Intel gives UW nearly $1.5 million

Bradley Foster
Daily Staff

Slap an "Intel Inside" sticker on the new Computer Sciences and Electrical Engineering Building.

Intel Corp., the world's largest manufacturer of microprocessors, announced last week a nearly $1.5 million gift to the UW. The gift is in the form of 150 personal computers for the engineering building, which is under currently under construction.

The donation is the largest in a series of gifts in past years that have cemented an already strong bond between the UW and Intel.

Brian Bershad, an associate professor of computer science and engineering, said the UW has a "great relationship" with Intel.

"A research university provides unique learning opportunities, but we rely on gifts from our corporate friends for augmenting the state budget and to provide the infrastructure needed to take full advantage of these opportunities," he said.

Last year, Intel donated 40 computers to create a undergraduate computer lab. In 1994, Intel gave 35 computers to be used by graduate students. This latest donation, valued at $1,475,650, is earmarked for graduate student use.

While the building will not be completed until February of next year, the computers are already on campus. Bershad, who authored the proposal to Intel, said, "The equipment is here; it is on time but the building is not."

Until the building is completed, the computers will be housed in both the computer science and engineering and electrical engineering departments.

Once the building is finished, 12 of the computers will be used as file and print servers. The remaining machines will be used by graduate students and faculty.

Jeff Walz, a representative of Intel Corp., said he is very excited about the new building. "The new site is a good blend of computer science and electrical engineering and we really wanted to support that," he said.

Intel and the UW work hand-in-hand in a number of other ways. Last year, Intel hired more graduates for the UW than from any of the other 36 schools it targets for recruiting. Intel hired 75 people from the UW, from what Walz described as a broad range of backgrounds.

"We hire mostly from CS [computer science] and EE [electrical engineering] but also some from business and other fields," he said.

Intel and the engineering school also collaborate on research, with the college receiving a number of grants from the corporation. "We consider the UW one of the top research facilities in the country," Waltz said.

The National Research Council rates both the computer science and electrical engineering departments very highly with respect to other research universities. The two rank 9th and 25th respectively. Both departments are looking for future improvement with the help of corporations like Intel.

Brian Jones, a junior in the engineering school, said he likes the gift. "This is very good for the college and it is good to be tight with a forward-looking company like Intel," he said.

Intel recently opened a new manufacturing site in Dupont, Wash., and Walz said the closeness of the UW to the new site is a bonus.

In order to maintain the influx of graduates form the UW, Intel offers two undergraduate scholarships, one for minorities and one for women in engineering, and four fellowships for graduate students.

Walz said, "We do try to support the students; in one way or another we pay, or help pay for a number of students there."

The growth of Intel and other technologies companies in the Northwest means good things for the UW but it seems to many that most of the benefits go to graduate departments.

Former ASUW Board of Control member Per Meyer said, "It took me a year and a half to figure out that this school is primarily a research school."

With the arrival of UW President Richard McCormick, a higher emphasis is on undergraduate education but graduate schools still receive donations like the one from Intel.

Meyer said, "It doesn't surprise me since graduates and professors are most involved in research and that is how the school gets most of it money."

Regardless of any controversy, the engineering school should be quite pleased to maintain, as Bershad put it, "a great partnership with Intel" well into the future.