| Stevens Institute of Technology | |
|---|---|
| Motto | Per aspera ad astra (Through adversity to the stars) |
| Established | 1870 |
| Type | Private |
| Endowment | $136.3 million[1] |
| President | Nariman Farvardin [2] |
| Academic staff | 179 full-time and 149 part-time |
| Undergraduates | 2,040[3] |
| Postgraduates | 3,220[3] |
| Location | Hoboken, NJ, USA |
| Campus | Urban |
| Athletics | 26 varsity teams [4] |
| Colors | Stevens Red and Gray[5] |
| Nickname | "The Stute" or "The Old Stone Mill" |
| Mascot | Attila the Duck |
| Affiliations | MAISA |
| Website | www.stevens.edu |
Stevens Institute of Technology is a technological university located on a 55 acres (220,000 m2) campus in Hoboken, New Jersey, USA – founded in 1870 with an 1868 bequest from Edwin A. Stevens.[6] It is known for its engineering, science, and technological management curricula.
The institute 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 Langmuir (Chemistry faculty 1906-1909), in chemistry.[7]
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.
Among the prominent research centers of Stevens are the Davidson Laboratory, Wireless Network Security Center, Keck Geotechnical Laboratory, Plasma Physics Laboratory, Nicoll Environmental Laboratory, Electron Microscopy Laboratory, Center for Mass Spectrometry and the Center for Complex Adaptive Sociotechnological Systems (COMPASS).
Dr. Nariman Farvardin is the seventh president of Stevens. He took office July 1, 2011.[8]
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Stevens is composed of four academic schools: the Charles V. Schaefer, Jr. School of Engineering and Science, the College of Arts and Letters, the Wesley J. Howe School of Technology Management and the School of Systems and Enterprises.
Stevens offers the Bachelor of Engineering (B.E.) degree in electrical, chemical, biomedical, materials, civil, mechanical, systems, computer, environmental, naval, and ocean engineering, as well as in engineering management. A total of 145-155 credits is required for the B.E. degree. The engineering programs are accredited by the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) and have been accredited by ABET continuously since 1936.[9]
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.
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. Stevens Institute of Technology International offers two graduate programs in the Dominican Republic – a Master of Science in Information Systems and a Master of Engineering Manufacturing Technology and Project Management
The mission of the Charles V. Schaefer, Jr. School of Engineering & Science is to address the challenges facing engineering and science now and into the future while remaining true to the vision of the founders of Stevens as one of the first dedicated engineering schools in the nation. The Schaefer School of Engineering & Science offers Bachelor's, Master's and Doctoral degrees in various engineering and scientific disciplines for the traditional full time students as well as part time professionals.[10]
The School of Systems and Enterprises (SSE) emphasizes the industry and government experience of its faculty to provide real-world applications to its students. SSE offers a range of programs including Bachelor’s, Master’s, and Doctoral degrees along with a combined Bachelor’s and Master’s program and Graduate Certificates. Graduate courses at SSE are provided through flexible program delivery with options including on campus, at a work site or online through Stevens’ WebCampus.[11]
In 2010, Stevens opened a new location at the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington, D.C. offering graduate courses focused on technology management, systems engineering, and the sciences.[12]
The College of Arts and Letters (CAL) approaches the humanities, social sciences, and the arts from a science and technology perspective. While every undergraduate at Stevens is required to take a set of humanities courses, CAL offers Bachelor of Arts degrees in literature, history, philosophy, and the social sciences. CAL was established as a separate college in 2007 as part of a larger institutional realignment. CAL's formation followed a history of integrating humanities and liberal arts education which dates back to the university's founding in 1870.[13] In Fall 2011 CAL will be offering a new M.A. and graduate certificate in Technology, Policy, and Ethics.
The Wesley J. Howe School of Technology Management 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.[14] Stevens has a 7:1 student to faculty ratio that allows smaller classes and increased opportunity for student-faculty interaction.[15]
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.
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, whereas 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. At least eighteen credit hours of humanities (history, literature, social science, philosophy, and art/music) are required of all undergraduates.
The sports teams are called the Ducks. They participate in the Empire 8 Conference and NCAA Division III. They were one of the first 5 College football teams
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 reverse engineer the British steam locomotive to American standards for domestic manufacture. Robert Stevens, one of John Stevens' sons is known for inventing the flanged T rail, a 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.
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 1880, Robert H. Thurston, professor of mechanical engineering at Stevens, was nominated the first president of the American Society Of Mechanical Engineers.[16]
During World War II, Stevens Institute of Applied Science was one of 131 colleges and universities nationally that took part in the V-12 Navy College Training Program which offered students a path to a Navy commission.[17]
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.[18] Stone designs on the building's facade are believed to be derived from a pattern repeated in the floor mosaic of Hagia Sophia, the great cathedral in Istanbul, which Edwin A. Stevens is believed to have visited in the late 19th century.
