Stevens Institute of Technology
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| Motto | Per aspera ad astra (Through adversity to the stars) |
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| Established | 1870 |
| Type | Private university |
| President | Harold J. Raveché |
| Faculty | 150 approx. |
| Undergraduates | 1,780 |
| Postgraduates | 2,700 |
| Location | Hoboken, NJ, USA |
| Campus | Urban |
| Athletics | 24 varsity teams |
| Mascot | Attila the Duck |
| Website | www.stevens.edu |
Stevens Institute of Technology is a technological university located on a 55 acre (223,000 m²) campus in Hoboken, New Jersey, USA, founded in 1870 on the basis of an 1868 bequest from Edwin A. Stevens.
Stevens is known for its rigorous engineering, science, and technological management curricula. Among the prominent research centers of Stevens is the Davidson Laboratory, Wireless Network Security Center, Keck Geotechnical Laboratory, Plasma Physics Laboratory, Nicoll Environmental Laboratory, Electron Microscopy Laboratory, and Center for Mass Spectrometry.
Stevens is the fourth-oldest technological university in the United States, and has produced leading engineers, scientists, and managers in industry and government.
Two members of the Stevens community, as alumni or faculty, have been awarded the Nobel Prize: Frederick Reines (class of 1939), in Physics, and Irving Langmiur (of the Chemistry faculty), in chemistry.
The Stevens campus encompasses Castle Point, the highest point in Hoboken. Historic Sybil's Cave bores into the side of Castle Point, and below and to the east of the university is Frank Sinatra Park, Castle Point Park, and Castle Point Skate Park. The tallest building in the institute is the Wesley J. Howe Center, occupying the site of the former "Stevens Castle" on Castle Point.
The current president of Stevens Institute of Technology is Harold J. Raveché.
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[edit] Education environment
Stevens houses three academic schools, the Charles V. Schaefer, Jr. School of Engineering, the Arthur E. Imperatore School of Sciences and Arts, and the Wesley J. Howe School of Technology Management.
Stevens offers the Bachelor of Engineering (B.Eng.) degree in electrical, chemical, biomedical, materials, civil, mechanical, systems, engineering management, computer, and ocean engineering. A total of 145-155 credits is required for the B.Eng. degree. Stevens is one of the few schools in the United States that has retained a broad-based engineering curriculum, requiring many courses in engineering disciplines outside of one's major area of concentration as well as an extensive science foundation. Stevens students credit the high, diverse course load with providing them the ability to solve problems outside their immediate fields of study, and to effectively attack interdisciplinary problems that cut across many different, but related, areas of engineering and science. This has made Stevens engineers extraordinarily professionally competent in solving problems compared with many others whose training was focused in a narrow specialty. The Stevens curriculum is noted for its large number of required core courses that are optional in many other schools.
All of the engineering curricula, with the exception of Biomedical Engineering, are accredited by the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET). The newest discipline, Biomedical Engineering, is currently finishing the required approval period and accreditation is expected in 2006. The Bachelor of Science (B.S.) degree is offered in chemistry, business & technology management, computer science, mathematics, physics, materials science, and chemical biology/biochemistry. At the graduate level, Stevens offers the Master of Engineering (M.Eng.), Master of Technology Management (M.T.M.), Master of Science (M.S.), Master of Business Administration (M.B.A.), Engineer (E.E., M.E., Comp.E., C.E., and Ch.E.), and Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) degrees.
Stevens offers an accelerated Chemical Biology/Pre-Medical program with the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. In this program, students can enter the medical school after the third year at Stevens. Stevens confers the B.S. degree after the first year of medical school, with the M.D. degree awarded after the fourth year. There is also a prelaw program with New York Law School, and a "3-2" (5 year) dual-degree program with New York University, in which students earn a B.S. in science from NYU, in addition to the B.Eng. from Stevens.
The Wesley J. Howe School of Technology Management differs substantially from most traditional business schools in that it emphasizes quantitative methods of management, particularly those unique to the management of technologically-based organizations. The Stevens undergraduate program emphasizes mathematical business models, applications of hard science to the concept and marketing of products, financial engineering (stochastic calculus, probability, and statistics as descriptors of the dynamic behavior of financial markets) and the case study method of business analysis. The capstone project in the Business curriculum is the design of a technology-based business, with the accompanying business plan, operations research, market analysis, financial prospectus, and risk analysis. Several of the capstone projects done in the business school have actually been realized in the marketplace as new companies. Stevens has remained a "small school" because it allows smaller classes for improved efficiency and better student-faculty interaction.
