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October 18, 2004
$5.65 million in gifts is first lesson for Purdue's learning center
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WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – Purdue officials announced two gifts today (Monday, Oct. 18) that will establish a leadership center and endowed chair in the name of one of the donors and provide the financial foundation for the Discovery Learning Center to be built in the university's Discovery Park.
Susan Bulkeley Butler, a retired consulting executive and 1965 alumna of the Krannert School of Management, is donating $3.65 million for an endowed chair in the Center of Leadership Excellence. Both the chair and center will be named for Butler, subject to approval by the board of trustees.
In addition, the Sally K. and Kenneth A. Mason Fund will be created in honor of Purdue Provost Sally Mason and continuing lecturer Kenneth Mason's gift of $2 million to the center. This fund will support and maintain the center's programs.
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Butler and the Masons were honored at a dinner at Westwood, home of Purdue President and Mrs. Martin C. Jischke. Butler and the Masons will receive the Pinnacle Award, which is among Purdue's highest honors given to individuals and organizations in recognition of philanthropic gifts to the university.
"Susan has not only been a leader, but also a dedicated spokesperson for a large group of accomplished business and professional leaders who are finding new ways to educate and mentor women so they can achieve their aspirations," President Jischke said. "She has already done much for our university, and now these gifts will reach beyond faculty and students at Purdue. What our researchers learn at the center will make a difference in our education system nationwide.
"And this absolutely incredible gift from the Masons speaks volumes about the commitment our faculty have to our vision for Purdue."
The Discovery Learning Center will be housed in Discovery Park, a 40-acre site on the southwest edge of campus that will be home to five other centers: the Bindley Bioscience Center, the Birck Nanotechnology Center, the Burton D. Morgan for Entrepreneurship, the Center for Advanced Manufacturing and the e-Enterprise Center.
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These are the first gifts for the $10 million, 20,000-square-foot learning center, which will focus on new approaches to teaching and learning science, technology, engineering and math, complementing other projects in Discovery Park. It will provide laboratories and classrooms with cutting-edge technological capabilities. The classrooms will be laboratories themselves, featuring movable furniture to allow for researchers to experiment with the learning environment. An auditorium with mobile risers that can be rearranged into smaller seating arrangements also is planned.
The Susan Bulkeley Butler Center of Leadership Excellence will be the headquarters for collaborations in academia and corporate America that focus on outreach, early-access learning, hands-on learning and community relationships. Many of these collaborations will include business initiatives in Discovery Park. A chair within the center also will be created to focus on the challenges of women and members of the underrepresented groups, as well as the needs of first-generation college students. This position also will promote collaborations and explore research in the area of learning.
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"I can only imagine what learning opportunities will come from this new center," said Butler, an Abingdon, Ill., native who received an honorary doctorate in 1999, 20 years after she became the first female partner for Andersen Consulting, now known as Accenture. "This center is about providing new opportunities and new ways of learning. It will improve how we educate children in kindergarten through 12th grade and encourage more diversity in higher education's top positions. The center will also explore new ways to encourage and support women where they are underrepresented."
Sally and Ken Mason have been at Purdue since Sally was named provost in 2001.
"In this facility we can experiment with teaching and learning," Sally Mason said. "What does it take to effectively use technology in the classroom? In this center, we will be able to envision classrooms of the future, and we will not be tied to one discipline or department.
"My husband is one of the best teachers I know, and he currently teaches several classes of Purdue's largest introductory to biology course, touching more than 1,300 students. We both know how important it is to capture the attention of first-year students in the classroom to help them know what they will do with the rest of their lives."
Ken Mason added, "While at Kansas I learned how difficult it was to teach effectively but that I loved doing it. I taught a variety of courses and worked on curriculum development designing a laboratory course and writing the lab manual. All of this convinced me of the importance of teaching skills in higher education and the need to approach how we teach in as analytical a manner as possible."
Butler and Provost Mason also have been involved in the Women of Purdue program, a new initiative that educates women about philanthropy. The group meets about half a dozen times a year.
"Women are responsible for managing large amounts of money," Butler said. "The financial environment is changing, and women today are more involved in making significant philanthropic decisions for the family. Not only do they have their own resources to contribute, but statistically women are likely to live longer than their husbands."
Butler is one of a few women in the country to have endowed a professorship with her own money. She also has endowed a four-year scholarship awarded annually to an outstanding woman student leader.
The learning center has been operational since March 2003. It is led by co-directors Margaret M. Rowe, vice provost and professor of English, and Jon Harbor, professor of earth and atmospheric sciences and co-director of ENVISION, a National Science Foundation-funded teacher enhancement project.
The learning center already has funded projects and facilitated partnerships on campus. For example, the NSF-funded Center for Authentic Science Practice in Education will provide research experience to university freshman and sophomore students to increase their enthusiasm for science-related careers.
