Brown has a small (just under 100 graduates/year) engineering program that is one of only three engineering programs in Rhode Island. Brown started out as Rhode Island’s land grant college (chartered to create a department of agriculture and mechanic arts) in the mid 1800’s but had that status revoked due to its’ inability to provide adequate instruction. It is one of only three colleges (all members of the Ivy League) that I am aware of that have had their land grant status revoked. Historically, Brown is best known (within academia) for research in the area of Mechanical Engineering/Material Science. Up until a few years ago, Brown had an ABET accredited civil engineering program, but it’s faculty lost interest because of their perception that there were more research opportunities in the area of material science. The Civil Engineering program was phased out and the ABET accreditation expired.
http://www.browndailyherald.com/2012/10/12/civil-engineering-track-to-be-discontinued/
WPI is the largest of 16 engineering programs in Massachusetts (about 650 graduates/year). Massachusetts’ land grant charter was split between UMass Amherst (agricultural) and MIT (mechanic arts). Compared to Brown, WPI is more teaching oriented and more undergraduate focused. In engineering education circles, WPI is credited with creating the notion of a hands-on “project based” engineering curriculum (back in the 1960’s). It has ABET accredited programs in both Civil and Environmental Engineering. Over the past 10 years, WPI undergraduates have received more NSF graduate research scholarships in Civil/Environmental Engineering than Brown undergraduates.
WPI is the largest of 16 engineering programs in Massachusetts (about 650 graduates/year). Massachusetts land grant charter was split between MIT (mechanic arts) and UMass Amherst (agricultural). WPI is more teaching oriented, more undergraduate focused, and is credited with creating the hands on “project based curriculum” back in the 1960’s.
The ABET accredited, Civil/Environmental Engineering programs in New England are: MIT, Tufts and WPI. Publics with offerings in this area are UVM, UConn and UNH. In NY/NJ there are several more.
It seems unusual to apply ED to a school that recently phased out your preferred majors due to lack of faculty interest.
Even though my bias is toward a more liberal arts focused environment for undergraduate engineering, I would find it hard to recommend Brown for someone for Civil/Environmental Engineering…