Two important elements of the Lyles School of Civil Engineering’s vision are "amplifying our impact on society" and underpinning all our endeavors with an "unwavering commitment to ethics and diversity."

Nancy Uridil (BSCE '74) and Francis (Frank) Bossu (PhD Chemistry '76) are supporting this vision by endowing a named professorship in the school, with a preference for using it to recruit or retain a female faculty member.

It is a significant gift. Named professorships are prestigious and bring recognition to the program, says Rao "G.S." Govindaraju, the Bowen Engineering Head of Civil Engineering and Christopher B. and Susan S. Burke Professor of Civil Engineering.

"Nancy is a pleasure to work with. She understands our program and saw how we could work together for a win-win situation," he says. "If we are able to add to the number of women in Civil Engineering, while also getting a talented and well-respected researcher in the field, that’s a double advantage."

Importance of Role Models

"It is important for women engineers to have female professors as role models," Uridil says. "Female role models were so important to me throughout my career." She recalls that it was a female physics teacher in high school who encouraged her to consider engineering in the first place. And it was after listening to some young female civil engineers in Los Angeles that she decided to pursue civil engineering. At Purdue, it was the Society of Women Engineers that helped Nancy land her summer intern job with Procter & Gamble Corp.

Unfortunately, when Uridil was earning her civil engineering degree in the '70s, she didn't have a single female professor in her engineering courses. Her wish for this endowment is to provide female role models for generations of aspiring engineers to come.

Today at Purdue, in both the College of Engineering and the Lyles School of Civil Engineering, women represent about 18 percent of the faculty.

Deep roots at Purdue

Uridil has deep roots at Purdue. Her father earned his PhD at Purdue. Her husband, Frank Bossu, earned his doctorate in chemistry at Purdue. Early in her career with P&G, she regularly returned to Purdue to recruit other young engineers. She and a good friend, Margo Hammell Tschirky (BSIE '75), would speak to young female engineers as part of the Women in Engineering Program. And visiting Purdue as a parent was just as fulfilling while her daughter was earning her bachelor’s degree at Purdue in evolutionary biology.

Prepping women for leadership and success

While a student, Uridil leveraged the leadership offerings. She was active in dorm government and involved in Chi Epsilon, the Civil Engineering honor society. And she usually had at least two jobs, one of which was staff resident in a dorm. "I had to uphold standards. You know, back then women still had curfews in dorms. We had to work the front desk. We rented out guest rooms. In short, we had quite a breadth of responsibilities," she says. "It taught me everything from conflict management to customer service."

She had excellent role models in Civil Engineering, including Professor Bob Lee in structural engineering and Professor Bill Dolch in materials engineering. "Working for Professor Dolch was one of the first times I could see the relevance of my work in the real world," she says. "The lab analyses we were doing had to be accurate since they were being used as expert testimony in a trial."

Having been a corporate executive at Procter & Gamble for 20 years and now serving on corporate boards, Uridil firmly believes that engineers, with their problem-solving abilities, have what it takes to lead companies. In a recent list of the top 13 Fortune 500 companies, six of them have leaders with engineering degrees — including Mary Barra of General Motors and Tim Cook of Apple Inc.

Like mother, like son

Like other intellectual interests, engineering talent often runs in families. So Uridil was not surprised that her son, who learned to play SimCity on the family's first computer, chose civil engineering as a profession. "In SimCity, he learned everything from zoning to developing a city's infrastructure," she says. "With that game, you're creating a whole city." Now, he is a multifaceted engineer.

Building the future

Today, Nancy and Frank are giving back. Philanthropy has been part of their lives since childhood. "We've been blessed," she says. "My husband and I are a couple of middle-class kids who worked hard. Our parents valued education and took great effort to ensure we got good educations." As a result, the majority of the couple's philanthropy goes to educational institutions.

"A love of building is ultimately what led me into civil engineering," Uridil says. "I went from building bridges and roads to building products, organizations, brands and global businesses. As long as I'm building, I'm happy. Our gift to Purdue is building the future."