Stevens Institute of Technology

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Stevens Institute of Technology
Image:Stevens-logo72dpi202cvSMALL.jpg

Motto: Per aspera ad astra (Through adversity to the stars)
Established: 1870
Type: Private
Endowment: $130,159,592
President: Harold J. Raveché [2]
Faculty: 179 full-time and 149 part-time
Undergraduates: 1,850
Postgraduates: 2,970
Location: Hoboken, NJ, USA
Campus: Urban
Athletics: 25 varsity teams
Colors: Stevens Red and Gray[1]         
Nickname: "The Stute" or "The Old Stone Mill"
Mascot: Attila the Duck
Affiliations: MAISA
Website: www.stevens.edu

Stevens Institute of Technology is a technological university located on a 55 acres (220,000 m2) campus in Hoboken, New Jersey, USA, founded in 1870 on the basis of an 1868 bequest from Edwin A. Stevens.[2] It is the fourth-oldest technological university in the United States, and is known for its rigorous engineering, science, and technological management curricula[citation needed].

The institute has produced leading engineers, scientists, and managers in industry and government.[citation needed] Two members of the Stevens community, as alumni or faculty, have been awarded the Nobel Prize: Frederick Reines (class of 1939), in Physics, and Irving Langmuir (Chemistry faculty 1906-1909), in chemistry[3]

The Stevens campus encompasses Castle Point, the highest point in Hoboken. Historic Sybil's Cave bores into the side of Castle Point, and below and to the east of the university is Frank Sinatra Park, Castle Point Park, and Castle Point Skate Park. The tallest building in the institute is the Wesley J. Howe Center, occupying the site of the former "Stevens Castle" on Castle Point.

Among the prominent research centers of Stevens is the Davidson Laboratory, Wireless Network Security Center, Keck Geotechnical Laboratory, Plasma Physics Laboratory, Nicoll Environmental Laboratory, Electron Microscopy Laboratory, and Center for Mass Spectrometry.

According to the Princeton Review, Stevens is currently ranked 1st in "Professors Get Low Marks".[4]

The current president of Stevens Institute of Technology is Harold J. Raveché.

Contents

[edit] Education environment

Edwin A. Stevens Building, home to the Charles V. Schaefer, Jr. School of Engineering

Stevens is composed of four academic schools: the Charles V. Schaefer, Jr. School of Engineering and Science, the College of Arts and Letters, the Wesley J. Howe School of Technology Management and the School of Systems and Enterprises.

Stevens offers the Bachelor of Engineering (B.E.) degree in electrical, chemical, biomedical, materials, civil, mechanical, systems, engineering management, computer, and ocean engineering. A total of 145-155 credits is required for the B.E. degree. Stevens is one of the few schools in the United States that has retained a broad-based engineering curriculum, requiring many courses in engineering disciplines outside of one's major area of concentration as well as an extensive science foundation. This is a rigorous curricula. Stevens students credit the high, diverse course load with providing them the ability to solve problems outside their immediate fields of study, and to effectively attack interdisciplinary problems that cut across many different, but related, areas of engineering and science. This has made Stevens engineers extraordinarily professionally competent in solving problems compared with many others whose training was focused in a narrow specialty. The Stevens curriculum is noted for its large number of required core courses that are optional in many other schools.

All of the engineering curricula, with the exception of Biomedical Engineering, are accredited by the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET). The newest discipline, Biomedical Engineering, is currently finishing the required approval period and accreditation is expected in 2006. The Bachelor of Science (B.S.) degree is offered in chemistry, business & technology management, computer science, mathematics, physics, materials science, and chemical biology/biochemistry. At the graduate level, Stevens offers the Master of Engineering (M.Eng.), Master of Technology Management (M.T.M.), Master of Science (M.S.), Master of Business Administration (M.B.A.), Engineer (E.E., M.E., Comp.E., C.E., and Ch.E.), and Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) degrees.

