Harvard Engineer Division On Rise

In 1914, Harvard did not even have an engineering department of its own. Instead, it shared a program with MIT.

Accounts differ over the exact history of the merger, but McKay Professor of Environmental Engineering Peter P. Rogers claims that Harvard simply attempted to hand over its unwanted engineering resources to the institute.

For years, engineering was a stepchild, shifted around the University and separate from the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS). In fact, it may be the only field of study at Harvard in which the dean owns a sheet detailing its many identity changes. The brief, found in the office of Dean of the Division of Applied Sciences Paul C. Martin, is called "Reincarnations."

"We almost seem like someone in search of a home," says McKay Professor of Mechanical Engineering Frederick H. Abernathy. "We've had our name changed so many times."

Today, the University that claims to represent the best of all academics is still scrambling to catch up in several key areas of engineering research and teaching.

Harvard's graduate engineering program ranks only 26th in the country, according to U.S. News and World Report magazine. Competitors say the program's small size and budget prevent it from measuring up to the standard of larger schools like MIT.

The problem is not Harvard's faculty, who are top quality, according to John C. Brauman, senior associate dean for student affairs at Stanford.

But, he adds, "at a very small school you're not going to have the infrastructure you need to do modern engineering."

In fact, professors in the Harvard department are on a tight budget. Several of the engineering faculty members' positions are not fully endowed.

"We need to have more appointments," Martin says. "Some of our courses are taught by people who are here in positions that are not fully funded."

That may change. In the $1 billion Faculty of Arts and Sciences component of the ongoing University capital campaign, few areas received higher priority than engineering.

The engineering concentration is also expanding at Harvard (please see graphic, this page). Students say they like the department's small size and personal contact, and don't regret picking it.

Professors say Harvard's program offers a different approach from the traditional engineering powerhouses, preparing students for all walks of life, not just traditional engineering posts.

"Engineering here teaches you how to think rather than simply how to go and do engineering," says Clark H. Dean '95.

But if Harvard is to compete in research and continue to attract top students, professors caution, the capital campaign money must come through.

"Communications, computing and the environment need more infusions of funds to support them," Martin says. "We're in the campaign in part to grow, and in part to stabilize, because we have, in part, grown the programs without sufficient endowment."

An Up-and-Down History

Harvard has offered degrees in engineering since 1847, when the University first established the Lawrence Scientific School.

Through the years, Harvard's commitment to the field of engineering waxed and waned, as the school went through nine different incarnations, sometimes offering only graduate degrees.

Then, in 1912, a retired shoe manufacturer named Gordon McKay gave $5 million to the then-Graduate School of Applied Science, Martin says. McKay guaranteed the future of engineering at Harvard.

"Gordon McKay made his millions with the machines that were used in making shoes," Martin says. "So he left his money, dominantly, for mechanical engineering."

But in 1914, despite the new money, Harvard President A. Lawrence Lowell, class of 1877, made the merger attempt with MIT.

Abernathy says that only the McKay gift prevented Harvard's engineering department from becoming part of MIT. When the merger became a legal issue, the court ruled that McKay's money could not be transferred to MIT.

"The courts said at the time that...when Gordon McKay was alive, MIT existed, and he made the choice to give [the money] to Harvard," Abernathy says.

Finally, in 1946, the floating engineering faculty, then called the Graduate School of Engineering (it offered no undergraduate degrees) joined the rest of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

In 1977, after a few more name changes, Harvard created the Division of Applied Sciences. Today, the division, under Martin, includes computer science, applied physics, applied mathematics and engineering sciences. It is also affiliated with the physics and earth and planetary sciences departments.

In the 1970s, "there was a realization that engineering is a respectable discipline," Rogers says.

A Unique Curriculum

During her junior year, Stephanie A. Nonas '95 did not join most of her classmates in doing a junior paper or tutorial.

Instead, she built a toaster. Nonas and the rest of the Bachelor of Sciences degree candidates in engineering sciences divided into groups of four to six students. The groups were assigned to design a working model and build it from scratch.

"We made a toaster oven that was fully digital," Nonas says. "It worked, but not during the presentation."

