. tterad be ed ie fit Fu f ut ny mae Bt how tm! *) ~; SECOND REPORT OF THE BOARD OF INVESTIGATION | AND COORDINATION . ' F \ é 7 fi} w # oo oeaeeaeaeeaeaeaoq<=<0<0sooooa@q@qaqaqauTywunnSEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesSeSSSS SS . a aps % & BS | Bice “ p va tan * ; : it4 : > “. , ¥ a a7 me tae ~~ ras @ pnerry OF sNIVE dy I. ENGINEERING EDUCATION—A UNIFIED vs. A DIVIDED PROCESS. i THE=OUESTION OF A LONGER ENGINEERING CURRICULUM. oe THE SOCIETY FOR THE PROMOTION OF ENGINEERING EDUCATION JUNE, 1927 THE SOCIETY FOR THE PROMOTION OF ENGINEERING EDUCATION BOARD OF INVESTIGATION AND COORDINATION CHARLES F. Scott, Chairman Joun H, DunLAP (Deceased) FreDErIC L. BisHop, Secretary FRANK AYDELOTTE MortTiMer HE. CooLry CaRL E. SEASHORE DuGaLD C. JACKSON FREDERICK E. TURNEAURE Frep W. McNair (Deceased) DExTER S. KIMBALL and the President of the Society, ex-officio (PERLEY F. WALKER, ANDREY A, POTTER, GEORGE B. PEGRAM, and OrA M. LELAND, during their respective terms of office). STAFF OF THE INVESTIGATION ~2eWILLIAM E. WICKENDEN, Director Harry P. HAMMOND, Associate Director SN OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY OF THE SOCIETY, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pa. OFFICE OF THE DIRECTOR OF INVESTIGATION, Engineering Societies Building 33 West 39th Street, New York, N. Y. Copies of the publications of the Board of Investigation and Coordi- nation may be obtained from THE LANCASTER PRESS, INC. Prince and Lemon Streets, Lancaster, Pennsylvania. SECOND REPORT OF THE BOARD OF INVESTIGATION AND COORDINATION SOCIETY FOR THE PROMOTION OF ENGINEERING EDUCATION! | ippspy € 3 le j ; > ) id in, $i F° 7 j UNIVERSITY OF 1! CONTENTS Summary of Issues and Conclusions . . ...... 1 Part I. Engineering Education—A Unified vs. a TIVIGGGAE LOCESS RTM ea otra ah, Hee _— Part II. The Question of a Longer Engineering Cur- ry riculum SOT nV We ag Woe) PREP ro EA eye oo ‘retard EET Ev aay GU OE eRe CG a REN ARR Ce RE MOE MMT YAY) yA 8 © . Copyright, 1927 Or, by The Society for the Promotion of Engineering Education <= (Contents may be quoted with reference to the source) FOREWORD This report, which will later be embodied in a report of more comprehensive character, is based upon materials which. have been assembled and studies made in a general investiga- tion ‘‘ directed to a study of the objects of engineering educa- tion and the fitness of the present-day curricula,’’ which has been conducted by the Society for the Promotion of Engi- neering Education. These activities have been carried out under the general direction of the Board of Investigation and Coordination and under the immediate supervision of the Staff, as named elsewhere. In setting forth the objectives of the investigation, the Board stated its desire to clarify the educational functions and responsibilities of the colleges of engineering, by indicat- ing the extent to which the program of engineering education serves as a collegiate type of training employing science and technology as its principal media; and to what extent it serves as a definite professional discipline; also to indicate how engi- neering curricula may be coordinated more effectively with the needs of industry and the requirements of engineering practice. The present report is concerned with the objectives men- tioned above and is presented as a contribution to the impor- tant problems which confront the engineering colleges. While the decisions must rest with individual institutions, the Board offers its own consensus of opinion with regard to the issues considered.and expresses its views with regard to the situation as a whole. SECOND REPORT OF THE BOARD OF INVESTI- GATION AND COORDINATION I. ENGINEERING EDUCATION—A UNIFIED VS A DIVIDED PROCESS II. THE QUESTION OF A LONGER ENGINEERING CURRICULUM Summary of Issues and Conclusions.*—This report deals with two distinct but related issues which now confront the colleges of engineering. The first and more fundamental is the alternative between a unified and a divided educational process; the second is the question of the normal length of the engineering curriculum. I. A unified educational process implies a curriculum in which humanistic, scientific and technological studies. are com- bined into an orderly whole, constituting a complete and self- contained branch of higher education under unity of super- vision. A divided process implies a distinct pre-engineering curriculum under separate auspices and an engineering cur- riculum set up on purely technical lines, a plan corresponding to the present educational scheme in law, medicine and den- tistry. The Board is of the opinion that the engineering colleges in general may best fulfill their purpose by providing under their own auspices an educational program which is complete in itself and which may be entered direct from the secondary schools; that this type of program supplies the norm in engi- neering education; but that facilities should be afforded for the admission to advanced standing of students who desire a more extended general academic training before entering upon the study of engineering. | II. The issue concerning the length of the curriculum grows out of the accepted principle that more than four years of preparation are needed to equip men for creative leadership’ * Note: Except where specifically noted, the term engineering educa- tion is employed in this report to denote a college program leading to a degree. It is recognized that there are other important divisions of engineering education, in its comprehensive sense, which lie beyond the scope of this discussion. 