The Keck name comes with a lot of prestige. There’s the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California, the Keck Institute of Space Studies at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, and the Keck Graduate Institute of Applied Life Sciences, part of the Claremont Consortium undergraduate and graduate schools in Claremont.
Chapman University is now part of that caliber. Soon there will be the Keck Center for Science and Engineering at the university’s main campus in Orange, courtesy of a $21 million gift from the Los Angeles-based W.M. Keck Foundation. The gift, announced on campus on Thursday, is the largest commitment from the foundation to an Orange County recipient, according to the university. It’s also the largest contribution toward the $130 million cost of the building, Chapman President Daniele Struppa said.
When it opens, the center will be significant to the business community via synergy with Chapman’s business school to create an entrepreneurial environment for science and engineering-related startups, Jim Mazzo told the Business Journal. He spent more than 20 years leading Allergan’s North American and European eye care organizations from Irvine and is now global president of ophthalmic devices in Newport Beach for Carl Zeiss Meditec AG, a German company with a U.S. office in Dublin.
“I’m thrilled that we now have a haven where we can bring together great talent, minds and research,” Mazzo said. “Now we can bring young minds here rather than lose them to Northern California or other areas of Southern California.”
That young talent includes students and faculty, he said.
The center will also help prepare students for the workforce by teaching them how to work in real-world, interdisciplinary teams, said Andrew Lyon, dean of Chapman’s Schmid College of Science and Technology, which will be housed inside. Students will get the experience through Chapman’s “grand challenges initiative,” which brings together students from all disciplines to try to solve complex and meaningful problems.
“This immerses them in the type of dynamic problem-solving environment they will experience in the workforce, and is therefore an outstanding way to create driven, entrepreneurial students,” Lyon said. “The hope is that this new approach to undergraduate education results in a more sophisticated student with significantly greater preparation as they enter the job market.”
Business Synergies
Mazzo, who’s also former chairman and chief executive of medical device and eye care company Advanced Medical Optics in Santa Ana, pointed out that OC boasts the third-largest medical-device industry in the U.S. behind Minneapolis and Boston. And it’s a leading area for ophthalmology, starting with Allergan, he said. Allergan, chartered in Ireland, still has significant operations in Irvine.
While the companies have been here for a while, now they have a “great” program to partner with, he said.
Struppa echoed that sentiment, emphasizing that science and technology are historic drivers of business, especially in OC, with its med-device companies, as well as engineering firms.
Pioneer Bankroller
The Keck foundation is one of the country’s largest philanthropic organizations, with assets of more than $1.2 billion, according to Claremont McKenna College, which houses the Robert Day School of Economics & Finance. Day is chairman and chief executive of the foundation and chief executive of Los Angeles-based investment management firm Oakmont Corp. In 1971 he founded L.A.-based global asset management firm Trust Company of the West, known as the TCW Group, with just $2 million in client assets under management, and served as chairman until 2014.
The foundation supports “pioneering” discoveries in science, engineering and medicine, as well as organizations that enrich children, youth and families’ lives.
The foundation has given $2.45 million to Chapman since 1996, including $1 million to name the W.M. Keck Foundation Chemistry Suite, which will be housed in the new Keck building.
Chapman is now worthy of the much larger gift because it’s “made the transformational change from an average college 30 years ago to an outstanding university (now),” Day told the Business Journal.
He credited Chapman President Emeritus Jim Doti for starting the process.
“Doti figured out Keck would be a good name to have,” he said. “I figured out Chapman would be a good name to have. So it all worked out.”
Coming of Age
Both Doti and Struppa, the latter working in his former position as provost, were instrumental in enticing the Keck foundation to put its seal of approval on Chapman. It started with Doti, who got to know Jack Stark when he first started as president of Claremont McKenna College in 1991. Stark ultimately introduced Doti to Day, and Doti said he knew full well that the Keck foundation contributed only to schools “of stature” in the sciences.
Doti and Struppa knew Chapman had to bolster its science credentials. In 2008 as provost, Struppa recruited nine physicists and scientists, including “internationally-recognized names,” such as Menas Kafatos and Yakir Aharonov from George Mason University in Virginia.
Under Doti’s leadership, a donation from longtime Chapman supporter the Schmid family enabled Chapman to create the Schmid College of Science and Technology in May 2008. As the college grew, Chapman spun off the Crean College of Health and Behavioral Sciences based on a donation by the Crean family. Through the years, the late businessman John Crean, his wife, Donna, and the family’s Newport Beach-based Crean Foundation have supported a number of programs and projects across campus. Then Chapman added the “wet sciences,” including biology and molecular biology, and created a pharmacy school.
In 2014, Chapman opened the Harry and Diane Rinker Health Science Campus, which houses the Crean College graduate programs, including a physician’s assistant program and a school of pharmacy, the first in OC.
Last fall, Chapman was invited to meet with members of the Keck foundation to present its case, Struppa said, which included a school of engineering. This past spring, foundation members visited Chapman, and Doti had dinner with Day about six months ago to present a proposal.
“This signifies that the foundation recognizes that Chapman has come of age,” Struppa said. “We are worthy of their name. We feel extremely proud.”
Center Features
The Keck center will allocate 100,000 square feet for Schmid College and 40,000 square feet for the Fowler School of Engineering (read more on the latter in the Business Journal’s Oct. 9 edition).
The center will be the largest and most expensive building in Chapman’s history. It’s scheduled to open in the fall of 2018. The 2.25-acre complex will consist of the Hall of Science and the Hall of Engineering, connected by an archway similar to the Prairie-style architecture of Old Towne Orange.
It will include 40 labs, some for teaching, others for research, and high-tech equipment to support fields such as molecular biology and chemistry.
The center will enable undergrads to pursue “foundational sciences,” such as biology, chemistry, physics and software engineering. It will also provide a pipeline for graduate degree programs in areas including food science and data science.
With the Keck commitment, Chapman reached its $130 million funding goal for the building, a university spokesperson said. But in creating the new engineering school, it will need $20 million more, so additional fundraising will continue, she added.
