WMU breaks ground on expansion to Lee Honors College

A new 4,000-square-foot addition to the Lee Honors College on the Western Michigan University campus will be going up in July to accommodate growing enrollment.

The building, now 8,400 square feet, will grow with the construction of a library, two classrooms inside the building and an outdoor class meeting area with amphitheater seating. Two existing classrooms and a lounge will be remodeled. Technology throughout the building will be upgraded.

The $1.7 million project is being privately funded by Carl and Winifred Lee. The Lees also donated $500,000 of the initial $1.3 million needed to building the honors college 21 years ago. The building is named for them. Carl E. Lee was president, general manager and owner of Fetzer Broadcasting Service of Kalamazoo.

The honors college expects to enroll 1,400 this fall, up from 1,000 in 2008.

To be accepted into the honors college as freshmen, high schools students must have an ACT composite score of at lest 26 and an GPA of 3.6. High-performing WMU students who were not initially enrolled in the honors college and top transfer students also may be accepted into the honors college.

"Last year, we had our largest ever enrollment in the college and we are on target this year to surpass that number for this fall," says Lee Honors College Dean Nicholas Andreadis. "In the past three years, the college's enrollment has grown by 40 percent."

Writer: Kathy Jennings
Source: Cheryl Roland, WMU