"Very few undergraduates in chemistry experience working in a research lab their first two years, and not every student does by his or her junior or senior year," said Gabriela C. Weaver, an associate professor of chemistry at Purdue and a principal investigator of the Center for Authentic Science Practice in Education. "Without this experience, students may lose interest in the sciences or not be aware of the many career options in chemistry. We are looking into developing a complementary lab component that focuses on research opportunities to expose undergraduates to what they can do with chemistry."
The learning center also supports communication technology research in the School of Liberal Arts. Sorin Matei, assistant professor of communication, is studying how Space(A)Ware, the next type of application being developed for wireless technology, can improve learning. This application allows handheld devices to automatically load information about the room, building or area the user has just entered. For example, when a student enters a specific classroom, their course materials would automatically load. Seed money from the learning center will help Matei run initial studies.
"I want to know if this new application makes sense to technology users," Matei said. "How will people react? Are people more likely to learn more if they are fed information in this manner?"
More than 300 faculty, representing 12 schools and 45 academic departments at Purdue, plus those from other universities, business and industry, teachers and professional organizations, are involved in similar collaborations or research in conjunction with the center.
The learning center also will house the Teaching Academy and the Purdue Lilly Internship Program. The Teaching Academy was founded in 1997 and focuses on enhancing the teaching skills of faculty and teaching assistants. The internship program helps Indiana startup companies find college interns in a wide range of fields such as computer programming, Web design, marketing, human resources, management, technical writing, foreign language translation and even aerospace engineering.
Butler, who retired from Accenture as a managing partner in 2002, has been involved on the Campaign for Purdue Steering Committee, the President's Council, Women of Purdue, Krannert School of Management Dean's Advisory Council and Purdue Research Foundation board of directors. Earlier this month, she received the Krannert School's Business Leadership Award.
In 2003 she created the Susan Bulkeley Butler Institute for the Development of Women Leaders, which offers leadership training for women through discussions, interactive events, a monthly newsletter and a Web site. The institute is in Tucson, Ariz., where she currently lives.
Sally Mason, a native of New York City, joined the University of Kansas faculty in 1980 and served as the acting chairperson in the Department of Physiology and Cell Biology from 1986 to 1989. She became the associate dean in the Division of Natural Sciences and Mathematics in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences in 1990. In 1995 she became dean of the college. Her teaching interests include developmental biology, embryology, cell biology and general biology for majors and non-majors.
She earned her master's degree in developmental biology from Purdue in 1974. She received her doctorate in cellular, molecular and developmental biology from the University of Arizona in 1978, and a bachelor's degree in zoology from the University of Kentucky in 1972.
Ken Mason, a continuing lecturer is biology, earned his bachelor's degree in molecular biology from the University of Washington in 1982 and his doctorate from the University of California at Davis in 1991. He also worked as a researcher at University of California at Berkeley.
Before coming to Purdue in 2001, he was on the faculty at the University of Kansas for 10 years and also worked with continuing education programs there. His research focused on genetics of pigmentation.
The Discovery Learning Center event is part of a 10-day celebration that focuses on ways Purdue is improving education and helping the state of Indiana as part of its strategic plan and $1.3 billion fund-raising campaign.
Writer: Amy Patterson-Neubert, (765) 494-9723, apatterson@purdue.edu
Sources: Martin C. Jischke, (765) 494-9708, mcjischke@purdue.edu
Sally Mason, (765) 494-9709, sfmason@purdue.edu
Susan Bulkeley Butler, susanbutler@Comcast.net
Margaret M. Rowe, (765) 494-6969, mmrowe@purdue.edu
Jon Harbor, (765) 494-9610, jharbor@purdue.edu
Gabriella Weaver, (765) 496-3055, gweaver@purdue.edu
Sorin Matei, (765) 494-3320, smatei@purdue.edu
Purdue News Service: (765) 494-2096; purduenews@purdue.edu
PHOTO CAPTION:
Sorin Matei, assistant professor of communication, sitting at right, demonstrates a virtual reality setup for a wireless technology study that is partially funded by the Discovery Learning Center. Assisting are David Foldes (seated), a senior in computer graphics technology from Lexington, Ky., and Jack Moreland, a second-year master's degree student in computer graphics technology from Plymouth, Ind. Matei's study will evaluate if wireless technology can improve learning. (Purdue News Service photo/David Umberger)
PHOTO CAPTION:
John Orczyk, a sophomore from West Lafayette, Ind., majoring in biochemistry and physics, works in a laboratory to gain more experience in the sciences. More undergraduate students will have similar opportunities thanks to a new program through the Discovery Learning Center. (Purdue News Service photo/David Umberger)
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