David Pernick, Yuli Tamir, and Martin T. Meehan

Bruce Pernick and David Pernick

Samara Solan Weinberg with Henry Solan

Danna Azrieli, chair of Shenkar board of governors, with Sam Kenig, dean of Shenkar Engineering Faculty, and Prof. Steve McCarthy of UMLowell’s plastics engineering department

SHENKAR COLLEGE
Pernick Matchmaker
In Global Partnership

Story by Tim Boxer
Photos by Elizabeth Solaka

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CADEMIC history was made as the University of Massachusetts Lowell and Shenkar College of Engineering and Design in Ramat Gan, Israel, established a joint international graduate engineering program.

UMass Lowell Chancellor Marty Meehan and Shenkar President Yuli Tamir signed the agreement at a dinner of the American Committee for Shenkar College in October at the Harmonie Club in Manhattan.

The graduate program in plastics engineering provides for an exchange of students and faculty for ten years.

"I’m the second chancellor of UMass Lowell," Meehan said. "The college was started in the 1890s. You can imagine how old the first chancellor was."

Meehan said the program will prepare students for the global economy. "From plastics to nanotechnology, it’s a perfect match."

Jill and Mitchell Friedman established an endowment in memory of Jill’s mother Frances. She is the late wife of David Pernick.

Pernick, who funded the endowment, is a graduate of Lowell, and the former head of Monarch Knitting Machinery Corp., now headed by his son Bruce.

"We’re the only manufacturing company of textile machinery in the western hemisphere," David said. At age 91, he serves as life chancellor of Shenkar.

Shmuel Kenig, dean of Shenkar’s engineering faculty, noted that both Lowell and Shenkar started out as textile colleges. "Here we are on this auspicious date: 10-20-2010. In Israel it is 2010-20-10.