Current focus in Stevens is integration of business and technology, with technology coming first. The aim is to produce alumni possessing both the skills to create and to lead and manage technological projects. This achieved through high student involvement in research activities and collaboration with faculty helping bring any project from concept to a real commercial product.
Another important trait of Stevens is its interdisciplinary philosophy – students are not forced to only take courses from their particular department, it is possible to get involved into different fields of science and technology or even graduate with an interdisciplinary major. The quality of individual study plan is assured through faculty advisers representing the respective departments.
The Honor System gives the student the privilege to take an examination without proctoring by a professor. Students are required to sign the Honor System pledge attesting that they have not "asked for, given, nor received aid during this examination" in exchange for that privilege. The pledge reads, "I pledge my honor that I have abided by the Stevens Honor System." At the time of its incorporation, students taking examinations were watched closely by a proctor, and asking not to be proctored was a revolutionary idea. Proctoring presumes students will not do the honorable thing, so the Honor System places great trust in the students. Stevens treats its students as future professionals, who will maintain the honor and integrity of their professions. In the case of infractions of the Honor System, a jury of the student's peers hears the case in a trial and decides the outcome.
Stevens was the first technological university in the United States with a humanities department. Twenty-four credit hours of humanities (history, literature, social science, philosophy, and art/music) are required of all undergraduates.
[edit] History
The Stevens Institute of Technology is named after a family of accomplished inventors and engineers.
In 1784, the land now occupied by Stevens Institute of Technology was purchased by John Stevens, who would later invent the steam locomotive. Robert Stevens, one of John Stevens' sons is known for inventing the T-rail, the form of railroad rail in use today throughout the world. With his brother Edwin A. Stevens, Robert created America's first commercial railroad.
When Edwin A. Stevens died in 1868, he left a bequest in his will as an endowment for the establishment of an "institution of learning", providing his trustees with land and funds.
The Stevens Institute of Technology opened in 1870 and initially was dedicated to mechanical engineering, but over time it has grown to include all disciplines.
The original course of study was a single, rigorous curriculum that was based upon the European model of science, modeled after the French and German scientific and technical schools, rather than the shop schools that were common at that time. The original degree offered was that of "Mechanical Engineer" (M.E.), in addition to a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering, chemistry, or physics. Stevens granted several Ph.D.s between 1870 and 1900, making it one of the earliest Ph.D. granting institutions in the United States. The broad-based interdisciplinary philosophy was put into practice by the founders from the first graduating class. While the original area of concentration was mechanical engineering, and despite the title of the degree, the curriculum included courses in all of the then-current engineering disciplines; mechanical, civil, chemical, and electrical engineering.
In 1959 the undergraduate engineering degree was changed to the Bachelor of Engineering (B.Eng.) to reflect the broad-based interdisciplinary engineering curriculum (note that the M.E. degree of that time was a baccalaureate degree, not to be confused with the present Engineer's degree which is a terminal professional graduate degree).
The campus began on the edge of the family estate at Castle Point in Hoboken. It occupied a single building now designated the Edwin A. Stevens Building and a Federal historical landmark.
In 1959, the 40-room Victorian mansion, "Castle Stevens" was demolished to be replaced in 1962 by the 14-story Administration Building, later renamed the Wesley J. Howe building.
In 1906, Stevens creates the Honor System – moral and ethical code governing the life of Stevens students, preaching equality and honest work.
Stevens has a distinguished history and present in the fields of economics of engineering and management science. Frederick Winslow Taylor, the "Father of scientific management" (M.E., 1886) developed time and motion studies in the nasceant steel manufacturing and tool and die industry. The time and motion studies elucidated the most efficient methods of distributing work in a factory, assigning production resources to workers and processes, quantifying and measuring the resulting productivity. His book, "The One Best Way" remains a classic textbook in the field. These techniques of improving manufacturing productivity are still in use today. Henry Gantt, Taylor's classmate, was the developer of the "Gantt chart", which is a graphical technique for identifying the critical path- the succession of particular steps in a process that control the cost and schedule as a function of the dependencies between the steps. Present day, computer-aided program evaluation and review techniques, critical path optimization, and linear programming techniques still utilize Gantt's principles.
Closely associated with time-motion studies was the psychology of employee and organizational behavior. Dr. Charles Gaudet organized one of the first Psychological Studies Laboratories at Stevens in 1945. The Laboratory developed psychological tests and standards for public employees such as police and fire. These tests, elements of which are in use today, have proven themselves accurate predictors of performance under stressful conditions.
