Microsoft gives $7.2 million for computer science at UW

To help ensure that Seattle remains a center for technology growth, Microsoft today is announcing a $7.2 million donation to the University of Washington for a new computer-science building.

It will be the Redmond company's first donation toward a university building and one of its largest single donations ever. Current and former Microsoft employees individually also have donated $4.5 million to the $70 million project.

"To Microsoft, it's vital that the UW continues to be an engine for technology innovation and a catalyst for economic development throughout the region," company spokesman Matt Pilla said. "That's what this announcement is about."

Construction begins in October on the six-story research, teaching and office facility by Drumheller Fountain near the campus center. It will replace a circa 1960 building that is literally crumbling — prospective students are given pieces of Sieg Hall on campus tours.

Although it will be one of several new buildings rising at the UW, the computer-science hall is a flagship project for a school that has tried in recent years to emphasize its role as a partner of technology companies, a center of computing research and a keystone of the recent high-technology boom in the Northwest.

The UW has been the largest source of employees for Microsoft, although co-founders Bill Gates and Paul Allen studied at Harvard and Washington State University, respectively.

"Microsoft and Gates are tremendous advantages for us and we try to be an advantage for them," said Ed Lazowska, dean of the UW computer-science department, whose position is funded by Gates and his wife, Melinda Gates.

"This is one of a small number of regions in the country where the future of information technology is being defined," he said.

The computer-science building is expected to cost $70 million, of which $30 million will come from the state and UW. A fund-raising campaign for the remaining $40 million begins today, coinciding with the Microsoft announcement.

The building, partly shared with the school of electrical engineering, will more than double space for computer science — from 32,000 to 85,000 square feet.

When the building opens in 2003, the computer-science faculty may increase from 35 to 42. Enrollment may not increase much because it has grown in recent years in anticipation of the new building.

Currently, the program has about 425 undergraduate majors, 130 students in a master's program for working professionals and 140 full-time graduate students. It also teaches introductory computer courses to 2,500 students a year.

Microsoft's donations are separate from Gates' personal gifts to the UW. He has given about $60 million, including $12 million in May for a law-school building that will be named after his father, William H. Gates.

An undergraduate building was named after his late mother — and former UW regent — Mary Gates in 1995 after he endowed a scholarship in her name.

So far, Gates has not donated any of his money to the new computer-science building, which is not yet named.

Computer-science buildings at Stanford and Massachusetts Institute of Technology were named for Gates after he gave Stanford $6 million in 1996 and MIT $20 million in 1999.

Harvard's new computer-science building was named for the mothers of Gates and Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer after they donated $25 million for the project in 1996.

Brier Dudley can be reached at 206-515-5687 or bdudley@seattletimes.com.