Stevens offers an accelerated Chemical Biology/Pre-Medical program with the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. In this program, students can enter the medical school after the third year at Stevens. Stevens confers the B.S. degree after the first year of medical school, with the M.D. degree awarded after the fourth year. There is also a prelaw program with New York Law School, and a "3-2" (5 year) dual-degree program with New York University, in which students earn a B.S. in science from NYU, in addition to the B.Eng. from Stevens. Stevens Institute of Technology International offers two graduate programs in the Dominican Republic – a Master of Science in Information Systems and a Master of Engineering Manufacturing Technology and Project Management

The Wesley J. Howe School of Technology Management differs substantially from most traditional business schools in that it emphasizes quantitative methods of management, particularly those unique to the management of technologically-based organizations.[citation needed] The Stevens undergraduate program emphasizes mathematical business models, applications of hard science to the concept and marketing of products, financial engineering (stochastic calculus, probability, and statistics as descriptors of the dynamic behavior of financial markets) and the case study method of business analysis. The capstone project in the Business curriculum is the design of a technology-based business, with the accompanying business plan, operations research, market analysis, financial prospectus, and risk analysis. Several of the capstone projects done in the business school have actually been realized in the marketplace as new companies. Stevens has remained a "small school" because it allows smaller classes for improved efficiency and better student-faculty interaction.

Current focus in Stevens is integration of business and technology, with technology coming first. The aim is to produce alumni possessing both the skills to create and to lead and manage technological projects. This achieved through high student involvement in research activities and collaboration with faculty helping bring any project from concept to a real commercial product.

Another important trait of Stevens is its interdisciplinary philosophy – students are not forced to only take courses from their particular department, it is possible to get involved into different fields of science and technology or even graduate with an interdisciplinary major. The quality of individual study plan is assured through faculty advisers representing the respective departments.

A view of the gatehouse at Stevens Institute of Technology, with the Babbio Center in the background

The Honor System gives the student the privilege to take an examination without proctoring by a professor. Students are required to sign the Honor System pledge attesting that they have not "asked for, given, nor received aid during this examination" in exchange for that privilege. The pledge reads, "I pledge my honor that I have abided by the Stevens Honor System." At the time of its incorporation, students taking examinations were watched closely by a proctor, and asking not to be proctored was a revolutionary idea. Proctoring presumes students will not do the honorable thing, whereas the Honor System places great trust in the students. Stevens treats its students as future professionals, who will maintain the honor and integrity of their professions. In the case of infractions of the Honor System, a jury of the student's peers hears the case in a trial and decides the outcome.[citation needed]

Stevens was the first technological university in the United States with a humanities department.[citation needed] At least eighteen credit hours of humanities (history, literature, social science, philosophy, and art/music) are required of all undergraduates.

[edit] History

A view of New York City from the campus of Stevens Institute of Technology.

The Stevens Institute of Technology is named after a family of accomplished inventors and engineers.

In 1784, the land now occupied by Stevens Institute of Technology was purchased by John Stevens[citation needed], who would later reverse engineer the British steam locomotive to American standards for domestic manufacture. Robert Stevens, one of John Stevens' sons is known for inventing the flanged T rail, a form of railroad rail in use today throughout the world. With his brother Edwin A. Stevens, Robert created America's first commercial railroad.

When Edwin A. Stevens died in 1868, he left a bequest in his will as an endowment for the establishment of an "institution of learning", providing his trustees with land and funds.[citation needed]

The Stevens Institute of Technology opened in 1870 and initially was dedicated to mechanical engineering[citation needed], but over time it has grown to include all disciplines.

The original course of study was a single, rigorous curriculum that was based upon the European model of science, modeled after the French and German scientific and technical schools, rather than the shop schools that were common at that time.[citation needed] The original degree offered was that of "Mechanical Engineer" (M.E.), in addition to a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering, chemistry, or physics. Stevens granted several Ph.D.s between 1870 and 1900, making it one of the earliest Ph.D. granting institutions in the United States.[citation needed] The broad-based interdisciplinary philosophy was put into practice by the founders from the first graduating class. While the original area of concentration was mechanical engineering, and despite the title of the degree, the curriculum included courses in all of the then-current engineering disciplines; mechanical, civil, chemical, and electrical engineering.

In 1959 the undergraduate engineering degree was changed to the Bachelor of Engineering (B.Eng.) to reflect the broad-based interdisciplinary engineering curriculum (note that the M.E. degree of that time was a baccalaureate degree, not to be confused with the present Engineer's degree which is a terminal professional graduate degree).

The campus began on the edge of the family estate at Castle Point in Hoboken. It occupied a single building now designated the Edwin A. Stevens Building and a Federal historical landmark.[5] Stone designs on the building's facade are believed to be derived from a pattern repeated in the floor mosaic of Hagia Sophia, the great cathedral in Istanbul, which Edwin A. Stevens is believed to have visited in the late 19th century.

