Related Links

• History of the Undergraduate Core Curriculum
• History of the Cook Engineering Design Center

• History of Entrepreneurship at Thayer School

• Knowledge with Know-How: Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth

 

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History

Thayer School Deans

Robert Fletcher	1871-1918
Charles A. Holden	1918-1925
Raymond R. Marsden	1925-1933
Frank W. Garran	1933-1945
William P. Kimball	1945-1961
Myron Tribus	1961-1969
David V. Ragone	1970-1972
Carl F. Long	1972-1984
Charles E. Hutchinson	1984-1994 & 1997-1998
Elsa Garmire	1995-1997
Lewis Duncan	1998-2004
Joseph Helble	2005-

Sylvanus Thayer's Vision

Sylvanus Thayer (Dartmouth Class of 1807) served as superintendent of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point from 1817 to 1833. The engineering curriculum that he developed there became the model for later military and civilian engineering schools and earned him the appellation "father of engineering education." With a vision for a professional engineering school at his alma mater, General Thayer made an endowment of $70,000 in 1867. Four years later, the Thayer School of Civil Engineering opened its doors with a student body of 6.

The First Hundred Years (1871-1971)

Director and Dean Robert Fletcher (1871-1918)

Robert Fletcher, first director and dean of Thayer School, adapted General Thayer's curriculum and, for several years, taught all courses single-handedly while administering the School. The civil engineering program was designed as 2 years of study to follow 3 or 4 years of undergraduate preparation at Dartmouth, and students were graduated with a degree in civil engineering (C.E.). As enrollment grew, Fletcher hired new faculty members and augmented Thayer's original endowment with monies from the Thayer Society of Engineers (now the Dartmouth Society of Engineers) and the Amos Tuck Foundation.

Classes of 1894 and 1895 in the
drawing room of Thayer School.

Thayer Lodge at 9 South Park Street (the old Agriculture School's "experiment station") was Thayer School's home from 1892 to 1912.

Bissell Hall, at the southwest corner of Wheelock and College streets (later the site of the Hopkins Center), housed the increased Thayer School enrollment from 1912 to 1938.

Two deans who followed Fletcher, Charles A. Holden (1918-1925) and Raymond Robb Marsden '09 (1925-1933) kept the School on course with modest increases in enrollment and funding and a continued focus on civil engineering.

Dean Frank Warren Garran (1933-1945)

The first major change in curriculum came in the early 1940s, under the leadership of Frank Garran. A partnership with Tuck School of Business led to the "Tuck-Thayer degree," a program in which students followed their three years at Dartmouth with two years of engineering and business courses and received a master's degree in industrial administration (M.S.-T.T.). Electrical and mechanical engineering courses were added to the curriculum, and Thayer School of Civil Engineering became Thayer School of Engineering. In 1941, Millet Morgan joined the faculty and started the radiophysics laboratory, the School's first large-scale research program.

Dean Garran presided over the move into Cummings Memorial Hall, the first structure built exclusively for Thayer School. When the country entered World War II, he spearheaded Thayer School's contribution to America's war effort.

Cummings Memorial Hall, Thayer School's first newly constructed home, was made possible by a bequest from Jeannette I. Cummings in memory of her husband, Horace S. Cummings (Dartmouth Class of 1862).

Dean William P. Kimball '29 (1945-1961)

Thayer School continued to grow under William Kimball, Thayer School's fifth dean. New courses were added, new faculty hired, and new degree programs developed. At the bachelor's level, students studied engineering sciences as a 4-year major at Dartmouth, following that with a 1-year program leading to the bachelor of engineering (B.E.) degree. For students who wanted to go beyond the bachelor's level, master's programs leading to the M.S.-C.E., M.S.-E.E., and M.S.-M.E. were established.

Research programs expanded as faculty members began to obtain grants from the government and other sources. By the end of the Kimball years, outside research funds amounted to nearly half the School's annual income.

Professor James Browning, who
developed the plasma torch in
a Thayer School lab.

