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MC receives $1 million grant
to enhance “intellectual capital”
Lilly Endowment
gift goes toward faculty,
IT, science
equipment
Manchester
College will use a $1 million grant from Lilly Endowment Inc. to expand
its “intellectual capital” by enhancing its faculty and information
technology, purchasing high-tech equipment for its new Science Center
and determining and designing a new use for its aged buildings.
The grant
is part of $100 million the Endowment has awarded to 37 colleges and
universities for its Initiative to Recruit and Retrain Intellectual
Capital for Indiana Higher Education Institutions.
The initiative is designed to help Indiana’s colleges and
universities recruit and retain the best faculty and students for their
campuses.
The
college will invest $400,000 in faculty development, teaching, learning
and research to build the best faculty possible. The money may be spent
on hiring as well as continuing development, professional travel,
projects, seminars and student-faculty collaborative research.
Manchester
College already sets the bar high with its faculty: 94 percent of
classes are taught by full-time faculty and 92 percent of its faculty
have the highest degree in their field. Class sizes average 21 students.
Manchester
plans to use $250,000 of the grant to purchase the latest science
technology for its new Science Center that is under construction. The
college hopes the $250,000 also will help it cultivate supporting grants
and funding from other benefactors. About 15 percent of the students are
science majors and all MC students must complete at least six hours in
natural sciences. The new $17 million center will open this summer.
Another
$250,000 will go toward information technology. Manchester was ranked by
Yahoo as a “Most Wired” campus in 2000, but information technology is a
moving target. The college will perform a campus-wide information
technology needs assessment to determine where to spend this portion of
the Endowment’s gift.
Holl-Kintner Hall of Science – the 45-year-old current home of
Manchester College sciences – will require considerable renovation and
repair before it can be used for other academic programs. Manchester
will spend $100,000 to determine the maximum possible use of the
three-story structure and other aged buildings on campus.
For more
information about Manchester, a Church of the Brethren college, visit
www.manchester.edu
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