Over the past 20 years, Exelon Corp. has invested over $1 million in NPRE students and programs, generating benefits for both parties - funding for NPRE, employees for Exelon.
“We got our return in spades in terms of the talent (of the students) we ended up getting and the relationships we’ve developed,” said William Naughton, who retired this year as coordinator for the utility’s universities program. “It was a win-win all the way around.”
Annually for two decades, Exelon has provided at least $50,000 to NPRE and the nuclear engineering programs at four other universities, most recently Purdue, Wisconsin, Missouri University of Science and Technology and Pennsylvania State University. Few restrictions have been placed on the funding, provided to build university nuclear fission programs, including offering scholarships.
NPRE has used the funds predominantly to support students, and that has been key in growing the Department’s undergraduate numbers. Enrollment hovering in the 30s prior to 2000 has exploded to just over 200 students in Academic Year 2011-12, and is at 190 this year. More recently, Exelon’s support has helped fund new faculty start-up costs. In a little over a year, NPRE’s faculty has grown from eight to 12 members. “We are eternally grateful to Exelon for their support over the years,” said NPRE Department Head Jim Stubbins. “The support was one of the major reasons we came through the lean years. The funding provided the support to maintain the strength of our students and academic program in spite of other challenges.”
Nationwide, many universities have grown their nuclear engineering programs. That wasn’t the case 20 years ago, and was the reason Exelon chose to make a change.
In 1990, the Committee on Nuclear Engineering Education, Energy Engineering Board, Commission on Engineering and Technical Systems and the National Research Council produced a report: U.S. Nuclear Engineering Education: Status and Prospects. The report referenced “the widely felt concern about the downward trends in student enrollments in nuclear engineering, specifically in the nuclear fission area, in both graduate and undergraduate programs.” (At that time, significant government research funds were available for fusion aspects of nuclear energy.) The report also told of declining numbers of U.S. university nuclear engineering programs, the aging of their faculties, and a decreasing availability of scholarships and research funding.
“It really was rough times then,” Naughton remembers. “Nuclear fission programs at schools were closing left and right, as there were no research funds available. Yet, we (the utilities) were building plants like crazy.”
Working at the time in Chicago for Commonwealth Edison, Exelon’s predecessor, Naughton had served as a consultant on the report. He remembers that after it came out, Max W. Carbon, then-head of Wisconsin’s nuclear engineering department, visited Commonwealth Edison Chief Executive Officer James J. O’Connor and challenged the company to get involved. O’Connor responded with the company’s plan and the condition that the U.S. Department of Energy provide matching funds. The DOE agreed to a 5-Year Pilot Program and the program was born.
Said Naughton: “I was the person in charge of visiting the universities and the department heads to find out what the money should be used for.” Twice a year, at each semi-annual American Nuclear Society Meeting for the five year interval, Naughton convened with university and DOE representatives to develop a comprehensive report to present to DOE to provide a solid basis for the agency to make the program permanent. The process was a success as DOE accepted the report and established the Matching Grant Program.
The utility’s support has been constant even when federal funding switched from the DOE’s auspices to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Now both DOE and NRC support all university nuclear programs, and Naughton believes Exelon’s decision 20 years ago was an influence.