Over the next five years, Redmond-based Microsoft Corp. will be donating a total of $10 million to the University of Washington (UW) to help fund a new Computer Science & Engineering (CSE) building.

The new building will allow the school to expand — something that has been needed for years.

KEEPING UP WITH DEMAND

Currently, the department is turning away more qualified applicants than it is accepting them.

“Student demand is through the roof,” said Ed Lazowska, a CSE professor at UW, about the applicants. “We can only fit one-third of them.”

According to the CSE department’s website, this month, 234 students graduated from the department with bachelor’s degrees, 105 graduated with master’s degrees and 25 with doctoral degrees. Lazowska said while the CSE department offers degrees at all levels, the bulk is at the undergraduate level and students can earn bachelor of science degrees in computer science and computer engineering.

With the new building, they hope to graduate about 600 students a year, with about 450 from the undergraduate program.

Lazowska said the department moved into its current CSE building — the Paul G. Allen Center for Computer Science & Engineering — in 2003 and the department has grown to the point that they are utilizing one floor of their old building.

Lazowska said the Paul G. Allen building is about 130,000 square feet and the new building will be about the same size. The location of the new building has not been determined yet, but he said they want it to be near the current building as students and faculty will be going back and forth between the two.

“Neither building will be self contained,” he said.

This means including additional classroom space, the new building will include a number of things they do not currently have such as an auditorium and more computer labs.

PUBLIC AND PRIVATE SUPPORT

Jane Broom, Washington state community affairs director for Microsoft, said the company has been part of UW’s CSE department since before there ever was a Microsoft, referring to how co-founders Bill Gates and Paul Allen used to spend time in the department while they were younger. Since then, Microsoft has supported the department in various ways such as cash grants and donating $7 million to build the Paul G. Allen building.

Broom, whose role is to manage the company’s philanthropic portfolio, said their giving philosophy is reflective of what they think a good corporate citizen should be. Microsoft supports causes in the arts and human services, but she said their biggest cause is in education — especially science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education.

Microsoft does this in a variety of ways, including donations such as this one for the new CSE building at UW. In addition, Broom said the company also lobbies down in Olympia and works education entities to help create education policies.

The new CSE building, which Broom said is scheduled to be completed in 2018, will cost between $105 million and $110 million and will be funded by a combination of public and private dollars.

Lazowska said UW will be requesting $40 million from the state. The remaining $65 million to $70 million will come from private donors such as Microsoft — which was the first corporation to contribute, just as it was for the Paul G. Allen building.

Broom added that they hope that Microsoft’s donation will inspire other companies — especially other high-tech companies — to donate to the cause, as well.

Lazowska said a new CSE building is just one way to support the department’s growth. They also need state support — in the form of dollars — to support enrollment growth.

“We can’t grow (the department) out without legislative funding,” he said.

MANY BENEFITS

Lazowska said UW’s CSE department is relatively large and the No. 1 educator of top-tier jobs in the state. Having an even larger department, he said, will help more kids growing up in Washington who want to go into the field, noting that these benefits come back to the state, as well, as the vast majority of students from Washington end up staying and working in the area after they graduate.

Broom said currently, students graduating from UW’s CSE department are getting scooped up and hired at various companies right out of school and it is a competitive field for the recruiting companies. Having twice the amount of talent to pick from is beneficial for everyone.

“That’s a huge difference,” she said.

Lazowska said while having a pool of highly trained candidates available locally to hire from can help large companies such as Microsoft — companies of that size are able to recruit nationally and internationally. However, he said, smaller local companies and startups don’t have the resources to do that so working with a larger local talent pool will help.

“That’s why Microsoft is doing this,” he said about the company’s investment in the region.