Wichita State receives $2.5 million donation for endowed chair in Innovation University
Donors have given $2.5 million to Wichita State University to create a key leadership position in developing its new innovation effort, President John Bardo announced Thursday.
The Sam Bloomfield Chair in Innovation Engineering “will have an astounding impact on Wichita State,” Bardo said in a statement.
“Research in the areas of engineering and technology is crucial to the innovation economy and to the development and progression of WSU’s Innovation University. The person who holds this position will help establish a technology-based economy that will reach far beyond Wichita State and south-central Kansas.”
The gift came from the Sam and Rie Bloomfield Foundation, the WSU Foundation announced.
The person eventually named to the position will help lead the innovation effort, which involves a big campus expansion and a new emphasis on technology and innovation.
Royce Bowden, dean of the College of Engineering, said in prepared remarks that the gift will help WSU recruit an engineering mind of the highest caliber.
“The holder of this important chair will be an innovator who will help us infuse our curricula and our research with an entrepreneurial spirit.”
WSU’s efforts, Bowden said, are “being designed to channel students, their faculty, and industry into the same laboratory at the same time to accelerate collisions between student creativity, faculty know-how, and industry needs. When something spins out from a collision, a Technology Transfer office will be across the hall to move the innovation forward.”
Sam Bloomfield, an aeronautical engineer, was president of Swallow Airplane Co., based in Wichita, from 1934 to 1956, WSU said in the statement. He was an entrepreneur and inventor who acquired 23 U.S. patents for his innovations, the statement said.
This story was originally published October 2, 2014 at 3:10 PM with the headline "Wichita State receives $2.5 million donation for endowed chair in Innovation University."