July 30, 2018
Over the past two decades, ICPF has placed almost $12 million of equipment, and millions more in software, within packaging programs at colleges and universities around the nation. That figure continues to grow. This past May, the ICPF Board of Directors reviewed nine university proposals to further advance their corrugated curricula for students. The university proposals were received in response to ICPF’s Corrugated Packaging Awards’ request for proposals that was released late last year. Because of the strength of the entries, the ICPF Board voted to provide three years of funding and equipment to support the new initiatives at all nine universities. Funding was additionally approved for a rolling Corrugated Packaging Awards program to which universities can apply as new opportunities to expand corrugated programming for students emerge.
After signing letters of agreement, those universities that will receive funding, equipment, and design software over the next three years will include Clemson University, Millersville University, Rutgers University, North Carolina State University, Indiana State University, University of Texas at Arlington, Western Michigan University, Cal Poly, and Lewis-Clark State College.
Some of the elements of new initiatives enabled by ICPF will include: the creation of three new corrugated packaging design labs; the funding for additional dedicated corrugated faculty at four universities, which will expand the curricula and the number of undergraduate students within each program; the introduction of corrugated sales and business into packaging coursework; the launch of corrugated packaging curricula within two existing paper science engineering programs; the creation and execution of a prototype to promote corrugated packaging to attract additional high school students into university packaging classes; the expansion of a packaging design program to include the evaluation and testing of corrugated materials; and the creation of new packaging degrees and certification programs for undergraduate students.
Richard Flaherty is president of the International Corrugated Packaging Foundation.
