When you give $35 million away, you might expect some appreciation in return. And appreciation is what Edmund T. Pratt Jr., received this weekend when he visited the newly renamed Pratt School of Engineering.
Friday night, Pratt was honored at a presentation in the Levine Science Research Center's Love Auditorium, which was packed with his friends and family, engineering faculty and students.
"This clearly transforming gift," said Board of Trustees Chair Randall Tobias, "promises to place the school of engineering among the leaders." Tobias also announced that the Trustees had made the school's new name official earlier that day.
Kristina Johnson, dean of the Pratt School, was similarly optimistic about the gift's potential.
"Our goal is to build upon the excellence which is already at Duke... to build a world-class school of engineering," she said.
Pratt was also presented with a life-sized portrait of himself, and afterward, he gave a brief, humorous speech. He frequently stirred the audience to laughter, joking that the Duke fund-raisers had "sucked me dry," or that the donation, in light of his years as CEO of Pfizer, "could be described as... another uplifting event caused by Viagra."
Clearly, however, Pratt was very glad to have donated the money. "I'm unbelievably proud to have my name with such young
Several other events throughout the weekend celebrated the donation, including a reception in the LSRC's Pratt Dining Commons, for which he had donated money three years ago. Saturday, Pratt mingled with engineering students at a barbecue, where they received t-shirts and beer steins emblazoned with his name.
Furthermore, a symposium entitled, "The New Engineer: Educational Challenges in the Post-Industrial Era," was also held earlier Friday afternoon, with six distinguished guests speaking on the role of the engineer in the coming century.
A common theme expressed by the participants was the increasing speed of technological advancements, particularly in information technology, and the resultant implications for engineering.
"It took us 50 years to generate the first five million telephone users," said David Chang, president of Polytechnic University. "Yet it has taken us less than five years to generate the first 50 million Internet users."
In response to this high-speed technological evolution, the speakers agreed that the new breed of engineer needed the problem-solving skills to create new ways to meet the challenges of the future, not simply the ability to solve textbook problems formulated in the past.
"We need to train engineers to think holistically," said Joseph Bordogna, deputy director of the National Science Foundation. "We need to educate the young people beyond their technical education for what is to come, not what is."
Pratt, who could not attend the symposium, expressed a similar view on the importance of the engineer's training in solving problems. "I actually never practiced as an engineer," he said. "But if I had to do it over again I'd still take engineering [because it taught me] to think like an engineer."
Larry Burns, vice president for research at General Motors, offered an industry perspective on the qualities necessary for an engineer in the next century.
He emphasized that engineering schools need to teach their students how to ask the right questions just as much as how to answer those questions.
During his experience in college, "The question was, 'What is the answer?'" Burns said. "In the real world, [the question is], 'What is the question?'"
The speakers also speculated on such issues as the importance of engineering education as the "new liberal arts," the function of distance learning-for instance, online degree programs-and the need to attract more students into engineering.
Not every question about the future was completely answered, but as Earl Dowell, dean emeritus of the engineering school, said, "We'll find out. It'll be fun to find out."
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