Arts & Sciences and Engineering Departments Merge to form New Entity
Min Kao EECS Building
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. -- The University of Tennessee College of Engineering's (COE) Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) and the College of Arts and Sciences' Department of Computer Science (CS) were officially merged as the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) on July 1, 2007.
The combined department will provide more opportunities for the engineering students and joint research both within the university and with nearby Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL).
"It gives me great pleasure to announce the merger of the Department of Computer Science and the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering," said Dr. Robert Holub, UT Provost. "The new department will provide new perspectives on computational science and open up novel and exciting possibilities for creative work. I am certain that the existence of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science signals a new day for computational sciences on the Knoxville campus."
"Most of the influential universities in the U.S. have a joint electrical engineering-computer science department," said Dr. Jack Dongarra, a University Distinguished Professor in the former CS department and the director of the Innovative Computing laboratory and the Center for Information Technology Research at UT. "We will be able to have a broader depth of material available for teaching and will also be able to offer more accessibility to students in the way of lab facilities and computing areas."
The EECS department will be housed in the new Min Kao Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Building, which is scheduled to begin construction in the fall of 2007. Groundbreaking ceremonies for the $37.5 million new building were held on May 14, 2007, and Dr. Min Kao, CEO of Garmin, Ltd., a COE alumnus and the donor who provided $12.5 million in initial funding for the building (out of a total $17.5 million donation), was in attendance at the event.
A national search is currently underway for a new head for the EECS department and COE Dean Way Kuo sees the merger as one of many positive developments for the college, as evidenced by the more than 75 candidates who applied for the position.
"This merger augments our efforts to enhance and expand the college's academic and research capabilities in the computer and electrical engineering disciplines on a national and internationally prominent basis," said Kuo. "I am very pleased that many faculty and staff members in these two departments worked so hard to effectively complete the merger in an efficient manner."
For more information, contact Kim Cowart, Communications Manager, Office of Engineering Communications, at (865) 974-0686 or kcowart@utk.edu.