<p>UChicago</a> to offer new undergraduate minor in molecular engineering | UChicago News</p>
<p>It appears the College's aversion to "vocational" studies is eroding. Why not just open an engineering school already?</p>
<p>This year in the “Aims of Education” address, departing Provost Thomas Rosenbaum discusses the thought process behind the establishment of the Institute for Molecular Engineering (move to 25:14 for the part dealing with Molecular Engineering).</p>
<p>[Aims</a> of Education - YouTube](<a href=“Aims of Education Address 2013: Thomas F. Rosenbaum - YouTube”>Aims of Education Address 2013: Thomas F. Rosenbaum - YouTube)</p>
<p>Though Provost Rosenbaum’s address was not quite what I expected given the topic, I was impressed with the strategic thinking behind the new institute and degree programs as well as the connection of it to the traditional UChicago curriculum.</p>
<p>“strategic thinking behind the new institute”</p>
<p>This is their second year of operation - high time they offered a major.</p>
<p>A key point in Rosenbaum’s speech: “we asked the faculty whether our traditionally strong efforts in the basic sciences would be viable a few decades down the road if we did not have engineering. The faculty averred the distinction between basic and applied was no longer a good one in many areas of science…”</p>
<p>Translation: UChicago’s classic values (an emphasis on theory over application) are changing, and may no longer be tenable, especially in the sciences.</p>
<p>Rosenbaum’s speech was thoughtful, but there was a strong strain of pragmatism to his words. </p>
<p>Overall, has any top college experienced as much change as UChicago over the past decade? The classic UChicago model espoused by old president Hutchins has more or less been exposed - and the college has needed to adapt. </p>
<p>This isn’t a bad thing, as the model taken up by some of UChicago’s peers (Harvard and Stanford sticking out in particular) has been tremendously successful. At the same time, one wonders why it took the faculty until 2013 to realize that the distinction between basic/theoretical and applied has blurred. Think what the university could have been if this realization was made in 1953, not 2013!</p>
<p>To be fair 1953 might be a bit early. But 2013 is late in the game. It is said it is better late than never. I am not sure when Harvard or Princeton started offering engineering majors.</p>
<p>An interesting article talked about Harvard’s late entry in the game of tech start-up</p>
<p>[How</a> MIT Became the Most Important University in the World | Boston Magazine](<a href=“http://www.bostonmagazine.com/2012/10/mit-important-university-world-harvard/]How”>http://www.bostonmagazine.com/2012/10/mit-important-university-world-harvard/)</p>
<p>Whether it is true or not it looks like even Harvard needs to adapt to the changing world. Say, there are so many opportunities and paths out there no single corporation or institution can dominate everywhere forever.</p>
<p>Many great corporations came and went. So did empires. But interestingly some great universities are still around today, like Oxford and Cambridge. They are still playing a very important role in the higher education and beyond.</p>
<p>I think a university does not need to follow every successful story everywhere, though I think engineering is pretty important these days for various reasons.</p>
<p>Chicago should stay with its open inquiry spirit and liberal arts core. From a longer point of view theses things have made it as it is now.</p>
<p>Regarding engineering </p>
<p>Two main focuses: bioengineering and computer engineering/EE. There may be some areas I am missing.</p>
<p>Chicago is known for math and physics which are the foundations of most engineering domains. It should not be very long before Chicago can make a dent in the engineering. In a short term it may not challenge tech heavy weights such as Stanford or MIT but it could be decent.</p>
<p>The new institute is a good start. Computer engineering can be added later - they have already had a decent Computer science department. I have heard their studies on theories are pretty good. If they can do computer science they do computer engineering too - just change altitude.</p>
<p>I’m also unclear - what’s the distinction between an “institute” and a school? Why does UChicago simply not have a school of molecular engineering? Or, why don’t we have a department of engineering?</p>
<p>eddi1337, you’re right - coming to the realization that theory/application need to be mixed in 1953 may be too early, but 2013 is certainly too late. This realization is a fundamental shift in university policy, and it’s one that really should have occurred, say in 1983 or 1993, not 2013. </p>
<p>This being said, with the realization now made, UChicago is really playing catch up. For the past decade or so, it’s been playing catch-up in terms of admissions and the approach to an undergraduate college (because Hutchins’ vision proved to be untenable), and now it’s playing catch-up in the sciences (also because Hutchins’ general vision for learning has proven to be untenable). One wonders whether it’s too little, too late. </p>
<p>On another note, I wonder what implications this realization of mixing theory/application has for many other university departments. Will the renowned math dep’t now have more focus on application? Comp Sci at UChicago was historically quite theoretical and not particularly preeminent. Are more resources being poured into this critical department, that still lags far, far behind what’s found at Carnegie Mellon, MIT, etc.? </p>
