Photo Above: Bob Hart, Etta Clark, Dr. Bill Greer, Chrissy Idlette and CeeGee McCord commemorate the opening of the Eastman engineering lab on the campus of Milligan College April 28.
By Scott Robertson
Area business leaders joined the Milligan College community April 28 for the dedication of the college’s new engineering facilities, a major component of the college’s recent efforts to expand its academic offerings and a step toward completion of the largest fundraising initiative in the college’s 150-year history.
Local corporations made some of the latest campaign gifts to support the college’s engineering program. At the ceremony, Milligan President Dr. Bill Greer dedicated four engineering labs named for Eastman, NN Inc., Nuclear Fuel Services Inc., and TPI Corporation. Greer also honored Ruth Myers of Cincinnati, Ohio, who made a $1 million lead gift for the program in 2014.
Greer explained that Milligan began more than five years ago to develop its plans to add mechanical and electrical engineering majors in response to both student and corporate interest. The plans included securing the financial, physical and human resources necessary to launch the program with Milligan’s usual high quality standards.
“Today’s dedication is the culmination of those efforts,” Greer said. “We’re grateful for the significant partnerships with these locally-based corporations who have committed significant resources to ensure that our program will produce high quality, ready-to-work engineers. Their commitment to Christian higher education is a testament of their dedication to this region and its people. And we’re very pleased now to dedicate these laboratories in honor of these corporate partners.”
Launched in fall 2016, the four-year engineering program is fully offered on the Milligan campus in Northeast Tennessee. It is currently the only such program within a two-hour radius of the Tri-Cities, though other schools are working to put engineering programs in place.
