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Ford Donates $2.5 Million to Tuskegee University

21 April 1999

Ford Donates $2.5 Million to Tuskegee University

    DEARBORN, April 20 -- Ford Motor Company is
underscoring its long-standing partnership with Tuskegee University with a
$2.5 million grant to the university over the next five years.
    The funding will be used to help renovate Tuskegee's College of Business,
Organization and Management and to expand the university's state-of-the-art
information technology resources and services.  The contribution also will
support the new Tuskegee University National Center for Bioethics in Research
and Health Care.  The Center for Bioethics will become the premier provider of
interdisciplinary instruction, research and community outreach for educating
and training African American professionals in the field of bioethics.
    "For Ford Motor Company, support of higher education continues to be a top
priority, because the pursuit of life-long learning is a win for all involved
-- individuals, industry and society," said Edsel B. Ford II, Ford Motor
Company's executive sponsor for Tuskegee University.  "We're particularly
proud to support Tuskegee University -- an American educational icon."
    The relationship between Tuskegee University and Ford Motor Company began
with the friendship of Dr. George Washington Carver and Henry Ford.  In 1918,
Carver, who was on staff at Tuskegee, started corresponding with Ford about
their mutual interest in "finding more uses for agricultural products for the
betterment of working people's lives."  Ford sponsored Carver's chemical
agricultural lab at Tuskegee, where most of the scientist's greatest
discoveries took place.
    Over the years, Ford Motor Company's support for Tuskegee has grown to
include hiring Tuskegee graduates, sponsoring numerous scholarships and
internships, providing computer and administrative training, and developing an
executive lecture series.  The Ford Learning Resource Center at Tuskegee
provides students with exhaustive research materials and innovative tools to
further their pursuit of educational excellence.
    "Tuskegee University is most grateful to the Ford Motor Company for one of
the largest gifts we have received in the Capital Campaign at this point,"
said Dr. Benjamin F. Payton, president, Tuskegee University.  "This gift of
$2.5 million will boost us significantly toward our $150 million goal and will
provide much-needed funds for our College of Business, for our new Center for
Bioethics and will help in the upgrading of the university's information
technology base.
    "We view this grant as a result of a real partnership between Tuskegee
University and one of America's greatest corporations," said Payton.  "We
benefit not only from the money, but also from the people from Ford Motor
Company who bring extraordinary talent to help boost our education and
training programs in a variety of ways."
    Tuskegee University was founded in 1881 by Booker T. Washington and is
accredited by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of
Colleges and Schools.  Tuskegee is the number one producer of African American
aerospace science engineers in the United States, as well as a leading
producer of African American engineering graduates in chemical, electrical and
mechanical engineering.