The Denison Plan

Abstract

N A five-year program of educational research, in which practically all the engineering and technical schools of the country actively co-operated, the amazing fact was brought out that engineering graduates and engineering teachers considered cultural subjects of major importance in any engineering course. In this investigation financed by the Carnegie Corporation together with other contributors at a cost of over $200,Qoo and carried out by the Society for the Promotion of Engineering Education, 86 per cent of the engineers and 78 per cent of the engineering teachers who replied to the questionnaires believed that purely cultural subjects should be included in all engineering curriculums. Over 25 per cent of the engineers expressed the opinion that cultural subjects were indispensable to their intellectual development. English literature, composition, and public speaking were rated as second only to mathematics and physics as foundation courses. This demand for a broadening and liberalizing of the engineering curriculum is increasingly the outstanding development in engineering education. Coupled with this demand, however, there is the definite recommendation of the Society that a pre-engineering liberal-arts course devoid of engineering is less satisfactory than a course in which, from the beginning, engineering and liberalarts courses are thoroughly integrated. This appraisal by engineering educators suggests a fine opportunity of service for the small but efficient, well-equipped liberal-arts college. A study of the results of such an integrated program conducted at Denison University during the past five years gives rather striking evidence of its possibilities. In order to obtain definite information as to the value of an artsengineering program, a questionnaire designed to elicit frank estimates of the value of such a program was sent out to the engineering alumni of Denison; and, to obtain further unbiased judgments, opinions on the most desirable type of education for the engineer were requested from prominent engineers and engineering educators not connected with Denison. A brief outline of the Denison plan and an analysis of both groups of replies received should prove of interest to others as well as to engineers. A limited number of engineering courses under the head of