Northwestern University - Syllabus Yearbook (Evanston, IL)

Page 23 text:

TECHNOLOGlCAL INSTITUTE Air conditioning equipment . . . methods of industry . . . electrical voltage . . . X-ray machines . . . atomic energy . . . construc- tion projects . . . and the Technological Institute produces vitally needed, industrially trained students. Since its cornerstone was laid in 1940, the Technological Institute hasimade many im- portant and progressive strides. Housed in its six and one-half million dollar building fur- nished by the Walter P. Murphy Foundation, Tech Institute has taken its place of importance in the realm of education. This year Tech opened its wide doors to 1,182 undergraduates and more than one hundred graduate students. Sixteen undergraduate de- grees were conferred in December, thirty-two in March, and approximately seventy others in june. This year Tech launched its first graduate program with eighty-nine students studying during the day and thirty in night courses. Most are pursuing work leading to a master's degree, but six hope to obtain their doctorates. The entire student body in Tech includes students from over thirty states and four foreign coun- tries. Anticipating the increased enrollment, Tech added eighteen staff members and about forty graduate assistants. It also expended 575,000 on the acquisition of new equipment, including an electron microscope. In previous years more than 31,000,000 had been invested in equipment for the building. Biographies of the men that staff Tech and supervise the use of its great equipment read like a list of scientific honors. Newcomers to the Institute in 1946 have beenadded to the sani- tary engineering department, the chemical engineering field, to electrical engineering, in- dustrial engineering, and theoretical and applied mechanics in the mechanical engineering di- vision. 24 Based on a cooperative system, Tech students work three to five months of the year and attend classes for the remaining months. The cooperative system brings the young man into contact with the realities of our industrial system, it shows him the significance of the facts and principles which he has acquired through books and in his classes. Organizations active in Tech are Tau Beta Phi, honorary for upper classmen, and Pi Tau Epsilon, mechanical engineering fraternity. There are also several branches of national professional groups. Tech was no quiet place during the war years. In fact, it was completed and dedicated just in time for war service. Tech's main war activities centered in research and in educating members of the armed forces and people employed in war industries. The large scale Navy program at Northwestern centered in great part around the Institute. The arrangement of linking education with practical application on a job is one of Tech's most carefully directed achievements. The un- dergraduate course is five years long. Dean Ovid W. Eshbach is the swift, efiicient man who since 1939 has directed Tech's manifold activities from behind his big work-table desk. The Dean outlines Tech's purpose as one of seeking ex- pression through training in the fundamental principle of science and engineering, the de- velopment of new powers to deal effectively with the methods and techniques in engineering education, and the maintenance of close contacts with industry and engineering. A student magazine, the Northwestern Engi- neer, records the efforts toward these ends. The Engineer is only one of the many ways through which Tech School makes itself known to the world. Visitors from all over the world reviewed the building in the first six months of the 1946- 47 school year. Tech School lives up to its purpose . . . and promotes close contacts . . . between industry and engineering . . . furthering the cause of scientific investigation . . . with the latest of methods . . . and equipment . . . to do its part . . . in keeping the wheels of industry revolving . . . swiftly . . . and efficiently.