The junior project, which consumed hours of participants' time in the lab and in group meetings, captures much of what undergraduates say they like about engineering.

The hands-on, practical nature of the project, as well as the close contact with faculty, was exciting for students. But it was also the kind of extremely difficult assignment that is typical in a concentration many consider to be the hardest at Harvard.

The Bachelor of Science degree in engineering science, Harvard's only S.B., requires 20 courses, the most of any concentration. The Bachelor of Arts (A.B.) degree in engineering sciences requires 15 classes.

"The S.B., I would argue, is the toughest concentration at Harvard with its 20 courses," says mechanical engineering head tutor Robert D. Howe. "Some people certainly get scared away."

Students seeking an S.B. get just four elective courses, which keeps many students in the slightly less demanding A.B. program.

"It is really rigorous," says Dean, who switched from the S.B. to the A.B. program. "At times it may be really hard, but you just kind of suck it up and do it."

Many engineering classes also require a great deal of science background, making the degree even more time-consuming. Almost every engineering class has a prerequisite, and students often find themselves taking these prerequisites through their sophomore year.

"The B.S. is 20 half courses, plus your eight cores, that's 28," says Luis A. Millan '95. "That leaves you four courses that are usually taken up by prerequisites."

Nonas says she has taken five classes many semesters in order to squeeze a few elective courses into her schedule.

"The pre-recs were the worst part of the engineering curriculum," says Doug S. Anderson '95.

In an attempt to "convince [engineering concentrators] to stick it out," the department has introduced a few special classes with few or no prerequisites, Howe says.

For some students, the heavy course load and prerequisites means a five-year degree, which Harvard rarely allows in other concentrations.

"It depends on how advanced you are coming out of high school," says David J. Schivell '95. "If you start out taking Math 1a and 1b you're not going to be able to do it."

David B. Barkin '97 eliminated some of his prerequisite courses with his high school AP scores and is currently enrolled in engineering courses. Barkin opted for an A.B. plan of study because he felt that the demands of the S.B. program would be too restrictive.

"I want to have some chance to take electives here and the S.B. doesn't give me that option," he says.

Good Teaching

But students say the difficult classes are worth the work. The attention from professors that most found in their junior project is typical in the engineering concentration, they say, though they rarely find it elsewhere at Harvard.

As a first-year taking classes in the department, Allen D. Duan '95 says an engineering professor already "knew his name and knew everything about what I wanted to do and where I wanted to focus my studies."

"He encouraged me to discuss with him what I want to study and how I wanted to approach it," Duan says. "He cared more about me as an individual, rather than just pushing me through engineering."

Schivell says the junior project forced him into contact with his professors.

"I had to start talking to [professors] last year," he says.

The students also applaud the creativity engineering encourages in such areas as the toaster project. Such freedom and hands-on opportunity are rare in Harvard's other concentrations, they say.

Students came up with their own objectives and methods for the toasters.

Anderson and his group designed a machine for the Harvard dining halls.

"One of our pet peeves is when buttered bagels flip over and goop up the slide," he says. His group's toaster had a turntable so bagels wouldn't tip.

Senior year, students get even more freedom. They decide what they will build, and then work with an individual faculty advisor to create it.

Students have built projects ranging from a low-pollution lawn mower motor to a shock-absorbing cello case, Howe says.

Schivell, for instance, is designing a fluorescent floor lamp to replace the halogen floor lamps owned by many Harvard students.

"They use 90 dollars per lamp per year," he says.

Low Ranking

Despite its plaudits from students, however, Harvard's engineering program ranks low among comparable schools' offerings. The U.S. News and World Report survey, based on research funding and opinions of practicing and teaching engineers, put Harvard's graduate program below such competitors as the University of Wisconsin and the University of Florida.

Where top-ranked MIT's research budget for 1993 was about 150 million. Harvard's was approximately $22 million, according to the survey.

Professors say they sometimes face a lack of resources in the department.

"A lot of us have chosen to do the things we do because of the lack of facilities that you would normally have," says Rogers, who works with models and computers rather than in an actual lab.

