Chris Singer approaches patients and their families sitting in a doctor’s waiting room with a smile every time.

Something brand new is open on the UNLV campus.

Hospitality Hall, a new home for the William F. Harrah College of Hospitality at the University of Nevada Las Vegas, will debut in a grand opening ceremony later this month. Students will begin attending classes in the building Jan. 16.

More than a decade ago, the vision for an education building dedicated solely to the study of hospitality included a location at the very edge of UNLV’s campus.

UNLV’s latest building gives its world-renowned Harrah’s College of Hospitality a world-class facility.

You can’t say the new $59 million, 93,500-square-foot building under construction at UNLV’s William F. Harrah College of Hotel Administration signals a coming of age for the program if only because the program has already grown up.

UNLV’s William F. Harrah Hotel College was recently ranked the world’s best for hospitality and leisure. The annual QS World University Rankings highlight top-performing programs in 46 disciplines and this year added Hospitality & Leisure Management as one of four new “by subject” categories. The Harrah Hotel College took the top spot in the inaugural subject ranking and was followed by Switzerland’s Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne and Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

The University of Nevada Las Vegas has received a $2.5 million donation to help pay for construction of a new academic building for the university's hotel college.