The School of Engineering and Applied Science at Columbia University will name its premier instructional facility, a state-of-the-art multimedia laboratory, for Edward Botwinick, the founder of Timeplex, Inc., an engineering alumnus and University Trustee Emeritus who has contributed $1 million.

The Botwinick Gateway Laboratory will be dedicated Monday, Oct. 7, at 2 P.M. It is located on the 12th floor of the Seeley W. Mudd Engineering Building, West 120th Street and Amsterdam Avenue, on the University's Morningside Heights campus. Columbia President George Rupp will address the gathering and students and faculty will demonstrate three-dimensional multimedia technologies that are finding wide application in industry.

"Mr. Botwinick has been a generous supporter of our efforts for many years, and I am very pleased to see his contributions recognized in this way," said Zvi Galil, Dean of Engineering and Morris A. and Alma Schapiro Professor. "The creation of this electronic learning laboratory serves as an important symbol of the School's commitment to provide its students with an education that is engaging, rigorous and up-to-date.

"The Botwinick Gateway Laboratory is one of the jewels in Columbia's crown, and it is fitting that it be named for an outstanding alumnus."

U.S. News & World Report calls multimedia "one of the hottest specialties in engineering," with applications to such varied industries as aerospace, automobiles, education, finance and health care, as well as television and feature film production. At Columbia, undergraduates have virtually unlimited access to this technology, which at other institutions is commonly reserved for graduate students and faculty research, Dean Galil said.

Every Columbia engineering student takes courses that allow each one to explore, at his or her own pace, multimedia approaches to problem-solving. With no blackboards and no lectures, faculty serve as mentors and students learn how engineers work with multi-dimensional visualization techniques.

The laboratory includes a networked digital studio and classroom equipped with 40 Silicon Graphics Indy computer workstations, each with 64 megabytes of random-access memory, Ethernet and ISDN connections. The workstations are linked to a Silicon Graphics Onyx Reality Engine graphics supercomputer and high-resolution projection system for instruction and demonstrations.

The lab is an important component of Columbia's role as founding member of the Gateway Coalition, a consortium of 10 engineering schools formed with the support of the National Science Foundation and mandated to seek ways to make engineering curricula more appealing and challenging.

Mr. Botwinick graduated from Columbia College in 1956 with a B.A. in physics and from the engineering school in 1958 with a B.S. in electrical engineering. An active alumnus, he was a University Trustee from 1988 to 1994 and has served both on the advisory board of the Center for Telecommunications Research, where he was instrumental in obtaining a $25 million NSF grant, and was vice chairman of the University Engineering Council. He is currently a member of the advisory board at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades, N.Y., the University's earth sciences laboratory.

The Columbia engineer was a founder in 1969 of Timeplex, Inc., Woodcliff Lake, N.J., a data communications firm, and held the posts of chairman and chief executive officer from 1977 to 1988. Timeplex was acquired by Unisys Corp. in January 1988 and Mr. Botwinick was appointed to the Unisys board and served as senior vice president of the company and president of its Unisys Networks division. He retired from Unisys in 1989.

He has become an investor in small high-technology firms, and in 1991 founded VideoServer Inc., Lexington, Mass., a producer of telecommunications and networking equipment. Mr. Botwinick was the firm's chairman and chief executive officer from early 1991 through mid-1993.

He resides with his wife in Stuart, Fla.

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