The head of the biological engineering courses "has a continual struggle to keep his labs up-to-date" because to be up-to-date, he must work with "outrageously expensive equipment," Rogers says.

The department also doesn't have the money to fund a large number of technicians "so grad students have to do a technician's job and that's hard," according to Rogers.

For instance, one student who was working to figure out alternative fuel uses in rural settings had no lab with proper venting in which to do his research and had to test his work in the winter snow.

"He was actually doing it out in the weather," Rogers says.

Martin says the lack of good lab space hurts Harvard in faculty searches.

"We're in the process of trying to clear out books from the attic" to use the space for labs, the dean says. "People are working in subbasements."

Compared to many top programs, Harvard's faculty is also incredibly small. There are just 27 professors in Harvard engineering sciences and applied physics, compared to about 100 at Princeton, approximately 200 at Stanford and far more at technological institutes like MIT.

Princeton's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, for instance, has 775 students, about 18 percent of its student body, says Peter Bogucki, the school's assistant dean for undergraduate affairs.

At Stanford, according to Brauman, about 20 percent of undergraduates are engineering majors. Its size enables the school to offer up-to-date research and teaching, he says.

"The type of research [students at a smaller department] have been exposed to will span a narrower range than someone at MIT or Stanford or the larger engineering schools," Brauman says.

Students and professors at Harvard say they know their program is not seen as comparable to larger schools like MIT or UC Berkeley.

"It's smaller," Martin says. "As a result of the fact that it is smaller it gets less recognition."

Says head tutor Michael D. Smith, "I'd be kidding you if I told you that we were on the same scale as MIT, but we're working on it."

Students say they are sometimes put on the defensive in describing Harvard engineering.

"A lot of businesses don't take Harvard engineering that seriously," Schivell says. "It has a Harvard name but that doesn't carry as much weight" in the technical fields.

When concentrator Wan-Yin Wu '97 talks about Harvard engineering with friends at MIT, they often say, "Oh Harvard, that's right, they do have an engineering department," she says.

Up-and-Coming?

But professors say that with the new capital campaign funds, Harvard's resources will improve.

"People don't think about engineering when they think about Harvard," says Smith, who is also assistant professor of electrical engineering and computer science. But "we're a really up-and-coming department."

In the preliminary FAS capital campaign document, Dean of the Faculty Jeremy R. Knowles allots $48 million for "additional engineering and computer science faculty."

The plan may help make up for neglect in the past. It "'calls for more faculty appointments in important areas where our strength is sub-critical," Knowles says.

Smith says the money will probably mean between five and eight more faculty members in computer science and the engineering sciences.

Knowles also allots $30 million for a new physical sciences building and $29 million more for physical sciences infrastructure.

"You would need research space for them if you hired five new people," Abernathy says. "They use 10,000 square feet of lab space per person in biochemistry. If you decide you want five people at roughly that size, that's a building."

Even with the new funds, however, Harvard will not compete with programs like MIT. That's no reason for the University to stop offering engineering, professors say, especially as its importance grows with the rise of computer technology.

"In some ways, one could argue that perhaps Harvard shouldn't do economics," Abernathy says, "because MIT has an economics department with more Nobel Prize winners than we do."

Professors say Harvard's small size and unique curriculum may offer options that more prestigious engineering programs don't.

Unlike most traditional engineering programs, Howe and other engineering professors say, Harvard's broad-based degree--which is in "engineering sciences," rather than a specific area like chemical engineering--prepares College graduates to work in a variety of fields.

"A very small fraction of the people who graduate with S.B.'s actually go out and become engineers," Martin says. "A significant majority go on to graduate school."

Many engineering concentrators choose to go to business school. Thus, while other programs can boast more specialization and a broader range of degree options, Harvard's graduates are better administrators and can decide policy on broader issues, engineering professors say.

Although they specialize in one branch of engineering, students are encouraged to take survey courses and courses in other areas of engineering.

"One of my classes right now is in digital electronics and one of my other classes is in mechanical systems," says concentrator Matthew B. Emans '96. "They have nothing to do with each other, but they are both things I need to know."

