EE/CSci Building to be renamed Keller Hall on July 1, 2010

The University of Minnesota Board of Regents has approved naming the Electrical Engineering/Computer Science Building on the University's Twin Cities campus in honor of former University president and chemical engineering and materials science professor Kenneth H. Keller. The building was completed during Keller's presidency and is located next to his departmental home of Amundson Hall.

The naming will be effective July 1, 2010, and the formal dedication ceremony to name the building in honor of Keller will take place in the fall.

"We have a long and proud tradition at the University of Minnesota of honoring our past presidents by naming a building after them," said Board of Regents Chair Clyde Allen. "Making the Electrical Engineering/Computer Science building into 'Kenneth H. Keller Hall' in honor of our 12th president was a natural choice. It's close to his academic home and also reflects one of President Emeritus Keller's lasting legacies for our University."

Kenneth H. Keller joined the University of Minnesota chemical engineering faculty in 1964. He subsequently became chair of the Faculty Consultative Committee, acting dean of the Graduate School, and vice president for academic affairs. In 1984, Keller was chosen to be acting president, and in 1985 was named University of Minnesota president, serving the University in that role until 1988. After two years at Princeton University and seven years as a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, Keller returned to the University of Minnesota in 1996 as the Charles M. Denny, Jr. Professor of Science, Technology, and Public Policy in the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs. Keller was designated President Emeritus by the Board of Regents in 2006 and is currently director of the Bologna Center of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, a multidisciplinary graduate program in international affairs enrolling students from 35 to 40 countries each year.

The University's Electrical Engineering/Computer Science Building, located at 200 Union St. SE, is one of the University's largest academic buildings at more than 336,000 square feet, and is home to the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, the Department of Computer Science and Engineering and the University's Nanofabrication Center, all within the University's College of Science and Engineering.

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