The new, high-tech campus building is the largest academic project in the history of the University of Mississippi.
Written by Leslie Criss | Photographed by Joe Worthem
Though it’s now open and filled with students, the University of Mississippi’s Duff Center took a while to advance from blueprints to what Oxford visitors can likely spot from two miles away. But Jerry Dwyer, professor and director of the Center for STEM Learning, would say the completed Duff Center was well worth the wait.
“The work was ongoing for several years,” said Dwyer, a native of Ireland who came to Ole Miss from Texas Tech in Lubbock. “The pandemic delayed progress for a while. Sometimes it felt like it was being built forever. But when it was completed, there was a big, excited scramble to get ready for the first day of class.”
Classes began for students in August 2024. The Duff Center, an abbreviated version of the building’s full name — the Jim & Thomas Duff Center for Science & Technology Innovation — is home to the Center for STEM Learning. STEM education is a teaching approach that integrates science, technology, engineering and mathematics to help students hone skills for problem solving. The building is named for Jim and Thomas Duff, brothers who own Duff Capital Investors and committed $26 million in 2020 for the construction of the $175 million facility.
The four-story building contains 200,000 square feet of teaching space, including active learning classrooms, referred to as TEAL (technology-enhanced active learning), 60 faculty offices, 10 designated study areas and spaces for tutoring, 40 different labs for chemistry, physics, biology, geology, computer science and engineering disciplines, two lecture theaters and even a food service offering.
“The TEAL classrooms are set up with round tables that encourage group work,” Dwyer said. “It’s all about doing and discussion. Greater learning takes place with active learning.”
One of the largest groups of students attending class in the Duff Center are those taking biology for non-biology majors — 2,400 students, according to Dwyer.
Technology is not only taught in the classrooms but it is also incorporated in the design of the building itself. A priority of the construction of Duff Center was the use of energy-recovery technology, including sensors for monitoring air quality in labs and skylights inside. Outside, there are 36 curiosity-grabbing filtering fume hoods and terra-cotta shading louvers. They don’t just attract attention to this new campus building, but there’s a purpose. The louvers align with the sun each season to help keep the building at a constant temperature.
“I’d like to say this place is the best of its kind in the nation,” Dwyer said. “But, of course, I’m biased.”
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