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Our Department has won a competition for 40 undergraduate seats which will bring some new resources to the Department. The most visible of these resources is 14 new TA positions, which will increase our TA allocation up from 33 to 47 slots! These TA positions will be extremely helpful in improving the support of our courses, as well as providing additional teaching, support, and recruiting options. These TA positions will be showing up immediately this Autumn quarter. From the award announcement: "Additional funding will enable the university to admit an additional 40 students per year into a program that has consistently turned away between 40 and 200 eligible applicants each year. The admission of 40 additional students each year will increase the total capacity of the program from 428 to 468 students. While employment in engineering is expected to grow only modestly in the next two years, state estimates project a 10-year growth rate of about 24 percent for electrical engineers. The review committee considers this an especially good investment opportunity for state funds, in part because the UW program is a national model and is very well supported by industry donations of cash and in-kind services valued at more than $1 million per year." Acting Chair David Allstot points out that this award was made possible thanks especially to the hard work of Bruce Darling and Tom Jones. |