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UNIVERSITY TO PRODUCE HIGHLY TRAINED GRADUATES
This paper describes the impact that a large research contract has on the Academic Offerings of an undergraduate and graduate academic curriculum. The College of Engineering as Southern Illinois University at Carbondale was recently awarded a National Science Foundation grant to establish a Center for Advanced Friction Studies. The funding for such a center involves a consortium of industries whose financial support is matched both by the State of Illinois, and the Federal Agency. As a University-based center is focused around the education of undergraduate and graduate students in the science of friction materials through the research experience. New academic programs are being structured from the more traditional offerings of Engineering and Science to emphasize instruction in subject areas specific to friction systems and materials. Essentially, a true multidisciplinary program is being developed in which many of the employees of the center and all of the associates are tenure-track members of academic departments. Every effort has been made to attract top quality students to the program undergraduates are recruited in their junior and senior year from SIUC. In addition, and eight hour week summer intern program has been established specifically to introduce high quality juniors from other university engineering and science programs. Four interns with an average grade point level of 3.6 from a four point system were selected from a pool of 62 applicants and brought to campus in the summer of 1996. Six graduate students, five engineers, one physicist are presently involved. Unique to the center is the focus of its research program on areas of fundamental interests tot he friction industry of the United States. In order to ensure that the results have the potential for providing insights into critical problems, an industrial board recommended the initial program of research, reviews the results, and suggest the development work to be carried out in a technology transfer implementation program.