SMU Gets $10.1M Gift to Improve Engineering Outlook
Posted: Thu Oct 11, 2007 12:23 amSMU will announce today that it's receiving $10.1 million to improve how engineering is taught in schools and colleges across Texas and the U.S. The gift – the largest in the history of SMU's engineering school – comes from the W.W. Caruth Jr. Foundation through the nonprofit Communities Foundation of Texas.
Typically, engineering classes are offered only in college. SMU already has designed engineering courses for high school students and helped train teachers. With the new grant, SMU wants to push into middle and even elementary schools.
"Engineering is what translates the abstract math and science principles into reality," said Brent Christopher, president of the Communities Foundation. When more students understand that, he said, more will pursue engineering degrees.
Much of the work will be done through the university's Institute for Engineering Education, whose mission and staff will be expanded by the hiring of several faculty members with money from the gift.
SMU will create an endowment with $5.1 million of the gift and use the interest to help boost the institute's faculty ranks from the current three to 10. The remaining $5 million will go toward an $18 million building on the site of Caruth Hall, home of SMU's engineering school since 1948. The new structure will bear the same name but will have more than twice the space.
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent ... e9ac0.html
Typically, engineering classes are offered only in college. SMU already has designed engineering courses for high school students and helped train teachers. With the new grant, SMU wants to push into middle and even elementary schools.
"Engineering is what translates the abstract math and science principles into reality," said Brent Christopher, president of the Communities Foundation. When more students understand that, he said, more will pursue engineering degrees.
Much of the work will be done through the university's Institute for Engineering Education, whose mission and staff will be expanded by the hiring of several faculty members with money from the gift.
SMU will create an endowment with $5.1 million of the gift and use the interest to help boost the institute's faculty ranks from the current three to 10. The remaining $5 million will go toward an $18 million building on the site of Caruth Hall, home of SMU's engineering school since 1948. The new structure will bear the same name but will have more than twice the space.
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent ... e9ac0.html
