Thayer School's Centennial

Dartmouth's engineering school begins its second century with renewed strength in educational program, faculty, and graduate enrollement

FORMER DEAN AND PROFESSOR OF CIVIL ENGINEERING, EMERITUS

THAYER SCHOOL TODAY is the product of a multitude of influences beginning with General Thayer's first Instrument of Gift founding the School 104 years ago. THAYER SCHOOL TOMORROW will continue to reflect the influences of the past while aiming at a future perceived and expressed in the Centennial Convocation of September 1971.

The fields from which the Convocation speakers were drawn and the topics they selected suggest how far the School has moved with the times, or indeed ahead of them. To provide guidance for its future program, the faculty turned not -only to engineers but even more to spokesmen for the humanities and social sciences. The topics selected by them included "The Individual and Society in the World Ahead"; "Faust's Progress"; "Technology Assessment: The Ethical Issues"; "Escape Into Reality"; "Social Seismology: The Coming Century of Political Earthquakes"; and "A Hundred Years from Now: Two Alternative Futures."

The story of the School's first hundred years is a story of evolution. There have been changes in emphasis and direction but always these changes have been the result of gradual accumulation rather than of sudden inspiration. And always these changes have been within the concept expressed so well by President Hopkins when he wrote, "The purpose of an education is to give a man breadth and depth in his knowledge.... Therefore, the educated engineer, under the policy of the School, must first of all have acquired the general culture which it is the purpose of a college education to give."

The beginning of the Thayer School story was recorded and, happily, has been preserved in the voluminous correspondence which Sylvanus Thayer, Class of 1807, carried on between 1867 and 1872 first with Dartmouth's President Asa Dodge Smith and later with the Thayer Professor of Civil Engineering, Robert Fletcher. The highlights of this correspondence were assembled and edited by Dartmouth Librarian Edward Connery Lathem '51 and published in 1964 in the book TheBeginnings of the Thayer School. The story of Thayer School's evolution from those beginnings to the school it is today has been told in the book TheFirst Hundred Years of the ThayerSchool authored by Emeritus Professor William P. Kimball '28 with assists by Dean David V. Ragone and Professors Edward S. Brown '34, Joseph J. Ermenc, and Alvin O. Converse, and published in September 1971.

The Program Evolves

The evolution of the School's program from civil engineering as originally conceived to engineering as adopted some ninety years later has reflected, and in some cases has predicted, changes over the years in the nature of the engineering profession itself. In 1867, engineering, if it was not applied to military objectives, was civilian engineering. The curriculum which General Thayer's Military Academy adviser, Professor Dennis Mahan, drew up and which Professor Fletcher taught, practically single-handedly, to the first Thayer School class from 1871 to 1873 was made up of courses having just about the same names as those which constitute a conventional civil engineering curriculum today. And, throughout Fletcher's remarkable 47-year direction of the School, the program remained, quite simply and singly, civil engineering.

Robert Fletcher's successor, Director Holden, and his faculty began to question this single-mindedness during the immediate post-World-War I years. Dean Marsden and his faculty began to show signs of breaking out of it during the early 1930's. And a few years later, Dean Garran and his faculty, encouraged by President Hopkins, developed curricula in engineering-business (Tuck- Thayer), electrical engineering, and mechanical engineering to complement the traditional civil engineering offerings. Immediately after World War II, this enlarged program was put into being and during the 1960's still further broadening was accomplished. In fact, breadth is certainly one of the outstanding characteristics of Thayer School's 1971 program.

Significantly, the civil, electrical, and mechanical engineering designations no longer appear in the Thayer School program. Although the engineering profession today is still subdivided into the traditional fields, the work of the individual engineer requires more and more crossing over of the subdivision boundaries. Not infrequently, indeed, today's engineer must cross the boundaries of the engineering profession itself. The opportunity, therefore, for the student to follow a study program which recognizes these cross-overs is consistent with the present and predictable demands which many graduates will face. Thayer School's undesignated engineering program offers just such an opportunity. Thus the School's offerings are broader than ever before. However, a student's individual study plan may not be.

This seeming contradiction may need explaining. In terms of engineering education, a curriculum in civil engineering or electrical engineering, for example, can be broad rather than specialized. Thus, by closely prescribing its curricula, the School scrupulously avoided and prevented any narrower specialization throughout its first ninety years. Beginning in 1961, however, Dean Tribus and his faculty, shunning the rigidities of prescribed curricula, offered a much-expanded list of courses and allowed the student much greater latitude in the make-up of his individual study plan. Thus, the School's offerings were broadened while, at the same time, the student was given the option of either a broader or a more specialized study program than had previously been permitted.

