UF Engineering receives $1 million-plus gift from Harris Corp.

July 22, 2005

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — In a major show of support for the University of Florida’s College of Engineering, the Harris Corp., an international communications equipment company headquartered in Melbourne, Fla., announced a pledge Friday of $1,025,000 to the college. The gift will be used to endow multiple professorships in UF’s engineering program.

Howard Lance, chairman, president and chief executive officer of Harris, made the presentation to UF President Bernie Machen and College of Engineering Dean Pramod Khargonekar at a news conference in UF’s New Engineering Building. Machen announced that the gift will be matched with $250,000 from a special fund set up through his Faculty Challenge initiative.

“We are very excited about the direction Dean Khargonekar is taking the UF engineering program,” said Lance. “UF has created a challenging and innovative engineering curriculum, and the quality of graduating students is superb. The energy at UF clearly matches the momentum at Harris, and we hope this gift provides the college with some of the resources to take their programs up another level.”

UF is also eligible to receive $768,750 in matching funds from the State of Florida Major Gifts Trust Fund as a result of the gift, bringing the potential cumulative value of the gift to more than $2 million.
UF has been the number one university recruiting source for Harris for the past five years. Harris currently employs 460 UF graduates and recently recruited an additional 22 from the spring graduating class.

“The Harris Corp. has certainly demonstrated that they are tuned in to our initiative to build on our world-class faculty,” said Machen. “The partnership represented by UF’s relationship with Harris is exactly the type of public-private partnership that makes public research universities successful.”

UF’s Faculty Challenge initiative was launched by Machen in August 2004, with a goal of raising $150 million to give faculty the tools they need to enhance classroom instruction and conduct world-class research. The Faculty Challenge is part of a plan to make UF one of the nation’s premier research universities.

In recognition of the gift, UF will name the rotunda, entry hallways, and the teaching auditorium in the New Engineering Building the Harris Corporation Rotunda and the Harris Corporation Auditorium.

“Harris is one of the major economic engines in the state and we’re very pleased to be part of their team,” said Khargonekar. “Our collaboration on research projects, and in being a source of talented graduates, is the essence of a healthy and mutually beneficial relationship.”