Contact: Addie Mayfield

STARKVILLE, Miss.--A $2.25 million gift from International Paper Co. will establish an endowment for a faculty chair within Mississippi State's James Worth Bagley College of Engineering and create a new controls laboratory in the college's Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

"By partnering with Mississippi State, we can leverage its excellent engineering program with our resources to continue to recruit the best and brightest students and faculty from across the country," said International Paper Co. Senior Vice President, Manufacturing, Technology, EHS&S and Global Sourcing Tommy Joseph, who is a 1982 MSU graduate.

International Paper Co. is a global leader in packaging and paper, committed to sustainability and environmental education. Headquartered in Memphis, Tennessee, the company employs approximately 58,000 people in more than 24 countries around the world and contributes nearly $10 million annually to numerous charities and organizations.

At Mississippi State, the International Paper Co. Endowed Chair will support the Bagley College's objective to attract the highest caliber faculty members. Serving as a liaison of International Paper Co., the chair holder will be selected from the departments of Chemical, Electrical and Computer, Industrial and Systems, and Mechanical Engineering, and will assist with the identification of research opportunities and recruitment for the college.

Additionally, the company seeks to further education and research at MSU with the creation of the International Paper Co. Controls Laboratory within the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and an endowment exclusively for the lab's maintenance.

The International Paper Controls Laboratory provides two stations for modular servo systems, one located within the MSU Starkville Campus, and another in the extended partnership campus at Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College. The stations will be expanded to provide real-time digital control capabilities through MATLAB or LabVIEW software platforms. Specifically, the Starkville Campus also will acquire four Allen-Bradley ControlLogix PLCs, which will provide students with improved training capabilities in the use of both networked and touchpad control interfaces.

"We are grateful for the continued support of International Paper Co. to MSU and the Bagley College," said Jason Keith, dean of engineering and holder of the Earnest W. and Mary Ann Deavenport Jr. Chair. "This considerable gift will provide innovative, cutting-edge resources for faculty and students to better our research and development efforts for years to come."

The Bagley College currently offers 10 undergraduate degrees through its eight academic departments. In addition to its undergraduate programs, the college offers 21 master's and doctoral degrees. U.S. News and World Report ranks the college's programs in the top 100 nationwide.

For more information on establishing endowments in the Bagley College, contact Bennett Evans, director of development, at 662-325-0386 or bevans@bagley.msstate.edu.

MSU is Mississippi's flagship research university, available online at www.msstate.edu.