Congratulations Texas Engineering & Technology Consortium Award

The project will help to develop online sections of existing Computer Science courses with new Tablet PC based technologies. TLC² hopes to help promote and support this project to ensure its success. Check out our website in the future for further information on this award, www.tlc2.uh.edu.

The Texas Higher Education Coordination Board announced on April 21 three workforce development grants for the University of Houston, two in the Cullen School of Engineering and one in Computer Science. These grants were sponsored by the Texas Engineering & Technology Consortium (TETC) which is a non-profit organization supported by 9 member companies and has 34 participating schools in Texas. The State of Texas through the Coordinating Board matches funds provided by TETC member companies and the federal government.

Mark McClure the Executive Director of TETC said, “TETC has now provided three rounds of grants to Texas universities. The grants just announced will result in more engineering undergraduates to help offset the pending shortage of engineering talent in our state and nation. An adequate supply of engineering professionals continues to be a major economic issue for the State of Texas. ” Data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics indicate that by 2012 Texas will have a projected shortfall of over 17,000 electrical and computer science engineers caused by business growth and retirements.

TETC brings all the right parties to the table (government, education and industry) to focus on the clear goal of graduating more electrical engineers and computer scientists in Texas. The results are independently measured by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board. TETC industry members and the federal government have committed over $9 million in funding since 2002. In addition to dollars, private industry has committed thousands of hours to make TETC successful. The industrial memberships are growing with the addition of Lockheed Martin and SBC bringing the TETC member companies to nine. They are Applied Materials, AMD, Freescale, Intel, HP, Lockheed Martin, National Instruments SBC and Texas Instruments.

Through TETC, TWD grants focus on best practices in recruiting and retention to increase the number of engineering and computer science graduates in Texas. Schools that received grants were for curriculum improvements for

• Retention of freshman students,
• Mentoring, tutoring and coaching programs,
• Community college collaborations and partnerships with high schools to increase interest in engineering and computer science, and
• Recruiting efforts to underrepresented minorities and women.