Students in the concentration defend its approach, saying they likely won't go directly into engineering. Nonas, for example, wants to be a doctor, not an engineer.

"A lot of the Harvard engineers aren't necessarily looking to be engineers eventually, but are looking to use those skills," Emans says.

While students acknowledge Harvard's drawbacks, most say they do not regret coming to school here.

"If you want to do research on the cutting edge it is not the best place," Duan says, "but for an undergraduate program with an educational basis it's very good."

Engineering Schools Compared

The highest ranked engineering graduate schools in the country

Ranked  School1.  MIT2.  Stanford3.  Purdue4.  Illinois5.  Berkeley6.  Cal Tech7.  Michigan8.  Cornell9.  Texas10.  Carnegie Mellon26.  Harvar

That may change. In the $1 billion Faculty of Arts and Sciences component of the ongoing University capital campaign, few areas received higher priority than engineering.

The engineering concentration is also expanding at Harvard (please see graphic, this page). Students say they like the department's small size and personal contact, and don't regret picking it.

Professors say Harvard's program offers a different approach from the traditional engineering powerhouses, preparing students for all walks of life, not just traditional engineering posts.

"Engineering here teaches you how to think rather than simply how to go and do engineering," says Clark H. Dean '95.

But if Harvard is to compete in research and continue to attract top students, professors caution, the capital campaign money must come through.

"Communications, computing and the environment need more infusions of funds to support them," Martin says. "We're in the campaign in part to grow, and in part to stabilize, because we have, in part, grown the programs without sufficient endowment."

An Up-and-Down History

Harvard has offered degrees in engineering since 1847, when the University first established the Lawrence Scientific School.

Through the years, Harvard's commitment to the field of engineering waxed and waned, as the school went through nine different incarnations, sometimes offering only graduate degrees.

Then, in 1912, a retired shoe manufacturer named Gordon McKay gave $5 million to the then-Graduate School of Applied Science, Martin says. McKay guaranteed the future of engineering at Harvard.

"Gordon McKay made his millions with the machines that were used in making shoes," Martin says. "So he left his money, dominantly, for mechanical engineering."

But in 1914, despite the new money, Harvard President A. Lawrence Lowell, class of 1877, made the merger attempt with MIT.

Abernathy says that only the McKay gift prevented Harvard's engineering department from becoming part of MIT. When the merger became a legal issue, the court ruled that McKay's money could not be transferred to MIT.

"The courts said at the time that...when Gordon McKay was alive, MIT existed, and he made the choice to give [the money] to Harvard," Abernathy says.

Finally, in 1946, the floating engineering faculty, then called the Graduate School of Engineering (it offered no undergraduate degrees) joined the rest of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

In 1977, after a few more name changes, Harvard created the Division of Applied Sciences. Today, the division, under Martin, includes computer science, applied physics, applied mathematics and engineering sciences. It is also affiliated with the physics and earth and planetary sciences departments.

In the 1970s, "there was a realization that engineering is a respectable discipline," Rogers says.

A Unique Curriculum

During her junior year, Stephanie A. Nonas '95 did not join most of her classmates in doing a junior paper or tutorial.

Instead, she built a toaster. Nonas and the rest of the Bachelor of Sciences degree candidates in engineering sciences divided into groups of four to six students. The groups were assigned to design a working model and build it from scratch.

"We made a toaster oven that was fully digital," Nonas says. "It worked, but not during the presentation."

The junior project, which consumed hours of participants' time in the lab and in group meetings, captures much of what undergraduates say they like about engineering.

The hands-on, practical nature of the project, as well as the close contact with faculty, was exciting for students. But it was also the kind of extremely difficult assignment that is typical in a concentration many consider to be the hardest at Harvard.

The Bachelor of Science degree in engineering science, Harvard's only S.B., requires 20 courses, the most of any concentration. The Bachelor of Arts (A.B.) degree in engineering sciences requires 15 classes.

"The S.B., I would argue, is the toughest concentration at Harvard with its 20 courses," says mechanical engineering head tutor Robert D. Howe. "Some people certainly get scared away."

