Changing the World (Jan-Feb 2013)

what your investment in ut makes possible

jan/feb 2013

HELP PREPARE THE NEXT GENERATION OF ENGINEERS

changing the world What your investment in UT makes possible

Contents DRIVING INNOVATION, TRANSFORMING EDUCATION Bold plans call for an engineering epicenter at the University

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

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

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

reprinted from jan/feb 2013

changing the world What your investment in UT makes possible

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

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.

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I

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

T he

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But it is doing so in outdated facilities and laboratories.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 obsolete 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—including K-12 students, employers, and industry leaders—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 students and their extraordinary potential.”

EDUCATING FOR THE 21ST CENTURY Over the long run, a university’s faculty defines its character and has the greatest influence on its students and the future. State-ofthe-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 overcrowded buildings that are functionally obsolete and lack flexible spaces for creating technology.

As the headquarters for a new ecosystem of faculty and student entrepreneurs, entrepreneurs-in-residence, venture capitalists, and industry leaders, the EERC will expand the “teaching by doing” curriculum and foster a collaborative network to move revolutionary ideas from the lab to the marketplace. Bright minds from across campus and from industry partners 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 students learn about problem solving, as well as the importance of teamwork, meeting deadlines, managing budgets, and dealing with adversity—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.

Engineers Make a Difference 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 LONGERlasting batteries for electronics, electric vehicles, and large-scale energy storage

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changing the world What your investment in UT makes possible

$105 million in private funding will allow construction to begin.

Above, from left: An

atrium connects the EERC’s two wings, supplying natural light and a common area for interaction; the western side of the building interfaces with the rest of the Cockrell School complex.

Credits: Renderings by

Ennead Architects; Jim Truchard photo courtesy Ralph Barrera/Austin AmericanStatesman

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electrical and mechanical systems, along with This vision will be possible only by building insufficient space for the level of research and the EERC, where undergraduates will design teaching the school conducts currently and and build everything from unmanned aerial will conduct in the future—all of these make vehicles and solar cars to potable water distriburenovation a cost-prohibitive prospect. Instead tion systems for underserved communities. The we’ve opted to replace ENS with a facility that scope and range of student projects will expand will meet the University’s needs for the foreseedramatically in 23,000 square feet of new teachable future.” ing lab space.

Fenves says the combination of projectbased learning and the EERC’s flexible space PRIVATE INVESTMENT IS KEY will open up untold possibilities for discovery.

“The mixing of ideas, people, and laboratories at The EERC project will cost $310 million, with the boundaries of disciplines is where the most two-thirds coming from the UT System Board intriguing and productive ideas and learning of Regents, The University of Texas at Austin, experiences are found.” and/or the state of Texas. The Board of Regents has committed $105 million in Permanent UniThe EERC also will be the new home for the versity Fund (PUF) Cockrell School’s bond funding, and in largest department, Not Everything is Bigger in Texas August 2012 the board Electrical and ComNew, state-of-the-art construction +1,181,000 approved the building puter Engineering, sq ft added at top-ranked engineering programs design—a significant currently housed in from 2002 to 2012 milestone. Unlike in the Engineering-Scithe past, state unience Building (ENS), versities now need which was built the support of the 50 years ago when private sector for new vacuum tubes were facilities. The Cockthe latest technology. +417,000 +426,000 rell School is working The department will sq ft added sq ft added hard to raise the $105 have 100,000 square million in philanfeet of modern teach+144,000 thropic funding from ing and laboratory sq ft added individuals, foundaspace for its 65 faculty, UT TEXAS UC GEORGIA tions, and corpora650 graduate students, AUSTIN A&M BERKELEY TECH tions that is needed to and 1,300 undergradRANKED #8 RANKED #12 RANKED #3 RANKED #4 begin construction. uates. ENS will come Sources: 2013 U.S. News & World Report graduate school rankings; “The U.S. has been down to make room schools’ new construction data, 2002–2012. the world’s leading for the EERC. economic power “Renovating ENS because of our strengths in engineering, science, was not an option,” says UT’s vice president and math,” says S. Javaid Anwar, founder and CEO for university operations, Pat Clubb, PhD ’85, of Midland Energy and Petroplex Energy and, MBA ’96. “Deferred maintenance, inadequate

AN INVESTMENT IN THE WORKFORCE OF THE FUTURE

I

t’s a classic success story, and it never gets old. An innovator nurtures a great idea from humble beginnings into a multinational company with a positive impact across the world. The company is National Instruments, 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 considerable 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 mission—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.

with his wife, Vicky, parent of twins Ryan Anwar, BS ’12, and provide a modern, Leslie Anwar, BBA ’12, Life Members, who graduated from the stimulating atmoCockrell School and McCombs School of sphere equal to Business respectively.

“But we are falling the excellence of behind,” Anwar says.

“That is why I chose to our students and invest $4 million in their extraordinary the EERC. Singapore, about the size of New York City, has pledged potential.” $35 billion to their – C ockrell School university research Dean Gregory L. Fenves 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

“The EERC will

“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 employees 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.

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

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.

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