University of North Dakota - Dacotah Yearbook (Grand Forks, ND)

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College of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering HE College of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering will with the present year complete the first decade of its existence. Few in the College realize the struggles through which it has passed because of lack of equipment. The needs of the College for adequate equipment are great today, but they are as nothing compared with its needs in its earlier history. In spite of all these handicaps, however, the College has turned out a product of which the University may feel proud, men who have taken highest rank among graduates of the older and more noted universities, at one of the most celebrated engineering schools of the land, men who by their brilliant careers have attracted the attention of faculty members outside of their own college faculty. The reputation of the University of North Dakota for high grade work has spread rapidly and far as a result of the work of those graduates who went to this great eastern institution to make a mark for themselves, and a reputation for North Dakota, one as a post graduate student and five as instructors. The graduates have made no less a recorcl in other lines of engineering, such as designing, manufacturing of gas engines, contracting and structural engineering, etc, so that while the equipment of the College has been limited, it has given its graduates a training which has given them initiativeness, self-reliance, and ability to stand alone and make use of their training in solving their engineering problems. The growth of the College has been all that could be expected. In I902 it was given a building adapted for shops and laboratory purposes, which building was so placed tlat when the University should get a new power plant, the old power plant could be advantageously used as additional laboratories. This long deferred hope was finally realized one year ago, so that the College now occupies one twoestory building 54 X 100 feet, and a one-sfory structure 40 x I75 feet. This additional space has made it possible to provide the College with an upeto-date foundry, fully equipped, which will be in operation during the second semester of this year. This additional room has also made it possible to provide the College with a lignite gas producer and gas engine to utilize the gases made from lignite coal, which is so abundant in North Dakota, and which bids fair to become a prominent factor in the production of power, and in the industrial development of the state, for the results thus far obtained indicate that it can be advantageously used as a fuel for the production of power. The old heating plant has made it possible to equip two boilers for experimental purposes, one of which is provided with a mechanical stoker, and a furnace specially designed to burn lignite coal, which has proved to be a decided success. The wisdom of installing such apparatus has been clearly shown by recent investi- ga'ions, and the graduates are fortunate indeed to have the opportunity of becoming acquainted with this latest and very economical method of producing power from coal, a method which will very likely come rapidly into favor. The College is making history in investigating this problem, and is rendering tle state a valuable service in showing how it can best utilize the great lignite helds, and in training men so as to take prominent parts in the development of this great resource. The College has an equipment equalled by that of few institutions, which enables it to train men for gas engineering. The giowth of the College ID numbers and In material equipment has been gratifying,

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The Course in Nursing This is one of the new departments of the University established in I910, for the better equipment of the nurse, demanded by the physician and community. The course consists of a year's academic training preparatory to their practical hospital experience. The academic course, which is an integral part of the University organization, has been worked out with careful regard to the necessities of the nurse,s training and provides for thorough and complete instruction in the subjects required. It will give to any young woman who expects to follow that profession a very great advantageyin the work which she is to undertake in the hospital. Upon completion of the year of academic work, students taking this course are admitted to a number of affiliated hospitals which have indicated tldeir willingness to receive them for two years of practical work. Such a course has an advantage oxer training given wholly in the hospital, in that the theoretical work is systematic and thorough, rather than frag- mentary and crowded in between long, hard hours given to tlte care of patients, rooms, Hoors, the making of beds and the like. This academic course preliminary to the hospital training of nurses is one of the only two of its character in the country, the other being the one recently established at Columbia University in New York City. -W-' e w - ;-w........... k W eMiHm m. A .r: azarr- :v m: www.mf i : .,,...e,J- -, M-..

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for in spite of the additional space recently acquired the College is crowded as never before for want of room. Its class and drawing rooms are filled to overflowing; so much so, that two instructors in technical branches have during the past year been obliged to hold their classes in another building. It is to be hoped that in the near future the College will be provided with a large. commodious ancl artistically designed building. suitable for the designing and class room work of the College for years to come, for the College will doubtless have a history similar to those of other engineering colleges in other state universities, and grow by leaps and bounds, keeping step with the growth of the University and the development of the state. , The state is fortunate indeed in having such a strong College, giving its young men a first-class technical training, as the College of Mechanical and Electrical En- gineering, and the College is also fortunate in having such an energetic and capable body of students from which to draw. The students of this College are the sons of a wide-awake, ambitious and self-reliant people, who had courage and initiative to break away from their homes in the older and settled parts of the country, and push out on the frontier to blaze the way for a new commonwealth. Such people are above the average or they would not have ventured into the great and unknown Northwest. It is but natural to expect ,the children of such a people to be of an unusually high calibre, and with capabilities of a high order. MINING BUILDING