A building on the University of Texas campus is being renamed after former UT President Bill Powers, who served for nine years and died in March at 72.

The UT System Board of Regents approved renaming the Student Activity Center — built during Powers’ time as president — during a meeting Wednesday at its administration building in downtown. It will now be called the William C. Powers Jr. Student Activity Center.

“It is fitting that he was the person to establish the hub for student life on campus,” UT President Gregory Fenves said. "Because more than anything else, Bill dedicated his life and his career to UT students."

The board also appropriated funds to further renovate the Anna Hiss Gymnasium on the UT campus and transform it into a collaborative research center that will also be used by the Austin-based Army Futures Command.

Powers, who was university president from 2006 to 2015, was the second-longest serving person on that post and was widely popular with the student body. He also led the university through a U.S. Supreme Court challenge to a UT policy designed to increase diversity in admissions.

LEARN MORE: Bill Powers, UT’s president for nearly a decade, dies at 72

Fenves said Powers saw himself as a teacher first and that there would be "no greater tribute" than naming the Student Activity Center after him in honor to his connection to students.

Regent after regent on Wednesday shared glowing memories about Powers, even those who knew him during the early part of this decade when Powers was greatly at odds with the board.

"Against all odds, including the governor of this state and many people trying to take that job away, he stood by and did what was right and for the University of Texas at Austin and for that I will always consider him a friend and be grateful," Regent Steve Hicks said.

Diana Natalicio, whose last day as president of UT-El Paso was Wednesday, was also honored at the meeting for her 31-year tenure as head of that school. Natalicio raised the university’s enrollment from 15,000 to 25,000 since she started in 1988 and grew many of its academic and research programs. She also increased the number of doctoral programs at UTEP from one to 22.

“The measure of her remarkable career is not in accolades but in the lives, the generations of the people she has helped transform through her role at UT-El Paso,” Regent James Milliken said. “She leaves the kind of legacy that all of us in higher education aspire to but few achieve.”

The board also took another step forward in its collaboration with the Army Futures Command. The board allocated $24.5 million to UT-Austin to renovate the 89-year-old Anna Hiss Gymnasium, located near Speedway and Dean Keaton Street. The gym will be turned into a centralized research facility for robotics that will be shared with Futures Command as part of its partnership with the university, which also includes a headquarters for the Army branch at the UT System building in downtown.

The facility will be also used by the Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics, Computer Science, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, and Fine Arts departments at UT. The renovation comes as part of the board's commitment in May to spend $50 million over the next few years on its partnership with Futures Command.

Fenves said the 55,000-square-foot facility will contribute to research on robotic vehicles and how they can be used in combat settings.

“The space will allow teams to produce and test prototypes faster,” Fenves said. He later added: “The open space is a perfect laboratory for that work. The renovation of the Anna Hiss Gym will help transform UT into a true powerhouse for robotics research.”