The largest-ever single gift given to Mississippi State University will aid the expansion of teaching and research in the university’s engineering college and provide the unit a new name. During ceremonies on Friday at the Hunter Henry Center, the university announced the $25 million gift from MSU alumnus James W. Bagley, chairman of the board and chief operation officer of Lam Research Corp., and his wife Jean. Based out of Fremont, Calif., Lam Research is a global supplier of of silicon wafer processing systems used in semiconductor manufacturing.
“MSU has been very important in our lives,” Bagley said. “This is an opportunity that very few people get to make.
“We now can give back to the state and university that allowed most of our success to happen.”
In 1902, MSU made the College of Engineering separate from the university, making it its own college. This year marks the 100-year anniversary of its founding year. The college will be renamed the James Worth Bagley College of Engineering.
“We have a new name, new outlook and new horizons to meet in the next 100 years,” Wayne Bennett, dean of the College of Engineering, said. “That is why this gift is so special. We are making a commitment to use the resources as wisely as we can.”
“This is a historic occasion and represents the future of our university,” interim President Charles Lee said. “This gift will help create more wonderful opportunities for the sons and daughters of Mississippi.”
“Naming is an indication of commitment to excellence,” Bennett said. “We now join the ranks of only around two dozen other schools in the nation to have their college of engineering named after someone.”
The naming of the college of engineering was approved by the Board of Trustees of Mississippi’s Institutions of Higher Learning after university officials asked for the change.
Bagley, who earned a bachelor’s degree in 1961 and a master’s degree in 1966 from MSU, both in electrical engineering was named the engineering college’s Alumnus of the Year in 1994.
Bagley began his career with Texas Instruments in 1966. After 13 years, he left to join Applied Materials Inc. of Santa Clara, Calif., where he served from 1987 to 1996 as president and chief operating officer before becoming chairman of the board and chief executive officer of Lam Research in 1997.
“This is a significant commitment on your part,” Bennett said to Bagley on Friday. “But now we are making a commitment back to you to make the difference that you wanted.”
MSU’s engineering school ranks in the top 11 percent in the nation and fourth in the Southeast in engineering research expenditures, officials said. About 2,600 undergraduate and graduate students are currently enrolled.
“Sometimes we just focus on the money that is given, but I believe that we should focus more on the commitment,” Bennett said.
Bagley’s gift is the largest single financial commitment in the university’s 124-year history and comes at a time where private donations are more important than ever to public universities.
Bagley’s donation tops the previous record of $14 million in stock from Texas businessman Dave Swalm to build the $18.6 million Swalm Engineering Building that opened in 2000.
The College of Engineering will use Bagley’s gift to attract more students and nationally known faculty, to enhance programs and to better position the college to receive support from other sources.
“This will help accelerate us to retain the best in the state as well as the nation,” Lee said. “This will also accelerate the ability for making us a magnet to attract more jobs to our state.”
“This will give more opportunities to our students than what they would have somewhere else,” Bennett said.
“This is helpful to our research programs to provide the specialized facilities to our cutting-edge research on conditions that affect our state’s economy,” Lee said.
Bennett said Bagley’s gift will focus on graduate student work and research.
“This commitment will give way to new research plans, but also will support graduate student fellowships,” Bennett said.
The recent James and Jean Bagley Endowment will provide additional resources for undergraduate and graduate education. Also through new professorships, research will be supported to seek to stimulate career opportunities, according to officials.
“The most important thing that we can do is to help educate our young people, and that’s what all of this is about-investing in the young people of the state of Mississippi because they have such a tremendous impact on the state,” Bagley said.
“More faculty with advanced credentials, both nationally and internationally known, will help all the students,” Lee said. “But more importantly, it will add more credit to the students’ degrees.”
“This will help MSU as well as the state because high-tech industry goes where the talent is,” Bennett said. “And we have the talent for them.”
“We look forward to the wonderful things that will be done for the College of Engineering, MSU and most importantly the state of Mississippi,” Bagley said.