Stevens Institute of Technology

Stevens Institute of Technology (SIT) is a private, coeducational research university located in Hoboken, New Jersey, United States. The university also has a satellite location in Washington, D.C.. Incorporated in 1870, it is one of the oldest technological universities in the United States, and was the first college in America solely dedicated to Mechanical Engineering. The campus encompasses Castle Point, the highest point in Hoboken, and several other buildings around the city.

Founded from an 1868 bequest from Edwin Augustus Stevens, enrollment at Stevens includes more than 5,000 undergraduate and graduate students representing 47 states and 60 countries throughout Asia, Europe and Latin America. The university is home to three national Centers of Excellence as designated by the U.S. Departments of Defense and Homeland Security. 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.

Stevens ranks #76 in U.S. News & World Report "Best National Universities" list, #75 for undergraduate engineering and #72 for graduate engineering. Stevens also ranks #3 in the U.S. in mid-career salaries of graduates, as well as #5 in the U.S. among "Best Engineering Colleges By Salary Potential," a list compiled by payscale.com based on self-reported data.

Dr. Nariman Farvardin is the seventh president of Stevens. He took office on July 1, 2011.

§History

§Establishment and the Stevens family

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's sons, invented the flanged T rail, a form of railroad rail in prevalent use today. With his brother Edwin A. Stevens, Robert created America's first commercial railroad.

John Cox Stevens, John Stevens' eldest son, was the first commodore of the New York Yacht Club. With his brother Edwin, they built the yacht America and were aboard its 1851 regatta victory in England, later recognized as the first winner of the America's Cup.

Edwin died in 1868. In his will, he left a bequest for the establishment of an "institution of learning," providing his trustees with land and funds.

§Early years

Stevens Institute of Technology opened in 1870 and initially was dedicated to mechanical engineering.

The original course of study was a single, rigorous curriculum based upon the European Polytechnic model of engineering science (following the French and German scientific and polytechnic schools), rather than the shop schools that were common at that time. "Mechanical Engineer" (M.E.) was the original degree offered, 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. Despite the title of the degree and concentration in mechanical engineering, the curriculum included courses in all engineering disciplines of the time; mechanical, civil, chemical, and electrical. In 1880, Robert H. Thurston, professor of mechanical engineering, was nominated the first president of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.

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. 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 Stevens is believed to have visited in the late 19th century.

In 1906, students, under the guidance of President Humphreys, created the honor system â€" moral and ethical code governing the life of Stevens students, preaching equality and honest work.

§Modern history

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.

Also 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 one of 150 named for U.S. colleges and universities.

In 1959 the undergraduate engineering degree was changed to the Bachelor of Engineering (B.Eng.) to reflect the broad-based interdisciplinary engineering curriculum (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).

In 1959, the 40-room Victorian mansion, "Castle Stevens," was demolished, and replaced in 1962 by the 14-story administration building, later renamed the Wesley J. Howe building.

SS Stevens, a 473-foot, 14,893-ton ship, served as a floating dormitory from 1968 to 1975 for approximately 150 students. Moored on the Hudson River at the foot of campus across from New York City, this first collegiate floating dormitory became one of the best known college landmarks in the country. 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". On the day Stevens was towed away, the alumni association recounted sentiments in its journal, "She disappeared into the fog and into our hearts."

Stevens was one of the first five college football teams.

The first women were admitted to Stevens graduate program in 1967. Stevens undergraduate program became coeducational in 1971. The Class of 1975 matriculated 19 women, and 40 years later, women make up 25 percent of undergraduates.

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 campus, which placed Stevens among the first universities with campus networks.

WCPR, the radio station of Stevens Institute of Technology, has over 10,000 LPs, one of the largest record collections in New Jersey.

§Attorney General lawsuit

In 2009, after a two-year investigation by the New Jersey Attorney General, Stevens and the attorney general filed competing lawsuits against one another. The 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. The Stevens suit against the attorney general contended that she had overstepped her legal authority over a private institution, and sought that any case be pursued by confidential arbitration.

On January 15, 2010, Stevens announced that the institute and the attorney general's office settled the competing lawsuits. 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. 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 not to continue as president beyond June 30, 2010 after 22 years in that position. 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. It concludes with no admission of liability or unlawful conduct by any party.

The special counsel prepared six reports on the progress of the governance changes outlined in the settlement agreement. 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.

§Academics

§Colleges

Stevens is composed of four academic schools: the Charles V. Schaefer, Jr. School of Engineering and Science, the School of Systems and Enterprises, the Wesley J. Howe School of Technology Management and the College of Arts and Letters. There are 29 undergraduate majors and a 7:1 faculty to student ratio. Graduate offerings include 22 Ph.D. programs, 43 master's programs, 122 certificate programs, and graduate-level offerings custom designed for corporations.

