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If you visited campus this summer, you probably saw steel girders going up in place of the Dalton L. McMichael Sr. Science Center parking lot. That’s because the area between the science center and Richard W. Sankey Hall on North O’Kelly Avenue is now the site of two buildings that will anchor the new Innovation Quad.

Known as the IQ, this state-of-the-art complex will harness learning, creativity, research, discovery and design to fuel the big ideas needed to answer the challenges humanity faces today. Founders Hall, the two-story, 20,000-square-foot building that will house workshops, labs and student engagement spaces, was named in recognition of an Elon LEADS Campaign commitment by Furman ’56 and Susan Moseley. The second building under construction, IQ 2, is a three-story, 40,000-square-foot space that will include labs and faculty offices.

“We want to foster student growth through an understanding of engineering practices and applications.” — Gabie Smith, dean of Elon College, the College of Arts and Sciences

The complex will physically connect Elon’s STEM programs with the Martha & Spencer Love School of Business. It will create a bridge for multiple fields of study, drawing students from all parts of campus into a dynamic cross-disciplinary learning and research atmosphere. “We want to foster student growth through an understanding of engineering practices and applications,” says Gabie Smith, dean of Elon College, the College of Arts and Sciences. “These opportunities will not be limited to majors in engineering; rather facilities and programming will welcome all students and deepen transformative learning across campus.”

The IQ will be the home of Elon’s engineering program as well as its Department of Physics. The first two buildings of the IQ are just the beginning of a visionary plan that advances not only the convergence of engineering and science but also entrepreneurship, sales, design thinking and analytics.