Skip to main content
Add as a preferred source on Google

FAU Breaks Ground on Holocaust and Jewish Studies Building

  • By Matt Jones
  • 11/09/23

Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, Fla., recently broke ground on a new facility for the College of Arts and Letters, according to local news. Construction on the Kurt and Marilyn Wallach Holocaust and Jewish Studies Building will begin in early 2024 and is scheduled for completion in February 2025. The building was included as a university priority in the 2021 Boca Raton Campus Master Plan.

The university partnered with Synalovski Romanik Saye, LLC, for the building’s design and Gilbane Building Company for construction. The building will stand two stories and cover about 23,557 square feet. The building will have a capacity of about 380 stations, including academic and administrative areas. It will feature basic academic amenities like a 150-seat lecture hall, classrooms, conference room, computer lab, recording studio, and faculty offices, according to Michael Horswell, Dean of the College of Arts and Letters.

 It will also feature “a Holocaust and human rights professional development training room, a traveling exhibition room, a student multimedia studio and a student study room. The lobby will also have a digital Wall of Recognition and Remembrance meant to ‘acknowledge the support of benefactors and to educate against hate, antisemitism and indifference,’ said Horswell,” according to FAU student publication University Press.

The building will play home to classes in subjects like human rights, justice, peace, Holocaust education, women’s studies, and more. The university website reports that it will also serve as a hub for human rights education and leadership training.

“Liberal arts education helps you to answer difficult questions,” said Alan Berger, Raddock Family eminent Scholar Chair of Holocaust Studies and Judaic Studies professor. “Jewish studies gives us more insight into the human. [The goal is for] the world of the future to be better than the world of the past.”

About the Author

Matt Jones is senior editor of Spaces4Learning. He can be reached at [email protected].

Featured

  • Montclair State University Starts Construction on $120M STEM Building

    Montclair State University in Montclair, N.J., recently broke ground on a new $120-million Interdisciplinary Science Building, according to university news. The university partnered with HoK Architects for the project’s design, and it’s scheduled to open in time for the 2028–29 academic year.

  • Dallas-Area District Debuts Three New Facilities

    The Duncanville Independent School District in southwest Dallas, Texas, recently held ribbon-cutting ceremonies for three new facilities that resulted from a $170-million bond program passed in 2023, according to a news release.

  • Johns Hopkins Starts Construction on New Residence Hall, Dining Facility

    The Homewood Campus of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Md., recently began construction on a new residence hall and dining facility, according to university news. The work involves demolishing the existing Alumni Memorial Residence Hall I, which was built in 1923, to make room for the new facility.

  • ZeroEyes, Academic Innovators Partner to Provide Safety Solutions

    ZeroEyes, which produces a multi-analytics weapons detection and threat intelligence platform, recently announced a partnership with Academic Innovators, according to a news release.