Stevens offers the Bachelor of Engineering (B.E.) degree in biomedical, chemical, civil, computer, electrical, environmental, mechanical, and naval engineering, as well as in engineering management.

The Bachelor of Science (B.S.) degree is offered in bioanalytical chemistry, bioinformatics, business, chemical biology, chemistry, computational science, computer science, cybersecurity, engineering physics, information systems, mathematical sciences, physics, quantitative finance, and science and law. 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.

The Schaefer School's mission 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 offers bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees with a variety of certificates in various engineering and scientific disciplines for full-time students and part-time professionals. The goal of most doctoral work is to develop technologies and processes that provide social benefit in society's security, energy, environmental, medicine, and health care challenges. Stevens Institute of Technology had a dual degree program in engineering with New York University until New York University started its own engineering school in 2008 by acquiring another reputed school of engineering called Polytechnic Institute of New York University, which is located in New York City.

The Howe School offers undergraduate, master's, MBA, and doctoral degrees, as well as certificates, in a variety of technology management specialties. 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 projects have been developed into real companies.

The School of Systems and Enterprises (SSE) features faculty with industry and government experience to provide real-world applications to its students. SSE offers bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees along with a combined bachelor’s and master’s program and graduate certificates. SSE offers flexibility in its graduate course delivery. Options include on campus in Hoboken or at the Washington, D.C. location, at a work site, or online through Stevens’ WebCampus. The school's education and research reaches across industries, including defense, homeland security, intelligence, nuclear weapons, communications, space, infrastructure, finance and business solutions. The school follows an open academic model, which emphasizes the interplay between academia, industry, and government.

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 B.A. 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. In fall 2011 CAL began offering a new M.A. and graduate certificate in Technology, Policy, and Ethics.

§Research

The research enterprise at Stevens features three national Centers of Excellence, as designated by the U.S. government: the National Center for Secure and Resilient (CSR) Maritime Commerce; the National Systems Engineering Research Center (SERC); and the Atlantic Center for the Innovative Design and Control of Small Ships (ACCESS).

Stevens also features the Center for the Advancement of Secure Systems and Information Assurance (CASSIA), dedicated to advancements in cybersecurity. The center was developed in response to Stevens' designations by the Department of Homeland Security and the National Security Agency as a National Center of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance Education for the academic years 2003 through 2014, and as a National Center of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance Research for the years 2008 through 2013.

The Center for Maritime Systems at Stevens works to preserve and secure America's maritime resources and assets. The center includes the Davidson Laboratory, a research facility focused on physical modeling and computer simulation of marine craft designs. The lab houses a 313-foot long wave tank capable of recreating a variety of wave types for maritime testing. Work at the lab was dedicated to the war effort during World War II. The facility is one of only two designated International Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmarks in the United States.

The Center for Maritime Systems contributed to the US Airways Flight 1549 Miracle on the Hudson recovery by analyzing water currents to identify the best location to tow the plane and locate the plane's missing engine.

The Center for Innovation in Engineering and Science Education (CIESE), part of the Schaefer School, provides expertise to improve K-12 science, mathematics, engineering, and technology education, with the goal to increase the number of students pursuing STEM majors and careers in technological fields. CIESE received the Presidential Award for Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Mentoring in 2011.

The Center for Environmental Systems (CES) develops environmental technologies through collaboration between faculty in the Department of Civil, Environmental and Ocean Engineering, the Department of Defense, and private enterprise. Principal research areas for CES include drinking water technologies, wastewater treatment, air pollution control, environmental systems modeling and monitoring, pollution prevention and minimization, and life cycle assessment.

Other research centers at Stevens are the 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).

Stevens partnered with Parsons The New School for Design and Milano School of International Affairs, Management and Urban Policy to design an affordable green home as part of the 2011 Solar Decathlon. The team partnered with Habitat for Humanity of Washington, DC to provide the home to a low-income family in the Deanwood section of Washington at the conclusion of the competition.

The U.S. Department of Energy selected Stevens as one of 20 teams to compete in the 2013 Solar Decathlon to be held at Orange County Great Park in Irvine, California, the first time the competition has been held outside of Washington, D.C.

§Rankings

Stevens is currently ranked #76 among all U.S. universities by U.S. News & World Report, making a move of 6 spots up from #82 the previous year. Stevens ranks #9 nationally in "return on investment" (total income earned over 30 years post-graduation, minus the cost of tuition)--higher than all the Ivy League institutions and Stanford Universityâ€"according to the self-reported career and salary data service PayScale.

