Penn State College of Engineering
The Penn State College of Engineering is the engineering school of the Pennsylvania State University, headquartered at the University Park campus in University Park, Pennsylvania. It was established in 1896, under the leadership of George W. Atherton. Today, with 13 academic departments and degree programs, over 11,000 enrolled undergraduate and graduate students (8,166 at the University Park campus, and 3,059 at other campuses), and research expenditures of $124 million for the 2016-2017 academic year, the Penn State College of Engineering is one of the leading engineering schools in the United States. It is  estimated that at least one out of every fifty engineers in the United States got their bachelor's degree from Penn State. Dr. Justin Schwartz currently holds the position of Harold and Inge Marcus Dean of Engineering. History. The Early Years: 1855 – 1895. In 1854, the Pennsylvania legislature granted a charter to The Farmers’ High School. The purpose of the institution, according to the 1859 catalogue, was to “adopt a system of instruction which shall embrace […] those departments of all sciences which have a practical or theoretical bearing upon agriculture.” The Pennsylvania State Agricultural Society encountered little resistance to the  proposal, and the revised charter – dated February 22, 1855 – became the official founding day of what would become Penn State. A legislative appropriation of $25,000 – along with an additional pledge of $25,000, plus funds raised through public subscription and private donation – was used for the construction of the Main Building on 200 acres of in Centre County, near the geographic center of the state. The first class of 69 students was admitted in February 1859. Pugh’s Establishment of an Engineering Foundation. Evan Pugh was selected as the first head of the Farmer's High School, and his  appointment began in 1860. Pugh had received his Ph.D. from the University of Goettingen in 1854, and his vision for the Farmers’ High School included an expansion beyond agriculture into fields that would be of benefit to the nation as a whole. Chief among these were engineering and “industrial arts” – subjects which required a high degree of both theoretical and practical knowledge, such as surveying and carpentry. This notion was considered radical at the time since American universities of Pugh's era tended to focus on topics such as ancient languages, philosophy, and rhetoric, which Pugh felt were inadequate for  a nation seeking to “tame a hostile natural environment” and maintain economic and political importance upon the global stage. At the time of Pugh's appointment, fewer than 12 universities offered baccalaureate programs in engineering and produced fewer than 200 graduates combined; in most of those curricula, engineering was included as one of several subjects of study, rather than as its own major. The overarching belief was that because engineering was utilitarian and benefitted the many, it was inferior to the classics, which focused on the mental and moral improvement of the student; the prevailing thought – especially at tradition-bound  schools such as Harvard, Yale, and Dartmouth – was that integrating engineering with classics would subvert the purpose of higher education. In Pugh's time, most engineering programs focused almost exclusively on developing skills within civil engineering – e.g. canals, railroads, bridges – for obvious reasons: the expansion of the nation required knowledge of developing infrastructure. Pugh realized that on-the-job training (the most common form of learning a profession), combined with the nation's economic and geographic growth, would not adequately meet the demand for educated professionals familiar with the “mechanic arts.” The passing of the Morrill Land-Grant Acts in  July 1862 presented Pugh with the opportunity to help secure the School's future. Under the terms of the Act, a land grant bequeathed upon an institution 30,000 acres for each senator and representative of the institution's state; this land was then to be sold, and the profits of the sale – which could take months or years to be fully realized – would be used to fund colleges with four-year curricula. Pugh was instrumental in securing the school as the sole recipient of all land-grant revenues in 1863, although his untimely death from typhoid in April 1864 resulted  in his vision of industrial education being delayed by several decades. Development of the Mechanic Arts Program. William H. Allen was elected to succeed Pugh in 1864. Allen was a professor of chemistry and natural history at Dickinson College. Unlike Pugh, Allen showed little interest in broadening the curriculum, and instead focused on the political challenges the university faced at the time: specifically, a debt of $50,000 (stemming, in part, from the university's inability to dispose of the 780,000 acres of land scrip granted by the Morrill Act) and lobbying efforts from other Pennsylvania colleges challenging university's  designation as the commonwealth's sole land-grant institution. The lobbying efforts (and resulting redistribution bill) were defeated in 1865, but left the university in such a dire state financially that mortgage bonds of $80,000 were issued, both to pay off debt and to establish a working fund. The first true champion of the mechanic arts at Penn State was John Fraser, appointed as a professor of mathematics in 1865 and as president of the university in 1866 after Allen's resignation. Fraser's time in the Union army served him well at Penn State, becoming the school's  first lecturer in military tactics, and military drill was substituted for farm labor for the students. Fraser aimed to expand upon Pugh's vision, and the first four courses added for the 1868-69 academic year were general science, literature, mechanical and civil engineering, and metallurgy, mineralogy, and