1 2 REPORT OF THE BOARD OF in the engineering profession. The alternative lies between a longer prescribed program, to be pursued in full or in part by all students, and a normal undergraduate program as a base with a variety of supplementary programs to fit different needs and preferences. The Board is of the opinion that it is advisable to preserve the usual distinction between undergraduate and post-gradu- ate programs and that the undergraduate program should be self-contained and lead to a degree. Opportunity should be afforded and encouragement given to students of promise to extend their formal training by means appropriate to their aptitude, ability and choice of a career, such as the voluntary election of additional humanistic studies, the pursuit of post- graduate study in a fully qualified institution, or through orderly studies pursued in conjunction with engineering ex- perience. Four years is regarded as the normal] length of the undergraduate program. In many cases this program may be divided advantageously into two stages under the same supervision and both reasonably self-contained, in order to provide an intermediate goal and facilitate a selective process of admission to the upper years. PART I. ENGINEERING EDUCATION—A UNIFIED VS A DIVIDED PROCESS Purposes of Proposals to Divide the Curriculum.—Those who challenge the present status of the engineering colleges and their self-contained educational program usually pro- pose a segregation of the program into two distinct parts, the first a general academic training under non-engineering aus- pices, and the second a strictly technical curriculum in engi- neering, comparable to those in law and medicine. This pro- posal is made principally by educationists on abstract grounds, but ig echoed occasionally by engineers and industrialists. The intent of these proposals is to include engineering educa- tion in a general movement: To raise the cultural level of the professions ; To sift all students to more homogeneous standards before admission to professional courses ; INVESTIGATION AND COORDINATION 3 To postpone the final choices of departmental or professional specialization ; To make the arts college, or a similar unit, the central feature in university organization and the vestibule to all specialized instruction ; To extend secondary education, either in or outside the universities, by two years; To professionalize the advanced instruction in all academic departments ; To transfer all general introductory instruction to junior institutions. The critics of the present unified program of the engineer- ing colleges seldom fail to point to the examples of a divided educational process in legal, medical, dental and theological education, and to advocate that engineering education should be organized on the same plan in order to maintain high standing as a branch of professional education. Criticism of Assumptions Underlying the Divided Pro- gram.—The assumption is commonly made that certain sub- jects are inherently cultural and others are not, and that any degree of professional orientation puts a program beyond the pale of ‘‘broad’’ education. These assumptions seem to be incidental to narrowly conventional definitions of culture. The engineer would maintain that culture cannot be restricted to the fine arts and personal graces, however desirable for the enrichment of life, but must be conceived equally in terms of insight into the social bearings of one’s calling, qualifications for efficient team-work with men of other callings, and the ability to invest one’s work with large social values. Culture, so conceived, ought not to be divorced from professional prep- aration. Granting that the present means to these ends in the engineering curriculum may be greatly improved, it does not follow that they would be bettered through dissociation, but rather that the cultural possibilities inherent in engineer- ing education should be more fully explored and developed. Another assumption is that it would be profitable to extend the student’s preparatory education by one or two years, and that more valid choices of specialization would result. Euro- ~~ 4 REPORT OF THE BOARD OF pean examples are often cited in support of this position, but the fact that this higher scholastic level is normally reached abroad at the age of eighteen is often overlooked. The age level and stage of mental maturity mark a more significant threshold to professionally oriented studies for the engineering student than the level of scholastic attainment. The urge to prepare for a technological career normally appears at or be- fore eighteen, rather than later, It is necessary to employ these natural enthusiasms of the student as incentives for a long and arduous formal training under the rising pressure of his instinctive urge to do, to create, to deal with tangible and realistic situations, to achieve economic independence, and to mate at a normal age. Furthermore, as a student, his time is subject to a law of diminishing returns, and a balance must be struck between formal education and training through actual experience. What the engineering student needs at the outset is not so much a widening of his intellectual horizons as a discipline in more intensive and directed methods of mental work; the broadening process is much more effective if distributed over the entire educational program. Experience indicates that a faulty perspective of cultural values on the part of the stu- dent is more readily corrected by sympathetic guidance in an engineering college with adequate provision for humanistic studies in the later years of its curriculum, than by consign- ing him to a probationary period in an arts college. A further assumption is that the engineering colleges would profit greatly by a preliminary sifting of their students. Doubtless they would if the sifting process were based on a valid trial of interest, aptitude and ability. However, the actual results of a divided program, in which another type of college is made to serve as a vestibule to engineering, have been seriously disappointing; it appears that the spark of enthu- siasm for engineering is quenched more often than it is kindled and that more students are diverted from engineering through prejudicial influences than are directed to it through con- structive educational guidance. This result is reflected in a marked shrinkage of enrollments and graduations in engineer- INVESTIGATION .AND COORDINATION 9) ing under the divided plan without indications of compensa- tory gains in the qualifications of graduates, when comparisons are made between educational programs of equal total length. The unified engineering program, on the other hand, offers tangible means of try-out and guidance to the student with tentative engineering objectives, and exacts little penalty of the student who transfers to another educational program within a reasonable period. Are Precedents in Education for Other Professions Rele- vant?