First Chicago NBD has donated $300,000 to DePaul University to outfit a classroom in DePaul's College of Commerce with advanced computer technology and audio-visual equipment.

The classroom will feature an LCD projector and document camera that allows the color projection of objects such as newspaper articles and photographs on to a screen, a videotape player, a Pentium-chip computer with Internet access and infrared mouse, a podium-embedded monitor, an updated audio system and other equipment.

"First Chicago NBD has a long history with DePaul, financially, through the involvement of management, and as the largest employer of the school's alumni," said Verne G. Istock, chairman and chief operating officer of First Chicago NBD. "We are very pleased to help DePaul bring advanced computer and audio-visual technology to its business students."

"There is a great demand among faculty members for classrooms that allow them to enhance instruction with advanced technologies," said College of Commerce Dean Ronald J. Patten. "In addition to assisting faculty, the First Chicago NBD classroom will enable more of our students to use and benefit from the latest technology for gathering and presenting information."

For example, marketing students in the First Chicago NBD classroom will be able to view television commercials using the videotape player and print ads with the document camera and projection equipment. Management students can use the equipment to conduct computerized business condition simulations. Finance students will be able to locate the latest stock quotes on the Internet and accounting students could use the technology to project and analyze computerized spreadsheets. In addition, faculty and students will have access to PowerPoint software for classroom presentations.

First Chicago NBD is one of several businesses that have assisted DePaul with grants for classrooms on the seventh and eighth floors of the DePaul Center, 1 E. Jackson Blvd. Two of the classrooms have been named for Sears, Roebuck & Co. KPMG Peat Marwick, Arthur Andersen & Co., the Amoco Foundation, Commonwealth Edison, and Altschuler, Melvoin & Glasser have each funded a classroom.

DePaul opened DePaul Center in 1993, renovating the vacant, block-long Goldblatt's department store to create a new front door for the university's Loop Campus. DePaul Center houses the College of Commerce and Kellstadt Graduate School of Business, student services offices, the Loop Campus library, a cafeteria and student center. The City of Chicago and the Chicago Music Mart lease space in the building. DePaul's purchase and reuse of the landmark building has helped to revitalize the South Loop.