Stevens graduates are the 12th-highest paid in the nation, according to PayScale. This self-reported data was copied over and published by CNNMoney

Stevens also ranks #8 nationwide in the percentage of STEM (science, technology, education and mathematics) undergraduate degrees conferred according to U.S. News & World Report.

§Athletics

Stevens Institute of Technology is a member of the Empire 8 Conference, Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) and NCAA Division III. The sports teams are called the Ducks and their mascot is Attila the Duck.

In 1994, the school built the Schaefer Athletic and Recreation Center, which features an NCAA competition-sized pool and indoor soccer, basketball, volleyball, squash and racquetball courts. The Schaefer Center construction was part of a $23 million investment in new facilities that also included renovations to Walker Gym, and installation of a new turf field. During the 2000s, the school added nine new varsity programs, for a total of 26, in an effort to build a nationally competitive sports program. The effort succeeded in attracting more women to apply to Stevens and expanded recruitment for athletes across the country. The women's soccer team was the first athletics team to receive an at-large bid, host and record a victory in the NCAA Tournament over Johns Hopkins in 2002.

Stevens was named ECAC Institution of the Year in 2008 and again in 2013, an honor that measures a combination of athletics success and classroom academic performance at more than 300 Division I, II, and III colleges and universities. Stevens is one of only three institutions to win the award multiple times. The athletic department has previously been awarded a #13 ranking in the 2011 Learfield Sports Division III Directors' Cup, and the 2007 Jostens/NADIIIAA Community Service Award of Merit.

Stevens athletic teams have collectively won 22 Empire 8 championships since switching to the conference in 2007. The 2008 men's soccer team reached the Div. III NCAA championship game, losing to Messiah College in penalty kicks. In the fall 2010 season, Stevens was one of only two Div. III schools with four teams competing in post-season NCAA tournaments.

A number of athletes representing Stevens have received awards. Soccer goalkeeper Zach Carr received All-American and Academic All-American honors in 2010. Carr led the nation in 2010 with a .927 save percentage and maintained a 3.92 grade-point average. During the course of his career, he held the second longest scoreless streak in NCAA history and held an unofficial record of 55 shutouts. In 2011 Laura Barito, a 22-time All-American in swimming and track and two-time, two-sport NCAA national champion (in 50-yard freestyle swimming and the 400-meter hurdles), was awarded the NCAA Woman of the Year. Barito, who was also named by CoSIDA/Capital One to the Academic All-America First Team, was only the second Division III athlete to win the NCAA Woman of the Year Award in its 21-year history. In 2012, Stevens swimmer Brittany Geyer won the national women's 200-yard breaststroke title.

Stevens has also won the national championship in men's top-level lacrosse four times:1892, 1894, 1917 and 1918.

§Student life

§Greek organizations

Stevens Institute of Technology hosts chapters of fifteen social and academic fraternities and sororities, many of which were founded on campus over a century ago. These groups, through their social, academic, leadership and alumni networking programs, are aimed at building lifelong connections among participants and to the Institute. Indeed, they are successful at this aim, as evidenced by the fact that across the nation, "most of the donations made to [an] alma matter are given by members of Greek organizations." Popular hubs of social activity, in 2013, 25% of Stevens Institute students were members of these organizations.

Members self-select prospective members, and chapters cooperate on a wide variety of inter-Greek programming to support campus life. Once a student becomes a member of one of the traditional social and academic societies they may not join another from that conference due to 'anti-poaching' rules. However, members of the traditional social and academic fraternities, sororities and societies are often elected as members of professional, honor and/or service societies as they are chosen or earn the honor by grade, class rank or achievement. All but one of Stevens' Greek organizations are chapters of national fraternities or sororities, which in turn participate in several cooperative national associations, designated by one or more conference allegiances: the NIC (most social fraternities), the NPC (most social sororities), the NAPA (culturally Asian & Pacific Islander), the NALFO (culturally Latino/Latina), the ACHS (most Honor Societies), or the PFA (Professional) associations.

§Fraternities (men's)

§Sororities (women's)

• ΦΣΣ Phi Sigma Sigma, 1982, (NPC)
• Î"ΦΕ Delta Phi Epsilon, 1985, (NPC)
• ΘΦÎ' Theta Phi Alpha, 2012, (NPC)
• ΣÎ"Τ Sigma Delta Tau, 2014

§Professional, honor or service (usually co-ed)

Among fraternities and sororities, inter-chapter cooperation is managed by two governing councils: the Interfraternity Council (IFC), and the Stevens Panhellenic Association (NPC groups). Professional and Honor societies are faculty sponsored.

