The London-based company, Rolls-Royce, which no longer makes cars that only 99 percent of the population can afford, has announced plans to build a jet engine manufacturing plant in Prince George County, southeast of Richmond. End of story? Hardly. With the company’s decision to include Virginia in its future comes a sweet deal for the University of Virginia. In addition to Virginia Tech and the Virginia Community College System, UVA will form what it’s calling an "innovative partnership" with Rolls-Royce on a number of engineering and business fronts.
 Rolls-Royce jet engines like this one in Great Britain will soon be rolling off assembly lines in Prince George County. UVA will receive state funding for new profs and renovated facilities to provide training for the plant. |
In a University press release, UVA President John Casteen III explains how Rolls-Royce can not only provide an economic benefit to Virginia, but also impact higher education around the state. "Rolls-Royce has an impressive history of collaborating with universities to support and develop research in academic centers of excellence to develop the company’s workforce, as well as to create new technologies." Casteen says that the educational and research activities will be substantial and will involve faculty and both graduate and undergraduate students. The School of Engineering and Applied Science and the McIntire School of Commerce will be particularly impacted.
Underneath Casteen’s statement lies a whole other dimension. A huge part of the reason Rolls-Royce chose Virginia over seven other states involves, in addition to direct financial incentives to the company, Commonwealth funding to UVA. The University will provide Rolls-Royce, as Virginia Secretary of Education Thomas Morris puts it in a press release from the Governor’s office, "research and development capabilities with a continuous pipeline of engineers," and in turn the state, in support of the partnership, will shower the University with $3 million over a five-year period beginning in July 2009. The state will fund six chaired professorships, three in engineering and three in the McIntire School, as well as graduate fellowships and undergraduate internships. They will also provide the means by which UVA can introduce a manufacturing minor to the engineering school and renovate mechanical engineering laboratories. And one of the two major research centers that will be created—The Center for Aerospace Propulsion Systems—will have its headquarters at the University.
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