Merrill Goozner, director of the Integrity in Science Project at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, an advocacy group based in Washington, said the use of the car was highly unusual given the partnership between Clemson and BMW. Barker’s employment contract, like those of many university presidents, includes the use of a car. Barker by the Clemson University Foundation. Barker, is driving is part of a pool that the automaker has provided to state leaders.Ī Clemson spokeswoman, Sandy Woodward, said the car, which can be traded in every 10,000 miles, was assigned to Mr. According to state figures, the auto industry employs 31,000 people in South Carolina. Japanese and German carmakers have turned the region into a Detroit of the South. Geolas added that “there ought to be a way to put together the two without disrupting their core missions.” Geolas, the director of the International Center for Automotive Research, which the university regards as crucial to its goal of becoming a Top 20 public university. “It’s a new model to invite private interests to partner so aggressively with you,” said Robert T. Ohio State University, for example, is working with General Motors, Ford, DaimlerChrysler and Honda on fuel efficiency and other projects. Other university partnerships, some with automakers, have been less controversial. In 1998, the University of California, Berkeley, and the pharmaceutical company Novartis reached a $25 million deal to develop drugs, which was later criticized by some students and faculty members as compromising academic freedom. Some critics wonder whether the university is blurring the line between academia and business and question how much control companies should have in such partnerships.Īlliances between universities and corporations are not uncommon, but some have drawn fire. But the developer claims that BMW muscled him aside to pursue its far more ambitious plans. Details about the arrangement between Clemson and BMW have emerged from a lawsuit brought last year by a Florida developer who claims the university had signed a deal with him to start an automotive center.Ĭlemson’s original plan with the developer was to build a high-speed wind tunnel that would cater to Nascar race teams and carmakers, including BMW. Several automotive suppliers, including Michelin, the tire company, and the Timken Company, a maker of bearings, have also contributed financing to the project, in part by endowing professorships at the new graduate school.īut BMW is the lead player. With its first students to be in class this fall, the project, known as the Clemson University International Center for Automotive Research, is a particularly rich example of cooperation between a multinational corporation and a university. The company also drew up profiles of its ideal students it gave Clemson, a state-supported university, a list of professors and specialists to interview, and even had approval rights over the school’s architectural look. Clemson’s president drives a silver BMW X5 sport utility vehicle, compliments of BMW, whose only North American plant is 50 miles away.Īt Clemson’s urging, BMW in large part created the curriculum for an automotive graduate engineering school. In return for the largest cash donation ever received by the school, Clemson gave the company some unusual privileges, including a hand in developing a course of study. It also led to a partnership that both the automaker and the university acknowledge has grown extraordinarily close. When Clemson University received $10 million from the German automaker BMW in 2002, the money helped jump-start a $1.5 billion automotive research and educational center.
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