A GROUNDBREAKING CEREMONY for the Oechsle Center for Global Education was held April 6 on the building site along South College Drive south of Pardee Hall.
“I got into international business when I left Lafayette, and I knew more about the world than 99 percent of my competitors,” said Walter Oechsle ’57 (below left), retired managing general partner of Oechsle International Advisors, Boston. “Students from Lafayette will know more about the world as a result of this program and do better in the world because of it.”
Made possible by the support of Oechsle and his wife, the late Christa Huber Oechsle, the center will be a dynamic, collaborative learning environment and a hub of interdisciplinary interaction. The three-story building will house the International Affairs program and the Department of Anthropology and Sociology and will be a key locus of activity for area studies programs, including Africana Studies. State-of-the-art instructional facilities will include a lecture hall with about 60 seats, two 40-seat classrooms, a conference room, and other teaching and learning spaces with the flexibility to be used in various ways by faculty and students. The cost of the project will be about $10 million; construction is expected to begin by fall 2013 with an approximate 18-month construction period.
“Connecting the classroom to the world outside our walls is at the core of the College’s mission,” said President Daniel H. Weiss. “These initiatives reflect our commitment to meet the needs of our students and graduates in a complex, rapidly changing world.”
A history graduate, Oechsle earned an MBA in fi nance from New York University. He served as a Lafayette trustee from 1995 to 2004 and was elected an emeritus trustee in 2012.
A major contribution from the Oechsles enabled the College to transform the former Alumni Memorial Gymnasium into state-of-the-art facilities for psychology and neuroscience. They also endowed a scholarship fund for international students. Sustaining members of the Marquis Society, they were inducted into the Société d’Honneur in 1997.