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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
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institution. Another reason for emphasizing master ' s level work relates to the development of graduate education since the early 1950 ' s when engineering graduate education came of age nationally. Prior to World War II graduate work was not viewed as a significant component in the life of most engineering institutions. World War II changed all that because engineering systems and devices were very relevant to wartime needs. Hence, a definite watershed occurred so that after World War II there was an awareness on the part of faculties of the role of research and development in industry. All of a sudden this became a very desirable and attractive goal for educational institutions. However, what did these institutions do? The vast majority of them copied the traditions that had been established prior to World War II in the natural sciences — physics and chemistry — which themselves were to some extent patterned after traditional scholarly work in the humanities. So the rapid development in engineering graduate education of the nineteen fifties and sixties was concentrated at the Ph.D. level. Ph.D. programs became part of the fabric of higher education in engineering during this period. The master ' s level was given relatively little attention. In fact, in many institutions it was suppressed so that it was not even viewed as a valuable goal to pursue. The other important major change in engineering education right after World War II was the great expansion of the humanities in undergraduate engineering curricula, together with an increased emphasis on the so-called engineering sciences. As a result, many courses that had provided engineering disciplinary depth, especially upper class disciplinary depth, were forced out of the curricula. Hence, although the education was still of four years duration, the content of that education was changed substantially. The disciplinary depth and sophistication thai was included earlier could now only be achieved if you added another year, a so- called fifth year. Some institutions experimented with a fifth year at the undergraduate level. In fact, Cornell was the leading institution which implemented the five-year undergraduate degree. But, it could not maintain a five-year undergraduate degree program in competition with the great growth of graduate work, where a master ' s degree could be obtained at the end of five years. It was partly a marketing phenomena. So (he five-year undergraduate concept was abandoned and Cornell changed the fifth year to a master ' s year. It is a long explanation, but one needs to understand the history in order to see that the stage was set for the introduction of a graduate program different from the Ph.D. in which research is the main goal. Thus, it became very natural to create a Master of Engineering program with a project component and with a goal distinct from that of the Ph.D. It was also my belief at that time that in the steady state, after the R D industry stabilized and the Ph.D. market became saturated, the master ' s degree would be a very desirable degree from the industrial point of view. I think that the events of the 1970 ' s have substantiated this belief. The validity of this point of view is now being recognized nationally, for many schools are now emphasizing master ' s degree programs. In a sense this is analogous to the M.B.A. degree in Business Schools. Consequently, several factors were present in shaping my decision to give a high priority to a Master of Engineering program. Now, one of the major difficulties at a private institution is the need to fund such programs. The tuition level is high relative to public institutions. Further, the Ph.D. programs which were created relied on federal contracts to support the graduate students. In fact, very few Ph.D. students in engineering support themselves. Federal grants and contracts provide both tuition and a stipend on which to live. The whole thrust of government funding from the 1950 ' s to the present time has been to support contract research at the Ph.D. level. However, most master ' s degree programs do not emphasize research so that these students do not qualify for research contract support. Consequently, before implementing a master ' s program one must provide a financial aid base that is per capita at least equal to that at the undergraduate level. At Cornell one of my major priorities was to raise funds for financial assistance for master ' s degree students. Q: How much of an example do you think a college president should set? Would you consider yourself the kind of technological humanist that the Plan is striving to produce? A: The president has a responsibility not only to support the main program components of the WPI Plan but also to work with the faculty to improve and perfect the academic program. However, in saying that, one must be clear that the academic program is largely in the domain of the faculty and it is their responsibility to implement it. To me, the phrase technological humanist means an individual who first of all possesses technological expertise, while also being aware of and capable of contributing to the social and human environment in which we all live. For many years I have tried to fulfill this concept of the Plan. I believe that all of higher education, including engineering, arts and sciences, and other disciplines should strive to educate students in the spirit of the technological humanist. Q: What are your feelings on the Plan? A: I am very impressed by the Plan and think that the four major degree components have a fundamental validity of their own. I believe that when other institutions strive for educational reform they will, in fact, adopt a number of these components. It could be helpful if we obtained feedback from our graduates after they have had some experience in their work careers. Perhaps we are unnecessarily overemphasizing certain topics, or there may be some things that we ' re missing or not giving sufficient emphasis. As with all new academic programs, once they are introduced and stabilized they can be surrounded by a kind of orthodoxy. We have to watch out that such orthodoxies not get so deeply embedded that modification of the Plan becomes exceedingly difficult. Modern education is a dynamic process and I am an enthusiast for the Plan. Q: Do you see any future changes in the Plan that you will try to implement? 7 A: Although I don ' t see any major changes in the Plan, there are areas which we must strengthen and perfect. All of higher education finds the IQP area a difficult one in which to educate. It requires crossing disciplinary boundaries and the whole structure of higher education is discipline oriented. Educators have been so schooled in the notion that they must have deep disciplinary expertise before they can express a valid opinion on a topic, that they have a tremendous reluctance to educate in the IQP area. Nationally, in the last ten years there have been many programs in this direction, but superficiality and the lack of focus have led to considerable uneasiness on how one should educate in this mode. Consequently, I look for continued efforts to strengthen the IQP area. I would also like to see WPI expand and deepen its real life MQP projects with industry. It is a marvelous opportunity for an institution to introduce the student to the real world of engineering problems. He sees not only the technological factors necessary to getting the job done, but he also sees that other important factors such as human relations, communications, and economics often provide the governing constraint. The way problems are posed in an educational institution leads one to believe that the deciding factors are technological, but real- world experience shows that engineering is a multidisciplinary endeavor. I am a strong supporter of the project mode in education. A co-op program another opportunity for real-world experience. Hence, I will encourage WPI to expand its efforts in co- op education. In doing this we must be careful to distinguish between MQP activity and the co-op work periods, but I believe that we can distinguish between the two. I believe that many students seek a co-op experience and WPI should be alert to this opportunity. Q: If the WPI Plan had been in existence when you were starting as a college student, would you have sought I out the Plan and how would that have influenced your educational experience A: Had the WPI concept of education been in existence at that time, I would have been attracted to such an institution, because at that time I was seeking a real-life dimension to motivate my education. I didn ' t start college as an engineer. Upon graduation from high school I wasn ' t at all certain what I wanted to study in college. I 26
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