$50 million endowment establishes Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science and Engineering

www.dailyuw.com - RSS Results in news,news/* of type article Today, the UW announced that the department of computer science of engineering will now become the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering. The change was made possible because of a $40-million gift from Allen himself and a $10-million gift from Microsoft in Allen’s honor.The endowment is just one of the many donations UW CSE has gotten recently, including those from notable companies to establish its new building, CSE2.To celebrate the establishment and naming of the school, a reception was held in the CSE building already bearing Allen’s name  with food, drink, and a performance from the Husky Band.
Henry M. Levy, the chairman of UW CSE, opened the event by reviewing the former department’s history. The CSE department was established by the Board of Regents in 1967 and was originally only authorized for five years.“I guess they were unsure about the future of computing,” Levy joked.According to Levy, CSE is now the No. 1 preferred major for entering undergraduate students and CSE introductory course enrollment exceeds 5,000 each year.After Levy spoke, assistant professor Franzi Roesner, who earned her Ph.D from the UW, spoke about the importance of the department to her and her work with the UW Tech Policy Lab. She recalled the first time she entered the CSE building, not knowing where to go, when a kind person approached her and helped her find her way.“Somebody who didn’t even know who I was treated me as if I belonged,” Roesner said.Roesner noted the former department’s smart, creative, and collaborative faculty and students as one of her favorite aspects about it. After a short video biography of Allen, UW president Ana Mari Cauce took the stage to discuss how Allen’s contribution will further the university’s goals.“We want to be the greatest public university in the ...


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