Denison University
Denison dedicated the Burton D. Morgan Center in the fall of 2003. In 2004, the American Institute of Architects presented Graham Gund Architects with an Honor Award for Excellence in Architectural Design for the Morgan Center. The building program for the Burton D. Morgan Center juxtaposed university functions that would bring liberal arts students into close contact with alumni. Initially, the Center housed organizational studies, development, career counseling, and the alumni office. During the intervening years, program funding from The Burton D. Morgan Foundation has added the Burton D. Morgan Liberal Arts and Entrepreneurship Education Program Office and the Venture Fund.
Denison wrote in its original proposal that “No planning and construction project at Denison since the initial phases of the Olmstead plan early in the last century has had the capacity to remake our college and so profoundly affect the educational experience we offer than the proposed Burton D. Morgan Center.”
Denison President Dale Knobel wrote, “The stunning structure would become the physical expression of architect Graham Gund’s later observation that ‘anything is possible’ in this building. Denison’s Burton D. Morgan Center is emblematic of that fundamental sense of life’s opportunities, catalyzed by connections among people and ideas. In this way the building is for us the spirit of entrepreneurship writ large in landmark architecture. President Knobel went on to say, “Without a doubt, the building is strikingly beautiful and indisputably functional. But more than that, the Burton D. Morgan Center ignites that all-too-rare chemistry, seen also in entrepreneurship itself that is catalyzed when people mix with ideas, imagination, and each other.”