state
See DINGWALL, Page 2A
Project aims
to revamp
classrooms
By Anne VanderMey
Daily Staff Reporter
The University Board of Regents approved a
plan for the construction of a new Business School
building on the corner of Tappan and Monroe
streets on Friday. The 270,000 square foot building
will replace three other Business School buildings;
Assembly Hall, the William A. Paton Account-
ing Center and William Davidson Hall, which are
scheduled for demolition in May.
The project is expected to cost $145 million; $75
million will come from last year's $100 million
donation from alum Stephen Ross. The new building
will house faculty offices, conference rooms, a large
indoor commons, 12 new high-tech classrooms and
several smaller meeting rooms.
Business School Dean Robert Dolan said the
new classrooms and group meeting rooms will
facilitate a community learning environment
that will elevate the University's business school
above other business schools nationwide. He said
the current facilities do not accommodate classes
that emphasize participation. He explained that
the new auditorium-style, U-shaped rooms would
allow the students to see both professor and one
another more clearly.
"(The classrooms we have now are) long and
narrow - which is great for the kind of learning
that took place 25 years ago," Dolan said.
Dolan added that new group study rooms will
likely be equipped with video conferencing and
multimedia access for laptops to allow students to
hold meetings with businesses across the world.
Currently the school has 13 rooms that students
can sign out for group study.
Some Business School students and faculty have
questioned whether the new building is really neces-
sary. One Business School professor, who requested
to remain anonymous because of the nature of his
See B-SCHOOL, Page 3A
UtENE UBE RTN/D aily
ABOVE: An illustration of the recently approved new building of the University's Business School. BELOW: The site of the new building. It
will replace William Davidson Hll, w lch is pictured, along with the Business School's Assembly Hall and the William A. Paton Accounting
Center.
Son tries to save accounting center named after father
By Karl Stampfl
Daily StaffReporter
Since hearing last spring that the Business School's
Paton Accounting Center might be demolished, Wil-
liam Paton, son of the building's namesake, has done
everything in his power to prevent the University from
destroying the building that bears his father's name.
Paton sent letters to University President Mary Sue
Coleman as well as to members of the University Board
of Regents and talked with Business School Dean Rob-
ert Dolan about his concern that his father's long legacy
as an esteemed accounting professor at the University
was being ignored. He has even considered legal action
against the regents, who he believes may have over-
stepped the bounds of the law when they decided to
destroy the building and strip his father's name from it.
But his efforts were to no avail.
On Friday, the regents approved plans for a $145 mil-
lion renovation of the Business School campus, includ-
ing the teardown of the Paton Accounting Center and
two other buildings. The new buildings have not yet
been named.
"I feel stymied in this thing," he said when reached
by phone yesterday at his Texas home. "I would block it
if I could, but I guess I don't have any clout."
The building was built in 1976 and dedicated to Prof.
William Paton on June 11 of the same year after a group
of his former students made donations to construct the
building in honor of him. The elder Paton, who died at
the age of 101 in 1991, began teaching at the University
in 1917 as a part-time instructor and retired with the
title "professor emeritus of accounting and economics"
in 1958.
The younger Paton, also a Business School alum,
estimated that his father taught about 20,000 students at
the University over the course of his career.
Unfortunately, he said, those students won't be able
to protest on his father's behalf.
See PATON, Page 7A
MARCHING IN THE HILL
JUSTIN BASS/Daily
The University's
Marching Band
performs pieces
h:such as "Piano
_Man" and
"American Pie,"
along with "The
Victors," "Let's
Go Blue" and
"Temptation"
at BAN D-O-
' RAMA, where
the University's
Symphony Band
performed the
world premiere
of "Sanctuary,"
a piece by Frank
w j a Tichell in honor
of band director
emeritus H. Rob-
ert Reynolds, at
Hill Auditorium
on Saturday.
Teach-in strives to
combat negative
campus climate
Student groups gather to
voice frustration with lack
of community support
By Laura Frank
Daily Staff Reporter
The University environment is not sup-
portive of minority students, said organiz-
ers of a teach-in Friday.
PISSED OFF, People in Support and Y
Solidarity Educating and Discussing
Organizing for Fairness, brought together
a wide range of multicultural and activist
student groups to discuss campus attitudes
toward minorities and ways for the Univer-
sity community to create a more welcom-
ing environment for all students.
An incident last month in which two
Asian students were allegedly urinated
on by two University students was not the
only impetus for the event - which was
sponsored by 15 campus groups represent-
ing a vast array of ethnic groups.
Workshop leaders said stereotypes of
various minority groups - which they
aid are nrevalent amon IUniversity stu-
Last month's alleged incident is just
one example of a wider problem of ethnic
discrimination and racial harassment on
campus, said Business senior Stephanie
Kao, co-chair of United Asian American
Organizations.
"It's an experience that almost every
minority has gone through in one form or
another," she added.
APIA Change, a coalition of Asian stu-
dents, faculty and staff, hopes to develop a
survey to document and provide quantita-
tive data about students' experiences with
hate crimes and ethnic discrimination on
campus, Kao said.
She added that ,while the University
understands that diversity is important,
the administration often treats diversity
as a recruitment tool and an educational
opportunity for "nondiverse" students and
does not provide enough funding for eth-
nic student groups to facilitate all of the
cultural and issue-oriented programming
their communities need. A single cultural
show can use up a group's entire allocation
from the University, she added
Minority student groups can apply
for funding from the Michigan Student
Navy alums set adrift on memory bliss
.r .1 . 11 1 t T
QvMkl . rh ri..r:u Wnrld W.ar 11 TI F'rm the cnime.r of 1941 tthe fJP rot that there was a V-12 unit there."said retired Rear