mining. Each was a four-year curriculum leading to a Bachelor of Science degree. The falling enrollment numbers of the time – 145 students in 1864-65, 114 in 1866, 82 in 1867, and 30 in 1868, with no class graduating in 1867 – led to a cautious approach to the expansion of the  curriculum: the catalogue for the 1868-69 academic year listed mechanical and civil engineering, but the trustees did not hire faculty to provide instruction. After Fraser's resignation in March 1868, the trustees dissolved the new curricula and reduced the total faculty to four (two of whom eventually resigned), and the university faced a severe lack of public confidence in the stability of the institution. Fraser was succeeded by Thomas H. Burrowes, who felt that the intentions of the Morrill Act would be best served by the original setup of the farmers’ high school. Burrowes reinstated manual labor and offered  a single course of study. Under the Burrowes system, the Agricultural Course was mandatory, and students were awarded a Bachelor of Scientific Agriculture degree after three years of study. The (optional) fourth year was the Scientific Course, intended for “civil engineers, general mechanics etc.” and leading to a Bachelor of Science degree; despite its name, the Scientific Course included little formal instruction in engineering, and no engineering faculty were hired. A fifth year (also optional) was known as the Literary Course, which closely mirrored the traditional format of a classics education, and culminated in a Bachelor of Arts degree. The  agriculture-intensive curriculum had minimal impact on enrollment: the 1870-71 academic year saw 59 enrolled students, 52 of which were in their first or second year of study. The fact that agriculture was insufficient to support an entire college was experienced by many land-grant institutions, and the challenge of incorporating a non-agriculture curriculum reform was exacerbated by the general indifference of the Pennsylvania legislature toward land-grant institutions as a whole. It was felt that, as the school was an instrument of the commonwealth, it should be supported via regular state appropriations; however, critique for curriculum reform  was often received from Harrisburg, but not the money necessary to enact it. The financial burden from Allen's administration continued, and Burrowes died of exposure (as a consequence of a mountain outing with students) in February 1871 without seeing his three-course format implemented. The Calder Era. The Reverend James Calder was elected as Penn State's fifth president in 1871. Calder eliminated Burrowes’ proposed three-course system and reinstated the four-year curriculum and felt that the Morrill Act envisioned more than simply formal instruction in agriculture, reincorporating several elements of orthodox classical institutions. The university began to  offer non-agricultural baccalaureate degrees, and adopted the name Pennsylvania State College in 1874 to reflect the broadened curriculum. No provisions were made for mechanic arts, save for how they related to agriculture and scientific courses. Routine field demonstrations of various farm implements began to be incorporated into the curriculum, and civil engineering coursework was offered only at a high level; labs and practicums were nonexistent, as the “applications of knowledge” available at local businesses (e.g. textile factories, gas and water works, and coal mines) were felt to be sufficient. Meanwhile, colleges and universities across the nation with dedicated engineering  departments rose to 70 by 1872 – more than half of which were land-grant endowments – and Penn State continued to lag due to the insistence on imitating classical institutions. The receipts from sale of land scrip were converted to an interest-bearing bond in 1872, leading to (among other things) the abolishing of tuition in 1874: students were instead charged a flat $20 annual fee for fuel, lighting, and janitorial service. Only 14 students graduated during 1875 – 1877, and dissatisfaction with Calder's administration among trustees, faculty, and the legislature led to his resignation in 1879. Shortlidge and the  McKee Interregnum. Joseph Shortlidge succeeded Calder in 1880, and his first act was to offend trustees, faculty, students, and the general public with his address at the commencement exercises in July 1880. The Shortlidge administration saw the formation of the Wickersham Committee, formed to assist with the massive reform needed to help the college satisfy the needs of the nation's most industrialized state. In Shortlidge's own words, “as an industrial college, we are a failure”; however, the three-professor panel was staffed with faculty whom Shortlidge believed would be lukewarm toward reorganization. The exception proved to be Thornton  Osmond, professor of physics, who launched his own unofficial reorganization study – with the support of sympathetic faculty and trustees – due to the slowness of the Wickersham Committee and the entrenched stance of the other faculty on Shortlidge's panel. The very existence of Osmond's “committee” demonstrated how strained relations between the president and faculty had become, and Shortlidge presented his resignation in 1881 “couched in terms so offensive […] that the [trustees] accepted it forthwith.” Osmond's recommendations were presented to – and almost immediately accepted by – acting president James Y. McKee. The proposed curriculum would include six courses of study : two “general” (scientific and classical holdovers from Calder), four “technical” (agricultural, natural history, chemistry, physics, and civil engineering), and practicums in the mechanic arts. This proposal was accepted by the trustees, who named Louis A. Barnard, a highly-experience civil engineer, to head the department of civil engineering. So confident were the trustees in Osmond's recommendations, and McKee's acceptance of