The Iowa State College of Engineering is one step closer to building the classroom of the future thanks in part to a donation from a major corporation.

Engineering officials received a check for $60,000 from representatives of General Motors Monday on campus. The check was presented to Engineering Dean James Melsa by Carl Rausch, the key executive link between ISU and GM and the company’s director of Asia Pacific operations. It is the first of five tentative annual donations.

Rausch said even though the company has already approved $300,000 the proposed high-tech classroom, the project will be evaluated each year.

Rausch said GM has selected about 30 American universities as key institutes of engineering based on the quality of their engineering education programs, demographics and degree of mutual interest.

The company’s on-campus recruiting efforts have help land jobs for more than 250 ISU graduates, including Rausch.

“This is a partnership to work with the university to enhance the quality of excellence in engineering education at Iowa State,” Rausch said.

Melsa said, “We are very pleased to be one of the small number of schools General Motors recruits from.”

One-fifth of the money will go to support women and minorities in the engineering at ISU.

Rausch said that’s important because the university needs to continue a pattern of opportunity for these groups, which are becoming an increasingly large percentage of the work force.

“We are committed to continue supporting women’s and minority’s programs in engineering. I would hope that most corporations have this sort of commitment both internally and externally,” he said. “We have to be leading the charge, not following it.”

The rest of the funding, $240,000, will help build the proposed Engineering Teaching and Research Building and the new innovative teaching classrooms.

A 1967 ISU graduate in industrial engineering, Rausch said he is committed to providing opportunities for engineering students.

“This project will give students so much more opportunity to learn and make what they learn apply to the real world,” he said.

ISU officials agreed.

“The project will vault Iowa State into a leading position in engineering education,” said Joel Snow, director of ISU’s Institute for Physical Research and Technology.