For example, in the civil-electrical-mechanical-Tuck-Thayer program of 1960, the School offered thirty graduate courses; whereas in the undesignated engineering program of 1971, the School offers one hundred graduate courses. The individual student of 1960, on the other hand, had to choose one of the four largely prescribed graduate curricula; whereas the 1971 student has a choice of practically an unlimited combination of courses. Within this array, he may develop his own study plan leading to a Bachelor of Engineering degree in one of a number of areas such as environmental health engineering and pollution control; structural analysis and design; transportation planning and system design; or urban and regional planning and policy development. Or he may follow a "sample" program in electronics and systems; communications engineering; chemical process design; production; materials; or a modified version of any of these.

Two Main Thrusts

"There are two main thrusts in the present Thayer program: the engineering sciences and professional engineering," explains Dean Ragone. "Pursuit of the engineering sciences, with their strong discipline orientation, is vital to the future of the School. All our students must have a firm foundation in the mathematics, basic sciences, and engineering sciences which are included in our undergraduate engineering sciences major. In their graduate work they may then continue in the researchoriented, scientific stem or they may elect the practice-oriented, professional engineering stem." The accompanying flow diagram illustrates the paths in these two stems as well as in a third stem combining the study of engineering and business.

The introduction of the science-oriented research stem at the graduate level and the extension of both that stem and the professional practice stem to the doctoral level were accomplished during the 1960'5. With these features, the total instruction program now consists of the four-year undergraduate engineering sciences major, the fifth-year Bachelor of Engineering course, and the advanced study programs leading to the practice-oriented Master of Engineering and Doctor of Engineering degrees or to the research-oriented This bust of GENERAL SYLVANUS THAYER, which stands in the main entrance hall of the Thayer School, is a copy of the one by which the renowned military engineer is represented in the Hall of Fame for Great Americans at New York University.

Born in Braintree, Mass., in 1785, General Thayer was in the Class of 1807 at Dartmouth. He graduated from the United States Military Academy the following year. His sixteen-year tenure as Superintendent at West Point, from 1817 to 1833, a period during which the Academy was transformed from a weak military school to a respected academic and engineering institution, earned him the unofficial title of "Father of the United States Military Academy."

Master of Science and Doctor of Philosophy degrees.

The student who elects the graduate engineering sciences stem may choose any of fourteen fields in which to work toward the Master of Science degree. These fields are ceramics, computers, elasticity, electromagnetic field theory, energy conversion, fluid mechanics, heat transfer, materials, metallurgy, network theory, plasma physics, radiophysics, solid state electronics, and thermodynamics.

Several of the same fields of study are also available to the student who elects the graduate professional engineering stem. Other fields available to such a student are decision theory, environmental health engineering, operations research, optimization, structural design, thermoeconomics, and transportation.

Technology and Public Policy

To supplement the physical design fields listed above in the professionalengineering stem, Dean Ragone has proposed an alternative program which he calls Technology and Public Policy. "The objective of this program," he says, "is the education of engineering leaders: men who will be able to marshal and supervise human, financial, and organizational, as well as technological and scientific, resources, in order to respond sensitively and effectively to human needs."

This proposal would re-emphasize Thayer School's long-time concern with environmental problems. In asking to be relieved of his duties as Dean in 1960, the writer proposed to work for the development of an environmental engineering program in which technological fields such as water resources, waste disposal, transportation, land use, and urban development would be studied in relation to the appropriate social, economic, political, cultural, and physical conditions within which they would serve. Since then, the environmental engineering concept has received greatly increased attention from many people at Thayer School and Dartmouth as well as nationwide. Within this broad concept, the proposed program will concentrate on problems involving the interaction between technology and society.

"Many such problems," Dean Ragone explains, "are generated by the introduction and/or regulation of technology. Both knowledge of what is technically possible and consideration of what is socially desirable play a significant role in the solution of these problems. Our aim is to provide an opportunity for engineering students to explore the broad, long-range implications of technology with other students and faculty on the campus. This interaction will make engineering students increasingly aware of the economic, political, and social dimensions of engineering problems and will make students in other disciplines more familiar with the technology involved in public issues. Together, they should contribute to a broader understanding of the social impact of technology."

Thayer School Professor Alvin Converse has worked closely with Dean Ragone in planning the program. "Basically," he says, "the aim is to improve the deployment of technology, including restraint as well as development. Applications of technology to meet the needs of mankind must be consistent with ecological considerations and with the goal of long-term human survival."

