A $32 million gift of computers and software, the largest donation of equipment Northwestern has ever received, will supply the McCormick School of Science and Engineering with workstations and new learning opportunities for mechanical and industrial engineering students.
The donation from PACE, a group consisting of General Motors Corp., Electronic Data Systems and Sun Microsystems, will give McCormick 55 workstations where students can create prototypes of machine parts.
Using the software will help students adjust to careers after graduation, McCormick Dean John Birge said.
“It allows students to use the same kind of tools they’ll use in the real world,” Birge said. “Having this equipment gives us a big advantage to step forward.”
Preparing students for careers is a goal of PACE, which was formed in 1999 to give students experience needed for the workplace, said Tom Davis, the group’s vice president. “It should make the curriculum more fun as well,” he said.
PACE also has donated similar software systems to 11 other universities, including Michigan State University and Tuskegee University.
Students will gain experience using software that usually takes six to eight weeks to learn in the real world, Davis said.
The program allows students to simulate the building of parts for automobiles and other machines. At the Dec. 5 presentation of the gift, General Motors spokesman Vass Theodoracatos simulated the construction of a car that would take six weeks to build.
Students also can manipulate their models by adding and subtracting parts, Theodoracatos said. After the prototype is finished, students can test how different physical forces affect their creations.
The simulation will save money as well as time, said General Motors spokesman Kirk Gutmann.
“The cost of doing a physical prototype continues to increase while the cost of simulating continues to decrease,” he said.
Manufacturing engineering students can benefit from the new software as well, Gutmann said. NU is one of only about 20 schools nationwide that offer a program in manufacturing engineering, a discipline in which the United States traditionally has lagged compared to other countries, he said.
NU students will now be able to exchange information with similarly equipped universities such as Michigan State, Gutmann said.
“These are things we couldn’t do with the old methods,” he said. “While it’s still a competitive situation, it’s also a cooperative situation.”
Vice President for University Development Ronald Vanden Dorpel said the donation of equipment rather than money will save NU the money and the inconvenience of buying the computers. NU has sought non-monetary donations since the inception of Campaign Northwestern in 1998, but this kind of gift has decreased in popularity over the last 20 years, he said.
“Computer companies would rather sell (equipment) to universities than give it away,” Vanden Dorpel said.
Chemical Engineering Adjunct Prof. Warren Haug said the McCormick Advisory Council, a 50-member body of faculty and alumni that meets once a year, recommended several years ago that the school enhance its design software.
“With this new relationship with PACE and the computers and software they have provided, we have just what we were looking for and then some,” Haug said.
About 10 of the stations already have been installed at Technological Institute, Birge said. The remaining computers will be put in during Winter Quarter.
McCormick senior Burleise Bailey, who spoke at the award presentation, said McCormick’s Solar Racing Team will have an orientation with the software within a few weeks. Although they have used design software to build their cars in the past, the new computers will allow them to merge numerous designs from separate disks onto one computer.
“It’s nice to have another type of software so you can see the difference and give a lot of students the opportunity to use software,” she said.