<p>It seems as if the university is gradually realizing that it’s approach to the sciences needs to change. The administration should be considering, however, who is to blame for these realizations occurring so sorely late in the game.</p>
<p>What’s fascinating about the MIT article in boston mag, btw, is the idea that the emphasis on a “well-rounded education” may be misguided in a changing world. MIT has decided to change along with the world, with, of course, very little emphasis on the liberal arts, and Harvard remains a liberal arts College. </p>
<p>Such a concept strikes at the heart of what the UChicago education should be, and how long the liberal arts education can endure - at least with the amount of emphasis UChicago places on it. I imagine the range of offerings at UChicago in 2023 will look very different than what it looks like now (which isn’t that different from what was offered in 2003 or 1993).</p>
<p>What’ll also be interesting, will be to assess whether UChicago is even within touching distance of MIT or Harvard (or even Cornell or Northwestern) in a decade. The odds aren’t necessarily in the school’s favor, and UChicago may have simply stuck its head in the sand for too long.</p>
<p>(To it’s credit, though, the school does have an interesting culture - one that might lend itself to entrepreneurship if its steered correctly. Too many UChicago kids are head-in-the-clouds though, so this is an open question too.)</p>
<p>I like the discussion above. It’s a matter of keeping what’s good about UChicago while doing things to thrive in the changing world. I like what Rosenbaum said about the thought process which led to ME. I like the areas that UChicago is focusing on. They are important niches which dovetail with what UChicago does well already while being important emerging scientific areas in the wider world. By focusing this way, they increase their chances for success in my opinion. They call it an institute now, but I’m sure it will be a department in a few years. A few years after that you may see a new graduate division.</p>
<p>The new provost is important. He is an applied science guy which bodes well for ME, I guess.</p>
<p>Also, for engineering more broadly, why hasn’t UChicago partnered up with any other schools? One of the very best engineering schools in the country (Univ. of Illinois) is literally just 2 hours south from UChicago. Perhaps offer a combined program with UIUC? Students could take core classes and the liberal arts classes at UChicago, and then spend 1-1.5 years at UIUC taking the engineering courses.</p>
<p>Or, why not partner up with NU?</p>
<p>It’s strange that many schools have partnerships (Georgetown and Columbia for engineering, Harvard and MIT share classes, the entire research triangle in North Carolina, etc.), and UChicago hasn’t yet explored this space, even though its range of offerings (especially in engineering) is so much smaller than many peer schools. Again, to me, the school stuck its head in the sand for too long.</p>
<p>The partnering concept is interesting. Emory does it successfully with Georgia Tech in biomedical engineering. One challenge UChicago has is geography. MIT and Harvard are both in Cambridge, relatively close. Emory is very close to GA Tech. NU is not too far away but I’m not sure how easy it is to get there. Same with UI. That would be a wonderful partnership for both schools. Don’t know how they would share undergraduate students on a real-time basis, though. Not saying it’s impossible to team, just saying that UChicago has some more challenges than some of the schools.</p>
<p>I think the Georgetown-Columbia 3-2 engineering model could be very interesting ([Engineering</a> at Georgetown College - Georgetown College](<a href=“http://college.georgetown.edu/academics/majors-minors-and-certificates/science-engineering/]Engineering”>The Columbia Combined Program (CCP) – Preparation for Engineering Education | College of Arts & Sciences | Georgetown University)). Students split their time between the two schools, and emerge with two degrees. </p>
<p>In terms of NU, both UChicago and NU have campuses right down town, and it’d make sense to have a space downtown - roughly equidistant from both schools’ central campuses where joint classes could be held. Build a university space downtown, and have some NU Medill journalism classes that UChicago students can take, have some UChicago econ or institute of politics courses/events that NU classes can attend.</p>
<p>As another example of this, there are inter-institutional programs offered at Duke, UNC, and NC State. <a href=“http://registrar.unc.edu/registration/special-enrollments/inter-institutional-programs/[/url]”>http://registrar.unc.edu/registration/special-enrollments/inter-institutional-programs/</a>. I don’t believe UChicago has anything like this with nearby schools, although some bridges may be forming between UChicago and Ill. Institute of Technology. </p>
<p>UChicago has operated as an island for too long, and should be engaging in partnerships with the other great schools in the area. UChicago doesn’t have the foundation or large enough footprint to operate the way, say, that Stanford does.</p>