"While Thayer School's primary mission," explains Dean Ragone, "is to produce well-qualified engineers, it is also considered vital that the School contribute to the education of all Dartmouth students through formal course work, project activity, and general participation in the life of the College." This commitment to provide instruction in the development and present state of modern technology for the student in the "liberating arts" is shared by other members of the Thayer School faculty. For example, Professor Ermenc offers three undergraduate courses dealing with technological achievements of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and the historical development of technology. During the past five years, enrollment in these courses has exceeded 400 students. Similarly, Professor Converse has developed both an introductory course in policy formulation and a policy formulation course emphasizing environmental problems in the public domain.

"Essentially Postgraduate"

In order to carry out its primary mission of producing well-qualified engineers, Thayer School has consistently regarded the study of engineering as "essentially post-graduate" (to borrow words from the 1867 Dartmouth catalog). Although some students were admitted to Thayer School without prior college education during the early years, most had completed four years of college before undertaking Thayer School's two-year program. This 4-2 pattern gave way to a 3-2 program when President Tucker's plan to accept the first year of Thayer School as the senior-year requirement for the College's bachelor's degree was adopted in 1892. The 3-2 pattern persisted until 1960 when the adoption of the undergraduate engineering science major by the College created the 4-1 pattern which is still the basic program of the School.

In contrast to these five-year programs, almost all other engineering schools in the United States traditionally required only four years for the first engineering degree and this is still true even in 1971. However, during the 1960's it has become increasingly evident to engineering educators that the four-year program can no longer adequately prepare a student for an engineering career, if indeed it ever could. Today, well over a third of the graduates of four-year engineering curricula continue their studies through one or more graduate years, even though most of them receive a so-called "first engineering degree" at the end of four years. In fact, in 1968, more than a hundred years after General Thayer's Instrument of Gift established the Thayer School at Dartmouth, a nationwide study of the goals of engineering education recommended that the "first engineering degree" should require at least one year of graduate study. Thayer School today, however, remains one of only a handful of engineering schools which actually do require graduate study of all degree candidates.

A corollary of the 3-2 program introduced with President Tucker's encouragement in 1892 was Thayer School's dedication to serving the interests of Dartmouth students practically to the exclusion of students from other institutions. That dedication has continued, but since 1960 the exclusiveness has disappeared from Thayer School as from Dartmouth's other associated schools. Today forty to fifty percent of the School's master degree candidates and over eighty percent of its doctoral candidates receive their undergraduate education at another institution.

Autonomy and Collaboration

Except for a few very early programs, engineering education had its beginnings in this country during the late nineteenth century, receiving a major assist, of course, from the federal legislation establishing land grant colleges and universities. The pattern of organizing engineering departments and schools within the confines of overall college and university administration was established at that time and has persisted to the present day.

The Thayer School has always been a notable exception. From its earliest beginnings, it has enjoyed a high degree of autonomy in its professional program. In fact, a Trustees Planning Committee task force concluded in the middle 1950's that this very autonomy had encouraged an isolation of the School from the College, preventing the full interaction from which both School and College could benefit. In response to this finding, a joint Thayer School-Dartmouth faculty committee developed the undergraduate engineering science major. To bring the major fully into the College program, the Engineering Science Department, manned entirely by members of the Thayer School faculty, was established within the College's Division of the Sciences.

Traditionally, Thayer School's program had always aimed at preparing students for a career in engineering rather than in science. General Thayer opened his 1867 Instrument of Gift by noting that he was "moved by a regard for my Alma Mater and by a consideration of the large demands which the unfolding material interests of the Country are sure to make upon our educational institutions" (emphasis supplied). The outline of the curriculum of 1871 is replete with words such as application, construction, maintenance, practical, and erection.

Through the years, the importance of advanced mathematics and basic science had become gradually and increasingly apparent and had been reflected both in the School's admission requirements and in its course offerings. The adoption in the late 1950's of the undergraduate engineering science major as a requirement for admission to the School's graduate program gave renewed recognition to the trend. The creation at the same time of the Engineering Science Department within the College, bringing members of the Thayer School faculty into the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, proved an effective device for accomplishing the more scientific orientation of the preengineering courses.

This development gave Dartmouth the basis for the best of two possible worlds in engineering education: a close collaboration in the engineeringsciences under the joint control of College and School; and a continued autonomy for the School in the conduct of its professional engineering program. It is believed that no other institution enjoys as good an opportunity for combining collaboration and professional autonomy in engineering education.

The Liberal Arts Tradition

Another Thayer School feature which is unique in engineering education is the requirement that every advanced degree candidate have "the equivalent of Dartmouth's A.B. degree at entrance or make up his deficiencies in liberal learning as part of his graduate studies." Here we find another evidence of the School's continued adherence to its liberal arts tradition.

