Thayer School of Engineering

Infobox University
name = Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth

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image_size = 150px
established = 1867
city = Hanover
state = New Hampshire
country = United States
dean = Joseph Helble
website = [http://engineering.dartmouth.edu/index.html engineering.dartmouth.edu]
alumni = 4,046
undergrad = 107
postgrad = 185
doctoral = 62
faculty = 74

Thayer School of Engineering is a graduate school and undergraduate academic department of engineering at Dartmouth College, located in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. The school was established in 1867 with funds from Sylvanus Thayer, known for his work in establishing an engineering curriculum at the United States Military Academy at West Point. Located in a two-building complex along the Connecticut River on the Dartmouth campus, the Thayer School today offers undergraduate, masters, and doctoral degrees, as well as dual-degree programs with other local institutions. Over 350 students are currently enrolled at Thayer, overseen by a faculty of 74 and preceded by over 4,000 living alumni of the school.

History

Thayer School is named for Sylvanus Thayer, a Dartmouth alumnus from the class of 1807. Thayer was known as "the father of West Point" for his sixteen-year superintendency at the United States Military Academy, where he developing an extensive engineering curriculum unlike any other in the United States at the time. [cite web | url = http://www.biography.com/search/article.do?id=9504907 | title = Sylvanus Thayer Biography (1785–1872) | publisher = The Biography Channel | accessdate = 2007-11-10 ] cite web | url = http://engineering.dartmouth.edu/about/history.html | title = History | publisher = Thayer School of Engineering | accessdate = 2007-11-10 ] [Kershner 139.] After thirty years of professional service in the Army Corps of Engineers, Thayer endowed $70,000 to Dartmouth College in 1867 for the establishment of a school of engineering, initially called the Thayer School of Civil Engineering.The school opened four years later in 1871 with six students. The curriculum borrowed heavily from the model developed by Thayer at West Point; graduates of the two-year program were awarded a degree in civil engineering (C.E.). Robert Fletcher, the first director and dean of the school, was also its only instructor for several years. During the late 1800s and early 1900s, the school's enrollment, funding, and faculty size steadily increased.

Under Dean Frank Warren Garran (1933-1945), Thayer experienced extensive expansion and modernization. Thayer's curriculum expanded to incorporate mechanical engineering and electrical engineering, as well as a dual business/engineering administration degree from the Tuck School of Business. Garran also oversaw the establishment of Cummings Hall, the Thayer School's first dedicated physical plant, and the institution of the school's first major research program, which was in radiophysics. Dean William P. Kimball (1945-61) continued the school's growing emphasis on research and established the first master's degrees for students wishing to earn more than a Bachelor of Engineering.

In 1961, Myron Tribus ascended to the position of dean, placing a heavy emphasis on the practical, problem-solving aspects of engineering as well as the traditional, theoretical base of the discipline. Tribus developed an integrated curriculum and introduced design courses to the school to provide Thayer students with real-life experience in creative applications of engineering. Under Tribus, the Thayer School offered its first doctorate degrees in engineering.

From the 1970s to the 2000s, the Thayer School saw expansion into new fields such as nanotechnology and biochemical engineering, as well as collaboration with other nearby institutions such as Dartmouth Medical School, the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, and the Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory. In the early 2000s, the core curriculum for undergraduates was revamped under Dean Lewis Duncan (1998-2004), making the school's offerings more accessible to non-major Dartmouth students. The MacLean Engineering Sciences Center (ESC), completed in 2006, was a $21 million project to expand the school's classrooms and research centers.cite web | url = http://www.dartmouth.edu/~opdc/projects/esc/index.html | title = MacLean Engineering Sciences Center | publisher = Office of Planning, Design and Construction | accessdate = 2007-11-10 ]

Campus

The Thayer School is located on the campus of Dartmouth College, which is situated in the rural, Upper Valley New England town of Hanover, New Hampshire. The campus of the Thayer School sits in a complex on the west side Dartmouth's campus near the Connecticut River. When classes first began in 1871, Sylvanus Thayer's endowment had not provided for a physical plant. Consequently, the school was an itinerant institution for many years, occupying parts of various College buildings and, at one point, a former structure of the New Hampshire College of Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts. [Frye 12.]