Students seeking an S.B. get just four elective courses, which keeps many students in the slightly less demanding A.B. program.

"It is really rigorous," says Dean, who switched from the S.B. to the A.B. program. "At times it may be really hard, but you just kind of suck it up and do it."

Many engineering classes also require a great deal of science background, making the degree even more time-consuming. Almost every engineering class has a prerequisite, and students often find themselves taking these prerequisites through their sophomore year.

"The B.S. is 20 half courses, plus your eight cores, that's 28," says Luis A. Millan '95. "That leaves you four courses that are usually taken up by prerequisites."

Nonas says she has taken five classes many semesters in order to squeeze a few elective courses into her schedule.

"The pre-recs were the worst part of the engineering curriculum," says Doug S. Anderson '95.

In an attempt to "convince [engineering concentrators] to stick it out," the department has introduced a few special classes with few or no prerequisites, Howe says.

For some students, the heavy course load and prerequisites means a five-year degree, which Harvard rarely allows in other concentrations.

"It depends on how advanced you are coming out of high school," says David J. Schivell '95. "If you start out taking Math 1a and 1b you're not going to be able to do it."

David B. Barkin '97 eliminated some of his prerequisite courses with his high school AP scores and is currently enrolled in engineering courses. Barkin opted for an A.B. plan of study because he felt that the demands of the S.B. program would be too restrictive.

"I want to have some chance to take electives here and the S.B. doesn't give me that option," he says.

Good Teaching

But students say the difficult classes are worth the work. The attention from professors that most found in their junior project is typical in the engineering concentration, they say, though they rarely find it elsewhere at Harvard.

As a first-year taking classes in the department, Allen D. Duan '95 says an engineering professor already "knew his name and knew everything about what I wanted to do and where I wanted to focus my studies."

"He encouraged me to discuss with him what I want to study and how I wanted to approach it," Duan says. "He cared more about me as an individual, rather than just pushing me through engineering."

Schivell says the junior project forced him into contact with his professors.

"I had to start talking to [professors] last year," he says.

The students also applaud the creativity engineering encourages in such areas as the toaster project. Such freedom and hands-on opportunity are rare in Harvard's other concentrations, they say.

Students came up with their own objectives and methods for the toasters.

Anderson and his group designed a machine for the Harvard dining halls.

"One of our pet peeves is when buttered bagels flip over and goop up the slide," he says. His group's toaster had a turntable so bagels wouldn't tip.

Senior year, students get even more freedom. They decide what they will build, and then work with an individual faculty advisor to create it.

Students have built projects ranging from a low-pollution lawn mower motor to a shock-absorbing cello case, Howe says.

Schivell, for instance, is designing a fluorescent floor lamp to replace the halogen floor lamps owned by many Harvard students.

"They use 90 dollars per lamp per year," he says.

Low Ranking

Despite its plaudits from students, however, Harvard's engineering program ranks low among comparable schools' offerings. The U.S. News and World Report survey, based on research funding and opinions of practicing and teaching engineers, put Harvard's graduate program below such competitors as the University of Wisconsin and the University of Florida.

Where top-ranked MIT's research budget for 1993 was about 150 million. Harvard's was approximately $22 million, according to the survey.

Professors say they sometimes face a lack of resources in the department.

"A lot of us have chosen to do the things we do because of the lack of facilities that you would normally have," says Rogers, who works with models and computers rather than in an actual lab.

The head of the biological engineering courses "has a continual struggle to keep his labs up-to-date" because to be up-to-date, he must work with "outrageously expensive equipment," Rogers says.

The department also doesn't have the money to fund a large number of technicians "so grad students have to do a technician's job and that's hard," according to Rogers.

For instance, one student who was working to figure out alternative fuel uses in rural settings had no lab with proper venting in which to do his research and had to test his work in the winter snow.

"He was actually doing it out in the weather," Rogers says.

Martin says the lack of good lab space hurts Harvard in faculty searches.

"We're in the process of trying to clear out books from the attic" to use the space for labs, the dean says. "People are working in subbasements."