During the Manhattan Project, the International Nickel Company, under the direction of president Charles Stanley (M.E., 1943) developed the ultrapure nickel that was used to fabricate diffusion barriers used in the gaseous isotope diffusion separation process at Los Alamos which produced the uranium-235 used in the Hiroshima atomic bomb. Previous attempts at gas diffusion failed due to impurities in the diffusion barrier alloys causing corrosion of the apparatus by the uranium hexafluoride gas used in the process. Frederick Reines, (M.E., 1939, M.S., 1941), who would later discover the neutrino — which won him the Nobel Prize in 1995 — directed the experimental division of the Manhattan Project.
Starting in 1971, women were finally allowed to enroll in Stevens.
In 1982, Stevens was the first institution in the U.S. to require all incoming freshman undergraduate students to purchase and use a personal computer. Around this time, an intranet was installed throughout the campus, which also placed Stevens among one of the very first universities with campus networks.
Today's campus network combines high-bandwidth Internet connection with ubiquitous local area wired and wireless network, besides that campus servers provide numerous network services for students.
John Lewis Stevens is the last remaining Stevens in the blood line of his ancestors. He plans to continue developing the areas in both math and science. He will graduate from Florida State and possibly attend Stevens for his Master's Degree.
[edit] Student organizations
Stevens has a wide variety of student organizations for the size of the school. On campus, the formal name for a club is an RSO (Registered Student Organization). The SGA (Student Government Association) charters the organizations and allocates funding to them. Some organizations include:
- Alpha Phi Omega (website)
- Stevens Yacht Club (website)
- The Student Government Association (website)
- The Korean Graduate Students Association (website)
- The Chinese Student Association (website)
- The Ethnic Student Council (website)
- The Honor Board (website)
- The Anime Club (website)
- The Stevens Dramatic Society (website)
- The Gear and Triangle Society (website)
- SitTV (website)
- The Stute (newspaper)
- Red Shift (literary magazine)
- Castle Point Radio (website)
- Castle Point Records (website)
- Stevens Underground Music Awareness Committee (SUMAC) (website)
[edit] Research environment
Stevens houses many prominent research centers.
Davidson Laboratory: One of the largest is the Davidson Laboratory, which is the oldest non-military hydrodynamics, naval architecture, and ocean engineering research laboratory in the United States. The Davidson Laboratory houses several towing tanks, which are equipped with computer-controlled machinery to generate waves with precisely determined amplitude and spectral characteristics. Trolleys mounted on rotating and linear arms carry scale models of the ships or vehicles to be tested while sensors record the vehicle motion and the data analyzed on computers. The stability, control, and seaworthiness characteristics of the vessel can thus be precisely characterized. Davidson Lab has designed and tested numerous ships, boats, yachts, submarines, and amphibious vehicles. Notable projects of Davidson include seakeeping and buoyancy tests of the Apollo flotation balloons (computer simulations showed the balloons to adequately support the spacecraft when it parachuted into the ocean, however, Davidson Lab proved by experiment that the original design would have caused the spacecraft to overturn and sink. The design was thus corrected and retested), design and test of the majority of the America's Cup racing yachts including several Cup winners, many Navy ships, and amphibious aircraft. The Davidson Laboratory is now part of the Center for Maritime Systems, which conducts research in the fields of coastal oceanography and underwater acoustics, as well as the traditional marine craft hydrodynamics studies. The high-speed linear towing tank facility is currently being upgraded and expanded, and is scheduled to be reopened in 2006.
[edit] Technogenesis
Stevens uses a unique system of scholarship and practical courses to create an overall learning environment designed to encourage innovation with the ultimate goal of establishing new technology-based businesses. It now calls this system Technogenesis. Technogenesis is a trademarked word that is now owned by Stevens but was first used in 1993 by Technogenesis, Inc. (of Mineola, NY).
[edit] Facts
- Stevens is a very selective university. The average SAT score of Stevens is 1380 and 50% of the undergraduates come from the top 10% of their high school classes with an average high school GPA of 3.8. The average SAT score of the students in the Accelerated Pre-Medical program is 1430.
- The engineering curricula require 149 to 155 credit hours of study. Stevens has retained the broad-based engineering curriculum that its founders considered the cornerstone of a complete engineer. The large number of courses, many in engineering disciplines outside of one's direct concentration, account for the large total number of credits. Students in the dual degree program with NYU take 200 credits in five years. Many students find this workload very challenging.[citation needed]
- The Gourman Report ranks Stevens 30th in the nation in engineering, and all of its engineering programs in the "Very Strong" category.
- The Princeton Review (unaffiliated with Princeton University) has ranked Stevens among the Top 25 Most Entrepreneurial Campuses in 2004.
- In 2003 Stevens was ranked #1 most connected campus in the country by Princeton Review.