—Technical training for the professions of law, medi- cine, dentistry and, to a less degree, the religious ministry, is distinctly set off from the processes of general education and all the first-class schools preparing for these professions re- quire from two to four years of general college work for en- tranee. The accentuated professional status of these schools and the long formal training in two stages are often upheld as examples to the engineering colleges. It is fitting to point out, however, that there are few if any parallels involved, apart from the common use of the term ‘‘ profession. ’’ First, there is striking dissimilarity of historical back- grounds. Education for law, medicine and dentistry had its origin in a system of pupillage or apprenticeship, out of which there developed an extensive system of private proprietary schools of strictly technical character. When these schools were later assimilated to a university status they preserved their separate identity through a sharp division of the edu- cational process into pre-professional and professional stages and in many eases established themselves on separate premises. In contrast, the type of engineering education which devel- oped in American colleges has been from its origin an inclu- sive educational process, instituted and directed by profes- sional educators, conforming to university standards, and more academic than vocational in type. While originating in dis- tinct polytechnic schools of university grade, it early gained recognition and place in institutions of the broadest academic character and has held and extended this position during a period of eighty years. The early curriculum in American colleges of engineering 6 REPORT OF THE BOARD OF was conceived ag an alternative and a challenge to the tradi- tional classical discipline. Unlike the strictly professional disciplines mentioned above, engineering education has never been under the exclusive domination of a professional group ; non-engineers have shared equally with engineers in shaping its character and destiny. It is significant that early engi- neering curricula contained little of the technique of engi- neering practice, but emphasized an objective approach to the physical sciences with a view to the economic use of materials and sources of power in nature, as contrasted with a subjec- tive concern with the organization of systems of scientific knowledge. The science of engineering, rather than the art, has consistently dominated the engineering curriculum and even to this day the materials for a complete discipline for the practice of engineering have never been developed in syste- matic form. Second, the professions concerned are of dissimilar nature. Law, medicine, dentistry, and the religious ministry are strictly defined professions, based on a single level of responsi- bility and largely concerned with a service by individuals to individuals. Each has a distinctive social and legal status, and the first three have monopolistic rights and privileges under the law, which make restrictions ad to entrance a neces- sary protective measure for society. The auxiliary or sub- professional services related to these professions are in the hands of distinct groups and there are no open promotional routes from group to group. These conditions tend to. fix the forms of professional education in a series of standard patterns. In contrast, engineering—concerned with the eco- nomic use of materials and energy—is one of the very general functions in social economy, and not the exclusive function of a well-defined professional group. It has many levels of responsibility and no clear distinction has ever been drawn between the professional and the auxiliary levels. The pro- fession of engineering is self-constituted and traditionally open and inclusive in its organization. Promotional routes run through all grades of responsibility and legal restrictions as to entrance are relatively nominal. INVESTIGATION AND COORDINATION “ Third, the professions concerned have different relations to educational practice and policy. Law, medicine and dentistry are represented by strong central organizations, able to for- mulate and largely able to impose a strict educational policy in connection with legal restrictions on entrance to profes- sional standing. Within the last twenty years each of these professional bodies has had occasion to take strong protective measures in the face of a common problem, namely the flood- ing of the profession with the poorly educated and meagerly trained graduates of low-grade schools operated for profit. It was urgently necessary to raise the qualifying levels of general education, up-grade the standards of technical train- ing, bring the schools under university auspices, impose proper limitations of numbers and introduce selective processes to guarantee suitable personal qualifications of recruits. The chief means chosen to these ends has been the prescribing of two years or more of college work as a prerequisite of admis- sion to highly specialized professional curricula. The engi- neering colleges, on the other hand, have been almost wholly under university standards and educational auspices. The elements of general education included in engineering curri- cula have long been equivalent to those now prescribed for ad- mission to all but a few exceptional schools of law