More than just a building

“At Pamplin, we are very interested in explaining how business can be a force for good around the world,” explained Dean Robert Sumichrast. “Business can generate tremendous wealth and really help people become much more prosperous for the long term. It also provides critical solutions to improve the human condition, which is one of Pamplin’s pillars in our strategic plan.”

The Global Business and Analytics Complex, known as GBAC, will provide the best business school experience for undergraduate and graduate students located in Blacksburg. Virginia Tech will be a leader in business education in the next decade by preparing students to be technologically proficient, to work collaboratively on multidisciplinary teams, and to adopt an entrepreneurial mindset to solve complex challenges in business and society.

GBAC is a named top presidential priority in the Boundless Impact Campaign. The ability to collect, assess, and use data to predict results has altered business and society. No part of life is exempt, including higher education, which is often slow to adapt. Not so at Virginia Tech, where we are ranked among the most innovative universities in the recent 2021 US News & World Report.

Because data literacy is now required in the working world, the university is changing how it conducts research and teaches by integrating data analysis into every discipline. The campus is also changing, literally, with the addition of GBAC; it will bring together students, faculty, and industry partners to learn, work, and even live in an environment that fosters data literacy and places it in its international context.

GBAC’s four buildings will include an analytics classroom building, two living-learning residential communities, and a new main building for the Pamplin College of Business. Both academic buildings will be around 100,000 square feet. The complex will be a hub for new initiatives and ideas and will be transformational for how Pamplin prepares new business leaders. The Board of Visitors reviewed the updated plans during their August 23-25 meeting and construction is now expected to begin in late fall. Construction is expected to be completed in 2022 for the first of the two academic buildings.

However, the Global Business and Analytics Complex is much more than just a building. GBAC will be an inflection point for Pamplin’s future. Pamplin has a new strategic plan that positions the college to leap into being one of the top business colleges in the country and an economic talent pipeline driver for the commonwealth.

For more information on the Global Business and Analytics Complex, Pamplin’s strategic plan, and to learn more about how to support this top priority, please visit https://pamplin.vt.edu/gbac.html. 

Global Business and Analytics Complex

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