- Stevens is on the Princeton Review's "Best Northeastern Colleges" list.
- Stevens has also been ranked as #2 in the country for "Professors Get Low Marks" by the Princeton Review, strangely enough, being bested only by Caltech.
- 50% of Stevens' engineering students participate in cooperative education. Stevens is one of eleven institutions accredited by the Accreditation Council for Cooperative Education.
- In 2003, Stevens was criticized by Michael Mooney, a teacher at Elysian Charter School, who said Stevens was being careless about asbestos during the construction of the Babbio Center, and allowing the asbestos to carry over to nearby Sinatra Park where kids play.[1]
- Stevens is accredited in nine engineering disciplines by the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology. Stevens was one of the first three institutions in the United States to receive accreditation in Computer Science from the Computer Science Accreditation Board.
- A Standard and Poor's survey of the backgrounds of directors and CEOs of Fortune 500 corporations placed Stevens as 11th in the number of alumni who have become presidents and directors of major corporations.
- In the National Research Council's survey of "Baccalaureate Origins of United States Doctoral Recipients", Stevens was ranked as 16th in the United States for the number of undergraduate alumni who go on to earn doctorates in engineering, science, law, and medicine.
- Stevens is home to the largest collection of Leonardo DaVinci facsimiles in eastern North America.
- The Stevens campus has a brief feature in the movie "The Professional" (a.k.a. "Leon") starring Jean Reno and Natalie Portman.
- Students of Stevens inflate the balloons for the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.
[edit] Notable alumni
- Lawrence Babbio, B.E., 1966, former CEO, Verizon Wireless Corporation, now CEO, ADC Telecommunications Corp.
- Evelyn E. Bailey, B.S., Professor of Economics, Princeton University
- Frederick L. Bissinger, M.E., 1939, M.S. 1941, President, Allied Chemical Corporation (now Allied-Signal)
- Samuel P. Bush, 1884, President, Buckeye Steel Castings, adviser to US President Herbert Hoover, patriarch of Bush political family
- Alexander Calder, M.E., 1919, creator of the Mobile and popularizer of that art form
- Aaron B. Cohen, M.S., former Director, Manned Space Flight Center, NASA
- James Corcoran, M.E., M.S., President and CEO, Lockheed Martin Corporation
- Leon F. Cordero, M.E., 1953, President of Ecuador
- Rev. Gabriel Costa, Ph.D., 1972, Associate Professor of Mathematics, United States Military Academy at West Point
- Stephen Crandall, M.E., 1959, Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Mark Crispin, B.S., 1977, Inventor of IMAP
- L. Sprague de Camp, M.S., 1933, science fiction author, Lest Darkness Fall, The Wheels of If, The Great Monkey Trial, winner of the Hugo Award (1997)
- Frank Fernandez, M.S., head, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
- Alfred Fielding, 1939, Co-inventor of Bubble wrap
- Louis A. Hazeltine, M.E., Sc.D., 1926, founder Hazeltine Corporation, inventor of the neutrodyne radio receiver
- Henry Gantt, developed the Gantt chart, an important project management tool
- Leland B. Jackson, Sc.D., 1966, head Dept. of Electrical Engineering, University of Rhode Island
- Eugene McDermott, M.E., 1953, founder, Texas Instruments
- John McLean, MD, B.S., 1960, developer of corneal transplant and founder of the Eye Bank for Sight Restoration
- Charles Stewart Mott, M.E. 1882, co-founder of General Motors Corporation
- Rowland W. Redington, M.E., 1945, inventor of the "fan beam" method of Computer Axial Tomography (CAT) scanners and refiner of MRI techniques
- Frederick Reines, M.E., 1939, M.S. 1943, discoverer of the neutrino, 1995 Nobel Prize in Physics
- Richard Reeves, M.E., 1960, Emmy Award winner, syndicated columnist, author, television commentator
- Mark Schubin, B.S., 1971, Emmy Award winner, satellite broadcast engineering consultant
- James Spady, M.E., 1955, Professor, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania
- Frederick Winslow Taylor, M.E., 1883, developer of scientific management methods and time-motion studies
- Zehev Tadmor, Sc.D., 1966, President, Technion- Israel Institute of Technology
- John Van der Sande, B.S., Professor of Materials Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Cardinal Warde, B.S., 1969, Professor of Electrical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
[edit] External links
- Stevens Institute of Technology official site
- History from official site
- Center for Maritime Systems (Davidson Laboratory)
- Stevens Institute of Technology Legends at Wikibooks
- Construction data on Wesley J. Howe Center
[edit] References
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