and medi- eine. There is no centralized body in the engineering profes- sion which could formulate and enforce a strict educational policy. Engineering enrollments have been relatively station- ary for many years and there has been no flooding of the pro- fession by an excess of recruits. In short, there has been no need of drastic reform in engineering education to protect or advance the interests of the profession, but only of healthy evolution. The profession has never undertaken to bring the educational process under its direction or control. Fourth, the division of an educational program implies that its professional stage is designed exclusively to fit students for definite professional careers. This is not the sole pur- pose of engineering education. As previously stated, en- gineering is actually one of the most general functions in social economy, and not exclusively a form of professional service. 8 REPORT OF THE BOARD OF There would be no conceivable gain to society in making sci- entific technology the monopoly of a restricted professional group, aS in medicine and law, nor is there any inherent basis for limitation of numbers in technological education. On the contrary, there is positive social gain in the wide diffusion of men with engineering training throughout the entire range of industrial, commercial and public activity. The profes- sional element in engineering education, which gives it char- acteristic form and direction and marks it off definitely from a loosely grouped body of scientific studies, is of great value, but the undergraduate program is conceived not so much as a specific professional discipline as a professionally oriented form of education. It is significant that engineering train- ing qualifies graduates to function in the whole range of direc- tive responsibility in industry and public works; less than one-third remain permanently in predominantly technical work and less than one-tenth establish themselves in an indi- vidual professional capacity. Present tendencies relative to curricula, teaching processes, personnel practices, student ac- tivities and the enrichment of institutional life in the engi- neering colleges are in marked contrast to the practices of the strictly professional schools of law, medicine and dentistry, and testify to the ideal of serving the student as an individual rather than fitting him into a pre-determined professional mold. Present Status of the Engineering Colleges.—There are now more than one hundred and sixty colleges in the United States and Canada which offer complete engineering curricula leading to degrees. With two exceptions, Dartmouth and Columbia, these schools are all organized as undergraduate colleges, with or without associated post-graduate depart- ments. Only four institutions in all have organized their curricula in two distinct stages under separate direction. There are nineteen polytechnic institutes such as Rensselaer and Massachusetts Institute, and seven colleges of mines as Colorado (Golden) and Missouri (Rolla) which are devoted primarily to technological curricula and research and are com- mitted by tradition and circumstances to an integral educa- INVESTIGATION AND COORDINATION 9 tional process. Forty-nine of the engineering colleges are in- cluded in the Land-Grant system established by the Morrill Act of 1862 with the intent of providing a liberal type of tech- nical education which should be widely accessible to the indus- trial classes and should aid in investing industrial pursuits with a professional quality. The Land-Grant colleges have unquestionably been a powerful influence tending to hold en- gineering education to its original ideal of a unified educa- tional process. Forty-two other institutions, exemplified by Lafayette and Swarthmore, are colleges devoted largely or exclusively to undergraduate studies and without distinct professional schools. Fifty-three engineering colleges, or slightly less than one third of the total, are included in insti- tutions with a university type of organization which provides for separate professional schools. Considerations of Educational Efficiency.—The following summary touches briefly on many of the more specific aspects of the problem: 1. Preparatory Education.—The present tendency in the high schools is to sacrifice the type of intellectual formation requisite for rigorous analytical studies to a process of so- called enrichment and socialization of curricula. The engi- neering colleges now exert a corrective influence through dis- tinetive entrance requirements which would inevitably dis- appear if these colleges should lose direct touch with the high schools and act through the arts colleges as intermediaries. The result would be the loss of one or more years of valuable time to the student, and a certain diminution of the quota of students qualified to enter upon engineering studies. 2. Motwation.—One of the marked values of the unified pro- gram, entered directly from the secondary schools, is that it capitalizes the student’s natural motivation. To keep the student longer away from studies which bear on his life pur- poses tends to prolong a juvenile attitude toward education at a time when he needs to learn the method of intensive, directed effort. | 3. Scientific Grounding—Mathematies and physical sci- ences are an organic part of the engineering curriculum and 10 _ REPORT OF THE BOARD OF not mere formal prerequisites to be ‘‘ passed off.’’ The build- ing up of these foundations in an unbroken sequence is one of the most essential conditions of effective engineering edu- cation. There is need for a more thorough mastery of these subjects and for greater facility in their use as tools than are considered requisite for college students in general. The engineering student, as a type, learns principles best in con- junction with their applications, a condition which would not obtain in the divided program. 4. Sequences of Studres.