In 1959, the 40-room Victorian mansion, "Castle Stevens" was demolished to be replaced in 1962 by the 14-story Administration Building, later renamed the Wesley J. Howe building.[citation needed]

In 1906, students at Stevens, under the guidance of President Humphrey, created the Honor System – moral and ethical code governing the life of Stevens students, preaching equality and honest work.[6]

A picture of the Wesley J. Howe Center at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, NJ.

Stevens has a distinguished history and presence in the fields of economics of engineering and management science. Frederick Winslow Taylor (M.E., 1883), the "father of scientific management," developed time and motion studies in the steel industry and other manufacturing industries. The time and motion studies elucidated the most efficient way to do each task, the methods of distributing work in a factory, the assigning of production resources to workers and processes, and the quantifying and measuring of the resulting productivity. His books Shop Management and The Principles of Scientific Management remain classic monographs in the field. Although few or no plants today employ exactly the system of management that Taylor described, the underlying principles of analysis and empiricism that shaped his methods are still in use today. Henry Gantt, Taylor's classmate, was the developer of the "Gantt chart", which is a graphical technique for identifying the critical path- the succession of particular steps in a process that control the cost and schedule as a function of the dependencies between the steps. Present day, computer-aided program evaluation and review techniques, critical path optimization, and linear programming techniques still utilize Gantt's principles.

Closely associated with time-motion studies was the psychology of employee and organizational behavior. Dr. Charles Gaudet organized one of the first Psychological Studies Laboratories at Stevens in 1945. The Laboratory developed psychological tests and standards for public employees such as police and fire. These tests, elements of which are in use today, have proven themselves accurate predictors of performance under stressful conditions.

During the Manhattan Project, the International Nickel Company[citation needed], under the direction of president Charles Stanley (M.E., 1943) developed the ultra-pure nickel that was used to fabricate diffusion barriers used in the gaseous isotope diffusion separation process at Los Alamos which produced the uranium-235 used in the Hiroshima atomic bomb. Previous attempts at gas diffusion failed due to impurities in the diffusion barrier alloys causing corrosion of the apparatus by the uranium hexafluoride gas used in the process. Frederick Reines, (M.E., 1939, M.S., 1941), who would later discover the neutrino — which won him the Nobel Prize in 1995 — directed the experimental division of the Manhattan Project.

SS Stevens, a 473-foot, 14,893-ton ship, served as the floating dormitory from 1968 to 1975 for about 150 students. Permanently moored on the scenic Hudson River at the foot of the campus across from New York City, this first collegiate floating dormitory[7] became one of the best known college landmarks in the country.[8] Following the sale of the ship, students of the Class of 1975 presented funds to the institute for the preparation of a site on Wittpenn Walk where one of Stevens' six-ton anchors was placed in tribute to "the Ship".[9] Recounting the events and sentiments on the day Stevens was towed away, the alumni association expressed in its journal, "She disappeared into the fog and into our hearts."[7]

Starting in 1971, women were first allowed to enroll in Stevens.[10]

In 1982, Stevens was the first institution in the U.S. to require all incoming freshman undergraduate students to purchase and use a personal computer.[citation needed] Around this time, an intranet was installed throughout the campus, which also placed Stevens among one of the very first universities with campus networks.

Today's campus network combines high-bandwidth Internet connection with ubiquitous local area wired and wireless network, besides that campus servers provide numerous network services for students.

[edit] Research environment

View looking down Wittpenn Walk [1] on the campus of Stevens Institute of Technology.

Stevens houses many prominent research centers.[citation needed]

Davidson Laboratory: One of the largest is the Davidson Laboratory, which is the oldest non-military hydrodynamics, naval architecture, and ocean engineering research laboratory in the United States.[citation needed] The Davidson Laboratory houses several towing tanks, which are equipped with computer-controlled machinery to generate waves with precisely determined amplitude and spectral characteristics. Trolleys mounted on rotating and linear arms carry scale models of the ships or vehicles to be tested while sensors record the vehicle motion and the data analyzed on computers. The stability, control, and seaworthiness characteristics of the vessel can thus be precisely characterized. Davidson Lab has designed and tested numerous ships, boats, yachts, submarines, and amphibious vehicles. Notable projects of Davidson include seakeeping and buoyancy tests of the Apollo flotation balloons (computer simulations showed the balloons to adequately support the spacecraft when it parachuted into the ocean, however, Davidson Lab proved by experiment that the original design would have caused the spacecraft to overturn and sink. The design was thus corrected and retested), design and test of the majority of the America's Cup racing yachts including several Cup winners, many Navy ships, and amphibious aircraft. The Davidson Laboratory is now part of the Center for Maritime Systems, which conducts research in the fields of coastal oceanography and underwater acoustics, as well as the traditional marine craft hydrodynamics studies. The high-speed linear towing tank facility was recently renovated, and was officially rededicated in December 2006, as the highlight of a model testing conference hosted at Stevens. Facility upgrades included widening and deepening the tank to increase cross-sectional area, the addition of underwater viewing ports for photography and measurements, and improvements to the numerous electronic systems used for control, monitoring, and data acquisition. The laboratory facilities include a comprehensive machine shop (the largest on the Stevens campus) and an electronics/instrumentation shop. These shops provide an in-house capacity to design and fabricate various specialized items of apparatus which may be required for experimental studies, but for which there is no readily available commercial source.

