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News Releases DATE: 2-15-99
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, himself 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, an industry that is the dominant industry in the South and 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 internationally recognized 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 at Rhodes Engineering Research Center. In acknowledgement of Dow's support, the lab will be named the Dow Chemical Co. Film Processing Laboratory. Meanwhile, renovations for the unit-ops lab will include enclosing and upgrading a polymer processing area used for research on man-made fibers and films. An analytical area where students do test work in support of larger experiments will also be enclosed and modernized. That lab will be renamed the Dow Chemical Co. Unit Operations Laboratory. "Dow's longtime support helps Clemson fulfill our teaching mission," said Charles Gooding, head of the chemical engineering department. "We thank them for their support over the years and look forward to strengthening our relationship." Together, the laboratories will enable a team of Clemson faculty to revolutionize the understanding of fiber and film technology, direct and speed the development of new products and processes and train the next generation of engineers. 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 as well as 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." In light of the university's capital campaign and a new state matching program, the IPCEY program has altered its original format and has committed $180,000 over the next five years for the establishment of a new Dow Chemical Engineering Alumni Endowment. The endowment, helped by Dow's dollar-for-dollar corporate matching program, will support undergraduate scholarship programs and other areas of need within the department. |