—Effective sequence of essential sci- entific and technological studies requires four consecutive years; it does not occupy them fully, however, and affords time for a parallel sequence of humanistic studies, which gain from the student’s advancing maturity and add to his insight into the broader social implications of technology. In the divided curriculum cultural studies lose in significance through being dissociated, and technological studies are likely to be crowded into a sequence too brief for the best results. 0. Adaptation of Program to Varying Needs.—Programs of engineering education of varying length and character are needed to fit different requirements. For the present, it may be impracticable, to set apart different types of institutions to serve these several ends, and the engineering colleges may need to approximate to them by a program of adjustable length. The unified plan, with humanistic, scientific and technological studies distributed through the curriculum in continuous sequences, lends itself to these purposes. 6. Time Economy.—The advantages of time economy are all on the side of the unified program, which affords greater assurance of close articulation of preparatory studies and col- lege work and of purposeful and intensive effort than can be expected in a non-engineering college. Unless a pre-engineer- ing curriculum is given over very largely to scientific prepara- tion, at least five years in all will be required to accomplish the present ends. 7. Advanced Studies.—The unified program affords a clear distinction between undergraduate and post-graduate work. The divided program, however, requires a longer period to INVESTIGATION AND COORDINATION ll accomplish the same ends, thereby tending to confuse de- ferred undergraduate studies with real advanced work and lessening the margin of time and the incentive to pursue it. When undergraduate and advanced studies are clearly sep- arated, there is greater probability that students will seek out special centers of advanced work for the sake of excep- tional facilities, a condition that deserves to be encouraged. 8. Educational Demand.—There is a large and wholly legiti- mate demand for technological education of moderate length and exactions. It is important to strengthen and extend the base of technological education through larger development of a system of training of high quality but of intensive character aiming at fairly immediate utility, such as are now provided by a small group of non-collegiate schools. It is important to stabilize on the undergraduate level a considerable majority of the present engineering colleges founded to make and keep technical education accessible to the great body of the public. Failure to do so will lend encouragement to proprietary schools of dubious quality and to institutions which subordinate in- tellectual ideals to welfare motives. 9. Transition of Graduates to Actwe LIife—Experience in- dicates clearly that it is bad for morale to delay too long the adjustment to practical life or to make the transition from a highly intellectual type of college program to a necessarily rudimentary experience too violent. There is a definite pos- sibility of keeping many promising men too long in college. These considerations apply with less force to men entering upon an individual professional status or work of a research character, but engineering colleges cannot limit themselves to such groups. To do so would break contact with the normal operating functions of industry and public works, from which most of the increase of demand for graduates bids fair to come. Summary of Argument.—The unified plan of engineering education has valid historical sanctions, is firmly fixed in status, and is consistent with the objectives of the engineering colleges; it makes the most of the student’s motivation, aids in the try-out of his educational and professional choices, and lends itself to adjustments of program to fit individual needs; i REPORT OF THE BOARD OF it fits into the requirements of the public and industry and makes for time economy; it exercises a wholesome influence on secondary education and insures the requisite sequence of studies; and it subtracts nothing vital from the cultural ideals of education, but affords opportunity for a closer linking up of cultural and vocational interests. The circumstances which led to the adoption of the divided plan in other branches of professional training are almost wholly lacking in the case of engineering, A general abandonment of the present unified program would bea disrupting influence in educational organi- zation and would have little support from the engineering pro- fession. There has been no demonstration of the superiority of the divided plan on either cultural or technical grounds, when programs of equal total length are compared; and no convincing case has been made for its general adoption. Defense of engineering education as a unified process should not be mistaken as a plea for uniformity. There is no inherent reason why all engineering colleges should be organized on the same plan or offer similar programs of studies. Standardized uniformity is sterile, but diversity makes for progress which is more often spread through experiment and example than imposed through mass movements. A comparison of engi- neering curricula of the unified type with present curricula in medicine and dentistry indicates that the engineering colleges enjoy greater freedom from standardization. Local cireum- stances may make a division between the engineering curricu- lum and the introductory general studies advantageous in particular institutions and it is well that the plan should be fully tried out. The actual trials thus far made have not achieved assured success and the more notable advances of recent years have been achieved in institutions which maintain a unified program. PART II. THE QUESTION OF A LONGER ENGINEERING CURRICULUM Past and Present Experience.