In the spring of 1999, a proud NIU alumnus visited the College of Business and was delighted to see that the high quality faculty and programs he remembered continued to be a major source of university pride.
But Dennis Barsema, then 47 and a successful tech company executive, was less impressed with the facilities. On a tour of Wirtz Hall, he spied a bucket catching drips in a hallway. Barsema later said that he had always dreamed of doing something big for his alma mater, and in that moment he knew how he could make a difference.
In the fall of 2000, Barsema and his wife, Stacey, announced a gift of $20 million to the university to build a new home for the College of Business. In addition, they gave $500,000 to establish the Dennis and Stacey Barsema Endowed Scholarship in Business and $225,000 to fund the Business Information Technology Transfer Center (BITTC).
The Barsemas’ generosity was born of gratitude.
Dennis Barsema, a community college transfer student who admitted he struggled to get B’s in his management classes, found the inspiration and support he needed at NIU to succeed in the world of business and tame a lifelong battle with stuttering. The Naperville-area native first sold calculators door-to-door and worked his way up through the telecom industry ranks to lead one of the largest initial public offerings of stock in Wall Street history.
When Barsema Hall opened in 2002, it was unlike any other building on campus. Technology-infused and utterly modern in its design, the facility continues to set the standard for business schools nationwide.
The three-story, 130,000-square-foot structure was anchored by a soaring three-story atrium with a central café, coffee bar, tables and booths where students could meet, study and relax. Communal space was also found throughout the building in spaces both large and small, encouraging the team projects that became a hallmark of NIU’s College of Business experience.
With 22 classrooms, four computer labs with 140 workstations and a 350-seat auditorium, Barsema Hall was wired with 650 Internet connections (in contrast to COB’s former home, Wirtz Hall, which at the time had zero connections for laptop users).
“This building is a concrete example of my commitment to the goal of helping the Chicago area become the next great technology center in the United States,” Dennis Barsema told a crowd at the building’s grand opening.
“If you look at Silicon Valley, or Boston, or Austin, education was the foundation on which the technology boom was built in those towns. For that to happen here, we must refocus education on training people who will create or run high-tech companies,” he said.
While students and faculty reveled in the comfort and cutting-edge technology of their new home, then-Dean David Graf said the Barsemas’ real gift to NIU was that of pride.
“This building gives us a certain cachet that has always been missing,” Graf said. “When people see Barsema Hall, they know that the college is something special, otherwise we never would have been deserving of such a gift.”
“Higher education is something we both feel very strongly about, and I don’t have to be an NIU alumnus to know what a huge impact Northern had on Dennis,” Stacey said.
“He has a great passion for NIU, so when we began considering how to share our success, it was a natural that we turn here.
For their part, the gift that made Barsema Hall a reality was just the first step in a two-decade-long reconnection with NIU. Both Dennis and Stacey joined the NIU Foundation Board, and Dennis taught part-time in the building that bears his name. As of this writing, Dennis is also chair of the NIU Board of Trustees.
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