FULLERTON : University-Industry Center Proposed

Cal State Fullerton officials on Tuesday unveiled an ambitious plan to form a joint university-industry center for research in systems engineering at the Fullerton campus.

The idea for the Applied Research Center for Systems Science, which would work jointly with member firms to develop new systems and train future engineers, was formally presented to officials of 11 prominent corporations, including Rockwell International, Hughes Aircraft Co., TRW and McDonnell Douglas.

“I think this represents a major shift . . . so that we can more closely meet the needs of industry,” said Harriett Kagiwada, who last year joined the Cal State Fullerton faculty as the Rockwell International professor of systems engineering.

The National Science Foundation, which has provided seed money for 50 such centers across the nation, including one at UC Irvine in high-speed image processing, has already given Cal State Fullerton a $25,000 grant to develop a proposal, Kagiwada said. At Tuesday’s meeting, an NSF official told university officials and industry leaders that his agency would grant the center $50,000 a year for five years, contingent on industry support.

“I’m looking for a minimum of $300,000 in membership agreement support from companies,” said Alex Schwarzkopf, director of the NSF’s industry-university cooperative research centers program.

Kagiwada said the proposed center to date has commitments from Hughes Aircraft and interest from companies including General Dynamics, Lockheed, Northrop and Rockwell.

“It is difficult to raise the membership money (during) these hard times,” she said. “At the same time, these companies have said they are very interested. . . . They would be getting access to methods, tools, techniques and training that would enable them to have greater productivity from their smaller work force and to make them more adaptable to changing competition.”

Kagiwada said the university’s School of Engineering and Computer Science hopes to begin offering a new certificate program in systems engineering next year. The proposed center would be an interdisciplinary research unit involving about one-third of the engineering school faculty.