News Article

Gonzaga University has received a $370,000 grant from the W.M. Keck Foundation of Los Angeles to purchase equipment for its new Transmission and Distribution (T&D) Engineering Program.

The funds will be used to help purchase four power workstations, which will permit simulating the generation and transmission of three-phase electrical power, the loading and metering of the transmission system, and the operation of protective relays for protecting generators, transformers and induction motors.

“The power workstations are critical to the T&D program, and will be especially useful for teaching students who have had no field experience in the power industry,” said Dennis Horn, Dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science. “We are extremely grateful to the W.M. Keck Foundation for this grant because without the power workstations, our undergraduate students would not be able to have a quality, hands-on laboratory experience.”

The new T&D Program will be interdisciplinary, including instruction in electrical, mechanical and civil engineering. The program will begin this fall, and will be offered to undergraduates as well as post-graduate students and engineering professionals employed by power generating entities and related industries.

The power workstations will be installed temporarily in the existing Herak Center for Engineering, but will be moved to their permanent home in a new T&D Engineering laboratory by fall 2008. The lab will be located in a new addition to the Herak Center.

Gonzaga will begin construction on the 25,000-square-foot addition this fall. The addition, to be sited immediately south of the Herak Center, will house the T&D program and will provide additional classroom space and offices for the School of Engineering and Applied Science. The facility is expected to be ready for occupancy by fall 2008.

The W.M. Keck Foundation was established in 1954 in Los Angeles by William Myron Keck, founder of The Superior Oil Company. The foundation is one of the nation's largest philanthropic organizations, with assets of more than $1 billion.

For more information, please contact Dean Dennis Horn, (509) 323-6117.