Engineering quad now
The Cockrell School takes seriously its obligation to serve the people of Texas. We do this by growing our economy through placing graduates in industry and developing technologies that start companies and, in turn, create jobs for Texans. The school provides these benefits to our state by attracting outstanding students and faculty. As evidence of our success, the school ranks among the top in the nation. More than 7,000 engineering students are enrolled and educated each year (and 1,500 students are graduated) by faculty who are among the best in the world.
Today, through lack of investment in education and research facilities for more than 20 years, the Cockrell School is at a crossroads. The university's engineering facility development has not kept pace with, and now lags, top peer schools at MIT, Stanford, UC Berkley, Georgia Tech and the University of Illinois. These schools, and many lower ranked than UT, have marshaled resources to add engineering facilities, enabling them to compete worldwide. In contrast, the Cockrell School has seen a steady deterioration of its facilities. Some buildings are now obsolete and, in part, not capable of full occupancy.
Historically, the Cockrell School has achieved greatness by recruiting the best engineering faculty. This is becoming more difficult because the quality of facilities has fallen so far behind peer institutions. Also, in the education arena, a major change is taking place in how we educate engineers. For students from the freshman year through graduation, project-based learning provides courses built around identifying opportunities to solve problems, designing solutions and building and testing technology. However, the lack of modern teaching facilities prevents the school from providing robust project-based learning.
