  Lmcdet Member Username: Lmcdet Post Number: 8 Registered: 06-2007 |
Multimillion-dollar grant goes to WSU Cutting edge technology to aid future auto engineers Marisa Schultz / The Detroit News Wayne State University is expected to announce Tuesday the largest non-cash gift in the university's history -- valued in the hundreds of millions of dollars -- that will infuse its engineering college with state-of-the art technology. The gift will help graduates land high-tech jobs in the auto industry and elsewhere. "It's a very big deal," said Ralph Kummler, dean of the College of Engineering, of the gift from the prestigious PACE, or Partners for the Advancement of Collaborative Engineering Education. "It's one of the biggest events in the life of the college." The gift includes hardware, software and other technology that's so cutting edge that Wayne "wouldn't be able to afford it in our wildest dreams," Kummler said. PACE is a partnership of General Motors Corp., EDS, Hewlett-Packard, Siemens UGS PLM Software and Sun Microsystems. Since 1999, the consortium has helped 41 institutions around the world, including the University of Michigan, Michigan State University and Michigan Tech. PACE's gift to Wayne State will be the consortium's largest ever to a public university and its second largest in-kind gift ever, according to Wayne State. The largest contribution went to New York's Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute last year and was valued at $514 million. Wayne applied to PACE last year for the competitive grant. The 2,500 students in the College of Engineering will get a chance to work on the software at all class levels. They'll get real-world experience that allows them to transition more seamlessly from the classroom to the work force. GM and the other partners benefit because new hires are better prepared, said Phillip Tree, spokesman for GM. "Once they get the job, they are able to hit the ground running," Tree said. This has been a very good year for the College of Engineering, Kummler said. This spring, crews broke ground on a $27.3 million engineering facility that will expand lab and research space, among other things. The new equipment will be incorporated in a new lab, Kummler said. "Wayne State already had an incredible academic program in its College of Engineering, and this award makes it that much better because students will have the training to function and compete in the real world," said Wayne spokeswoman Francine Wunder. PACE institutions are located around the world, including China, Mexico, Germany and South Korea. In the United States, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Northwestern University, Purdue University and the College for Creative Studies in Detroit are some of the other institutions that have received the design technology. You can reach Marisa Schultz at (313) 222-2310 or mschultz@detnews.com. Awesome news for WSU and Detroit!!! lmcdet | ||
Yvette248 Member Username: Yvette248 Post Number: 929 Registered: 10-2006 |
That is such great news. It shows President Reid is being successful in turning WSU into a major research university. | ||
Lmcdet Member Username: Lmcdet Post Number: 9 Registered: 06-2007 |
With improvements at WSU, TechTown, the DMC, Loft, etc... Midtown and Detroit as a whole, hopefully, will be booming!!! | ||
Yvette248 Member Username: Yvette248 Post Number: 932 Registered: 10-2006 |
Have you ever tried to drive down Warren Ave near campus? It's already booming! | ||
Lmcdet Member Username: Lmcdet Post Number: 11 Registered: 06-2007 |
Gift to Wayne State valued at $407.8 million By Natasha Robinson 2:51 pm, September 18, 2007 The value of a gift of software and hardware to Wayne State University was revealed Tuesday at $407.8 million. The gift was from the Partners for the Advancement of Collaborative Engineering Education, a group of five businesses. General Motors Corp., EDS Corp., Hewlett-Packard Co., Siemens UGS PLM Software and Sun Microsystems formed PACE in 1999 to support academic institutions with computer-based engineering tools. The donation is the largest in-kind contribution Wayne State has received, and second largest in-kind contribution in the nation. PACE has made donations to 40 other universities worldwide. “With its close geographic proximity to the auto industry’s operations, Wayne State has played an important role in automotive research and development, as well as providing a practical automotive engineering education for future engineers,” said Ralph Szygenda, group vice president and chief information officer for General Motors, in a statement. Wayne State President Irvin Reid said the tools received from PACE will enable to university to prepare a skilled engineering, manufacturing and design workforce for the competitive global marketplace. SWEET!!!! | ||
Detroit313 Member Username: Detroit313 Post Number: 482 Registered: 02-2006 |
I'm telling ya, WSU is gonna be tha sheeezznit! <313> | ||
Thejesus Member Username: Thejesus Post Number: 2143 Registered: 06-2006 |
"I'm telling ya, WSU is gonna be tha sheeezznit!" Yes, because now they'll have the same stuff that UofM, MSU, and Michigan Tech have already!!!! | ||
