The Alumni Magazine for Worcester Polytechnic Institute. (WPI)
Issue link: http://wpialumnimag.epubxp.com/i/456562
Winter 2015 55 news from HIGGINS HOUSE Labs and Alden Memorial Auditorium, as well as to Higgins Laboratories, suitably home to the Mechanical Engineering Department. Dur- ing the current fundraising campaign, the Trust donated $11 million in two previous grants to renovate Goddard Hall into the George I. Alden Life Sciences and Bioengineer- ing Educational Center. "The labs had last been renovated in the 1970s; they were not only out of date, but really unattractive," says Jill Rulfs, associate depart- ment head for Biology and Biotechnology. The Alden Trust's gift helped convert the 21,300-square-foot facility into a gleaming temple of science, complete with labs outftted with the latest teaching technology and lab equipment integrated with computers. "For our department it has been a huge boon," says Rulfs. "It gave everyone a boost in mission fer- vor, that we can all do great things now that we have this great space." Not only does Goddard Hall refect the growing importance of biotech- nology—both on campus and in the world as a whole—but it also provides a central hub for life sciences students, complete with study spaces and lounges for them to interact and collaborate. "It's really given us a sense of com- munity we didn't have before," says Rulfs. Now with the Foisie Innovation Studio (named for WPI's largest private donor, Robert A. Foisie '56), WPI hopes to do the same thing for interdisciplinary project-based learning. At the very beginning, WPI was founded on the "two towers" of theory and practice—but it wasn't until the 1960s that this philosophy found space in the curriculum, the ground- breaking teaching philosophy that has been recently adopted more and more around the country. "It turns out to have been unbeliev- ably visionary," says Warner Fletcher, WPI trustee and chair of the Alden Trust. "This is the kind of education everyone is embracing now—and I truly believe no one does it better than WPI." Despite that emphasis, WPI has never had a center for its defning pedagogy. "That signature location on campus could be a real shining light for the kind of programming WPI provides and is trying to provide going forward." IMPACTING THE FUTURE In her inaugural speech this past November, President Laurie Leshin suggested a third "pillar" to WPI's traditional Two Towers. "If I could sum it up in one word, it would be impact," she said. "We have maximum impact by focusing not only on the number of well- educated STEM graduates we produce, or the number of research grants we receive, but by the positive work that our students and faculty, that our staff and alumni, do around the world." Achieving that goal means taking the ideas generated on campus and turning them into projects and inventions that can infuence the wider world. "By providing a new home for col- laborators and innovators right in the center of campus," the president continued, "I see the Foisie Innovation Studio as being the physical embodiment of our third tower." To that end, the new studio will include a high-tech classroom for the Great Problems Seminar that kicks off the project-based cur- riculum in the frst year, along with a robotics lab, a maker space for fabrication of proto- types, a 3-D printing studio, and a center for entrepreneurship. "It's taking projects to the next level," says McAvoy. "Learning how to market and com- mercialize good ideas and not just fle them away. Out of the thousand projects a year that students create, there are sure to be some that can have impact in communities and in the world, and this studio will foster those opportunities." — Michael Blanding PAYING IT FORWARD I n the late 1800s George Alden joined WPI's faculty as its frst professor of mechani- cal engineering—he was known as both a demanding instructor and a prolifc inventor. He established the second hydraulic labora- tory in the United States, conducting seminal research in the feld. Among his inventions were a dynamometer used for measuring machine power, and the frst hydraulic elevator. After Alden had achieved fnancial success through the company, he decided to "pay it forward" to the city that made it possible, establishing his namesake trust more than a decade before his death in 1926. Following his lead, many other fellow industrialists established their own trusts. "I think these industrialists thought that one of the reasons I'm successful is not just because I am smart or hard-working but also because I have good people working for me in this community," says Warner Fletcher, chair of the trust who is also a WPI trustee. None were as generous as Alden, however; with $190 million in assets, the trust he estab- lished is now the largest private foundation in Worcester, responsible for $9 million in gifts a year. From the beginning, Alden focused his philanthropy on education, naming Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester Vocational High School (now Worcester Technical High School), and the Boys & Girls Club of Worcester as his major benefciaries. Over the decades, the Trust expanded its reach to give to secondary schools and colleges all over the country—as well as cultural institutions such as the Worces- ter Art Museum and the Worcester Historical Museum.