Clark School Receives $1M Gift

A gift of $1 million over three years to the Clark School from L-3 Communications will benefit students in a number of ways by creating scholarships, fellowships and supporting student programs.

"This is a truly philanthropic gift," said Darryll Pines, dean of the Clark School. "L-3 has taken a broad look at how they can enhance our programs without asking anything in return. We hope this gift sets the tone for future corporate support for the Clark School."

The gift, with a minimum of $300,000 going to the Clark School in the first year, establishes L-3 Graduate Research Fellowships and L-3 Undergraduate Scholarships in addition to supporting diversity programs, student organizations and competitions and the Clark School Corporate Partners Program.

"L-3's partnership with the University of Maryland enhances our internal research and development and recruiting efforts by aligning us with a world-class engineering school," said Michael T. Strianese, chairman, president and CEO of L-3 Communications. "This atmosphere of innovation and technology attracts promising and talented students who, we hope, will look to L-3 for career opportunities."

L-3 Graduate Research Fellowships will support five Ph.D. candidates in the last three years of a Clark School Ph.D. program conducting research at the either Institute for Systems Research, the UM Robotics Center, the UM Energy Research Center, the Unmanned Autonomous Vehicles Laboratory, the UM Rotorcraft Center, the Center for Advanced Life Cycle Engineering or research in cybersecurity.

Eight merit-based L-3 Undergraduate Scholarships will be made available to students in the departments of electrical and computer engineering, mechanical engineering, materials science and engineering and aerospace engineering.

The gift also supports diversity initiatives at the Clark School through the Women in Engineering Program and the Center for Minorities in Science and Engineering and student competition teams such as Robotics@Maryland and TerpsRacing. Still more Clark School programs will be supported by L-3's becoming a Clark School Corporate Partner.

Published July 6, 2010