Designing the building became an exciting game. The original concept called for the edifice with classrooms one floor down; the main floor of offices, auditorium and drawing room; a library floor and an office floor. R.B. Stewart, however, demurred on the basis it was much too small a building to place on such a valuable piece of land. He suggested that we consider the possibility of adding three floors of dormitory facilities to the building, which would be supported by 2 percent mortgage money from the federal government. He had used this approach successfully in another building at Purdue and as he said one day with a twinkle in his eye, “Who knows where the last brick stops!” The dormitory rooms would be so designed that they could be easily converted at a later date into offices.

Unfortunately, it turned out that along with this concept he also had planned that the dormitory be reserved for graduate women. This caused some concern among the faculty as they talked of separate entrances and police dogs guarding the doors. You must remember that this all took place in 1961.

Another source of funding was discovered when we learned that the National Science Foundation was making grants to underwrite the construction of social science research facilities. We long had the idea that we would like to have a behavioral laboratory in our building and this seemed like a real opportunity.

Accordingly, we prepared a proposal to NSF asking for a million dollars to support various research areas. Meanwhile, the Krannerts had reviewed the sketches of the building and were quite pleased with, for example, the circular staircase in the large drawing room, but were not at all happy with the fact that it was going to be built with red brick. They felt that it wasn’t distinctive enough, that all the other buildings on campus were built with red brick and they wanted the Krannert Building to stand out. It was no accident that it was finally constructed of Indiana limestone.

Meanwhile, the University was fortunate enough to receive a bequest from the Eli Lilly Estate that provided several million dollars of unrestricted funds. It was decided that some of these funds be used in lieu of the dormitory concept. Eventually, the combination of the Lilly money and the NSF grant allowed us to substitute a research floor and two additional floors of offices in lieu of the dormitory floors.

During the planning phase, the University director of libraries, John Moriarty, evidenced much interest in the business library to be included in the new building and had already selected our librarian, Professor John Houkes. I met John and was much impressed by him. He had not only a tremendous knowledge but also an enthusiasm that was hard to match. I told him that I would provide him with travel funds to visit the leading business schools to analyze their libraries and then give us his recommendation as to how well our current plans would fit our future needs. After his trip, he reported that we were underestimating our needs by about 50 percent. So we made plans to increase the library from one to two floors.

Meanwhile, the proposal to NSF moved along nicely and eventually we received about one-half million dollars to support research facilities.

As the plans for the building took shape, it became clear that we were going to have the outstanding behavioral science lab in the country. Much of the credit must go to Bill Starbuck, who had joined us a year or two before the administrative sciences department was approved. Starbuck put untold hours into designing the laboratory. In fact, the lab’s electronic systems are all one of a kind and were Bill’s creation.

Selling discussion-type classrooms to the University administration took a little doing since they required twice as much space per student as a standard armchair classroom. In general, the final design was a modification of the Harvard Business School classroom and about half the size.

Some errors were made. We had planned for a large coatroom on the first floor to serve the auditorium, but just before we finished the building we discovered that we had forgotten to provide kitchen facilities for refreshment service in the dining room. So, we took half the coatroom for that purpose. Then, later on, we found we had no secretarial space adjacent to Mr. Krannert’s office. Again, the coatroom came to our rescue, which is why we need portable coat racks in the hall when the auditorium is used in inclement weather.

But these were all relatively small kinds of problems. A more serious one was that the blackboards vibrated when the professors wrote on them because of their long, narrow design. Eventually, we found a way to reinforce the back so they were somewhat less prone to dancing about and snapping off the chalk in the professors’ hands.

The new building also precipitated a crisis in the undergraduate effort. As we prepared to make the move, the academic vice president called to discuss the increasing number of complaints from students in industrial economics, who had been registered in the School of Humanities, Social Science and Education but were really taking a major in our school. Essentially, the students complained that they had no “home.” The end result was that the academic vice president said either we had to accept responsibility for these students or we had to do away with the program. Of course, our resources would be cut accordingly if we lost the students. Given those alternatives, we went ahead and listed the industrial economics students as four-year majors in our school.

With that action, the BSIM students who until then had taken their first two years in humanities demanded that they be brought over to the new Krannert Building for all four years. It did seem only fair that they be treated in a similar manner to the BS students and we agreed to that change.

Our earlier planning for the building had not included counseling and advising this large a number of students. Fortunately, we had space not yet assigned in the basement area that we could and did convert to the undergraduate student lounge and counseling area.

All in all, the building ended up about twice as large as originally planned and cost about $4 million dollars, not including the land. The original date for our move from the Stanley Coulter Annex to the new building was the fall of 1964. Because of a strike of the stonemasons and some material problems, we actually moved in during spring break of 1965.

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