Dean Myron Tribus (1961-1969)

Myron Tribus brought to Thayer School a vision of an integrated engineering curriculum within a single department of engineering sciences. He saw hands-on engineering design as being essential at all levels of the curriculum, saying, "Knowledge without know-how is sterile."

Dean Tribus and his faculty developed an undergraduate core curriculum that integrated different areas of engineering fundamentals into a single stream of applications. He also oversaw the transformation of the Introduction to Engineering course from the traditional theoretical foundation class into a design course, which combined the investigative, practical elements of the laboratory with the creative elements of design. The course gave beginning engineering students the opportunity to experience "real" engineering as it was be practiced in industry.

In keeping with a single engineering sciences department, the degree programs were reorganized into two tracks: the professional track led to the B.E., the M.E., and the D.E, and the research track to the M.S. and Ph.D. in Engineering Sciences.

For Dean Tribus, the ideal engineer was one who could apply the fundamentals of engineering practice to any problem to design an appropriate solution, a solution that might integrate several areas of engineering research or go deeply into a single discipline. His innovations gave Thayer School a unique engineering education philosophy that is as timely for the 21st century as it was for the 1960s.

Dean Tribus encouraged the on-going faculty research in radiophysics and space physics, optics, metallurgy, water and electrical resource management, chemical processes, and multiphase flow. He also fostered a close relationship with business for faculty and students alike.

Professor George Colligan with
a student in the materials lab.

The Tribus years ended in 1969 when the dean accepted a post in the Johnson administration as Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Science and Technology. Dartmouth's Associate Provost William P. Davis served as interim dean until July 1970, when David Vincent Ragone became the seventh in the School's one-hundred-year succession of deans.

Dean David V. Ragone (1970-1972)

David Ragone came to Thayer School because the School's integrated, design-oriented approach seemed to him exactly what an engineering education should be. Under his enthusiastic leadership, the excitement of the Tribus years continued. In 1972, Ragone was offered the deanship of Michigan's College of Engineering and took it, hoping to make innovations similar to those undertaken at Thayer School. Ragone went on to become president of Case Western Reserve University in 1980.

The Modern Era (1972-2005)

Dean Carl F. Long (1972-1984)

Carl Long had been a professor of civil engineering at Thayer School since the 1950s when he took on the deanship. He saw as priority consolidating the gains of the Tribus years, continuing the integrated, design-oriented approach to curricula and the ties with the corporate world. He worked with members of the board of overseers to establish INVENTE, later the Cook Engineering Design Center, a partnership with industry that gave Thayer School students a bridge connecting their engineering studies to the outside world.

Dean Long conferring with faculty
members Richard Schile, Edward
Brown, and Graham Wallis in 1972.

Dean Long pushed for increased faculty research, extending the established research programs with several initiatives. Biomedical engineering projects were undertaken in collaboration with Dartmouth Medical School and the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center. Materials science research expanded to include ice engineering, both in the new Ice Laboratory and in collaboration with the U.S. Army's CRREL. And chemical process engineering began to experiment with converting biomass into energy. Environmental fluid dynamics used models of three-dimensional coastal ocean circulation to track ecosystem dynamics for coastal estuaries and the Gulf of Maine.

Professor John Strohbehn at the control panel of the Betatron at the Cancer Center.

Professor Erland Schulson in the ice lab.

Dean Long put Thayer School on a stable financial footing by creating a Thayer School Dean's Fund (later the Annual Fund) and increasing the School's endowment. He also engineered Thayer School's transition from being subsidized by Dartmouth College to financial independence.

Dean Charles E. Hutchinson (1984-1994 and 1997-1998)

Charles Hutchinson took on leadership of a Thayer School that was financially stable, had an integrated, design-oriented curriculum, and strong research programs. He moved the School in several new directions: one was to expand the Cummings Memorial Hall to create space for the increasing student enrollments and faculty research.

Entrance to Cummings Hall

The 1989 Cummings Memorial Hall expansion increased the space from 54,700 to 111,700 square feet. The number of classrooms more than doubled, offices were added, and lab space was increased by 40 percent.

