Environment Engineering

THAYER SCHOOL will soon inaugurate a new concept of engineering education, President Dickey has announced. The new approach, based on the adaptation of man's environment to his needs, uses and benefit, is called "environmental engineering." It was approved by the Board of Trustees at a meeting on April 15.

The program is to be directed by Dean William P. Kimball '28, who originally proposed it; and to carry out the project, Dean Kimball has asked to be relieved of his duties as dean and chairman of the Engineering Sciences Department. However he will continue to carry those responsibilities until a successor is named.

Dean Kimball feels that the concept of environmental engineering requires a command of the relevant technology and an understanding of the social, economic, political, cultural and physical conditions within which man lives and works. However, he mentions, "since the scope of the technology that can contribute to environmental engineering is too broad for any one individual to master, the practicing engineer will concentrate on a sector of technology consistent with his particular interests and aptitudes. Examples are water resources, waste disposal, transportation, housing, land use and urban development."

The proposed new program of environmental engineering will include three stages: preprofessional undergraduate study; postgraduate study relating undergraduate work to engineering technologies; and the possibility of further graduate work at other institutions in a specialty such as water resources and the other examples above.

Although educators generally accept the view that engineering education should include the humanities and social sciences, the proposed Dartmouth program will be among the first to use the social sciences background in engineering courses.

Thus, just as principles learned in physics and mathematics courses are now related to engineering studies at Dartmouth, so will the principles of the social sciences be applied in class work. Dean Kimball expects the new program to provide opportunities for cooperation not only with departments of the social sciences, but also with the new Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers is building in Hanover.

President Dickey praised the new plan and expressed appreciation to Dean Kimball "for all that you propose to do ...as a teacher-scholar to keep engineering education here at Dartmouth worthy of its great tradition and responsive to the drastically altered demands and opportunities that are now facing us."