The announcement came at Friday's meeting of the board of trustees.

Smith recently sold the 97-year-old, family-owned rigid packaging company, headquartered in Atlanta, to a global packaging company. He decided to invest in higher education to support the packaging industry his family helped define.

Smith has made gifts and pledges totaling $3.5 million to Clemson and Sonoco has contributed $2.5 million for the academic building, which will house the Sonoco Institute of Packaging Design and Graphics and related programs. The three-level building will include studios, labs and offices that will serve up to 500 students every year.

The new building is one of seven facility projects the trustees discussed and approved.

Clemson Vice President for Research and Economic Development Chris Przirembel reported that external funding of university research for 2006-07 totaled $141.4 million, the highest in the school's history.

"This total reflects outstanding achievement by faculty and staff across the University," he said. "This is not just a number; it's a commitment to excellence and to the involvement of our outstanding researchers in solving the world's problems."

For images of the planned Sonoco Institute, please visit: www.clemson.edu/newsroom/image_galleries/2007/october/October_releases.php5

For information about Clemson's graduate programs in graphic communications and packaging science, please visit: www.grad.clemson.edu/programs/GraphComm and www.grad.clemson.edu/programs/PkgSci respectively.

Associate Professor Robert M. Kimmel joined the Clemson faculty in 1999 after 30-plus years in technical, marketing and business development at Hoechst Celanese. Kimmel currently is director of the campus Center for Flexible Packaging, a teacher emphasizing discovery-based learning and a researcher focused on innovative packaging materials. He will continue as director of the center.

Kimmel impressed faculty members and administrators of the College of Agriculture, Forestry and Life Sciences, in which the department is located, with his extensive background in strategic planning and vision for leading the department.

"I am honored to be selected," said Kimmel. "My goals for the department focus on balanced growth of our academic, research and public service areas. A priority will be to encourage undergraduate and graduate students to pursue this exciting field. Packaging science offers tremendous career potential and holds promise to expand economic growth in South Carolina."

Clemson is one of six American universities offering a four-year program leading to a bachelor's degree in packaging science. It continues to boast greater than 95 percent placement of its graduates into the packaging industry.

Kimmel holds BS, MS, Materials Engineer and ScD degrees in materials engineering, all from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His research and education concentrated on fibers and polymers, with emphasis in polymer physics.

Her first presentation in her new leadership role will be as the keynote speaker Dec. 15 at FlexPackCon 2006. The Society of Plastics Engineers conference is the premier event focusing on flexible packaging technologies.

"Overall, my vision is one of opportunity, growth and fulfillment," said Cooksey. "It's an opportunity for me to put more emphasis on research that could benefit our students, department, college, university and industry. The growth of our research program and recognition as a leader in this field will help us fulfill our goal to be the best packaging program in the world and fulfill a long-term career objective I've held, which is to develop an internationally recognized program in food packaging."

Cooksey also sees her new post as way to help students explore packaging science and will continue to teach the food and healthcare packaging course and be involved in the senior capstone packaging development class.

"In teaching, I envision continuing to improve and build the food and healthcare emphasis area," she said. "Creative inquiry should be developed and involve more collaborative projects with other departments at Clemson, such as chemistry, engineering and food science.

"I will pursue industry funding for research with practical and commercial implementation and develop proposals for federal support," she said.

As graduate admission coordinator in the graduate program, she will work to develop a better system of recruiting students with backgrounds that will make faculty research programs succeed and to develop some new graduate level courses.

Cooksey holds a B.S. in food science from Purdue University, a M.S. in industrial mechanical technology (emphasis in packaging) from Indiana State University and a Ph.D. in foods and nutrition from the University of Illinois. She was a postdoctoral research assistant in the food science department at Purdue. In 1993, Cooksey joined the faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Stout, where she was assistant professor in the packaging program until she joined the Clemson University faculty.

The packaging science professor is a member of the Institute of Food Technologists and International Association for Food Protection. She serves on the editorial board for the Journal of Food Science, Journal of Food Protection, Packaging Technology and Science and Food, Drug and Cosmetics.

Packaging Science at Clemson
Clemson is the only university in the Southeast, and one of only six in the nation, that offers a four-year program leading to a Bachelor of Science degree in packaging science. The department currently has about 140 undergraduate and eight graduate students. The nine-member faculty has extensive industrial experience, enriching academic preparation with real-world learning.

Using the program's state-of-the art laboratories, students get hands-on training. In Clemson's Sonoco Packaging Science Laboratory, students and faculty develop new packaging and evaluate existing designs and materials. A second lab, the DuPont Packaging Evaluation Laboratory, features work on packaging machinery and polymer research and development.

Since the department's beginning in the late 1980s, it has placed 100 percent of its graduates. The current salary average is $47,000 for first-year graduates.

Packaging is a $100-plus billion a year industry. Based on gross sales, it is the nation's third largest industry. More people are employed in packaging and packaging operations than in any other single business category in the country.

Editor's Note: A digital photograph of Cooksey is available online. To download the photograph, go to http://clemsonews.clemson.edu/WWW_releases/2006/December/Image_pages/Cooksey.html.