<p>The silly Boston Magazine article is just an example of how anti-intellectual America is and the dumbing down of higher education in general. Universities these days are just supposed to be job training centers and should be evaluated based on ROI (financial not educational). Who needs that education stuff? Just get a job and make some money.</p>
<p>This idea that vocational engineering education should replace the liberal arts just shows a complete lack of understanding about the evolution and growth of science in Western civilization. The Greeks, for instance, didn’t see a huge divide between science and philosophy.</p>
<p>UChicago has a much more illustrious history in science than MIT and Stanford. UChicago is the only school, besides the University or California, that operates two national laboratories. How about a comparison of Nobel prizes? (Sorry, engineers don’t win Nobel prizes.) It’s hard to compete with Watson (from UChicago) and Crick–the greatest biologists of the 20th century–who discovered the double-helix structure of DNA. No one in Silicon Valley or Boston is operating at that level.</p>
<p>Stanford graduates have the worst track record of any top school at winning Nobel prizes. The reason Stanford students can’t win Nobel prizes is that they are too smart to read Plato and instead drop out of college to start a dating website or build a mobile app for sharing selfies on the internet. This is the great technical innovation coming out of Stanford. </p>
<p>Stanford and MIT with their shallow trade school educations would be a poor model for the UChicago to follow. </p>
<p>What will be exciting will be to see the way that UChicago leverages its strong liberal arts education and history and builds on that background, rather than dismissing it. Smart people like Tirrell understand the interplay between basic science and technology and it’s exciting to see the way he has embraced the arts rather than claiming like the dummies at Bostonmagazine or Times “Higher Education” that we don’t need that humanities stuff.</p>
<p>(MIT is too weak in too many departments–the entire humanities–to be ranked in the top few unless you skew rankings in favor of STEM.)</p>
<p>100 years from now high school students will be reading Mark Twain in high school and they won’t be able to name a single one of these geniuses in Silicon Valley, who will long be forgotten, left in the dust by the latest tech fad.</p>
<p>Thousands of years from now people will still be reading Plato and Aristotle, long after Google is forgotten. Don’t be dumb. A mind is a terrible thing to waste. Read a book. Get an education. If you want to go into business that’s fine, but, as Hanna Gray once said, you can be a smart business man or a dumb business man. Don’t be dumb.</p>
<p>While generations of students have been victimized by a shallow education at Harvard and Stanford it will be exciting to see what happens now that more students are choosing UChicago and getting a great education. This bodes well for America’s future. Finally, a university that has its priorities straight–and is focused on education not simply business–is being recognized for the leader that it has always been. (And actually, it’s great in business, too.)</p>
<p>Even with his sarcastic tune I think truth123 has some good points in his post such as the role of a university from historical point view, staying with liberal arts education, etc.</p>
<p>First to be fair Chicago is a great school and has played an important role in the higher education and in the world during her relative young life so far. But other great universities should not be put down either. E.g., MIT has graduated almost as many Nobel prize winners as Chicago. Harvard even has more.</p>
<p>[List</a> of Nobel laureates by university affiliation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nobel_laureates_by_university_affiliation]List”>List of Nobel laureates by university affiliation - Wikipedia)</p>
<p>Second offering liberal arts and engineering at the same is not a bad thing for a university. Different people have different strengths and interests. Some are good at sciences and some are good at applying sciences in the real world - build something useful.</p>
<p>However, I would agree Chicago should stay with its core values and liberal arts core and expand to engineering or other emerging branches. If Chicago abandons its core values it may not be Chicago anymore, and may not be closer to MIT either.</p>
<p>“Thousands of years from now people will still be reading Plato and Aristotle, long after Google is forgotten. Don’t be dumb. A mind is a terrible thing to waste. Read a book. Get an education. If you want to go into business that’s fine, but, as Hanna Gray once said, you can be a smart business man or a dumb business man. Don’t be dumb.” </p>
<p>Truth123, this is exactly why my S1 is studying at UChicago (currently a second year). Plenty of others on campus feel this way as well.</p>
<p>Cue7, researching schools now for S2 I discovered this: <a href=“https://www.haverford.edu/engineering/upenn/[/url]”>https://www.haverford.edu/engineering/upenn/</a>
This seems more along the lines of a pairing UChicago could do.</p>
<p>Marylandfour:</p>
<p>The Haverford-UPenn program (or the Haverford-Caltech program, or the Georgetown-Columbia program I linked to above) is exactly what I’m talking about. Univ. of Illinois literally has one of the very best engineering and comp sci programs in the country (in the same ballpark as MIT, Berkeley, etc.), and has offerings that are generally above what you find at Penn, Columbia, etc. </p>
