Engineering in a Land-Grant Context: The Past, Present, and Future of an Idea (review)

The convergence of land-grant colleges and the professionalization of engineering helped define a distinctively American form of higher education. Both land-grant colleges and the engineering profession have been highly introspective, expending much energy on examining their missions and contributions to society. This collection of essays, sponsored by the History of Technology and Science program at Iowa State University, elaborates on that tradition.

David L. Harmon examines the contentious relationship between the "A" and "M" sides of land-grant colleges through the lens of an early struggle for federally funded engineering experiment stations to parallel funding for agriculture. Opponents argued that research in the mechanical arts must remain subordinate to the needs of agriculture. This battle was waged at the national level within and among competing professional organizations of agriculturalists and engineers, with the former blocking passage of legislation four times between 1907 and 1918.

Alan I Marcus and Erik Lokensgard illustrate within one institution how applied research in chemistry and mechanical engineering elevated engineering to parity with agriculture. During the 1920s Iowa State College researchers focused on industrial uses for agricultural wastes. Their efforts funded chemical engineering and established the importance of interdisciplinary work, but did not deliver on the promise of large-scale commercialization.

Iowa State's emphasis on what was essentially industrial chemistry came just as chemical engineering was finding its organizing principle in unit operations. Terry Reynolds addresses the role of land-grant chemical engineering in this transformation through the nascent American Institute of Chemical Engineers and AIChE's leadership in engineering accreditation. In the 1920s land-grant engineers won praise from Warren K. Lewis of MIT, who along with William H. Walker formalized the quantitative treatment of unit operations and then chaired the AIChE committee that set accreditation standards based on "unit ops." Land-grant colleges accounted for 45 percent of programs initially accredited by AIChE, and land-grant engineers played a leading role in the drive for accreditation in all engineering disciplines.

Deborah G. Douglas describes the development of aeronautical engineering, although she notes that, "The fact that some land-grant colleges and universities have departments of aeronautical engineering is coincidence" (p. 77). She focuses on the role of the Guggenheim Foundation in shaping the field and on the development of programs at the schools which received its funding. None of the seven are land-grant institutions.

Amy Sue Bix explores technical education during World War II, focusing on federal programs that trained production workers and on women's participation in engineering at land-grant colleges. Federal training programs transformed land-grant colleges, especially those like Cornell and Penn State located near concentrations of war plants. Wartime demand for engineers opened new opportunities for women. A few had already blazed a trail in land-grant colleges, and Bix tells of the leadership of land-grant institutions in graduating women engineers, despite the chilly climate and policies that reduced their number at war's end.

Two final essays explore reformulations of the land-grant ideal. Howard Segal has no use for the work of the Kellogg Commission on the Future of State and Land-Grant Universities (1996–2000). He criticizes the commission for technological determinism and pandering to politicians and consumer-oriented students. He notes that it had little to say about engineering education—nor does his essay. Segal rightly criticizes the commission's lack of historical perspective. Unfortunately, his essay reads more like a faculty discussion of the ills of university life than a historical analysis of contemporary land-grant universities. One could have hoped for some comparison with the long shelf of studies on the future of engineering education, from the Mann Report of 1918 through "Educating the Engineer of 2020" of 2005.

Bruce Seely concludes with "Reinventing the Wheel." Shaped by institutional and professional contexts, early land-grant engineering education emphasized practical application, industry-specific research, and...