A Heritage of Excellence

It was a firm belief in the future that motivated Russell E. Lawrence to found an institute of higher learning in 1932 — in the depths of the economic chaos of the Great Depression. While less visionary individuals predicted gloom, Russell Lawrence and his brother, George, turned a dream of preparing students for leadership in the new technological era into reality.

“This institution,” Russell Lawrence told a Detroit News reporter in June 1932, “is founded on the principle of . . . a real spirit of educational cooperation between industry and learning.” Indeed, what distinguished Lawrence Tech early on was that business and industrial leaders were asked, “What type of skills should college graduates possess to succeed in the workplace?” Lawrence and his faculty then designed curricula to meet those needs — a truly unorthodox approach in the early 1930s, when many educators were cloistered within ivory towers.

The Lawrence brothers also took one more highly unusual step, one that made accessible a college education to working students: they also pioneered the offering of evening classes. The nation’s need for leaders, the Lawrences reasoned, was so acute that no student should be forced to decide between college and a job, or be denied a college education because of cost. Assisted by Henry Ford, who saw the advantages of making higher education available to his employees, they located Lawrence Tech on the site where Ford perfected the moving assembly line.

From the beginning, Lawrence Tech students had the option of pursuing degree programs in the day, evening, or in some
combination of the two. Regardless of when classes were offered, scholastic quality would be the hallmark. “Theory and
Practice” would be both motto and teaching philosophy.

Seventy-Five Years of Success

The Lawrence brothers’ dream became a reality even they would have had difficulty imagining. Now celebrating its 75th anniversary, Lawrence Tech has nearly 30,000 graduates and educates nearly 5,000 students representing 26 states and 25 nations in over 60 undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral programs in Colleges of Architecture and Design, Arts and Sciences, Engineering, and Management. The University is ranked among U.S. News & World Report’s Best Colleges and Intel’s “Top 50 Unwired Campuses.”

These achievements are attributable largely to the loyalty and support of Lawrence Tech’s donors and alumni. In 2001, the
University launched The Campaign for Lawrence Tech: A Commitment to Our Students, a comprehensive fund-raising campaign that raised nearly $46.4 million for capital improvements and scholarships. The campaign, which concluded in 2006, changed the face of Lawrence Tech.