—The four-year undergradu- ate engineering curriculum has been the dominant type of program in the American engineering colleges for eighty years. INVESTIGATION AND COORDINATION 13 Efforts to establish longer regular programs have been made at intervals by a number of institutions of prominence, but have either been given up or have persisted with precarious suc- cess. Among the institutions which have tried and discarded longer curricula are Harvard, which maintained for eight years a Graduate School of Applied Science, Missouri, Wis- eonsin, California, Princeton, and Minnesota. Excepting cer- tain special cases * there are but three institutions at present which actually maintain programs of more than four years as their principal practice. Dartmouth and Columbia admit the student to the engineering college after three years of work in arts, and credit one year in engineering toward the arts degree. The course in engineering proper is three years in Columbia and two in Dartmouth, and leads in both cases to the degree of ‘‘Engineer.’’. Columbia, however, now offers an alternative plan whereby the degree of B.S. may be gained in four years and one summer. Northwestern gives its entire program of five years under the direction of the engineering college and awards the B.S. degree at the end of the fourth year, so that its practice differs only nominally from that of the eighty-one institutions which offer advanced work for graduates on an optional basis. There is therefore but one institution, 1.e., Dartmouth, other than certain cooperative schools, where the first degree in engineering cannot be gained in a four-year period, and that institution has enrolled of late but ten to twelve engineering students per year. Seventeen institutions have definitely scheduled combined courses in arts and engineering of more than four years’ dura- tion, offered as an alternative to the regular undergraduate engineering program. In a number of cases combined pro- grams are set up through an affiliation of two institutions. The proportion of students enrolled under this plan is rela- tively small. A considerable number of students voluntarily * Eleven institutions have cooperative undergraduate programs ex- tending over more than four years. Four colleges have a five-year pro- gram in one department and four-year programs in all others. One of- fers five-year programs for the degree of ‘‘Engineer’’ paralleling its four-year programs for the bachelor’s degree. 14 REPORT OF THE BOARD OF enter engineering colleges on advance standing from arts col- leges, without a formal articulation of curricula, and many engineering colleges encourage this type of extended program. Aims of Longer Curricula.—The efforts to establish longer required programs have aimed principally to advance the standards of engineering education on its humanisti¢ and sci- entific sides, rather than to extend the technical instruction to a more advanced level, except in graduate schools. The institutions concerned have acted individually ; no concerted effort to introduce a longer curriculum as a general practice has yet been attempted. The nearest approach to such action was taken by representatives of fourteen mid-western institu- tions in 1922, and set forth in the following resolution: “In order to meet the constantly enlarging responsibilities of the engineering profession, we favor an advance in engineering education at this time that shall provide five years of collegiate training for those engineering students whose aim is to become qualified to take positions as the creative leaders in the profession, and that such advance shall be made in substantial accordance with the following plan: “1. Include in the four-year engineering curricula a substantial proportion of fundamental and humanistic subjects, omitting if necessary a sufficient amount of the more advanced technical work. It is desirable that, as far as possible, the curricula in the different branches of engineering shall be sufficiently uniform to permit stu- dents to defer their final choice of a specialty at least to the end of the second year. “2. Add a fifth year of advanced work, mostly or wholly tech- nical, and specialized to such an extent as desired. ‘3. The first four years of work shall lead to a bachelor’s de- gree and the fifth year to an advanced degree in engineering.” Advanced Studies.—As stated above a large proportion of the engineering colleges offer advanced work following the completion of the regular undergraduate program. Almost without exception these institutions regard their four-year programs as normal and the fifth year as a period of post- graduate study. In some of these institutions, and notably in a few, the number of graduate students has been increasing steadily. There were almost exactly 1000 graduate students of engineering enrolled in American colleges in 1924-25. This number is between ten and twelve per cent of the total of first degrees in engineering awarded at the end of the preced- ing academic year. Sixteen institutions awarded a total of o72 graduate degrees in engineering in 1924-25. Since that time the number of graduate students of engineering has in- INVESTIGATION AND COORDINATION 15 creased appreciably. More than three-fourths of the present graduate enrollment is in ten institutions, pointing to a tend- ency to migrate to the stronger schools for special advantages at this stage. Difficulties with Longer Curricula.