Dean Hutchinson worked with Thayer School and Tuck School faculty to establish one of the country's first master's degree in engineering management (M.E.M.), a business and engineering program designed to give students a strong foundation for becoming leaders in industry. Under Dean Hutchinson, the professional degree programs (M.E. and D.E.) were integrated into the M.S. and Ph.D. research programs.

Dean Charles Hutchinson giving
a tip to Alex Lewis '95 Th'95
for The Manufacturing Game

While the Cook Center remained a strong collaboration between students and industry, Dean Hutchinson increased industry ties by establishing a Corporate Advisory Board (CAB), which brought in corporate leaders as partners with Thayer School.

Under Dean Hutchinson, all fields of research expanded. New areas included nanotechnology, microengineering, intelligent design, biochemical engineering for medical therapy, information theory, and system identification. Collaborations across engineering disciplines—electronic instrument design for biomedical research, for example—increased as did collaborations with other science departments at Dartmouth and with federally funded multi-university projects.

Professor Eric Hansen with the laser scanning microscope he developed for biomedical research.

Professor John Collier showing Marguerite Wrona Th'93 aspects of implant research.

Dean Elsa Garmire (1995-1997)

Dean Elsa Garmire, a member of the National Academy of Engineering, came to Thayer School convinced that its unique approach to engineering education was exactly the right one for the 21st century. After leading the School for two years, she returned to her teaching and optics research as a senior faculty member. Charles Hutchinson stepped in as dean from 1997-1998.

Dean Elsa Garmire.

Dean Lewis Duncan (1998-2004)

Lewis Duncan worked with the faculty to expand the undergraduate curriculum by increasing the number of introductory technology courses for Dartmouth liberal arts students. Courses like Everyday Technology, Healthcare and Biotechnology in the 21st Century, and Materials: The Substance of Civilization drew large numbers of students, many of whom stayed to become engineering sciences majors. A team of faculty members revamped the undergraduate core to include areas of engineering such as biotechnology and biomedical engineering. Duncan also created the Corporate Collaboration Council (replacing the old CAB) to provide direction and support for the M.E.M. program.

Dean Duncan was committed to building constellations of researchers and making sure that strong connections were established across research groups. He brought in new levels of funding to make sure that these centers of excellence could prosper. Federal earmarks supported collaborative research work on biocommodities engineering, nanomaterials research, smart laser beams, and cybersecurity technology. Under Duncan, sponsored research at Thayer School tripled.

Professors Lee Lynd and Charles Wyman in the biocommodities lab in 2004.

Professor Laura Ray and Alex Streeter '03 Th'05 with a "smart car."

Dean Duncan led the effort to expand the physical facilities for the growing faculty and student body. Duncan and his planning team worked with architects to design a structure adjacent to Cummings Hall that would embody the design studio aspect of the Thayer School curriculum by interconnecting project and support spaces with teaching and research areas. The MacLean Engineering Sciences Center, underwritten in large part by Mary Ann and Barry MacLean'60 Th'61, was dedicated on September 23, 2006.

Dean Duncan's legacy includes increased research activity, a broadened interdisciplinary perspective, and a new focus on technology courses for Dartmouth liberal arts students.

Dean Joseph Helble (2005- )

Joseph Helble, Thayer School's twelfth dean, brought to Thayer School a background in environmental engineering with special interests in the applied studies of aerosols and air quality. He joins a long tradition of deans who know that engineering education is the opportunity for students to ask questions and work toward solutions without worrying about which "engineering discipline" a solution might belong to.

His vision for moving forward builds on the School's traditional strengths: its integrated undergraduate curriculum, its cross-disiplinary graduate research program, and its strong support for moving Thayer School innovations toward the marketplace.

[This summary is adapted from Knowledge with Know-How, a history of Thayer School of Engineering.]

Thayer's Past Photo Gallery

See more photos in Thayer School's Flickr gallery.