A student who has majored in a social science or humanities department at Dartmouth may question the extent of Thayer School's adherence to a liberal arts tradition, since the engineering sciences major has required about sixty percent of the undergraduate's courses to be in mathematics and the sciences. However, in contrast to the eighty percent required of engineering students at most schools, the Dartmouth student enjoys a relatively high degree of freedom of course election.

Nevertheless, the Thayer School faculty undertook in 1960 to develop a modified major for students desiring a broader undergraduate program. During the 1960's, pursuant to but falling short of this objective, special attention was called to the possibility that students could be admitted to Thayer School after majoring in "engineering sciences, mathematics, physics, philosophy, chemistry, or other approved programs." A few students did take advantage of these alternative major opportunities. Last year, however, the question of reducing the number of required courses in the engineering sciences major itself was re-examined and a first step was taken by eliminating three of the previously required mathematics and science courses. Further modifications are currently under consideration.

Thus Thayer School has not only held to but expanded the policy of requiring "the general culture which it is the purpose of a college education to give."

Interdisciplinary Programs

The offering of interdisciplinary programs was initiated at Thayer School in 1940 when the combined engineering and business curriculum was undertaken in conjunction with the Tuck School. Since then, the interdisciplinary concept has been expanded to include engineering and radiophysics, engineering and computers, engineering and medicine, and most recently the proposed Technology and Public Policy program.

The first two classes in the joint Thayer School-Tuck School curriculum were graduated in 1942 and 1943. After World War II the program was resumed with the Tuck-Thayer label and thrived for some fifteen years. However, changes in the programs of both schools during the early 1960's led to the termination of the integrated Tuck-Thayer study program. At present students may combine the study of engineering and business administration by completing the requirements for Thayer School's Bachelor of Engineering degree and Tuck School's Master of Business Administration degree in seven terms of study following completion of the undergraduate engineering sciences major. A joint program to fulfill Master of Engineering requirements is under consideration.

The Murdough Center, now under construction, gives visible evidence that Thayer-Tuck cooperative action will continue and grow in the years ahead. Physically joining the two schools at the end of Tuck Mall, this multi-million-dollar structure was made possible by generous gifts to the Third Century Fund from Mr. and Mrs. Thomas G. Murdough, Class of 1926, and other donors. Thayer School and Tuck School libraries will be joined in the new building and classrooms and an auditorium will be available for use by both schools as well as by the College. A computation center housed here will have teletype access to Dartmouth's Kiewit Center. It is also expected that Dartmouth's expanding continuing education program will be served by Murdough Center.

The engineering and radiophysics combination began to develop in the early 1950's from the impetus of ionospheric research undertaken by Millett Morgan, then Thayer School's Director of Research. Under Professor Morgan's leadership, radiophysics studies and course offerings have contributed importantly to the School's research activity and recognition, and more specifically to the engineering sciences undergraduate major and the research stem of the graduate program. Professor Morgan's role in these activities received special recognition last summer by his designation as Sydney E. Junkins Professor of Engineering.

Although not yet large in terms of student enrollment or sponsored research, the combined programs in engineering and medicine and in engineering and computers have attracted a considerable number of students and have drawn on several members of the Thayer School faculty for both instruction and research. The exceptional capability of the Dartmouth Medical School and the Dartmouth Mathematics Department has encouraged the Thayer School to combine with them in these new and potentially fruitful interdisciplinary education enterprises.

Partnership With Industry

Interdisciplinary in a slightly different sense is Thayer School's Educational Partnership Program initiated under Dean Tribus's leadership in the mid-1960's. This unique education-industry relationship is based on the concept of shared responsibility by school and industrial firm for the education of tomorrow's engineers. It is a natural, and perhaps essential, corollary to Thayer School's professional engineering programs since industry is the natural source of real-world, creative design problems with which engineering students must cope in their education and, later, as engineers in their careers. Close association with a firm brings to the student's attention the firm's problems and the challenges they present. The faculty too benefits from the contact with current engineering problems and with the people in industry who are charged with responsibility for solving them.

Nine companies have entered the program as full Educational Partners and 24 others have participated as Engineering Associates. The arrangement has led to a higher level of interaction than had been considered possible. It has provided the School's students with a rich assortment of authentic engineering experiences that have served to bring them to a high level of professional responsibility and accomplishment. Also of considerable importance, the income from the program has helped to underwrite the School's professional engineering instructional program. In turn, the cooperating companies have received a flow of stimulating ideas, occasional assistance with projects and processes, and a close association with prospective professional employees.