—It has been the gen- eral experience that longer formal curricula have lacked the drawing power needed to insure a satisfactory numerical sue- cess; they have not attracted adequate groups of students in competition with normal undergraduate curricula in the same institutions or in others of equal rank. While these efforts have been made by distinguished institutions, there has been no instance where the superiority of teaching personnel or physical facilities associated with a longer curriculum has been so marked as to be the determining influence in the re- sult. Moreover, it does not appear that efforts were made to assure strong moral or material backing for these experiments from the engineering professions and industries. Had these conditions been met, the outcome might have been different, but the fact remains that longer curricula have not succeeded in gaining a firm position on the strength of inherent su- periority as an educational process. There is a widespread desire among educators to provide a superior preparation, beyond the possibilities of a four-year curriculum, for students who give promise of developing into leaders of engineering and industry, but there appears to be little demand for a longer scholastic program for the average student. Many of the proposals for longer formal programs are assumed to have a selective basis; they are intended to apply to students of superior ability or to institutions of a distinguished character. Difficulties arise, however, when at- tempting to make such a segregation by formal means. The tangible gains in providing a more extended training for selected men have been achieved largely on a voluntary basis and in institutions which maintain the normal subdivi- sion between undergraduate and post-graduate work. This gain has been made in about equal measure through the com- bining of courses in arts and in engineering on the student’s Own initiative, and through an increasing tendency to pursue 16 REPORT OF THE BOARD OF post-graduate work. The admirable educational programs for graduates which have been developed by certain progressive industrial concerns have become important contributions to more extended education for selected men. The present tend- ency to associate these advanced courses in industry more closely with the graduate schools of the universities is a factor of large promise. These voluntary measures appear to be more successfully selective than any formal prescription for longer training, and to afford greater flexibility in fitting the educational progsam to individual needs. Policy Suggested.—In the judgment of the Board an under- graduate program does not constitute in itself an adequate preparation for many of the higher forms of engineering ac- tivity, but it embodies the foundation subjects which consti- tute the essential basis of engineering education for the great body of students. Up to a certain point, it is both necessary and advantageous to organize the curriculum in a limited num- ber of divisions which aim primarily at group needs, beyond that point it is essential that training should be highly diver- sified to meet the needs of individuals and of engineering re- quirements. The Board considers that the undergraduate program is as extended as can be given to good advantage to considerable groups of students and that further training should be largely diversified in length, type and setting. Furthermore, there is a need for many institutions to give thorough undergraduate instruction, but a relatively limited number of institutions with specialized facilities are needed for more advanced work. It would be wholly unfortunate to invite many substantial undergraduate institutions to inflate their programs, by setting up the standard of a five or six year engineering curriculum as a measure of educational respecta- bility and standing. When all factors in the situation are considered, it seems desirable to recognize the distinction between undergraduate and post-graduate work in engineering as normal, to encour- age many institutions to offer the former and relatively fewer the latter type of instruction, to plan the undergraduate cur- INVESTIGATION AND COORDINATION 17 riculum so that it may serve as a terminal program for the average student, to make an extension of this program optional with the student, and to encourage the student of promise to extend his formal training, either through the vountary elec- tion of additional courses in humanistic subjects before or during the engineering curriculum, or through post-graduate study in a fully qualified institution, or through orderly studies pursued in connection with engineering experience. The commonest exceptions to the normal four-year program will occur in cooperative courses, where the undergraduate curriculum is spread over a longer period, and in programs which combine two distinct curricula, such as arts and engi- neering, engineering and business administration, and the like. Undergraduate Curricula.—In accepting the four-year un- dergraduate program as a norm and a more extended program as optional, certain principles deserve to be recognized and stated : 1. The four-year curriculum should constitute an acceptable terminal program for the large body of students who wish a general engineering training, and properly leads to a bache- lor’s degree. In many cases the undergraduate program may be divided advantageously into two stages, each reasonably self-contained, in order to provide an intermediate goal and to facilitate selective admission to the upper stage. 2. Students registered in the undergraduate engineering curriculum should have the privilege of extending the pro- gram to five years by the election of additional humanistic and scientific subjects, preferably in the later years of the course. 3. Since a four-year program provides primarily a gen- eral foundation training for engineering, a high degree of differentiation of undergraduate curricula by technical or functional specialties is inadvisable. A primary differentia- tion according to the major branches of the engineering pro- fession, supplemented by group options in the fourth year, is considered appropriate. There should be little or no differen- tiation in the first year, and a final choice within groups of 18 REPORT OF THE BOARD OF closely related curricula should remain open to the end of the second year. 4. A longer undergraduate curriculum may be offered ap- propriately for students of good general promise who are handicapped by incomplete mathematical and scientific prep- aration, especially where the engineering colleges are obligated by their public relations to admit such students. In such cases the longer curriculum is supplementary and not a normal program ; it does not aim at a higher level of attainment and leads to the bachelor’s degree. | Post-Graduate Work.