them, that they asked the General Assembly to investigate the affairs of the college, calculating that the probe would vindicate the reorganization efforts and attract more students. When published in February 1882, the report not only vindicated the  reorganization efforts, but also urged the Pennsylvania legislature to make “periodic and generous appropriations” to Penn State: “[…] the state should give it such fostering care as will make it not only an object of just pride, but a source of immeasurable benefit to our sons and daughters.” Atherton and the Birth of the College of Engineering. The appointment of George Atherton as president in 1882 created an era of extraordinary stability and growth for Penn State. Top priority was given to enlarging the engineering program, and Atherton immediately approved an equipment expenditure of $3,000 for practicums and laboratory sessions . Atherton held strongly to the view that Penn State should be an engineering and industrial institution, rather than a classical one, and that classics should not be a “leading object” in a college curriculum. The logical conclusion of this was that mechanic arts were also to be placed on par with agriculture, given the rapid industrialization of the nation. All students now took identical coursework during their freshman and sophomore years, with a specialization in engineering reserved for their junior and senior years. Additionally, short courses (three in agriculture, one in chemistry, one in mining, and one in elementary mechanics ) began to be offered, with no admission or degree requirements. Despite the improvements to the civil engineering curriculum, Atherton knew that further evolution was needed. To that end, he challenged Louis Reber, a mathematics instructor, to attend MIT for graduate work in mechanical engineering – and to pay particular attention to the processes and procedures used for engineering education – in order to develop Penn State's two-year mechanic arts program into a four-year mechanical engineering curriculum. Reber took to the challenge, and also studied engineering education methods in use at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Stevens Institute of Technology, Washington University  in St. Louis, and the University of Minnesota to establish a baseline for Penn State's program, which at that time consisted of mechanical drawing, woodworking, and carpentry. Reber also supervised the installation of a forge and foundry, and in 1884 asked for $3,500 to construct new building solely devoted to mechanic arts; Atherton immediately approved Reber's request, and the resulting building was the first structure erected for purely academic purposes. Machinery and equipment for the building were purchased at reduced prices from equipment manufacturers based on the advertising potential and inherent goodwill to be found in labeling  items “for educational purposes.” In addition to providing instruction, the mechanical engineering department also managed the pumphouse, steam heating plant, and (beginning in 1887) the fifty-horsepower steam engine and generator used to power the incandescent lighting at the campus. The students thus gained practical experience via the chores required to manage and maintain these machines. The creation of the mechanical engineering curriculum segregated students into “general” and “technical” paths (not entirely dissimilar to modern-day general education and major-specific instruction requirements), and the curriculum featured what is now considered “typical” coursework in science and mathematics, as well as  several practicums (one for each of the fall, winter, and spring terms) to develop skills such as drawing, pattern making, surveying, chemistry, mechanics, forging, and machine construction. Thornton Osmond also issued recommendations that electrical engineering be spun off into its own field (it had previously resided in the physics department); Atherton approved this request, and the Department of Physics and Electrotechnics was created in 1887 to explore the practical applications of electricity. The revised engineering curricula proved popular: of the 92 students enrolled for the 1887-88 academic year, over 35% were in engineering (18 mechanical, 15 civil). The subsequent  year's enrollment rose to 113, of which 42% in engineering (22 mechanical, 17 civil, 9 electrical). The growing popularity of the engineering curricula also required physical growth of the campus. In 1891, $100,000 was allotted to construct a building devoted entirely to engineering. This building, named Main Engineering, was dedicated on February 22, 1893, with most of the dedication speech focused on the importance of an engineering education to national prosperity and progress. Additional machinery, including Allis-Chalmers triple-expansion steam engine (extensively modified for laboratory instruction and experimentation), was purchased and installed. The engineering program continued to  expand its offerings: in 1893, the trustees approved the addition of a course in mining engineering, with Magnus C. Ihlseng (formerly of the Colorado School of Mines) named professor and department head. Electrical engineering fully split from Physics and Electrotechnics, becoming its own department headed by John Price Jackson –who, at age 24, is easily the youngest department head on campus. By 1890, Main Engineering housed four engineering departments (civil, mechanical, mining, and electrical) in space originally intended for two. Increases in enrollment remained unceasing: in the 1890-91 academic year there were 127 undergraduates, 73 of which are in  engineering (37 civil, 19 mechanical, 17 electrotechnical); by 1893, this had increased to 181 students, 128 in engineering (57 electrical, 44 mechanical, 18 civil, 9 mining). Needless to say, the overcrowding became problematic. Coursework expansions were also underway. The department of civil