UT Dallas cuts ribbon on first phase of its 'Athenaeum'

DALLAS (1080 KRLD)- The University of Texas at Dallas is celebrating the completion of a 57,000-square-foot building that represents the first phase of work on a 12-acre project known as the "Athenaeum."

"In ancient Greece, an athenaeum, I get asked this all the time, so I asked somebody to look it up, an athenaeum was a place dedicated to Athena, the goddess of knowledge," says James Milliken, chancellor of the UT system. "It was where orators, philosophers, poets would gather to share and discuss their ideas and their knowledge."

Milliken says he has been talking with UT Dallas President Richard Benson about ways they could integrate science, technology and engineering with the arts community.

"The athenaeum is a place where creative minds come together to share, to create new ideas, art and beauty," he says.

The first phase of the project is 57,000 square feet with exhibition space creating a second location for the Crow Museum of Asian Art.

"This collection was always a gift to the future, a future that is fluent in intercultural and interreligious understanding and communication," says Crow Museum of Art Senior Director Amy Lewis Hofland.

While UT Dallas cut the ribbon on the first phase Tuesday, the school also held a groundbreaking for the second phase, a performance hall and music building.

"There are some very fine STEM-focused schools in the country, and UT Dallas is certainly is one of them," says UT Dallas President Richard Benson. "Today, we make good on a pledge I made in my 2016 inauguration to put the 'A' for the arts into STEM to form, 'STEAM.'"

The Harry W. Bass Jr. School of Arts, Humanities and Technology is scheduled to open in the fall of 2026. Benson credits donations, including $32 million from the O'Donnell Foundation, with helping the project move forward.

"Centuries ago, the Italian polymath Leonardo da Vinci offered advice on how to develop what he called a complete mind. He said, 'Study the science of art. Study the art of science. Learn how to see. Realize everything connects to everything else,'" Benson says. "I'd like to think the great Leonardo would look very favorably upon modern-day UT Dallas."

"I got goosebumps as soon as I got off the elevator and looked around," says Richardson Mayor Bob Dubey. "It was kind of like Friday night lights. It was lights, and it was special. The energy was jumping off the page."

Dubey says UT Dallas has become an economic engine for Richardson.

"UT Dallas continues to break enrollment records. It continues to attract economic development from clean, high paying industries," he says.

A third phase of the athenaeum would include a museum and parking garage.

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