The newly renovated and expanded Fay-Cooper Cole Hall transforms a 1960s-era building, located at the heart of campus, into a collaborative-learning environment that university officials believe will be looked to as a national model. The new Fay-Cooper Cole Hall features a state-of-the-art lecture hall, a new home for the NIU Anthropology Museum and a computer laboratory designed to cultivate collaborative problem solving skills. What had been one of the University's most outdated facilities is now among its most advanced.

To help erase the memory of the shootings that occurred here, the University wanted to transform the place where they occurred. The new design does this, while updating the building for the 21st Century.

Both visually and technologically impressive, the new Fay-Cooper Cole Hall provides students with an environment designed in every aspect to maximize educational experience. The facility's rebirth also carries a symbolic meaning for the NIU community. University Provost Raymond Alden called the newly renovated building "a symbol of our vision for the future and a campus crown jewel."