[edit] Technogenesis

Stevens employs Technogenesis, which is a unique system of scholarship and practical courses, to create an overall learning environment designed to encourage innovation with the ultimate goal of establishing new technology-based businesses. Technogenesis is a trademarked word that is now owned by Stevens but was first used in 1993 by Technogenesis, Inc. (of Mineola, NY) [11].

[edit] Facts

The New York Skyline, as seen from Castle Point on the Stevens Institute of Technology campus
  • The average SAT score of Stevens is 1350 out of 1600 and 58% of the undergraduates come from the top 10% of their high school classes with an average high school GPA of 3.8. The average SAT score of the students in the Accelerated Pre-Medical program is 1430 out of 1600.
  • Students of Stevens inflate the balloons for the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.[citation needed]
  • Stevens shares its motto per aspera ad astra, "through adversity to the stars" with NASA
  • WCPR, the radio station of Stevens Institute of Technology, has one of the largest record collections in the state of New Jersey at over 10,000 LPs[12]

[edit] Notable alumni

The DeBaun Atrium inside the Babbio Center at Stevens Institute of Technology.
The gatehouse at Stevens Institute of Technology.

[edit] References

  1. ^ http://www.stevens.edu/press/graphics.html
  2. ^ "A Brief History". Stevens Institute of Technology. http://www.stevens.edu/sit/about/history.cfm. Retrieved on 27 February 2009. 
  3. ^ http://www.nobelprize.org
  4. ^ Princeton Review's Best 366 Colleges, category "Professors Get Low Marks" http://www.princetonreview.com/StevensInstituteofTechnology.aspx
  5. ^ http://www.nationalregisterofhistoricplaces.com/NJ/Hudson/state2.html
  6. ^ The Constitution of the Stevens Honor System.doc
  7. ^ a b "The Last Voyage of the SS Stevens". Stevens Indicator (Stevens Alumni Association) 92 (4): 3,10. Fall 1975. 
  8. ^ "SS Stevens to sail for scrap pile". Jersey Journal. 1975-08-25. 
  9. ^ Stevens Institute of Technology. "Campus History". http://www.stevens.edu/sit/about/campus.cfm. Retrieved on 2008-05-01. 
  10. ^ Stevens Institute of Technology. "Stevens History". http://www.stevens.edu/sse/about/stevens.html. Retrieved on 2008-05-01. 
  11. ^ US Patent Office - Technogenesis Trademark record
  12. ^ http://www.stevens.edu/wcpr/RecordLib/LP%20Record%20Library.html
  13. ^ a b c d e f g h i http://www.stevens.edu/ocs/successful.htm
  14. ^ a b Stevens' Administrative Directory
  15. ^ Buckeye Steel hand signed by President George Bush's Great Grandfather, Samuel Prescott Bush 1927
  16. ^ http://ocw.mit.edu/NR/rdonlyres/Aeronautics-and-Astronautics/16-885JFall-2005/2F065070-2430-48FD-8D13-06F18FB72B8A/0/cohen_bio.pdf
  17. ^ http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:-N2y9BGA2mgJ:www.ele.uri.edu/faculty/jackson.html+leland+jackson+stevens&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us&client=safari
  18. ^ http://secondriver.blogspot.com/2009/02/walter-kidde.html
  19. ^ Howe School of Technology Management: The Renaissance Manager
  20. ^ DMSE - Faculty - John B. Vander Sande

Clark, G.W. (2000). History of Stevens Institute of Technology, Jensen/Daniels. ISBN 1-893032-24-8

[edit] External links


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