what your investment in ut makes possible jan/feb 2013

HELP PREPARE THE NEXT GENERATION OF ENGINEERS

DRIVING INNOVATION, TRANSFORMING EDUCATIONBold plans call for an engineering epicenter at the University

ENGINEERS MAKE A DIFFERENCEWhat UT students, faculty, and researchers are doing right now

AN INVESTMENT IN THE WORKFORCE OF THE FUTURENational Instruments’ Jim Truchard empowers students to innovate

reprinted from jan/feb 2013

Cover: The Cockrell School of Engineering is seeking support for a state-of-the-art space that will promote interdisciplinary teaching, research, and hands-on project learning: the Engineering Education and Research Center. credit: Ennead Architects

Above: The Cockrell School educates 7,700 students a year, including these undergraduates who built a solar car and raced it across the country in the American Solar Challenge.credit: Cockrell School

What your investment in UT makes possible

Contents

ChAnging the world

8| The

changing the worldWhat your investment in UT makes possible

Above: A rendering of the east facade of the EERC. Waller Creek winds through the foreground.

right and opposite: Project design labs in the EERC will provide thousands of square feet of flexible space for learning and discovery.

credits: Renderings by Ennead Architects.

DRIVING INNOVATION, TRANSFORMING EDUCATIONBold plans call for an engineering epicenter at the University

s e p t e m b e r | o c t o b e r 2 0 1 1 |9

In today’s ever-changing world, one thing is increasingly clear: the

need for innovative engineers has never been greater. Scientists and

engineers make up only 4 percent of the U.S. workforce, but their work

contributes to as much as 85 percent of the gross domestic product.

Preparing inventive, technically savvy engineers for a global economy is an enormous

responsibility, and UT is answering the call. The Cockrell School of Engineering

is educating more than 7,700 students at any given time, graduating 1,600 a year.

But it is doing so in outdated facilities and laboratories.

To catalyze a culture of innovation, and at the same time propel a national top-10 engineering program into the top five, the Cockrell School has bold plans for a new educational approach and new space: the Engineering Education and Research Center, or EERC. At a total cost of $310 million, the EERC will replace an obso-lete building with 430,000 square feet of open and flexible space for interdisciplinary teaching, research, and hands-on project learning. The EERC’s open lab design will allow visitors—includ-ing K-12 students, employers, and industry lead-ers—to become part of the engineering experience.

“The EERC will serve as a campus anchor of intellectual curiosity and energy, a platform for transforming collaboration and innovation at UT,” says Cockrell School Dean Gregory L. Fenves. “It will provide a modern, stimulating atmosphere equal to the excellence of our stu-dents and their extraordinary potential.”

EDUCATING FOR THE 21ST CENTURY

Over the long run, a university’s faculty defines its character and has the greatest influ-ence on its students and the future. State-of-the-art facilities are critical to attracting and retaining faculty talent in a competitive market. Unfortunately, the Cockrell School, one of the world’s leading engineering programs, is train-

ing tomorrow’s leaders in exhausted and over-crowded buildings that are functionally obsolete and lack flexible spaces for creating technology.

As the headquarters for a new ecosystem of faculty and student entrepreneurs, entrepre-neurs-in-residence, venture capitalists, and industry leaders, the EERC will expand the

“teaching by doing” curriculum and foster a col-laborative network to move revolutionary ideas from the lab to the marketplace. Bright minds from across campus and from industry part-ners will gather to address challenges in energy, health care, manufacturing, infrastructure, and space and earth engineering. Interdisciplinary faculty teams will gain access to these labs to create new technology and innovative ways to solve important problems. The EERC also will provide critical support and opportunities for UT’s future medical school.

Through hands-on projects, engineering stu-dents learn about problem solving, as well as the importance of teamwork, meeting deadlines, managing budgets, and dealing with adver-sity—ideal preparation for the demands of the workplace. Currently, most students in the Cockrell School participate in a design project their senior year only. The school’s vision is to have every student involved in a project every year—a critical component to recruitment and improved retention of students in engineering.

Right now, UT students, faculty, and researchers are:

• Enhancing saTElliTE daTa analysis to respond faster and more accurately to natural disasters

• UTilizing sUpERcompUTERs to model human blood flow, improve oil and gas recovery, and protect groundwater

• ExpEdiTing REsEaRch mEThods to find a cure for alzheimer’s and parkinson’s

• cREaTing longER- lasTing baTTERiEs for electronics, electric vehicles, and large-scale energy storage

Engineers Make a Difference

10| The

changing the worldWhat your investment in UT makes possible

Above, from left: An atrium connects the EERC’s two wings, supplying natu-ral light and a common area for interaction; the western side of the building inter-faces with the rest of the Cockrell School complex.

credits: Renderings by Ennead Architects; Jim Truchard photo courtesy Ralph Barrera/Austin American-Statesman

This vision will be possible only by building the EERC, where undergraduates will design and build everything from unmanned aerial vehicles and solar cars to potable water distribu-tion systems for underserved communities. The scope and range of student projects will expand dramatically in 23,000 square feet of new teach-ing lab space.

Fenves says the combination of project-based learning and the EERC’s flexible space will open up untold possibilities for discovery.

“The mixing of ideas, people, and laboratories at the boundaries of disciplines is where the most intriguing and productive ideas and learning experiences are found.”

