One of the buildings to be completed for Iowa State’s proposed Engineering Teaching and Research Complex (ETRC) may be named Stanley and Helen Howe Hall after the couple who recently donated $6 million for the new facility.

A request was made at the State Board of Regents meeting last week to name one of the buildings in the engineering complex in honor of the Howes.

In addition to the Howes’ donation, a further $1 million for equipment was donated by HON Industries, a Fortune 1000 company that Stanley Howe directed for many years. He now serves as chairman emeritus and as a member of the board of directors at HON.

A resolution was presented by the university to the regents to publicly acknowledge the Howes’ and HON Industries’ generous financial gifts, the single largest cash donation to an Iowa public university, and their support to ISU.

Stanley Howe is a 1946 ISU engineering graduate. Helen Howe earned a B.A. in business administration from Iowa Wesleyan College in 1981.

The $61 million ETRC will consist of several modern buildings containing many high-tech, computer integrated classrooms. It is supposed to facilitate cooperation between teaching and research. The ETRC will be financed by a mix of federal, state and private funds.

“The building is going to be set up with most or all of classrooms set up to put things on the Iowa Communications Network [ICN],” said David Holger, an associate dean of the College of Engineering. “We think it will be increasingly important in the future to both send and receive information in the classroom.”