<p>Why not have a 3-2 program with Univ. of Illinois? Let students get a bachelors from UChicago, and a masters from Univ of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. Students will be getting one of the very finest liberal arts educations in the country at UChicago, and also study at one of the finest engineering (or comp sci) schools in the country - there are really only a handful of schools (Berkeley, Stanford, maybe Cornell) that could say the same.</p>
<p>“The silly Boston Magazine article is just an example of how anti-intellectual America is and the dumbing down of higher education in general. Universities these days are just supposed to be job training centers and should be evaluated based on ROI (financial not educational). Who needs that education stuff? Just get a job and make some money.”</p>
<p>A few months back I attended “A Conversation with the President (Zimmer)”, an event hosted by uchicago alumni association. Most in attendance were young men and women looking for a job, any job. Almost all of them had some degree in liberal arts - anthropology, history etc. Several of them were taking classes at local community college and were hoping to land some technical writing job.</p>
<p>Truth123s tone is immature and reflects poorly on the UChicago community. There’s no one size fits all model of US education - that’s what’s good about it. Some schools can be more “vocational,” others, more “theoretical.” The goal of a particular school, however, should be to make sure the balance is right given both practical concerns and pedagogical values. </p>
<p>UChicago’s balance has probably been out of whack for some time, and the recent faculty decision to create an institute on molecular engineering is a testament to this. They even went as far to say that if they didn’t heed practical application, their offerings in the sciences wouldn’t even be viable some time down the road.</p>
<p>Truth123 appears to extol to values that even UChicago has left to the wayside.</p>
<p>U of. C used to be a more practical place. Indeed, it had an undergraduate business program from 1898 to 1942.</p>
<p>I went to one of those Conversations with Zimmer. When he mentioned MIT, some members of the audience booed.</p>
<p>There needs to be at least an electrical engineering program, or an ECE department, a mechanical engineering program, and one other like a chemical or biomedical program. Then Chicago would have engineering.</p>
<p>Good observation by UWHuskyDad.</p>
<p>Many people probably have been thinking about the relationship between college education and employment opportunity a lot - anyway most college graduates (including MS/PHD) want to have a good job after college. Ideally a job they like and is paid relatively well.</p>
<p>Do their majors matter? Sometimes. </p>
<p>A computer engineering major is relatively easy to find a well paid job due to demand and supply. But the same observation can be made for computer science major. From a software company (employer) point of view there is really not much difference between computer engineering and computer science major as long as a graduate can analyze/design/program/test. I believe the computer science major actually has an advantage over computer engineering major since a graduate knows things under the hood better. So a so called science major and a so called engineering major are equivalent to future employer.</p>
<p>For a humanity and arts major finding a well paid job is relatively difficult. It may take a longer time and has to settle on a not-so-well paid job initially.</p>
<p>However choosing a major is not forced by a university but a choice made by students themselves. Some people may like one thing while others may like a different thing. Not every student is majored in computer engineering or computer science even at MIT and Stanford which are arguably two of the best in the world.</p>
<p>But a liberal arts education should not be the problem a student cannot take an engineering major IMO. I might be wrong, liberal arts education does not only mean humanity and arts or even social sciences. E.g., Reed is a liberal arts college and it has graduated many engineers too.</p>
<p>Say, Chicago’s core requires 18 courses (including 3 foreign language). It requires a total of 42 credits (courses) to graduate. A student can take up to 48 course (to earn 48 credits). There are still a lot of rooms to learn something new such as majoring in computer science. Eventually the graduate with computer science major has had some liberal arts education via core and learned practical skills in her major for her future employment.</p>
<p>I think the liberal arts and some “vocational” skills can co-exist in Chicago.</p>
<p>Cue7’s idea of partnering with Univ of Illinois at Urbana Champaign is interesting, which can give Chicago a head start on engineering.</p>
<p>However like some posts before have said the distance between those two schools is a major road block. At Harvard and MIT students can take classes from other university daily due to the closeness. A Harvard student can still maintain her Harvard degree and so can MIT’s.</p>
<p>If Chicago and Urbana Champaign offer joint classes will a Chicago student maintain her Chicago degree? Can an Urbana Champaign student get Chicago’s degree? Where does a Chicago student stay during her classes at Urbana Champaign? The same thing for Urbana Champaign student.</p>