Lynn and Bill Crane have established the Lynn ’84 and Bill Crane ’83 Department Head Chair in Computer Science and Engineering at Texas A&M University. The Cranes leveraged the matching opportunity from the Texas A&M president’s office in order to revise their original contribution made in 2015 to create the department head chair. Their gift will be used to support the department head’s priorities in teaching, research, professional development and other departmental activities.
Both Lynn and Bill graduated from Texas A&M with computer science degrees. Bill received the Distinguished Former Student Award from the computer science department in 2014, and also serves on both the college and department advisory councils. This experience has given him an up-close look at what’s happening within the department.
“I continue to be encouraged by what I see in the department and in the college. Even still, I’m trying to contribute to build an even better computer science department. What’s been most exciting for me to see in the past few years has been Dr. (M. Katherine) Banks’ inclusion of computer programming in the general engineering curriculum that all engineers complete. Computer science is fundamental for modern engineering. It’s like math, it’s a core skill. There isn’t a modern engineering discipline that doesn’t have a heavy use of computers,” Bill said.
A department’s chair position is a prestigious honor, and attracts the world’s best and brightest professionals to that department. It signifies to the world that the department is flourishing and benefits not only the department head, but faculty and students as well.
“Establishing this chair for the Department of Computer Science and Engineering will allow the department head more options to direct funding to department needs,” Bill said.
The first recipient of the Lynn ’84 and Bill Crane ’83 Department Head Chair in Computer Science and Engineering is Dr. Scott Schaefer. Schaefer was named head of the department in 2019. He received a bachelor's degree in computer science/mathematics from Trinity University in 2000, and his master’s and doctoral degree in computer science from Rice University in 2003 and 2006 respectively. His research interests include graphics, geometry processing, curve and surface representations and barycentric coordinates. Schaefer received the Günter Enderle Award in 2011 and a National Science Foundation CAREER Award in 2012. His research has been used by various companies including Pixar, Nvidia, Microsoft and Adobe.
“I’m happy to see Dr. Schaefer as the first recipient of our chair, I’m really impressed with him,” Bill said. “Dr. Schaefer’s vision for the future of the department has made me excited to see what’s to come. I’ve seen personally that he’s a bright and capable leader. He’s also very passionate about Texas A&M and that’s important to me.”
Giving with a Purpose
The College of Engineering is one of the leading engineering programs in the United States, ranking first in undergraduate enrollment and ninth in graduate enrollment. Faculty endowments encourage and reward faculty members who embody the passion for, and commitment to the education of engineering students. They bring years of rich experiences from the field and add tremendous value to the College of Engineering. If you are interested in supporting faculty or would like more information on how you can give, please contact one of our development officers.