LehighWeek Volume 12, Issue 07

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Volume 12, Issue 7
LehighWeek
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October 13,1998
$25 million gift renames College of Engineering
Alumnus Peter C.
Rossin, who earned a
B.S. in metallurgy in
1948, has donated $25 million
to his alma mater, the largest
gift ever received by Lehigh.
The executive committee of
the Board of Trustees has voted
unanimously to rename the college the P.C. Rossin College of
Engineering and Applied Science in his honor. The college,
which enrolls one-third of
Lehigh's students, is the first of
the four colleges to be named.
The gift will be used to
strengthen and transform the
college for the future. Dean
Harvey Stenger will convene
a college-wide planning day on
Dec. 11 to solicit ideas from faculty, department chairs, the
alumni Engineering Advisory
Council and other selected
alumni on strategic plans, priorities and resource needs for
each department. In a press
conference on Founder's Day,
Stenger said exact spending decisions have not been made, but
the gift will be used for people
and programs, not buildings.
Among the possible uses for the
gift cited by Stenger were faculty positions, undergraduate
scholarships, graduate fellowships, and laboratory improvements.
"To say that I am delighted
is an understatement," said
Pres. Greg Farrington at the
Rob Upton
(Left to right) Harvey Stenger, dean of the College of Engineering and Applied Science;
Pres. Greg Farrington; Peter Rossin '48; and Robert Holcombe, assistant vice president for
development, participated in a press conference announcing the gift.
press conference. "This magnificent engineering college will
now have new resources to
boldly and energetically move
into the future. We will be able
to produce many generations of
Pete Rossins as a result of this
gift."
"I am happy, excited and
thrilled," said Stenger. "I feel
lucky to get to know Pete Rossin
and lucky to be here when this
gift was given."
Rossin said he gave the gift
to Lehigh because "I got my undergraduate degree here. I have
respect for what Lehigh offers to
the scientific community and to
my career."
Asked if it was difficult to give
way $25 million, Rossin said, "I
trotked  hard   to  be successful.
It's hard to part with the fruits
of your labor. It was a difficult
decision at first. But then the
decision grows on you and it
sounds better and better. You're
happy to do it.
"There are better things to do
with money once a person's needs
and his family's needs are taken
care of. He feels "you owe a debt
to society and a debt to the institutions that were fundamental to
your success. The decision comes
easy after that point."
For more information, see the
web page at www.lehigh.edu/
news
—Rita Malone-Sorensen
Peter C. Rossin:
A self-made man
Peter Rossin, a native of Staten
Island, N.Y., is a self-made man.
Born in 1923 and raised during
the Depression, he went to work
right after high school. Like most
men of his generation, the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor in
1941 was a turning point in his
life. He enlisted in the Air Force
and became a pilot, rising to the
rank of first lieutenant. He
helped train other pilots to fly
and then shipped out to Italy
where he flew 51 missions over
Europe.
Returning from the war,
Rossin stopped by to visit his
coworkers at his old company
and mentioned to his former boss
that he wanted to go to college
and study metals. His boss "advised me that Lehigh was one of
the most prominent schools in
metallurgical engineering" said
Rossin and called Lehigh to get
Rossin in. Three days later he
started his studies at Lehigh.
As with many GI's returning
from the war who were older
than typical college freshmen,
Rossin finished four years of college early, graduating in 1948.
He supported himself and
worked his way through Lehigh,
but he also found time for fun,
Please see Rossin on page 3
:   !  !  !  -  :  :    :!:   ' r : '      :m   :      :
Recognizing excellence and achievement
With all the pomp and circumstance of a coronation, Gregory
C. Farrington was installed as
the 12'h president of Lehigh in
an 80-minute Founder's Day ceremony on Oct. 8.
Accompanied by the blare of
trumpets, a formal choral performance and an organ processional, Farrington's official installation came nearly two
months after the former University of Pennsylvania dean assumed the office of the presidency in mid-August. Since
then, Farrington said he's had
time to map out a plan for
Lehigh's future that will underscore the quest for excellence in
all areas.
"We must benchmark ourselves against our toughest competition, and then outperform
them," he told the nearly 600
students, staff and faculty members who assembled in Packer
Memorial Church on a wet and
dreary afternoon for the
Founder's Day exercises.
To       accomplish       that,
Farrington said Lehigh must
only hire and tenure the finest
faculty - "faculty who are passionate about their craft," he
Rob Upton
Gregory C. Farrington was installed as the 12th Lehigh president during Founder's Day.
said - and compensate the current faculty and staff well
enough to retain them.
"I want Lehigh to be known
as a university concerned with
the creation of knowledge and
the creation of knowledgeable
people," said Farrington, who
also identified improved
fundraising efforts, effective
management structures and increased academic initiatives as
attainable goals under his leadership.
"When I get up in the morning, I don't dream of being at
another university," he said. "I
dream of the finest Lehigh I can
imagine."
Sixteen faculty members
were recognized for their accomplishments, and hundreds of students were honored for academic
excellence in a ceremony that
honors the memory of Asa
Packer, Lehigh's founder, who
died in 1879. Farrington's inauguration is scheduled for April.
- Linda Harbrecht
John Kish IV
More than 600 students, faculty and staff members
attended Founder's Day.
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