The new Learned Engineering Expansion Project Phase 2 building, 1536 W. 15th St., will open to its first classes this fall. The 5 million, 110,100-square-foot facility features collaborative study spaces and “active-learning” classrooms to foster teamwork.

Kansas University’s new engineering building — Learned Engineering Expansion Project Phase 2, or LEEP2 for short — will be formally dedicated Friday afternoon. Thanks no doubt will include the big donors who now have spaces in the building named for them.

I toured and wrote about the newly completed LEEP2 this summer, just before it opened for classes (here’s that story, plus another I did on “active-learning” classrooms). Primary funding for the building came from legislative appropriations through the state’s University Engineering Initiative Act, but various spaces and enhancements were enabled by donors. KU shared the names of those spaces Wednesday, and I got the dollar amounts of their donations from Rosita Elizalde-McCoy, senior vice president of communications and marketing for KU Endowment. Here they are:

• McClendon Atrium: Enabled by a gift from Brian and Beth Ellyn McClendon. Brian McClendon, a 1986 KU electrical engineering graduate, is a co-creator of Google Earth, 2015 inductee to the National Academy of Engineering and current vice president of advanced technologies at Uber.

Elizalde-McCoy said the McClendons requested KU Endowment not disclose the amount of the “generous gift.”

• ExxonMobil Student Success Suite: Named in recognition of the ExxonMobil Foundation and ExxonMobil employees and retirees. The suite is home to academic services, recruitment and retention operations, and offices for minority programs and women’s programs.

“ExxonMobil Foundation, as well as employees and retirees who are KU alumni, have donated a total of $1.9 million for the Far Above campaign,” Elizalde-McCoy said. “In recognition of their generosity, the university is naming the Student Success Suite in their name.”

• Burns & McDonnell Student Lounge: Enabled by the employee-owners of Burns & McDonnell, who gave $500,000.

• Textron Aviation Aerospace Engineering Design Laboratory: Enabled by Textron Aviation, which contributed $250,000.

• Koch Unit Operations Laboratory: Enabled by 1969 chemical engineering Kyle Vann, retired CEO of Entergy-Koch and Koch-Glitsch. Vann donated $100,000, and Koch-Glitsch made an in-kind gift for equipment.

Collaboration, “active-learning” and student support are key priorities in the design of LEEP2, which is now the centerpiece and front door for KU’s whole engineering complex. “It provides the setting for students to apply what they learn, push the boundaries, hone their teamwork and communication skills, build their technical expertise, and connect with internships and job opportunities,” engineering dean Michael Branicky said in Wednesday’s press release.

Friday’s dedication is planned for 4 p.m. on the lawn of the complex, 1536 W. 15th St. Speakers are to include KU Chancellor Bernadette Gray-Little, David Murfin from the Kansas Board of Regents and Greg Graves, CEO and president of Burns & McDonnell.

photo by: Richard Gwin

The new Learned Engineering Expansion Project Phase 2 building, 1536 W. 15th St., will open to its first classes this fall. The 5 million, 110,100-square-foot facility features collaborative study spaces and “active-learning” classrooms to foster teamwork.

photo by: Nick Krug

Kansas University sophomores from Wichita, Timothy Spencer Kaba, left, and Tyler Van turn to read notes projected onto one of over a dozen large flatscreen monitors hanging on the wall of an engineering lecture room in the new engineering building, Wednesday, Aug. 26, 2015. The class, Material and Energy Balances, taught by chemical and petroleum engineering professor, Susan Williams, is an example of a flipped