Harvard Turns a Corner

ASEE Prism, Feb 2008 by Home-Douglas, Pierre

WITH THE RARE OPENING OF A NEW SCHOOL, THE UNIVERSITY RESTORES ENGINEERING TO ITS ONCE-PROMINENT SPOT.

ON A WARM, SUNNY AFTERNOON in September, 2007, Harvard did something it hadn't done in more than 70 years: It opened a new school. The Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (HSEAS) was formally christened at a ceremony held on the lawn of Pierce Hall, attended by several hundred faculty and visiting dignitaries from industry and educational institutions across the country, including the deans of engineering at Princeton and nearby Massachusette Institute of Technology. "As we dedicate our new School we affirm the vital importance of engineering and the applied sciences as part of the Harvard academic enterprise," Harvard President Drew Gilpin Faust said. "And at the same time, we affirm their power to connect, to bridge, and therefore to enliven and strengthen a great many other parts of the university, as well."

The elevation of engineering at Harvard from a division to a school represents much more than a simple switch of names. "As a school within Arts and Sciences, we will still have Harvard undergraduates who choose engineering as a concentration as opposed to a separate engineering admittance. We will still give graduate degrees through the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences," said Provost Steven Hyman. "But that said, the school will have substantially more administrative independence than it had. It will also be more in charge of its economic affairs, as well." Hyman foresees more collaboration in the future, not only within Arts and Sciences, but also between Engineering and other important Harvard schools, including Medicine and Business.

The opening of the new school preceded by several months another, more publicized change at Harvard: the university's decision in December 2007 to raise substantially the income ceiling on financial aid. Starting this fall, undergraduates from families with incomes of up to $180,000 won't have to pay more than 10 percent of the family's income in school costs.

Part of the impetus for the new school came from two of Harvard's most prominent former students, Microsoft founder Bill Gates and company CEO Steve Ballmer. In 1996, the two men donated $25 million to Harvard to create the Maxwell Dworkin building for computer science, named after their mothers, Mary Maxwell Gates and Beatrice Dworkin Ballmer. At the time, the pair pressed Harvard to place more emphasis on computer science and electrical engineering. They also suggested hiring a dean who understands engineering and applied sciences. Two years later, Venkatesh Narayanamurti-"Venky" to friends and colleagueswas recruited from the University of California at Santa Barbara and began the task of raising Harvard's engineering profile.

Right from the start, Narayanamurti says he recognized that in addition to computer science and electrical engineering, Harvard had an opportunity to add an important third leg: "Boston is the hub of a lot of life sciences, as well as the home of Harvard's Medical School, so there was a tremendous opportunity in bioengineering, as well." He adds, "I went before the overseers and the corporation several times. Things move slowly. We finally got approval from the faculty of Arts and Sciences last December and then from the corporation formally in February 2007. It was a sixor seven-year effort with a lot of support from a lot of people."

Narayanamurti's pivotal role in the elevation of engineering to a school status drew praise from Faust at the opening ceremonies. Referring to him as "the North Star of our engineering galaxy," the president said that it was his "foresight, determination and energy we have to thank for the milestone that brings us together today."

A Tangled History

ENGINEERING EDUCATION has a long, convoluted history at Harvard-"more twists and turns than a Möbius strip," says Faust. It began formally.in 1847 with a gift of $50,000 from Massachusetts industrialist and entrepreneur Abbott Lawrence. After a promising beginning, the Lawrence Scientific School struggled in the late 19th century. President Charles William Eliot, who helped establish Harvard as a premier American institution during his 40-year stewardship, regarded practical education with condescension, despite his training as a chemist. Computer science professor and former dean of Harvard College Harry Lewis notes in his book Education Without a Soul: Does Liberal Education Have a Future? that engineering was important to Eliot, but "it was for boys who did not have the 'makings' of a preacher or a scholar. It was not the sort of boy who went to Harvard."

Eliot did his best to rid Harvard of the Lawrence Scientific School, three times offering it to MIT, where Eliot had taught and where he believed engineering education better resided. A fourth attempt by Eliot's successor, A. Lawrence Lowell, precipitated a court battle that went all the way to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. The case centered upon a claim by the trustees of a huge 1891 endowment entrusted to Harvard by industrialist Gordon McKay, which specifically stipulated that Harvard would continue to offer an engineering program. McKay had been advised to give his money to MIT but chose Harvard because it offered an education more compatible with his vision of the cultured engineer-someone in the tradition of Leonardo da Vinci. By proposing that MIT assume the teaching of Harvard's engineering courses, the college was reneging on its agreement with McKay, the trustees charged. In 1917, the court ruled against Harvard's proposal and the following year, engineering education was reinstated at the university.