It seems to me we are all very quick to talk loudly about our educational institutions when they fail, but very quiet when they do something exceptional.
Well, the other day I learned via the grapevine that Georgia Tech this year has been awarded 13 Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers. These awards were created in 1996 by eight federal agencies, and they are aimed at encouraging and honoring young scientists and engineers who are working on the front edge of knowledge in one field or another. The idea was to honor outstanding young faculty members in Universities across America. There are only 60 of these awards every year, and if you don't think every school in this country goes after them vigorously just consider that along with every award goes a grant of $50,000 to $100,000 per year, for four years, to be spent on equipment, supplies and assistants, both graduate and undergraduate.
Out of the 60 Career Awards this year, Georgia Tech won 13. But there's more to it than this one year. Since the Career Awards started in 1995, The University of Illinois has been awarded 83 awards; followed by Georgia Tech with 72; Massachusetts Institute of Technology with 63; the University of Michigan with 61; Penn State with 53; and the University of Wisconsin with 53. In the educational world, that's not bad company to keep.
Georgia Tech has some top professors and researchers who have put Georgia in a world-class position in the scientific and engineering worlds, but the importance of these awards is that Tech has more than just a few topside brains ... it also has depth among its younger faculty members. And if we are going to beat ourselves up every time we find a weak spot in our educational system in Georgia, why shouldn't we also speak up proudly about the areas in which we are world-class?
This is Gordon Sawyer, and may the wind always be at your back.
Monday
August 4th, 2025
8:27AM