Projects

The project approach to experimental work is a special feature of the instructional program from the first course in sophomore year through the doctoral level. Traditionally, engineering schools have required the performance of laboratory experiments as a means of verifying classroom theory in undergraduate courses. Such experiments are expected to yield certain predetermined results. Not so, however, in the project approach. Here the student, individually or as a member of a small team, selects a hitherto unsolved problem which may lend itself to a combined analytical and experimental investigation as his project for the term. The problem must, of course, be related to the subject matter of the classroom course which the project is intended to supplement. This approach emphasizes the problem-solving nature of engineering throughout the undergraduate courses and prepares the student to undertake the more advanced and extensive projects which are required for the Bachelor of Engineering and higher-level Thayer School degrees.

The "30-day project" illustrates both the highest level of project work and the nature of the Doctor of Engineering professionally oriented program. The project is, in effect, the "qualifying examination" for this doctoral degree. The aim is to test the student's potential capability for innovative, creative design. He is required to produce a worthwhile answer to a problem in a field unfamiliar to him within a 30-day time limit. The assistance of industrial or consulting firms or government agencies is usually needed because these design problems are selected from unsolved, real-life situations. For example, one student was required to develop a means of city refuse disposal; another, to recommend improved methods of pulpwood procurement and preparation. The student is judged on his ability to organize his project within the strict time limit, to apply scientific and technical fundamentals to the problem, to consider economic constraints, and to present the results logically and coherently both orally and in a written report.

Although the project approach has long been used in graduate work, its introduction at the sophomore level and its substitution for planned laboratory experiments throughout the undergraduate years are new in engineering education. The approach was introduced by Professor Robert Dean in his fluid mechanics course during his first semester at Thayer School. Dean Tribus had also developed this approach in undergraduate courses at UCLA before coming to Thayer School and encouraged its adoption here in all undergraduate engineering science courses.

The student is first introduced to the project approach in the sophomore course Engineering Science 21 (Introduction to Engineering). Dean Tribus led the development of this course in the early 1960's and almost every member of the Thayer School faculty has taught in the course at one time or another since then. Most recently, Professor S. Russell Stearns '37 has directed the course and made his own special contributions to it. The projects have generally been related to a human need and have had social significance. For example, in 1963 the project was to develop an economical home device or process for improving the quality of brackish water. The 1964 and 1965 projects were to design devices to assist handicapped people.

In Professor Stearns' words, "The coarse introduces the pre-engineering student to professional engineering through group work. It is an open-ended project course which emphasizes innovation and creativity while at the same time requiring both the application of basic scientific principles and the determination of technical and economic feasibility of the project results. It provides an authentic experience in the practice of engineering. The students must attack broad, poorly defined problems posed by the environment, both natural and man-made."

Under a Ford Foundation grant, students and faculty members from other engineering schools have spent from a few days to a full term at Thayer School participating in the course and being instructed in the methods of conducting it. Based on this experience, adaptations have been introduced into the programs of many of those schools. This is one of the innovations which Thayer School has been able to stimulate in engineering education throughout the country.

Thayer School Today

Thus, the beginning of Thayer School's second hundred years finds strong instructional programs in engineering sciences and in professional engineering; pioneering work in the pedagogy of engineering education; a 23-man teaching faculty taking part also in research, consulting, and college and community affairs and offering twentieth century technology courses to Dartmouth's non-engineering students; and some 75 graduate students from many institutions and foreign lands.

To all those students, alumni, faculty, overseers, and College officers who have brought the School from its humble beginnings to its exciting present must go the credit for a truly remarkable accomplishment. To all those who will carry the School through its second hundred years go our wishes for even greater successes.

SIX DEANS: William P. Kimball '28 (1945-61), Myron Tribus (1961-69) andDavid V. Ragone (1970-) seated before portraits of Charles A. Holden (1918-25),Raymond R. Marsden (1925-33) and Frank W. Garran (1933-45).

The first two Doctors of Engineeringgraduated by Thayer in 1967 wereThomas J. Black and Andrew Porteous.

A Thayer School survey party of men in the Classes of 1875 through 1878 posefor a studio picture before taking to the hills and dales of Hanover.

Classes of 1894 and 1895 at work in the old Park Street building. Professor RobertFletcher is at left end of table and Professor Hazen at right rear.

Thayer School's home on Park Street (1892-1912) now called Thayer Lodge.

Bissell Hall, present site of Hopkins Center, was home from 1912 to 1939.

Cummings Hall, the modern quarters of Thayer School since 1939.