A $4.5 million award from Ford Motor Co. will benefit many disciplines at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, including the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering. The announcement of the award was made September 15, 1999, at the U of I campus by Bill Powers, vice president-research of Ford, and Michael Aiken, chancellor of the Urbana campus.
A major portion of the award, nearly $2.3 million, will create the Ford Automotive Science and Technology Laboratory—FAST Lab—at M&IE. It will provide for the remodeling and modernization of the Automotive Systems Laboratories, which will better prepare students for careers in automotive and related industries. With this Ford grant, approximately 5,000 sq ft of laboratory space, dating from the 1950s, will be enhanced to provide state-of-the-art, 21st century facilities featuring engine test cells, emissions and diagnostic equipment, and a vehicle component build and test lab. In addition to M&IE’s FAST Lab, other major portions of the gift will benefit students by funding undergraduate scholarships, graduate fellowships, and diversity/minority engineering scholarships across campus.