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, students at Stevens, under the guidance of President Humphrey, created the Honor System – moral and ethical code governing the life of Stevens students, preaching equality and honest work.[19]
Stevens has a distinguished history and presence in the fields of economics of engineering and management science. Frederick Winslow Taylor (M.E., 1883), the "father of scientific management," developed time and motion studies in the steel industry and other manufacturing industries. The time and motion studies elucidated the most efficient way to do each task, the methods of distributing work in a factory, the assigning of production resources to workers and processes, and the quantifying and measuring of the resulting productivity. His books Shop Management and The Principles of Scientific Management remain classic monographs in the field. Although few or no plants today employ exactly the system of management that Taylor described, the underlying principles of analysis and empiricism that shaped his methods 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 ultra-pure 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.
SS Stevens, a 473-foot, 14,893-ton ship, served as the floating dormitory from 1968 to 1975 for about 150 students. Permanently moored on the scenic Hudson River at the foot of the campus across from New York City, this first collegiate floating dormitory[21] became one of the best known college landmarks in the country.[22] Following the sale of the ship, students of the Class of 1975 presented funds to the institute for the preparation of a site on Wittpenn Walk where one of Stevens' six-ton anchors was placed in tribute to "the Ship".[23] Recounting the events and sentiments on the day Stevens was towed away, the alumni association expressed in its journal, "She disappeared into the fog and into our hearts."[21]
During World War II, the institute was honored by the naming of the Victory Ship, SS Stevens Victory, a merchant cargo ship built by the Bethlehem Fairfield Shipyard at Baltimore. Launched on May 29, 1945, the ship was among of a group of 150 ships that were named for US Colleges and Universities.
Starting in 1971, women were first allowed to enroll in Stevens.[24]
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.[25] Around this time, an intranet was installed throughout the campus, which also placed Stevens among one of the very first universities with campus networks.
WCPR, the radio station of Stevens Institute of Technology, has one of the largest record collections in the state of New Jersey at over 10,000 LPs.[26]
The Research Enterprise at Stevens features three National Research Centers of Excellence: the Center for Secure & Resilient (CSR) Maritime Commerce;[27] Systems Engineering Research Center (SERC);[28] and the Atlantic Center for the Innovative Design & Control of Small Ships (ACCESS).[29] Stevens also features the Center for the Advancement of Secure Systems & Information Assurance (CASSIA),[30] a nexus for research advancements in cybersecurity in addition to a wide range of research centers and facilities.
Research at Stevens is structured into three overarching areas that are based on the needs of society and a determination of how the assets of the university can be utilized by industry and entrepreneurs.
Dr. Joseph Mitola III is the Vice President of the Research Enterprise.[34]
In 2009, after a two-year investigation by the New Jersey Attorney General, Stevens and the attorney general filed competing lawsuits against one another.[35] The New Jersey Attorney General suit against Stevens, its then-president and chairman of the Board of Trustees alleged numerous claims involving breach of fiduciary duty and other causes of action primarily relating to financial practices and the financial management of the Institute and the compensation and certain loan transactions involving the then-president.[36] The Stevens suit against the attorney general contended that the state attorney general had overstepped her legal authority over a private institution, and sought that any case be pursued by confidential arbitration.[35]
On January 15, 2010, Stevens announced that the institute and the New Jersey Attorney General's office agreed to a settlement of the September, 2009 lawsuit filed by the NJ Attorney General, as well as the separate suit filed by Stevens against the Attorney General.[37][38] In the settlement, the parties agreed to a number of changes to Stevens' governance procedures, and it appointed a Special Counsel to oversee the implementation of these changes and prepare periodic reports on Stevens’ progress.[38] Additionally, in a letter to the institute on January 15, 2010, the chairman of the Board of Trustees, Lawrence T. Babbio Jr., and the then-president Harold J. Raveché announced that Raveché had voluntarily decided that he would not continue as president beyond June 30, 2010 after 22 years of service as the institute's sixth president.[39] The settlement made Dr. Raveché a consultant to the Institute through October 2011 and forced him to repay the outstanding balance of loans previously made to him by Stevens.[40] It concludes with no admission of liability or unlawful conduct by any party.[38]
The Special Counsel, as appointed in the settlement, prepared six reports on the progress on the governance changes outlined in the settlement agreement.[41] The sixth and final quarterly report, dated August 3, 2011, states that Stevens completed on schedule the agreed upon changes to its governance procedures and that “Special Counsel now finds Stevens to be in full compliance with the terms of the Consent Judgment.” While the specific compliance requirements have been fulfilled, the Special Counsel will continue to monitor certain activities of Stevens through February 2012.[42]
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