engineering began to include instruction in sanitary and hydraulic engineering; however, students still did not yet have the opportunity to specialize in specific facet of desired profession outside of lab and thesis work. In 1894, a new curriculum requirement was added: all freshmen, sophomore, and junior engineering students were required to take a two-week summer course to  gain field experience via visits to coal mines, railroad shops, foundries, power stations, and similar businesses. This marked the first offering of a summer session in Penn State history. The increasing demand led to the formation of seven schools within Penn State. The Second Morrill Act (1890) gave each land-grant institution $15,000, which increased at a rate of $1,000 per year (to a maximum of $25,000), to be invested in instruction in agriculture, mechanic arts, etc. with “specific reference to their applications in the industry of life.” Engineering absorbed most of the at the expense of  development of non-technical curricula. Atherton remained convinced that the college should increase instruction in liberal studies for all students, to become “[men] of broad culture and good citizen[s].” To that end, the establishment of the seven schools was intended to eliminate duplication of instruction and resources while also encouraging and facilitating cooperation among related departments. Perhaps most importantly, it also shifted the burden of administration from the president's office onto the deans. Louis Reber became the first dean of the school of engineering, which exercised authority over the civil, mechanical, and electrical engineering departments. The mining engineering curriculum  formed the core for the School of Mines, with Magnus Ihlseng named as dean. Student body. The College of Engineering student body is relatively large, with a total of 8,166 undergraduate and 1,441 graduate students enrolled at University Park at the start of the Fall 2016 semester. The average class size for courses within the engineering majors is 25 students, and engineering students account for 21% of the total number of students in the Schreyer Honors College. The average SAT score for accepted applicants is 1450 on the 1600 SAT, or 2086 on the 2400 SAT. The average GPA of  applicants is 3.6. For the 2015-2016 academic year, the college awarded 1,712 undergraduate and 471 graduate degrees in engineering disciplines. Academic rankings and degrees offered. The Penn State College of Engineering offers bachelor's (B.S.), master's (M.S.), and doctorate (Ph.D.) degrees in several majors. Master of Engineering (M.Eng.) degrees are offered in certain subjects as a professional degree. All majors listed below offer bachelor's degrees for their undergraduate programs. The M.S. degrees offered typically require research work culminating in a thesis (traditional M.S.), although some departments offer a non-thesis M.S. option. Several certificate options are also  offered, including Engineering and Community Engagement; engineering design, housing, international engineering, nanotechnology; and space systems engineering. Certain majors (such as surveying engineering and several engineering technology disciplines) are only offered at Penn State commonwealth campuses, whereas other disciplines (such as environmental systems engineering, materials science and engineering, mining engineering, and petroleum and natural gas engineering) are offered through the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences. The departments of Materials Science and Engineering, Mining Engineering, Petroleum and Natural Gas Engineering, Environmental Systems Engineering, and Energy Engineering are under the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences. The Department of Materials Science & Engineering  is ranked #10 nationally, and the petroleum engineering program is ranked #4 nationally. The most recent rankingsfor Penn State's undergraduate engineering programs are: The most recent rankings for Penn State's graduate engineering programs are: The College of Engineering is also highly ranked at the program level: Starting salaries by major and return on investment. The median starting salaries for graduates with a bachelor's degree from the College of Engineering range from approximately $57,000 to over $83,000, depending on major, with bachelor's degree graduates from several majors earning a median salary of over $60,000 . The college is ranked #19 in terms of best return on investment, with a thirty-year net average ROI of $789,300. Laboratory and Research Centers. In addition to intradepartmental research, Penn State College of Engineering faculty and students also conduct research through interdisciplinary research centers and interdisciplinary research institutes: Student Organizations. The College of Engineering hosts over fifty student-run organizations that encompass both national honors societies as well as specialized student-interest projects and competitions. These organizations encourage professional development, networking, recognition for outstanding academic achievement, and the opportunity to apply theoretical instruction to practical problems. Several organizations  also feature periodic speaker meetings, which introduce students to current developments and trends in their field of study. These organizations include: Notable alumni. The College of Engineering has over 100,000 living engineering alumni. The Penn State Engineering Alumni Society (PSEAS) is the oldest active alumni group at The Pennsylvania State University. Notable alumni include: Former faculty include Amos E. Neyhart, a traffic safety education pioneer and creator of the first driver education classes in the United States in 1933. Inyong Ham, a Penn State professor (1958–95) and an IIE Fellow, was known for his development of group technology and research  on the use of computers in manufacturing and process planning.