Princeton University alumnus Dennis J. Keller and his wife, Constance Templeton Keller, have given Princeton University $25 million to strengthen links between engineering and the liberal arts.
The Kellers’ gift will endow and name the university’s recently created Center for Innovation in Engineering Education in addition to supporting other initiatives in engineering and ecology.
The new center fosters teaching and student projects that cross conventional academic disciplines, preparing students in all fields — within engineering and across the natural sciences, humanities and social sciences — to work side by side to solve problems.
”Major issues facing society today — energy, environment, health, security — require a mix of technological, political, economic and historical perspectives,” said President Shirley M. Tilghman in a statement released by the university. “The Kellers, in their tremendous generosity, recognize that need and have given us an exceptionally strong foundation on which to integrate engineering into a liberal arts education.”
This initiative comes at a time when studies of the engineering profession and economic competitiveness, including two recent reports from the National Academies, are calling for better integration of technical problem solving within a general education, according to the university.
Mr. Keller is a charter trustee and vice chairman of the executive committee of the Princeton University board of trustees. He is the founding chairman of DeVry Inc., one of the world’s largest publicly held higher education organizations, with an emphasis on preparing students for careers in technology, health care, business and management.
Currently, 60 percent of nonengineering students at Princeton take at least one engineering course; one of the center’s goals is to push that percentage to 100. Princeton’s School of Engineering and Applied Science currently offers more than 20 courses that engage students from outside the engineering school. These courses place technology in a social and historical context, emphasize entrepreneurship and provide substantial exposure to issues such as energy, the environment, cybersecurity and telecommunications. The gift is intended to strengthen those courses and encourage the development of new ones. It also will support internships, entrepreneurial activities and a vibrant program of lectures and visiting professorships from leaders in business, government and academics.
In addition to his work at DeVry and Princeton, Mr. Keller serves as a trustee of the University of Chicago, where he earned his master’s in business administration. Ms. Keller chairs the board of trustees of the Nature Conservancy of Illinois. The Kellers are residents of Oak Brook, Ill.
In 2001, the Kellers made a major gift to support the construction of the Friend Center for Engineering Education, named in honor of Peter Friend, Mr. Keller’s lifelong friend and roommate, who was killed during their junior year.
