THE FIRST TWENTY YEARS: A short but fearless history of the Jonsson School
The history of the Jonsson School is short—just twenty years. There are lots of models of how to create an engineering school and how to incorporate computer science. UTD didn’t follow any of them.
- Instead of starting with an undergraduate program that led to the offering of graduate degrees, UTD started upside down as the Graduate Research Center of the Southwest.
- UTD’s genesis was from the founders of Texas Instruments, because they recognized the need to have a much larger supply of quality engineers and computer scientists, not just for themselves, but for all of North Texas.
- Instead of starting with the traditional engineering disciplines of civil, mechanical, industrial, etc., the Jonsson School started with only two—electrical engineering and computer science.
So how did all this contrariness—or trailblazing—work out?
- For the second year in a row, UTD confers the most computer science degrees in the nation—at the B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. levels combined, according to the American Society of Engineering Education data.
- UTD ranks fourth in the nation when you combine all degrees awarded in electrical engineering and computer science. UTD also ranks first in the total number of computer science degrees awarded to women and second in the number of female tenured/tenure track computer science faculty members within an engineering school.
- Significantly, the Jonsson School has only two departments at present – electrical engineering and computer science – while other more “comprehensive” engineering schools have as many as six or seven.
Despite that, the Jonsson School, according to the ASEE figures, ranked 75th in the nation in 2003-2004 in the total number of doctoral degrees conferred, 22nd in the number of master’s degrees and 46th in the number of bachelor’s degrees.
- Incoming UTD students have the highest SAT scores of any public university in Texas.
- The Jonsson School offers degree programs in electrical engineering, computer science, computer engineering, software engineering, materials science & engineering, and telecommunications engineering—the nation’s first ABET-accredited telecom engineering degree program.
- And, from nanotechnology and human language technology to micro-electrical-mechanical systems and cybersecurity, researchers are addressing the hottest—and coolest—challenges of our time.
Impressive achievements for a 20-year old school, by any standards. And the best is yet to come.
In a remarkable act of fearlessness, the State of Texas, Texas Instruments, The University of Texas System and private sources are funding a $300 million research initiative to make the Jonsson School even stronger by building new facilities, adding twenty-five endowed chairs, and significantly increasing graduate fellowships to attract even more top talent.
The Jonsson School’s short-term goals are to double the size of the faculty, double the size of the student body, and provide quality education and research more than sufficient to move up in the rankings to a top 50 school.
The Jonsson School is making history. Fearlessly. Join us.
