Science museum, NU to widen paths
Bernard M. Gordon , founder of the Peabody medical imaging company
The two $20 million gifts will come from a foundation created by Gordon and his wife, Sophia , the Gordon Foundation, and are scheduled to be announced today . They are the largest donations ever received by either institution .
At the museum, the gift will expand the engineering focus in exhibits and educational programs aimed at motivating a new crop of American engineers and inventors. The money will be used to remodel a wing of the museum to house its two-year-old National Center for Technological Literacy, which seeks to boost engineering curricula in schools.
At Northeastern, the money will support an engineering center, to be renamed the Bernard M. Gordon Center for Subsurface Sensing and Imaging Systems. The center, created in 2000, works on new ways to probe hidden areas -- underground, underwater, or in the human body. The gift will also establish an elite master's program affiliated with the center.
Gordon's two gifts come amid mounting concern among business executives about a perceived weakening of US math and science education at all levels, and a decline in the number of American students earning engineering degrees. With more foreign-born engineering graduates of US schools returning to their home countries to take advantage of new opportunities, training American engineers has become a priority.
``Some of us old-timers believe there has been a decline in the breadth of engineering education," said the 79-year-old Gordon, who has worked as an engineer for nearly 60 years. ``I've been outspoken about improving our competitive engineering capability, the ability to turn out a project on time, meeting specifications. How could it be that the Romans built aqueducts 2,000 years ago that are still standing today, while the ceiling on the Big Dig tunnel came down in two years?"
In an interview, Gordon said the problem is two-fold: Engineering education has become too specialized, turning out a dwindling number of graduates who can see the big picture.
At the same time, American students are shifting away from engineering toward higher-paying jobs in fields like finance. His analysis is echoed by other business leaders in Massachusetts and nationally.
``It's important to ensure there's a pipeline of talented kids going into engineering," said J.D. Chesloff , director of public policy for the Massachusetts Business Roundtable, who is helping to organize an ``innovation summit" that will address engineering shortcomings this fall at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. ``The employer community has identified this issue as key for the future workforce."
The Gordon Foundation has distributed more than $100 million since the late 1980s, much of it to train engineers and scientists and support educational and medical initiatives.
Among the recipients have been MIT, Tufts University, the National Academy of Engineering, Salem State College, the Israel Institute of Technology (known as the Technion), and the Lahey Clinic, where Gordon is chairman of the board.
A Springfield native who co founded another medical imaging company, NeuroLogica of Danvers, Gordon began his engineering career after serving in the Navy and graduating from MIT. He and his work teams hold hundreds of patents.
His inventions range from fetal monitoring systems and the instant imaging CT scanner to a digital air traffic control system and the analog-to-digital signal converter used on computers and televisions.
His gift to Northeastern is especially significant because the university has struggled to raise the private funds it needs to match its growing ambitions as a serious research institution.
University president Richard M. Freeland is credited with vastly improving what was once a bare-bones commuter institution. In an interview, he said that even though he had led a successful $200 million capital campaign, he had been eager to bring in an individual eight-figure gift. Gordon's donation comes in Freeland's last week in office; Joseph Aoun takes the reins on Monday.
Gordon, an MIT graduate and a Tufts University trustee, had no previous connection to Northeastern, Freeland said. He said the philanthropist was attracted by the university's emphasis on marrying research with practical applications.
``Sometimes it takes someone from the outside to fully appreciate the value and excellence of an institution," Freeland said.
The sensing and imaging center was created with a National Science Foundation grant, but the federal money will run out in 2010.
The Gordon gift will allow the center to evolve from an academic research center into an R&D center focused on converting research into products, the university said.
An intensive, one-year master's degree program within the center will ultimately enroll about 20 students a year, according to Northeastern. The program will begin in the fall of 2007.
Ioannis N. Miaoulis , president and director of the science museum, has been talking with the Gordons for more than a year about a donation.
Miaoulis is a former engineering dean at Tufts, where Gordon's foundation funded the Gordon Institute at the School of Engineering. The institute, Gordon said, aims to be a West Point for engineers.
The museum has sharpened its focus on new technology and engineering in recent years, with the 2004 launch of the technological literacy center, which already has created programs for schools in 28 states, and an effort fueled by a National Science Foundation grant last year to create nanotechnology exhibits and educational programs for museums across the country.
``We are perfectly positioned, regionally and nationally, to lead an effort to inspire the next generation of engineers," Miaoulis said.
The museum's new Sophia & Bernard M. Gordon wing, which is scheduled to be completed by the end of next year, will be located in underused storage space in the section of the museum that houses parking , Miaoulis said.
The museum will also use the money to develop interactive exhibits showcasing engineering leaders, live presentations that interpret breakthroughs in science, displays of new technology from academic and corporate research labs, and new textbooks and other educational materials for elementary through high schools across the country.
Robert Weisman can be reached at weisman@globe.com.Marcella Bombardierican be reached at bombardieri@globe.com. 
