UT Dallas is unveiling the third building of its Naveen Jindal School of Management this fall, a more than 130,000-square-foot addition built to give undergraduate business students a dedicated home after years of packing into just two existing structures. The Charles and Nancy Davidson Building arrives as UT Dallas undergraduate enrollment has grown roughly 32 percent over the past decade, forcing the university to rethink how it houses a rapidly expanding student body.
According to Community Impact, the Jindal School previously offered its seven undergraduate degrees across two existing buildings, a setup that could no longer handle the student population. The new Davidson Building changes that by providing a home base for undergraduate programs, classrooms and dedicated spaces, including a large wing reserved specifically for undergraduate students. It also houses spaces for executive education, student organizations and the undergraduate honors program, along with six distance learning classrooms equipped for virtual lectures.
Jeremy Head, associate vice president for facilities management at UT Dallas, said additional academic, cultural and community spaces are needed because undergraduate enrollment has grown so significantly, per the same account. Head added that the university's building projects respond to changing student expectations, expanding research and academic programs, and a desire for a more connected campus environment. The Davidson Building itself reflects that philosophy with an indoor-outdoor design built around a central shaded courtyard.
An AI Lab and a Dean's 31-Year Legacy
Among the building's most notable additions is an artificial intelligence lab that will offer technology and space for students to study and work directly with AI tools. The Davidson Building marks the third building constructed for the business school during Dean Hasan Pirkul's 31-year tenure, a milestone that underscores how much the Jindal School has grown under his leadership. Pirkul said the school has obtained high national rankings and that UT Dallas has gained national visibility over time, per the report.
That visibility has translated into surging interest: the Jindal School has seen record numbers of applications in recent years alongside record numbers of freshman students. Pirkul's school also experienced a particularly large influx of international students after the COVID-19 pandemic, part of broader post-pandemic enrollment swings the school has navigated. With undergraduate programs consolidating into the new building, existing business school buildings will dedicate more space for master's students, freeing up room that had been stretched thin. The Jindal School also plans to make campus spaces available to neighbors, businesses, organizations and nonprofits going forward.
Student Success Center and Student Union Coming in January
The Davidson Building isn't the only major project nearing completion. UT Dallas plans to open a performance hall and a new Student Success Center-Student Union in spring 2027, with the Student Success Center-Student Union itself set to open as early as January 2027. The complex will provide significantly more space than the original student union, which was transformed into an esports center last year.
The new hub will include a basement games lounge, meeting rooms, cheer and dance studios, a large event space, and food options, alongside a food pantry that will be based in the facility. It will also serve as the new home for the Hobson Wildenthal Honors College. Dan Goodwin, senior associate vice president for student affairs at UT Dallas, said student experience is an important pillar of university success.
A 12-Acre Cultural District Takes Shape
Just as consequential for campus life is the Edith and Peter O'Donnell Jr. Athenaeum project, which aims to establish a 12-acre cultural district on the UT Dallas campus. A new 680-seat performance hall, described as phase two of the Athenaeum project, is nearing completion and will provide students greater access to arts and cultural experiences while serving both the university and the surrounding community. The Athenaeum's master plan was designed by Los Angeles-based architecture firm Morphosis and backed by a $32 million lead gift from the O'Donnell Foundation, according to Dezeen, arranging three major cultural buildings around a two-acre central plaza with gardens and an amphitheater. Phase I of the project already opened in September 2024, doubling exhibition space for the Trammell and Margaret Crow Museum of Asian Art inside a new 58,000-square-foot facility, per UT Dallas News Center.
Part of an $800 Million Campus Overhaul
All of this construction sits inside a much larger financial picture. As of 2024, UT Dallas had roughly $800 million dedicated to ongoing and planned capital construction, with about 70 percent of the physical campus built or renovated over a 14-year span, according to The UTD Mercury. University leadership has tied the expansion to rapid economic and population growth across North Texas. The Student Success Center-Student Union alone represents the largest single building project in UT Dallas history, spanning nearly 360,000 gross square feet with an estimated total project cost of $292.5 million, ground broke on the site in August 2024 after crews excavated 72,000 cubic yards of dirt and rock from the former home of the Green Center, the Mercury reported.
The Naveen Jindal School of Management itself carries a notable history tied to its donors. UT Dallas officially renamed the business school in October 2011 following a record $30 million joint gift from Indian industrialist Naveen Jindal and alumni couple Charles and Nancy Davidson, whose names now grace the new building. Jindal earned his MBA at UT Dallas in 1992 and served as student government president during his studies, per UT Dallas News Center. The Jindal School's full-time MBA program has since climbed to No. 12 nationally among public universities and 32nd overall in Bloomberg Businessweek's 2025-2026 rankings, while its online MBA program was ranked No. 1 nationally by Poets & Quants, according to the Naveen Jindal School of Management, which now serves nearly 10,000 students across undergraduate and graduate degree tracks.
Growth Amid Bigger Institutional Shifts
UT Dallas reported total enrollment of 30,139 students for fall 2025, with undergraduates making up 76 percent of the student body and full-time students accounting for 83 percent, per the UT Dallas Office of Institutional Success and Decision Support. The university has added more than 5,300 students over the past decade, growth driven entirely by undergraduates while graduate headcount slightly declined. International enrollment has moved in the opposite direction more recently, falling from 5,603 students in fall 2024 to 4,298 in fall 2025, even as those students generated more than $127 million in tuition and mandatory fees across the two terms combined, as previously reported by Hoodline.
The physical build-out is also unfolding against a shifting governance landscape. UT Dallas dissolved its Academic Senate effective September 1, 2025, complying with Texas Senate Bill 37, which eliminated faculty senates across University of Texas System institutions lacking an explicit exemption from the Board of Regents, according to The Retrograde News. That structural change coincided with the arrival of new university president Prabhas Moghe and UT Dallas's transition to NCAA Division II athletics, adding another layer of transformation to a campus already remaking itself building by building.