—The Board advises that students who are well above the average in general ability and who pur- pose to become qualified for creative engineering work should extend their studies through one or more graduate years, lead- ing to a higher degree. Such a program should be decided upon in the upper years of the undergraduate period rather than at its beginning. This additional work may well take one of three forms: 1. An orderly curriculum of advanced studies in engineer- ing technique or administration, in any engineering college well staffed and equipped for engineering instruction on a high professional level. 2. An elective resident program of advanced scientific studies and research in a graduate school; this type of program is appropriate only where notable staff and facilities are pro- vided in both engineering and scientific departments. 3. A program of advanced professional study partly or wholly under industrial auspices, but preferable with organ- ized cooperation between the industry and a graduate school. of high rank. It is advised that a considerable number of the present engineering colleges confine their efforts to a sound under- graduate program and pursue the practice of directing their graduates to other institutions for advanced work. INVESTIGATION AND COORDINATION 19 CONCLUSION In conclusion, it seems fitting to outline the Board’s con- ception of the place and function of the engineering colleges in the educational scheme and to indicate some of its ideals for their future progress. It is the Board’s belief that engineering education is so broad in its aims and that its methods are so truly educative as fully to justify its established position as one of the major complete branches of higher education. The engineering col- lege is conceived to be coordinate in organization and status with the college of liberal arts, in both undergraduate and post-graduate divisions. There is a clear-cut distinction, how- ever, in their purposes and their methods of work, which in- vests the engineering colleges with a professional character. The undergraduate engineering curriculum properly combines humanistic, scientific and technological studies into a coherent and integral program which is set off from a loose grouping of scientific studies by a well-marked professional orientation. The professional element in the curriculum becomes increas- ingly important in the upper years of the program and domi- nates the more specialized work of the post-graduate years. The Board recognizes the need to develop, broaden and en- rich engineering education, in view of the constantly enlarging responsibilities of engineers in society and the increasing ex- actions of professional practice. It holds, however, that this development should proceed from within, by enhancing the distinctive qualities of engineering education, rather than by adding to it unrelated elements from without; that the pres- ervation of a unified program better lends itself to this end; that it is desirable to give a more generous place to distinctly humanistic studies in the curriculum and to give these studies a form and content * which will enrich the student’s concep- tion of engineering and its place in social economy; that it is desirable to give the student a more connected and better *It is the expectation that the Board will deal with the form and content of the humanistic studies of the engineering curriculum in a later section of its reports. 20 REPORT OF THE BOARD grounding in engineering principles; that a greater effort should be made to develop the student’s capacity for self-di- rected work; and that these ends should be gained, wherever need be, at the expense of unrelated studies on one hand and of detailed technical training on the other. The Board holds that detailed training in engineering technique should be more adequately provided for in both post-graduate and post- scholastic courses. The Board holds that its principal efforts for the improve- ment of engineering education must take the direction of a simpler and better balanced curriculum, better selection of students, better qualified teachers, better teaching methods, better subject matters and more adequate provision for ad- vanced training, rather than changes in the scheme of educa- tional organization. AY NA! eens Pe 9 Les 5 - Wie bal en. ae hy Mab ita. ad ei es , ey? PM) cy 5 4 Peeds!, iy P, © , ae, : 7 iy saga DI : A ny » Ph Se raat ww bh Th Gy AL Pea es ‘ mh Ne (i } mie Bh i A) PRICE-LIST FOR BULLETINS AND REPORTS The following Bulletins and Reports have been published and may be obtained from the Lancaster Press at the prices indicated. Number 1. Engineering Students at the Time of Entrance to College. 20 cents. Number 2. Admissions and Eliminations of Engineering Students. 20 cents. Number 3. Engineering Graduates and WNon-Graduate Former Students. 20 cents, Number 4. Engineering Teaching Personnel. 20 cents. Number 5. Supplementary Activities of Engineering Col- leges. 15 cents Number 6. Costs of Engineering Education. 15 cents. Number 7. Engineering Degrees. 15 cents. Number 8. A Study of a Group of Electrical Engineering Graduates. 15 cents. Number 9. A Summary of Opinions Concerning Engineer- ing Curricula. 20 cents. Number 10. A Study of Engineering Curricula. 40 cents. Number 11. A Study of Evolutionary Trends in Engineer- ing Curricula. 20 cents. Number 12. A Study of the Cooperative Method of Engi- neering EHducation. 30 cents. zs & * Preliminary Report of the Board of Investigation and Co- ordination. 20 cents. Second Report of the Board of Investigation and Coordina- tion. 15 cents. Preliminary Report of the Director. 15 cents. Summary of the Fact-Finding Stages of the Investigation. 15 cents. LINO TN