The EERC also will be the new home for the Cockrell School’s largest department, Electrical and Com-puter Engineering, currently housed in the Engineering-Sci-ence Building (ENS), w h i c h w a s b u i l t 50 years ago when vacuum tubes were the latest technology. The department will have 100,000 square feet of modern teach-ing and laboratory space for its 65 faculty, 650 graduate students, and 1,300 undergrad-uates. ENS will come down to make room for the EERC.

“Renovating ENS was not an option,” says UT’s vice president for university operations, Pat Clubb, PhD ’85, MBA ’96. “Deferred maintenance, inadequate

electrical and mechanical systems, along with insufficient space for the level of research and teaching the school conducts currently and will conduct in the future—all of these make renovation a cost-prohibitive prospect. Instead we’ve opted to replace ENS with a facility that will meet the University’s needs for the foresee-able future.”

PRIVATE INVESTMENT IS KEY

The EERC project will cost $310 million, with two-thirds coming from the UT System Board of Regents, The University of Texas at Austin, and/or the state of Texas. The Board of Regents has committed $105 million in Permanent Uni-

versity Fund (PUF) bond funding, and in August 2012 the board approved the building design—a significant milestone. Unlike in the past, state uni-versities now need the support of the private sector for new facilities. The Cock-rell School is working hard to raise the $105 million in philan-thropic funding from individuals, founda-tions, and corpora-tions that is needed to begin construction.

“The U.S. has been the world’s leading e c o n o m i c p o w e r

because of our strengths in engineering, science, and math,” says S. Javaid Anwar, founder and CEO of Midland Energy and Petroplex Energy and,

$105 million in private

funding will allow

construction to begin.

Sources: 2013 U.S. News & World Report graduate school rankings;schools’ new construction data, 2002–2012.

Not Everything is Bigger in Texas New, state-of-the-art construction at top-ranked engineering programs from 2002 to 2012

+144,000sq ft added

UTAUSTIN

RANKED #8

+426,000sq ft added

RANKED #3

UCBERKELEY

+417,000sq ft added

RANKED #12

TEXASA&M

+1,181,000sq ft added

RANKED #4

GEORGIATECH

U.S. News & World Report

s e p t e m b e r | o c t o b e r 2 0 1 1 |11

Changing the World is produced by the University Development Office. Please send your feedback and suggestions to editor Jamey Smith at jjsmith@austin.utexas.edu. For more news and information about giving to UT, visit giving.utexas.edu.

Above: Jim Truchard, co-founder, president, and CEO of National Instruments

AN INVESTMENT IN THE WORKFORCE OF THE FUTURE

with his wife, Vicky, parent of twins Ryan Anwar, BS ’12, and Leslie Anwar, BBA ’12, Life Members, who graduated from the Cockrell School and McCombs School of Business respectively.

“But we are falling behind,” Anwar says.

“That is why I chose to invest $4 million in the EERC. Singapore, about the size of New York City, has pledged $35 billion to their university research and science alone. If a country of that size

can do that, surely we can do more in Texas.” Construction of the EERC is expected to take

four years. Depending on fundraising progress, it could begin within a year, allowing the building to welcome its first occupants in 2017. UT leaders are confident that when complete the EERC will unleash the potential of students and faculty alike, fueling groundbreaking discoveries and making a lasting economic impact on Texas and the nation.

“Go all over the world and there are Cockrell School engineers doing what we say they’ll do—they’re changing the world,” says UT President Bill Powers. “The EERC is the ‘what starts here’ part. The research and teaching that will take place there will create the engineers and innovators of the future.”

Learn more about the EERC and how to support it at engr.utexas.edu/eerc

It’s a classic success story, and it never gets old. An innovator nurtures a great idea from humble begin-nings into a multinational company with a positive

impact across the world. The company is National Instru-ments, and the innovator is company co-founder Jim Truchard, BS ’64, MA ’67, PhD ’74, Life Member. Truchard leveraged his innate talents, along with the consider-able grounding in physics and electrical engineering he received at UT, to create a system that revolutionized the way engineers and scientists collect and analyze data for technologies that improve lives.

Now, Truchard is bringing the company’s core mis-sion—empowering engineers to innovate solutions—to the University. How? By investing in the Engineering Education and Research Center (EERC), where a $10 million gift will help fund the National Instruments Student Project Lab.

“I have been to universities all over the world and it became very apparent to me that UT lacked a central location where engineering students can innovate and collaborate—a place where they can learn by doing,” says Truchard. “We need that place of critical mass and energy where all the disciplines can come together.”

For Truchard, supporting this centerpiece of the EERC is about more than giving back to the University. It’s an investment in National Instruments’ future workforce. Headquartered in Austin, NI has more than 6,000 employ-ees in 40 countries. “We hire from many different areas—electrical engineering, computer science, mechanical engineering, and increasingly biomedical engineering,” he says. “Our professionals need to be flexible, creative, and innovative to stay ahead of the curve. Their education is a critical component to their future success.”

Bringing math and physics to life for students in a way that inspires them to think creatively and allows them to succeed and fail with hands-on projects—that is just one of the many upshots Truchard and others see in building the EERC.

“The EERC will

provide a modern,

stimulating atmo-

sphere equal to

the excellence of

our students and

their extraordinary

potential.” – Cockrell School

Dean Gregory L. Fenves