New engineering college incubates education reform

The legacy of a man born in a primitive lumber camp in 1860 will provide more than $250 million to support innovative engineering and science programs in Massachusetts and Florida. The F. W. Olin Foundation, New York City, will spend more than $200 million to set up a new engineering college in Needham, Mass., a suburb of Boston. The foundation also plans to grant up to $50 million to Florida Institute of Technology in Melbourne, including $21 million to build an advanced engineering complex and a life sciences laboratory. Franklin W. Olin, an engineer and industrialist who founded an explosives company in 1892 that went on to become Olin Corp., a diversified chemicals producer, started his foundation in 1938. With its $200 million grant, the foundation aims to "establish a new paradigm for undergraduate engineering education," says its president, Lawrence W. Milas. The foundation, he explains, wants to put into practice engineering education reforms advanced ...