Tufts receives $40 million gift

    Inventor Bernard Gordon (H '92) has committed $40 million to the School of Engineering in order to bolster engineering leadership programs for undergraduates, the university announced yesterday.
    Gordon, a Tufts trustee emeritus who had previously donated $35 million to Tufts to support the Gordon Institute, the construction of Sophia Gordon Hall and other causes, has long been a proponent of leadership training for engineers.
    The money will go largely toward redesigning a minor centered on engineering leadership, hiring more engineering professors and increasing the amount of project-based learning opportunities for undergraduates studying engineering.
    "Dr. Gordon's gift is another significant investment in Tufts by one of our most loyal and generous supporters," University President Lawrence Bacow told the Daily in an e-mail. "We are enormously grateful for his latest vote of confidence in Tufts, especially during these challenging economic times."
    Gordon's donation will provide resources for the expansion of preexisting programs at the Gordon Institute, a leadership-development center within the School of Engineering. It will also help provide leadership and practical training for a wider swath of engineering students.
    "I think that this is going to help us achieve a really unique program in educating engineers," Dean of Engineering Linda Abriola said. "I'm looking to not only benefit the students who would be part of some kind of engineering leadership minor, but also benefit all of our students."
    The gift will bolster the School of Engineering's expanding efforts to prepare undergraduates for leadership positions in technology by teaching them practical skills, a mission that falls in line with Gordon's extensive philanthropic giving to engineering education over the years.
    Gordon, whom Bacow called "one of the engineering giants of the 20th century," holds over 200 patents worldwide and is known as the father of analog-to-digital conversion for his invention of the high-speed analog-to-digital converter. Other creations of his include the fetal monitor, CT scanners and the Doppler radar.
    Gordon founded and formerly led Analogic Corporation in Peabody, Mass. and co-founded and currently chairs NeuroLogica Corporation in Danvers, Mass.
    Gordon lived at Tufts in 1944 while participating in a Navy officers training program during World War II. More recently, he sat on the university's Board of Trustees for a decade (he left in 2006) and he currently serves on the School of Engineering's Board of Overseers and as an honorary co-chair of Tufts' ongoing capital campaign.
    At Tufts, the push for the more practical training backed by Gordon has primarily occurred under the aegis of the Gordon Institute, which Gordon founded in 1984 and which moved to Tufts in 1992.
    Recent curriculum reviews within the School of Engineering have led to a number of ideas for ways to improve leadership training, according to Gordon Institute Director Rob Hannemann.
    "Engineering leadership has been on the docket to be discussed there for most of the last two years," he said. "This gift is going to allow us to carry out some of our plans, certainly more quickly than we would have been able to do."
    Over the next academic year, planning and advisory committees aim to put these concepts into action, according to Hannemann.
    "Our directions are going to emphasize engineering practice and engineering leadership," he said.
    Project-based learning that will expose undergraduates to real-life engineering problems will be a centerpiece of these changes. Also, funds will most likely support the School of Engineering's professor-of-the-practice faculty model, in which experienced engineers come to Tufts to share working knowledge of their fields with students. The Funds may also help support the creation of additional internship opportunities for engineering students.
    The reinvention of the Gordon Institute's long-standing engineering management minor aims to breathe new life into a program that has only attracted a handful of students in recent years. The minor stands to gain a new component that will give students real-life consulting experience, according to Hannemann, and will change its name to "engineering leadership."
    In addition to that minor, the Gordon Institute offers a minor in entrepreneurial leadership to undergraduates in the Schools of Arts and Sciences and Engineering.
    With Gordon's donation, Tufts' Beyond Boundaries capital campaign hit over $1 billion.
    The $1.2-billion campaign, which began its quiet phase in 2002 and was publicly announced in 2006, stood at $1.02 billion as of Monday, according to Director of Advancement Communications and Donor Relations Christine Sanni (LA ‘89). It aims to achieve its goal by 2011.
    Conversations about Gordon's gift began months ago. Administrators learned of the inventor's commitment over the summer but waited until the start of the semester to make an announcement.
    Beyond Boundaries has seen a number of high-profile donations over the past few years, and Gordon's donation ranks among the five largest, according to Sanni. In April, Tufts received $136 million — the largest gift in the university's history — from a charitable trust set up by engineer and businessman Frank Doble (E ‘11).
    Other sizable contributions include around $100 million from Pierre and Pam Omidyar (LA ‘88 and ‘89, respectively) in 2005 to create the Omidyar-Tufts Microfinance Fund; $50 million from William S. Cummings (A ‘58) in 2004 to the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine; and $40 million from Jonathan Tisch (LA ‘76) in 2006 to endow the Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service.