Compared to many top programs, Harvard's faculty is also incredibly small. There are just 27 professors in Harvard engineering sciences and applied physics, compared to about 100 at Princeton, approximately 200 at Stanford and far more at technological institutes like MIT.

Princeton's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, for instance, has 775 students, about 18 percent of its student body, says Peter Bogucki, the school's assistant dean for undergraduate affairs.

At Stanford, according to Brauman, about 20 percent of undergraduates are engineering majors. Its size enables the school to offer up-to-date research and teaching, he says.

"The type of research [students at a smaller department] have been exposed to will span a narrower range than someone at MIT or Stanford or the larger engineering schools," Brauman says.

Students and professors at Harvard say they know their program is not seen as comparable to larger schools like MIT or UC Berkeley.

"It's smaller," Martin says. "As a result of the fact that it is smaller it gets less recognition."

Says head tutor Michael D. Smith, "I'd be kidding you if I told you that we were on the same scale as MIT, but we're working on it."

Students say they are sometimes put on the defensive in describing Harvard engineering.

"A lot of businesses don't take Harvard engineering that seriously," Schivell says. "It has a Harvard name but that doesn't carry as much weight" in the technical fields.

When concentrator Wan-Yin Wu '97 talks about Harvard engineering with friends at MIT, they often say, "Oh Harvard, that's right, they do have an engineering department," she says.

Up-and-Coming?

But professors say that with the new capital campaign funds, Harvard's resources will improve.

"People don't think about engineering when they think about Harvard," says Smith, who is also assistant professor of electrical engineering and computer science. But "we're a really up-and-coming department."

In the preliminary FAS capital campaign document, Dean of the Faculty Jeremy R. Knowles allots $48 million for "additional engineering and computer science faculty."

The plan may help make up for neglect in the past. It "'calls for more faculty appointments in important areas where our strength is sub-critical," Knowles says.

Smith says the money will probably mean between five and eight more faculty members in computer science and the engineering sciences.

Knowles also allots $30 million for a new physical sciences building and $29 million more for physical sciences infrastructure.

"You would need research space for them if you hired five new people," Abernathy says. "They use 10,000 square feet of lab space per person in biochemistry. If you decide you want five people at roughly that size, that's a building."

Even with the new funds, however, Harvard will not compete with programs like MIT. That's no reason for the University to stop offering engineering, professors say, especially as its importance grows with the rise of computer technology.

"In some ways, one could argue that perhaps Harvard shouldn't do economics," Abernathy says, "because MIT has an economics department with more Nobel Prize winners than we do."

Professors say Harvard's small size and unique curriculum may offer options that more prestigious engineering programs don't.

Unlike most traditional engineering programs, Howe and other engineering professors say, Harvard's broad-based degree--which is in "engineering sciences," rather than a specific area like chemical engineering--prepares College graduates to work in a variety of fields.

"A very small fraction of the people who graduate with S.B.'s actually go out and become engineers," Martin says. "A significant majority go on to graduate school."

Many engineering concentrators choose to go to business school. Thus, while other programs can boast more specialization and a broader range of degree options, Harvard's graduates are better administrators and can decide policy on broader issues, engineering professors say.

Although they specialize in one branch of engineering, students are encouraged to take survey courses and courses in other areas of engineering.

"One of my classes right now is in digital electronics and one of my other classes is in mechanical systems," says concentrator Matthew B. Emans '96. "They have nothing to do with each other, but they are both things I need to know."

Students in the concentration defend its approach, saying they likely won't go directly into engineering. Nonas, for example, wants to be a doctor, not an engineer.

"A lot of the Harvard engineers aren't necessarily looking to be engineers eventually, but are looking to use those skills," Emans says.

While students acknowledge Harvard's drawbacks, most say they do not regret coming to school here.

"If you want to do research on the cutting edge it is not the best place," Duan says, "but for an undergraduate program with an educational basis it's very good."

Engineering Schools Compared

The highest ranked engineering graduate schools in the country

Ranked  School1.  MIT2.  Stanford3.  Purdue4.  Illinois5.  Berkeley6.  Cal Tech7.  Michigan8.  Cornell9.  Texas10.  Carnegie Mellon26.  Harvar