Detroit313 Member Username: Detroit313 Post Number: 484 Registered: 02-2006 |
^^^^^^^NOPE^^^^^^^^ They don't have a real URBAN setting. Small college town feel. <313> | ||
Thejesus Member Username: Thejesus Post Number: 2146 Registered: 06-2006 |
^yeah, and history tells us what a draw that urban setting has been for college students in this state | ||
Danny Member Username: Danny Post Number: 6538 Registered: 02-2004 |
YAY!! The 9.1 million dollar budget shortfall is over for WSU. | ||
Rbdetsport Member Username: Rbdetsport Post Number: 381 Registered: 11-2005 |
Can someone please MAKE WSU get an Architecture program so I can go there instead. | ||
Dougw Member Username: Dougw Post Number: 1899 Registered: 11-2003 |
My first reaction to this was: Great news! My second reaction was: Holy sh*t, that is a LOT of money for hardware and software, almost half a BILLION dollars. Playing devil's advocate, you could build a quality fixed mass transit line up and down Woodward for less than that, and it would help Wayne State more in the long run. And I'm a professional software developer, so I have nothing against expensive software! I do think that there is often an overemphasis on the importance of state-of-the-art hardware and software in education, whether it be grade schools or universities. You can learn computer programming just as well on a 5-year old computer as you can on a brand new computer, and it costs a lot less. This may be my liberal arts Computer Science bias showing... I suppose with certain Engineering fields you do need relatively current tools (CAD/CAM, etc). On the other hand, my argument is probably moot, because these companies are most likely providing the software and hardware themselves, so the actual cost to them is a lot less than $408M. Especially with software, the variable costs are nearly zero, so UGS/Unigraphics or EDS can pretty easily donate hundreds of copies of its latest & greatest software at no real cost to them, which would be worth some millions of dollars on paper. So anyway, it's still great news... just sayin'. | ||
Patrick Member Username: Patrick Post Number: 4949 Registered: 10-2003 |
How does Wayne's engineering program stack up against others in the region? | ||
Udmphikapbob Member Username: Udmphikapbob Post Number: 461 Registered: 07-2004 |
As an alumnus of UDM, let me say "ouch". WSU improving an engineering program certainly will draw students away from McNichols, don't you think? | ||
Yvette248 Member Username: Yvette248 Post Number: 951 Registered: 10-2006 |
My daughter just transferred from Oakland to WSU's pre-nursing program. She was very surprised about how much more rigorous their program is. Every science class MUST have a lab session that goes with it. This is the type of rigorous curriculum that will further establish WSU as a research magnet. | ||
Jb3 Member Username: Jb3 Post Number: 242 Registered: 06-2007 |
Not to mention the number of muggings in broad daylight that have already occured on campus this semester. Maybe they could spend a little of that money on beefed up security??? just a thought. | ||
Livernoisyard Member Username: Livernoisyard Post Number: 4021 Registered: 10-2004 |
No surprise about Oakland (and WSU). USN&WR for 2007 rated both of them as being fourth-tier colleges. | ||
Jeduncan Member Username: Jeduncan Post Number: 142 Registered: 11-2006 |
speaking of muggings. some guy sneaked up behind me the other day on campus and asked me if I wanted to see his insides. I declined his offer. | ||
Hans57 Member Username: Hans57 Post Number: 195 Registered: 05-2006 |
Sounds like one hell of a deal if you ask me Justin. | ||
Jeduncan Member Username: Jeduncan Post Number: 143 Registered: 11-2006 |
Yeah, I thought about saying yes, but his return policy didn't work for me. If I was disappointed, I was stuck with what I got... and by the looks of him, what I'd get would be an alphabet of hepatitis and a number of required blood transfusions. | ||
Gistok Member Username: Gistok Post Number: 5390 Registered: 08-2004 |
The glass is always half empty for you, isn't it Livernoisyard?? NO ONE on this forum does a better job of taking ANY remotely good news about Detroit or Michigan, and finding the fly in the ointment... Funny that!  | ||
Zephyrprocess Member Username: Zephyrprocess Post Number: 471 Registered: 08-2006 |
quote: Did you tell him to apply at Gross Anatomy? | ||
Yvette248 Member Username: Yvette248 Post Number: 955 Registered: 10-2006 |
At least there haven't been any rapes and murders like at some of the suburban universities. LY, if you really were smart, you would know that a "college" ranking is completely different than a "school" ranking. You don't go to MIT to get a degree in marketing. | ||
Ddmoore54 Member Username: Ddmoore54 Post Number: 332 Registered: 07-2004 |
It's important to realize that this is not a cash donation, but software and hardware valued at $407 million. So it's pointless to argue that they should spend the money on mass transit, security, or whatever else. | ||
Dougw Member Username: Dougw Post Number: 1904 Registered: 11-2003 |
Agreed Ddmoore, which is what I was getting at in the last paragraph of my post. |