In 1938, Dartmouth president Ernest Martin Hopkins successfully lobbied the Board of Trustees to construct an independent facility for the school. [cite web | url = http://www.dartmo.com/buildings/cdbldg.html#cummingshall | title = Cummings Hall | work = Dartmo.: The Buildings of Dartmouth College | accessdate = 2007-11-10 ] $200,000 were spent to build Horace Cummings Memorial Hall, which with several major additions (built in 1945-46 and 1989) served as Thayer's only facility for nearly 70 years. In 2004, construction began on the MacLean Engineering Sciences Center (ESC), which was completed in 2006. At the cost of nearly $21 million, the new center adds both classroom and research space to the Thayer School.

The Thayer School shares the Murdough Center (containing the Feldberg Business & Engineering Library) with the adjacent Tuck School of Business. [cite web | url = http://www.tuck.dartmouth.edu/about/campus/murdough.html | title = About Tuck - Murdough Center | publisher = Tuck School of Business | accessdate = 2007-11-06 ]

Academics

The Thayer School serves as both Dartmouth College's undergraduate department of engineering, as well as a graduate school offering advanced degrees. Undergraduate majors can receive their Bachelor of Arts degree in engineering at the school, and may choose to continue on to earn a Bachelor of Engineering (B.E.) degree in an additional year or less. [cite web | url = http://engineering.dartmouth.edu/welcome/engineering_studies.html | title = Engineering Studies | publisher = Thayer School of Engineering | work = Engineering at Dartmouth | accessdate = 2007-11-17 ] Thayer also offers a dual-degree program for undergraduates at other colleges who wish to earn their Bachelor's degree at their home institution and their B.E. at Thayer. [cite web | url = http://engineering.dartmouth.edu/undergraduate/dual/index.html | title = Dual-Degree Program | publisher = Thayer School of Engineering | accessdate = 2007-11-17 ] As a College academic department, the school's undergraduate offerings are open to any Dartmouth student, including non-majors. [cite web | url = http://engineering.dartmouth.edu/undergraduate/index.html | title = Undergraduate Studies | publisher = Thayer School of Engineering | accessdate = 2007-11-17 ]

Thayer offers several graduate degree programs, including a Master of Science (M.S.) and Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D) in engineering. The school also offers a Master of Engineering Management (M.E.M.) degree in conjunction with the adjacent Tuck School of Business, and a combination Ph.D/Doctor of Medicine (M.D.) from Dartmouth Medical School. [cite web | url = http://engineering.dartmouth.edu/graduate/index.html | title = Graduate Studies | publisher = Thayer School of Engineering | accessdate = 2007-11-17 ]

Research and entrepreneurship

The Thayer School emphasizes the cross-disciplinary nature of its research topics. [cite web | url = http://engineering.dartmouth.edu/about/beyond-departments.html | title = Beyond Departments | publisher = Thayer School of Engineering | accessdate = 2007-11-17 ] In 2007, sponsored research at the school amounted to $16.2 million.cite web | url = http://engineering.dartmouth.edu/about/factsfigures.html | title = Facts and Figures | publisher = Thayer School of Engineering | accessdate = 2007-06-23 ] Research at Thayer is divided into three general "focus areas": engineering in medicine, energy technologies, and complex systems. Projects within each focus area are divided by three "research categories": biomedical, biochemical, chemical & environmental engineering (BBCEE), electrical & computer engineering, & engineering physics (ECEEP), and materials & mechanical systems engineering (MMSE). [cite web | url = http://engineering.dartmouth.edu/research/index.html | title = Thayer School Research | publisher = Thayer School of Engineering | accessdate = 2007-11-17 ] The Thayer School promotes its connections to engineering entrepreneurship. The Cook Engineering Design Center, founded in 1978, acts to solicit industry-sponsored projects for degree candidates to work on. The school also offers a variety of conferences, programs, and internships to foster student connections to the professional world. Companies and products that have emerged from the Thayer School include emeritus professor Robert Dean's Creare, Inc. and Dartmouth music professor Jon Appleton's work on the Synclavier synthesizer. [cite web | url = http://engineering.dartmouth.edu/entrepreneurship/history.html | title = History of Thayer School Entrepreneurship | publisher = Thayer School of Engineering | accessdate = 2007-11-17 ] The school maintains a list of startup companies established by its current faculty. [cite web | url = http://engineering.dartmouth.edu/entrepreneurship/faculty.html | title = Faculty Startups | publisher = Thayer School of Engineering | accessdate = 2007-11-17 ]

