DEMPSTER HALL DEDICATION SEPT. 16

Southeast Missouri State University will dedicate its new business building at the corner of New Madrid and Henderson on Sept. 16.

Robert A. Dempster Hall, home of the Donald L. Harrison College of Business, will be dedicated at 1:15 p.m.

Missouri Gov. Mel Carnahan will deliver the keynote address at the dedication. A reception and tours of the building will be held after the ceremony. The public is invited and shuttle service will be provided from the Show Me Center.

"Robert A. Dempster Hall is truly a state-of-the-art structure," said Dr. Dale Nitzschke, Southeast's president. "Its importance lies as a symbol for the many students who will walk through its doors as they chart out their careers and their lives."

In addition to the governor, several other dignitaries will speak at the ceremony. They include Dr. Kala M. Stroup, Missouri commissioner of higher education and the university's 14th president; and Dr. Bill Stacy, president of California State University-San Marcos and the 12th president of Southeast.

Stacy will present a tribute to the late Robert A. Dempster, for whom the building is named. Dempster provided $1 million to boost funding for the building several years ago. Dempster's widow, Lynn, of Sikeston also will speak. She previously served on Southeast's Board of Regents.

On Aug. 26, Robert A. Dempster Hall opened for classes as finishing touches were still being applied to the building both inside and outside. The opening of the building culminated a decade of effort by faculty, staff, students and friends of the university.

The $15.8 million facility -- funded through private donations and revenue from a statewide bond issue approved by voters in August 1994 -- includes 11 general classrooms, eight computer labs/rooms, two general seminar rooms, two fully mediated business policy classrooms, a two-way interactive classroom for distance learning, and a 400-seat auditorium.

The three-story building has 400 personal computers. There are 47 miles of wiring in the structure for everything from telephones to television.

McDougall said the building provides students and faculty access to all of the university's computer resources through the campus fiber optic network, as well as access to all of the business resources available on the Internet. Every classroom and computer lab has voice, data and video connections to support more effective instruction and greater student learning, he said. The building also will house the Small Business Development Center and Small Business Institute.

The new facility brings together, under one roof, for the first time, the departments and faculty of the Harrison College of Business. Until the new building opened, they had been spread across campus in different buildings including on the lower and upper levels of Academic Hall and in a former apartment building on Pacific Street.

A groundbreaking ceremony for the building was held Nov. 29, 1994, and the first phase of work on the project began in May 1995. Construction management services for the project were provided by Sverdrup Corp. of St. Louis.