Jim (left) and Bill Baum
A Place for Engineering Undergrads to Call Home
SAN MARINO investment banker Dwight C. “Bill” Baum has given $2.5 million to build a student center for undergraduates in the USC School of Engineering. The center – to be dubbed the Baum Family Student Center – will be built as part of the school’s projected Ronald Tutor Hall, providing an open lounge/reception space; common areas in which to hold meetings or study; offices for undergraduate advising and career services; tutoring and interview rooms; and a cybercafé with Internet connections.
“In the rush to make USC one of the nation’s top engineering schools, the social interaction so necessary among students and faculty seemed hampered by the lack of a facility such as this,” said Baum, a senior vice president at PaineWebber Inc. “Reports from my grandchildren helped reinforce this perception.”
Grandson Dwight J. Baum III graduated last year with a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering, and granddaughter Lauren Baum is currently a junior majoring in biomedical engineering.
Bill Baum and his late wife, Hildagarde, funded USC’s Dwight C. and Hildagarde E. Baum Chair in Biomedical Engineering in 1998. Son Dwight J. “Jim” Baum II – together with his father – has been instrumental in funding the Society of Auto-motive Engineers’ race car team at USC.
Bill Baum, a chartered financial analyst, is a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.

 

 
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