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ASU's new Tooker House brings engineering education home

ASU's Tooker House is designed for inquisitive engineering minds.
Want to know when your laundry is done? Yeah, there's an app for that.
August 11, 2017

Everything at cutting-edge Tempe residence hall designed to enhance what Ira A. Fulton students learn in classrooms and labs

Editor's note: This story is being highlighted in ASU Now's year in review. To read more top stories from 2017, click here.

When Arizona State University’s latest crop of engineering students move this weekend into the state-of-the-art residence hall built specifically for their discipline, they aren’t living in just any old dorm.

They are living totally immersed in an engineering education experience.

Everything about Tooker House, a brand-new 1,600-student community for engineering students, is designed to enhance and extend what they learn in classrooms and labs.

“Innovation has a new home address at Tooker House,” said Kyle Squires, dean of the Fulton Schools of Engineering. “This mixed-use living and learning facility sets a new standard in engineering education and reflects the breadth and depth of the student experience at the largest engineering school in the nation.”

Video by Ken Fagan/ASU Now

The fully Wi-Fi-accessible facility has enough bandwidth to accommodate four devices per resident. There are seven social lounges, seven study lounges and six academic success centers.

“Everything in here is built with the mind-set of engineers,” said Bradley Bolin, assistant director for residential life at the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering. “If you look at the ceilings, they look like they’re unfinished, but this is the finished product. They know engineers want to see not just the surface, but what’s beyond the surface. Where does water run? Where is the electricity? What kind of materials did they use?

“If you walk down the hallway, you’ll see where the hot water line is and where the cold water line is. You’ll see where Internet is placed. Our electrical room is all glass on the hallway side. Students who are interested in that type of engineering can walk down to what is running our building and look through and see actual engineers using the space.”

Engineers love to know how things work, and how things are put together.

“To see the inner workings of a building kind of kick-starts peoples’ imaginations,” said Pedro Giorge, a junior majoring in mechanical engineering who lives in Tooker House. “It’s really cool to see an application of what we learn in school actually applied. When you’re in your books and you’re concentrating on your work and the theories behind really don’t make a connection until you actually see something like an electrical system or a mechanical system. It’s just really cool to see that at home for a lot of these students.”

The vast majority of Tooker House residents are first-year engineering students. (The first and second floors are dedicated to upper-division students.) They run the gamut: civil engineering, mechanical engineering, material management engineering.

“Any type of engineering taught at Fulton, they can live at Tooker House,” Bolin said.

Two makerspaces outfitted for engineers provide a collaborative environment where students can work on projects, develop new technologies and have access to tools like 3-D printers and laser cutters. The spaces are also equipped with video chat, adjustable tables, soundproofing and lockers for projects.

“Engineers go through a lot of classes, and they have to do a lot of group work,” Bolin said. “What’s awesome about Tooker House, there’s plenty of group spaces where students can come together and use the floor-to-ceiling, wall-to-wall white boards. They can write out their big equations like they do in the movies. We created spaces like that just for them to walk down the hall with their roommate or someone who is in the same class with them and utilize the space we have here for them to work on their projects together. And, with the academic success centers in Tooker House, they have direct access to tutors, who are sophomores, seniors and sometimes grad students.”

Other amenities in the residence hall include a full-service, 14,000-square-foot, 525-seat dining facility; recreation center with modern student lounges, billiards and ping-pong; a modern fitness center with cardio machines and strength equipment, and a convenience store.

It’s a gated community with 24-hour campus security and front-desk services; live-in residential staff; and a courtyard with a sun deck and outdoor gathering pavilions.

Suites are fully furnished apartments with adjoining bathrooms, hardwood-style flooring, solar blackout shades, USB outlets and ceiling fans.

On-site laundry facilities with Bluetooth washers and dryers notify students when cycles are complete. 

“We have 130 washers and dryers to accommodate (students),” Bolin said. “They are on the second, fourth and sixth floors. There’s a really cool app. If a student doesn’t want to get out of their room, they can check the app to see when a machine is available and when their laundry is done.”

The new residence hall is named for Diane and Gary Tooker. Diane Tooker is an alumnus of ASU’s Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College and a former business owner and elementary school teacher. Gary Tooker is an alumnus of the Fulton Schools of Engineering and a former CEO of Motorola.

Together, the couple has made contributions to ASU through the ASU Foundation for more than 30 years, including support for the university’s teaching and engineering programs and the endowed Diane and Gary Tooker Chair for Effective Education in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math. Gary Tooker’s contributions to fostering Arizona’s tech sector were recognized with a lifetime achievement award presented at the 2012 Governor’s Celebration of Innovation.

“Diane and Gary Tooker are not only longtime supporters of ASU, but of innovation and education. Tooker House epitomizes the best of both,” said Gretchen Buhlig, CEO of ASU Foundation. “We are grateful to them, and for the opportunity to bring new spaces and modes of learning to our Fulton Schools of Engineering students.”

Top photo by Charlie Leight/ASU Now

Scott Seckel

Reporter , ASU News

Leading Phoenix manufacturer ON Semiconductor invests in business, engineering with named ASU professorships


August 11, 2017

Two Arizona State University faculty members have been named the inaugural ON Semiconductor Professors in Business and Engineering to attract, support and retain top business and engineering talent in the Phoenix area.

