Bay Area design software giant Autodesk Inc. has made a record-breaking donation to Howard University's College of Engineering and Architecture.
The $5 million gift will be used to create a 2,500-square-foot "design and make" facility within Lewis K. Downing Hall, the college's main engineering building located at 2300 Sixth St. NW. It's the largest unrestricted philanthropic donation in the engineering and architecture college’s 90-year history.
The donation will be used to fill the lab with equipment and staff as well as to establish an endowment. Various educational activities for elementary, middle and high school students will also take place in the new space to expose them to STEM-based career opportunities from an early age.
John M. M. Anderson, dean of the College of Engineering and Architecture, told me partnerships like the long-standing one the college has with Autodesk are crucial to ensure students obtain access to industry-standard software and hardware products. For the maker space, set to open in early 2025, this will include fitting it with new 3D printers and computers with Autodesk's AutoCAD software, for example.
All students at Howard will have access to this space, not just those in the engineering and architecture college. Anderson told me that's part of a bigger ambition to increase the representation of Black engineers and architects in the workforce while also encouraging all students at the historically Black university to explore how 3D printing and other technologies could become relevant in different capacities.
"The fact that we will be able to offer an immersive, experiential learning experience that, heretofore, we would not have been able to provide — certainly not to this extent that we expect to be able to do so — it's just extremely important," Anderson said. "Howard University believes that it's important that we create opportunities in a very broad way."
Due to its multidisciplinary appeal, Howard envisions the lab as a place for collaboration across the university's footprint. Its establishment, which is still undergoing proper naming considerations, is being created at a time when only 3% of the nation's mechanical engineers are Black, according to research compiled by career and jobs platform Zippia. Helping improve those figures and other diversity metrics is something Autodesk Chief Marketing Officer Dara Treseder told me is vital for the company.
"Our hope is that through this space, through this interdisciplinary collaboration, through creating a place in a community where we're not only inspiring those university students but also K through 12, we're helping to really change the narrative, change the paradigm," Treseder said.
The donation from Autodesk follows other donations Howard has landed from prominent tech firms in recent years. In June 2021, Google awarded a $5 million grant to the university for tech education and workforce development. The same month, Apple Inc. made a $1.25 million donation for the development of a silicon and hardware engineering curriculum.
In July 2020, amid a flurry of donations across the country, author and philanthropist MacKenzie Scott announced a $40 million gift to Howard, the university's largest-ever donation.
