New Thayer Partner

The Xerox Corporation has joined the Thayer School's Educational Partnership Program, which was established in 1967 to promote a closer liaison between business and industry on the one hand and graduate education on the other.

Xerox becomes the seventh firm to enter into the special relationship with the engineering school. Under the program, the Thayer School functions as a laboratory for creative engineering design and its industrial partners as proving grounds.

The partnership program emphasizes a two-way exchange of ideas and services on a virtual one-to-one relationship. A member of the Thayer faculty, for instance, may serve as liaison professor to Xerox, to be available for consultation on technical and engineering matters. One or more graduate students may elect to work with the firm on specific problems. Or a student may choose some facet of the firm's work as a thesis topic.

Industrial or business partners, for their part, may send an engineer to the school from time to time to consult with faculty and students.

Close ties already exist between Thayer and Xerox. Myron Tribus, the corporation's senior vice president for research and development, was Thayer School's dean from 1961 to 1970. He was recently named an Adjunct Professor of Engineering. In that capacity, he returns to the school for occasional lectures and seminars.