Cockrell School of Engineering
Previously known as the College of Engineering, on July 11, 2007, the University of Texas at Austin renamed the College after 1936 graduate Ernest Cockrell Jr., whose family has over the past 30 years helped to build a $140 million endowment for the College.
University of Texas at Austin
Alumni in academia include the 26th President of The College of William & Mary Gene Nichol '76, the 10th President of Boston University Robert A. Brown '73 & '75, and the 8th President of the University of Southern California John R. Hubbard. The university also graduated Alan Bean '55, the fourth man to walk on the Moon. Additionally, alumni who have served as business leaders include Secretary of State and former ExxonMobil Corporation CEO Rex Tillerson '75, Dell founder and CEO Michael Dell, and Gary C. Kelly, Southwest Airlines's CEO, Clarice Phelps, chemist at Oak Ridge National Laboratory who contributed to the discovery of Tennessine.
In literature and journalism, the school boasts 20 Pulitzer Prizes to 18 former students, including Gail Caldwell and Ben Sargent '70. Walter Cronkite, the former CBS Evening News anchor once called the most trusted man in America, attended the University of Texas at Austin, as did CNN anchor Betty Nguyen '95. Alumnus J. M. Coetzee also received the 2003 Nobel Prize in Literature. Novelist Raymond Benson ('78) was the official author of James Bond novels between 1996 and 2002, the only American to be commissioned to pen them. Donna Alvermann, a distinguished research professor at the University of Georgia, Department of Education also graduated from the University of Texas, as did Wallace Clift ('49) and Jean Dalby Clift ('50, J.D. '52), authors of several books in the fields of psychology of religion and spiritual growth. Notable alumni authors also include Kovid Gupta ('2010), author of several bestselling books, and Alireza Jafarzadeh author of "The Iran Threat: President Ahmadinejad and the Coming Nuclear Crisis" and television commentator ('82, MS). Although expelled from UT, former student and The Daily Texan writer John Patric went on to become a noted writer for "National Geographic", "Reader's Digest", and author of 1940s best-seller "Why Japan was Strong".