§Notable alumni

• Charles Stewart Mott, M.E. 1882, co-founder of General Motors Corporation
• Frederick Winslow Taylor, M.E., 1883, developer of scientific management methods and time-motion studies
• Richard H. Rice, M.E., 1885; Hon. Ph.D. 1921, mechanical engineer and inventor.
• Samuel P. Bush, 1884, steel and railroad executive, public servant, patriarch of Bush political family
• Walter Kidde, B.E., 1897, founder of Walter Kidde Constructors; oversaw the construction of Port Newark and Kearny, New Jersey's first traffic circle and the world's first cloverleaf interchange, the Pulaski Skyway; served as New Jersey State Highway Commissioner; founder of the Walter Kidde Company, maker of WWII safety equipment
• Henry Gantt, M.S.,1902, developed the Gantt chart, an important project management tool
• Alexander Calder, M.E., 1919, creator of the Mobile and popularizer of that art form
• Louis A. Hazeltine, M.E., Sc. D., 1926, founder Hazeltine Corporation, inventor of the neutrodyne radio receiver
• Sang-Beom Han, M.S., 1985, Ph.D., 1991, CEO of LG Display
• 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)
• Alfred Fielding, 1939, Co-inventor of Bubble Wrap
• Igor Bensen, B.E. Mechanical Engineering, 1940, founder of Bensen Aircraft.
• Frederick Reines, M.E., 1939, M.S. 1943, discoverer of the neutrino, 1995 Nobel Prize in Physics
• Fred H. Colvin, M.E. Hon., 1944, journalist, author, and editor in the fields of manufacturing, machine tools, etc.
• Beatrice Hicks, M.S. Physics 1949, founding president of the Society of Women Engineers
• Leon Febres Cordero, M.E., 1953, President of Ecuador, 1984â€"1988
• Eugene McDermott, M.E., 1953, founder, Texas Instruments
• Aaron Cohen, M.S., 1958 Applied Mathematics, Director of NASA 1986-93.
• Richard Reeves, M.E., 1960, Emmy Award winner, syndicated columnist, author, television commentator
• John McLean, MD, B.S., 1960, developer of corneal transplant and founder of the Eye Bank for Sight Restoration
• Richard Herman, B.S., 1963, Chancellor of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
• Lawrence Babbio, B.E., 1966, vice chairman and president of Verizon Communications, Domestic Telecom Group.
• William W. Destler, B.S. Applied Physics 1968, current president of Rochester Institute of Technology
• Jed Babbin, B.E. 1970, former United States Deputy Undersecretary of Defense, author of "Inside the Asylum"
• Charles Petzold, B.S., M.S. 1975, Author, The Annotated Turing: A Guided Tour through Alan Turing's Historic Paper on Computability and the Turing Machine 2008, Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software 1999, Programming Windows 1988-1998
• Mark Crispin, B.S., 1977, Inventor of IMAP
• Greg Gianforte, B.E. Electrical Engineering, M.S. Computer Science 1983, founder of RightNow Technologies.
• Gerard Joseph Foschini, PhD 1967, prominent telecommunications engineer that is in the top 0.5% of most widely cited authors.
• Gerald Goertzel, B.E. Mechanical Engineering, creator of the Goertzel algorithm
• Peter Cooper Hewitt, electrical engineer and inventor of the Mercury arc rectifier
• John White Howell, M.E. Electrical Engineering, noted electrical engineer, who furthered the development of the incandescent lamp, 1924 Edison Medal, former president of the Edison Pioneers.
• Alfred Kinsey
• John A. Nagy, MMS 1979 - Author on espionage and mutinies of the American Revolution
• Chadwell O'Connor, B.E. Mechanical Engineering, inventor of the fluid-damped camera head, variations of which are used in most tripods to film motion
• Edwin Augustus Stevens, Jr., son of the school's founder.
• Charles Walton, M.E. Electrical Engineering, inventor of RFID.
• Robert Weinberg American author. His work spans several genres including non-fiction, science fiction, horror, and comic books.

§See also

• Association of Independent Technological Universities
• Stevens SU-1, a glider design developed as a student project at the Stevens Institute in 1933
• Wunibald Kamm, professor

§References

§Further reading

• Clark, G.W. (2000). History of Stevens Institute of Technology, Jensen/Daniels. ISBN 1-893032-24-8

§External links

• Official website
• Stevens Institute of Technology official athletics website
• Stevens Alumni Association official website
• Construction data on Wesley J. Howe Center

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