Worcester Polytechnic Institute - Peddler Yearbook (Worcester, MA)

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An Interview With President Edmund T. Cranch Q. ( Peddler): How does the role of being president of a small college such as WPI compare with being the dean of a school of engineering at a much larger institution such as Cornell? A (President Cranch): The difference lies primarily in two areas. One is the greater intimacy of a small college, while a second difference involves the greater freedom to define one ' s goals without having to mesh them as part of a much larger establishment. So in a sense you ' re more in command of the destiny of the educational program. In a small college you ' re not dependent on other schools or parts of a large university. Hence, in one sense there is greater flexibility. However, in a small institution size factors play a role. Some of these, such as the intimacy, are very positive. But the small college doesn ' t have all the adjacent fields and disciplines that can be drawn upon in a larger school. Though you may not draw on them that much, the diversity of disciplines is at least a psychological plus in a university of fifteen to twenty thousand students. Q: Had you thought about becoming a president of a college of some kind? A: In the last two years it became clear to me that I was going to make a decision in this direction in the near future. I had been putting off this kind of an opportunity for several years. I was reaching a stage where I was going to make a decision about what I will call a second career. I had a relatively long career as an academician and dean, and I wanted the next phase to be a worthwhile endeavor. The only question was how the ele ments would fall in place. Q: While at Cornell you gave quite a boost to the Master of Engineering proram. Why did you put so much emphasis on that program? A: There are several reasons for this. The Master of Engineering program at Cornell has a strong project component and I am an advocate of the project experience. In fact, that is clearly one of the attractive features of WPI. Now in the Cornell setting it was much easier and more appropriate to incorporate that component at the master ' s degree level than at the undergraduate level. Achieving undergraduate change in a large university is often much more difficult than achieving change in a smaller 25