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SPRING/SUMMER 1999 ARCHIVE Clemson Recognized as Leader in Orthopaedic Bioengineering Clemson University Mathematics: The Next National Champion? Clemson University, Southeast Leader in Invention Income Where the Rubber Meets the Roador Off-Road Clemson Students Win NSF Awards Professor Receives National Math Award Thomas Green Clemson Academy Welcomes Three New Members Dow Chemical Pledges More Than Half-Million Dollars to Film-Related Research Catfish: Improving Environment and Economy ACES Reunion and BBQ is Coming!  |
Dow Chemical Pledges Half-Million Dollars Dow Chemical Co., in an effort spearheaded by top-ranking Clemson alumni within the corporation, will invest $575,000 in Clemson University laboratories and research initiatives. The majority of the money -- $450,000 -- will support research being conducted at Clemson's Center for Advanced Engineering Fibers and Films, one of the nation's elite federally designated Engineering Research Centers. The remaining $125,000 is earmarked for the Chemical Engineering Department's unit operations lab, an undergraduate teaching lab that provides students with hands-on plant experience in an academic setting. "The fiber and film research being conducted at the center is really at the heart of some of our business interests," said Jerry Martin, vice president and global director of environmental health and safety regulatory affairs for Dow. "We're confident that Dow will benefit from the work being done here." "In the short term, though, we'll certainly benefit from the potential employees graduating from Clemson's enhanced chemical engineering program," said Martin, a 1970 Clemson alumnus. The Center for Advanced Engineering Fibers and Films is the only engineering research center in the nation to deal exclusively with fibers and films, the dominant industry in the South that accounts for 25 percent of the manufacturing segment of the U.S. gross domestic product. The industry's manufacturing base includes electronic components, fiber-optic cables, synthetic fibers, multi-layer food-packaging films and reinforced composites used in construction and aircraft. "Dow's longtime support of Clemson helped build the intellectual infrastructure that made this center possible," said Dan Edie, the center's director and holder of the Dow Chemical Professorship of Chemical Engineering. "This five-year pledge will help carry that work forward." Dow's contribution will support study of new polymer processing and modeling, as well as equip a new film formation laboratory in the center's integrative testing facility in Rhodes Engineering Research Center. In acknowledgment of Dow's support, the lab will be named the Dow Chemical Co. Film Processing Laboratory. The best-known Dow employee-driven initiative is IPCEY, which has generated nearly $250,000 in its 30-year history. Begun by 1965 chemical engineering alumnus Ron Taylor, it recast the familiar University athletic scholarship program IPTAY (I Pay $10 A Year) into IPCEY, a chemical engineering version honoring then-department chair Charles E. "Charlie" Littlejohn. The "I Pay Charlie Each Year" fund has helped provide scholarship funding and equipment.
"It's the nature of the Clemson experience to want to give back," said Taylor, director of marketing and sales for Dow in North America. "In my mind, it's not optional -- it's an obligation |
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"Dow's
longtime support helps Clemson fulfill our teaching mission,"
said