MSU's contribution to the program would pay four faculty members their 10-month salary and all overhead, and the affiliate's share would pay the personnel cost of the two new faculty members, the clerical staff, the summer salary for all staff, and the graduate students' support . This means that MSU will finance $285,00O/year (53% of total cost) and outside sources $255,000/year (47% of total cost). It must be stressed that the main goal of MSU power program is to train innovative power engineers in breadth and depth;
therefore;
the highest operating cost financed by MEPRA'S affiliates is student support. This money will be used to finance most of MEPRA's student program. This program uses three tools: undergraduate fellowships;
graduate fellowships;
and industrial affiliations. MEPRA's funding for students will be used only for undergraduate and graduate fellowships. After studying other industrial affiliation programs in power engineering the committee proposed an innovative financing scheme for MEPRA.(33) All companies related to the power industry who recruit at MSU should be invited to become affiliates of MEPRA. Around 50% of their financial support should be a subscription fee. This fee would be used to finance long-term research projects leading toward M.S. and Ph.D. degrees. Affiliates will also pledge to give at least the same amount of financial support as their subscription fee through specific grant and contract activity. Contracted TDR projects for an amount equal to the subscription fee of an affiliate will have a direct personnel cost determined as follolrs: Faculty time will be charged at 76% of its direct cost to MSU. (This is the ratio of the affiliate's share in financing faculty TDR time to total faculty TDR time.) As no overhead (38%) will be charged for personnel cost;
the ratio between cost to affiliatedreal cost of faculty TDR is 0.76/1.38=0.55. Student time will be charged at their direct cost with no overhead. Subscribing companies will thus have priority on the use of the TDR resources available;
with faculty time at a subsidized rate and no overhead charged. The committee hypothesized that this scheme will guarantee to the industry a continuous interest by the faculty and student body in helping solve power industry problems through the contracted TDR work. As students will participate in this contract work;
under the constraints of a budget;
a timetable;
and well-defined objectives;
they will be exposed to an industrial environment;
gaining valuable professional experience. As faculty members will benefit from MEPRA's general (affiliation fee) funding in direct proportion to the amount of contracted work they perform for the affiliate members;
they will have a very strong initiative to maintain close ties with their counterparts in industty. The described power engineering program (curriculum;
laboratories and industrial affiliate program) was developed. After receiving MSU administration approval in March 1985;
the EE department started to promote the program intensively among utilities;
stressing its benefits to industry among them: A significant and definite pattern of growth in the number of undergraduates interested in power and utility industry employment. Better trained graduates for power industry positions. The development of a center for power engineering education research and extension in the Northwest;
in a university environment conducive to interdisciplinary cooperation. A commitment to work on problems of the affiliate's immediate interest through its TDR contracted research;
possibly financed by more than one member;