Rankings and admissions

In 2007, the Thayer School was ranked 47th by "U.S. News & World Report" among American engineering schools. [cite web | url = http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/usnews/edu/grad/rankings/eng/brief/engrank_brief.php | title = America's Best Graduate Schools 2008: Top Engineering Schools | work = U.S. News & World Report | accessdate = 2007-11-17 ] It was also included in "BusinessWeek"'s unranked list of 60 "Best Design Schools in the World". [cite web | url = http://bwnt.businessweek.com/interactive_reports/talenthunt/index.asp | title = D-Schools: The Global List | publisher = "BusinessWeek" | work = The Best Design Schools in the World | accessdate = 2007-11-17 ]

Admissions for undergraduate students are handled by Dartmouth College's undergraduate admissions in general. Admission to graduate programs, including the B.E. degree, requires an undergraduate background in engineering and mathematics or science. [cite web | url = http://engineering.dartmouth.edu/admissions/graduate/index.html | title = Graduate Admissions | publisher = Thayer School of Engineering | accessdate = 2007-12-17 ] In the fall of 2006, Thayer accepted 14.5% of applicants overall. Average Graduate Record Examination (GRE) test scores of applicants in verbal, quantitative, and analytical sections were 601, 778, and 695, respectively. [cite web | url = http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/usnews/edu/grad/directory/dir-eng/brief/glanc_02103_brief.php | title = Dartmouth College (Thayer) | publisher = U.S. News & World Report | accessdate = 2007-12-17 ]

People

Student profile and student life

As of the 2007-2008 academic year, the Thayer School has an enrollment of 354 students: 107 undergraduates, 62 doctoral candidates, 27 B.E. students, 76 M.E.M. students, 20 M.S. students, and 13 student pursuing special studies. The school offers a number of professional and community service student groups, as well as social life governance councils for the student body. [cite web | url = http://engineering.dartmouth.edu/studentlife/student-groups.html | title = Student Professional, Social, and Service Groups | publisher = Thayer School of Engineering | accessdate = 2007-12-17 ] [cite web | url = http://engineering.dartmouth.edu/studentlife/councils.html | title = Student Councils | publisher = Thayer School of Engineering | accessdate = 2007-12-17 ]

Faculty

The Thayer School currently claims 74 active instructors, including 29 tenured or tenure-track faculty, 16 research or instructional faculty, 22 adjunct faculty members, and seven lecturers. [cite web | url = http://engineering.dartmouth.edu/faculty/index.html | title = Faculty | publisher = Thayer School of Engineering | accessdate = 2007-12-17 ] Notable former faculty include Arthur Kantrowitz, emeritus professor of engineering, and Myron Tribus, the dean of the Thayer School for most of the 1960s.

Alumni

As of 2007, Thayer has 4,046 engineering alumni in all 50 U.S. states and over 50 countries. Nearly 3,000 of the graduates received a B.E. or a graduate degree, with the remaining 1,000 earning only the undergraduate A.B. degree.The school claims that over 90% of graduates become employed within six months of graduation.cite web | url = http://engineering.dartmouth.edu/career/index.html | title = Careers | publisher = Thayer School of Engineering | accessdate = 2007-12-17 ]

Notes

References

*cite book | url = http://books.google.com/books?id=90kGJWH1FvgC | title = Knowledge with Know-How: Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth | first = Ellen | last = Frye | publisher = University Press of New England | year = 2007 | isbn = 1584656506
*cite book | title = Sylvanus Thayer: A Biography | first = James William | last = Kershner | year = 1981 | isbn = 0405140924 | publisher = Ayer Publishing | url = http://books.google.com/books?id=mO0mCLaw6C4C

External links

* [http://engineering.dartmouth.edu Thayer School of Engineering]
* [http://www.flickr.com/photos/25078275@N03/ Thayer's Flikr Photostream Page]
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