Texas Instruments is donating $5 million to the University of Texas at Dallas to create an endowment fund supporting engineering research in new and emerging fields.
The gift is the largest single donation ever committed to UTD by Texas Instruments, according to the university. It will be formally announced Tuesday at an annual campuswide event celebrating UTD's founders.
The endowment fund will let early career faculty members in the electrical and computer engineering department apply to receive $50,000 a year for research. The funding will be available for up to six years for those selected. Eligible faculty members will also have to demonstrate an ability to compete for external funding, such as federal research grants.
Texas Instruments chairman and CEO Rich Templeton said in a statement that the company hopes the gift helps the school "produce students who are equipped with both technical and entrepreneurial skills and to be a source of great local talent."
The TI donation comes as UTD celebrates its 50th anniversary. In 1961, TI founders Eugene McDermott, J. Erik Jonsson and Cecil Green started the research center that would become the bedrock of UTD and an integral part of North Texas' research community.
The speech President John F. Kennedy was supposed to give on the day of his assassination in 1963, in fact, included prepared remarks praising the center, which was called the Graduate Research Center of the Southwest at the time. The center officially became UTD in 1969.
"I am grateful to Texas Instruments for helping us achieve this goal and look forward to the impact these new faculty members will make in their fields, for our students and for the economic well-being of our region," UTD President Dr. Richard C. Benson said in a statement.
UTD's enrollment stands at more than 29,500 students. The university was recognized as a doctoral institution with "very high research activity" by the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education several years ago.
Correction: An earlier version of this article stated the gift from Texas Instruments was the largest ever committed to the University of Texas at Dallas. The gift was the largest Texas Instruments, specifically, has ever committed to the university.
