NEAR THRESHOLD EXCITATION OF HELIUM 3$^3$D BY ELECTRON IMPACT A. Crowe$^\sharp $, D. Cvejanovic$^\sharp $, D. T. McLaughlin$^\sharp $, B. P. Donnelly$^\sharp $, D. Fursa$^\dagger $, I. Bray$^\dagger $ and K. Bartschat$^\ddagger $ $^\sharp ${Department of Physics, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU, U.K.} $^\dagger $ Electronic Structure of Materials Centre, The Flinders University of South Australia, GPO Box 2100, Adelaide 5001, Australia $^\ddagger $Department of Physics and Astronomy, Drake University, Des Moines, IA 50311, USA The polarization correlation method is used to study excitation of the 3$^3$D state of helium with incident electrons having an excess energy of $\sim $370~meV above threshold. Complementary theoretical studies are carried out using both the R--Matrix with Pseudo States (RMPS) and Convergent Close Coupling (CCC) methods.