Leading semiconductor-based solutions supplier and longtime ASU industry partner ON Semiconductor created these endowed professorships and committed $2 million to the W. P. Carey School of Business and the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering named professors over a five-year period. The gift, like all private donations made to ASU, contributes to Campaign ASU 2020. Professors Dale Rogers and Bertan Bakkaloglu Professors Dale S. Rogers and Bertan Bakkaloglu were named ON Semiconductor Professors of Business and Engineering, confirming their roles as leaders in their respective fields of supply chain management and electrical engineering. Photo by Marco-Alexis Chaira/ASU Download Full Image

Bertan Bakkaloglu, a professor of electrical engineering, was named the ON Semiconductor Professor of Engineering, and Dale S. Rogers, a professor of logistics and supply chain management, was named the ON Semiconductor Professor of Business. These distinguished faculty members were nominated by their respective schools.

This partnership will help both ASU and ON Semiconductor sustain the growth in resources and people needed to maintain leadership in the tech market.

“Phoenix is quickly becoming a place where technology companies are looking to expand, and that means academic-industry partnerships will increase their importance both on the research and design front, as well as the talented individuals leading the charge with new innovative approaches, automation and systems,” said Tobin Cookman, senior vice president of human resources at ON Semiconductor, which offers a portfolio of products to help engineers solve electronic design problems and boasts a reliable world-class supply chain.

The professorships mark the latest in a long line of collaborations between ASU and ON Semiconductor stretching back to 1999. The two institutions have partnered on numerous initiatives to foster growth in both academic and industrial advancement, and the new partnership was welcomed by the deans of both the business and engineering schools. 

“This partnership with ON Semiconductor not only provides terrific recognition of our outstanding faculty, it also advances our research capabilities and drives meaningful change to help cement the Phoenix area as a business and technology leader,” said Kyle Squires, dean of the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering and professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering. “We look forward to what ON Semiconductor, the Fulton Schools and the W. P. Carey School can accomplish together to impact the future of innovation in engineering and business.”

Amy Hillman, dean of the W. P. Carey School of Business and holder of the Rusty Lyon Chair in Strategy, added, “ON Semiconductor is driving innovation and operating a reliable and responsive supply chain with high standards for ethics and compliance. As a business school with a top-ranked supply chain management program, we are thrilled to collaborate with ON Semiconductor and grateful for this investment in our impressive faculty. I am confident that the partnership between ON Semiconductor and the W. P. Carey School will fuel more impactful research and discovery.”  

The professors named by ON Semiconductor are pushing the frontiers of scholarly impact and productivity in the fields of business and engineering, as well as inspiring and engaging students as mentors, advocates and role models.

“We look to work closely with faculty and researchers to keep up with the latest technology developments,” Cookman said. 

The named professorship funds will benefit the recipients’ research, equipment, facilities, student support and associated scholarly endeavors.

Bakkaloglu is grateful for the ON Semiconductor’s support, which will allow him to grow the Fulton Schools’ programs and influence in the industry.

“The ON Semiconductor Professorship will enable me to grow our analog, mixed signal and radio frequency design curriculum and research program further, making it one of the premier programs in the country,” Bakkaloglu said. 

Bakkaloglu joined ASU’s electrical engineering faculty in 2004 after working in industry on system-on-chip designs with integrated battery management and analog baseband functionality as a design leader at Texas Instruments.

He is an expert in radio frequency (RF) and power amplifier (PA) supply regulators, RF synthesizers, biomedical and instrumentation circuits and systems, high-speed RF data converters and RF built-in-self-test circuits for communication integrated circuits.

Rogers is a leading researcher in the fields of reverse logistics, sustainable supply chain management, supply chain finance and secondary markets with an extensive history in publishing, presentation and academic professional organizations and boards. In 2012, he became the first academic to receive the International Warehouse and Logistics Association Distinguished Service Award in its 120-year history.

Rogers feels honored to be awarded an endowed position named for a company in an industry that improves people’s lives.

“ON Semiconductor has a rich history and a strong record of innovation that has led to an improved standard of living for billions of people globally,” said Rogers, who has a more than 30-year history of working in the semiconductor industry.

Rogers hopes to expand his research with Elliot Rabinovich, a professor of supply chain management, on the internet’s influence on supply chain management evolution. 

“I am hoping that the support of the ON Semiconductor Professorship will help us expand the Internet Edge Supply Chain Lab,” Rogers said. “It is already growing quickly, but we are hoping that it will be the preeminent research lab on internet-enabled supply chain management.”

Jeff Wincel, vice president and chief procurement officer at ON Semiconductor, has a strong relationship with the W. P. Carey School of Business. He is a current ASU Trustee representing the W. P. Carey School of Business, as well as a member of the W. P. Carey Dean’s Council and has served as a faculty associate of the supply chain management department.

In addition to his connection to the W. P. Carey School, Wincel’s connection to Rogers goes back many years. In fact, Wincel was one of Rogers’ first students when Rogers taught logistics as a doctoral student at Michigan State University in the late 1980s.

“Dr. Dale Rogers is among the first-generation academics and early pioneers in supply chain management (SCM). His work and research has reshaped a discipline that was once seen as little more than administrative processing,” Wincel said. “Dr. Rogers is among a select group that has advanced SCM to an important and meaningful discipline, providing strategic insight and competitive advantage to the world’s leading companies. We are proud to have Dr. Rogers as the first recipient of the ON Semiconductor Professor of Business at the W. P. Carey School of Business.”

Cookman is looking forward to what this partnership can accomplish in the supply chain and engineering fields. 

“Collaborating with top-ranked schools like the W. P. Carey School of Business and the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering leads to creative and original solutions in both the supply chain and engineering industries,” Cookman said. “As both markets mature, the next generation of highly skilled business and engineering leaders will be needed to advance the technology innovation of the future.”

Monique Clement

Lead communications specialist, Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering

480-727-1958