Faculty Senate discusses future of School of Engineering

The Faculty Senate met to discuss the future of the Stanford School of Engineering last Thursday, raising topics such as diversity, increased enrollment and curriculum.

Persis Drell, dean of the School of Engineering, led the discussion, beginning with her observation that engineering students at Stanford are motivated by a desire to make an impact on the world. This is what makes them “tick,” she said.

According to Drell, the school is currently in “terrific” shape. Undergraduate enrollment in the School of Engineering has reached all-time high of about 37 percent, and the school’s research portfolio continues to be strong.

However, it is projected that the number of students at Stanford who will choose an engineering major will rise to 50 percent of undergraduates in the coming decade, and the School of Engineering will have to be prepared to adapt to these changes.

In January 2015, a Strategic Planning Committee composed of engineering faculty members was launched to address the issues of increased interest and funding limits. In an effort to direct the path of the engineering school’s strategy for the future, a group of mid-career faculty members from the School of Engineering created 10 questions about the state of the school and its transformations in the future. These questions have not yet been made public, but at Thursday’s meeting, Drell related the common themes present among the questions and recommendations.

Foremost among the goals that the Strategic Planning Committee discussed is to make the culture of the School of Engineering more accepting and to encourage diversity.

“Diversity is the one area where the School of Engineering is content to be nearly average,” one faculty member on the committee wrote in the recommendation papers. “That is just unacceptable.”

To promote diversity, the School of Engineering wants to create new courses for students that came from schools that did not provide International Baccalaureate or AP classes so that they don’t start “behind” students that had these opportunities in high school.

Furthermore, 30 percent of engineering students want to coterm, but need-based financial aid is not yet available for this program. To remedy this, electrical engineering professor and former engineering school dean Jim Plummer M.S. ’67 Ph.D. ’71 is piloting need-based financial aid for fifth-year coterms.

Every recommendation includes a need for deeper engagement with other schools at Stanford, noted Drell. To do so, the committee has already prompted the School of Engineering to work with other departments individually on developing curriculum.

The committee has also considered reducing the core curriculum for engineering majors so that students are neither “locked in” to a single program early in their academic careers nor prevented from beginning an engineering major after their freshman year. By reducing the curriculum, students will also be able to partake in a more multidisciplinary education — one of the University’s overarching goals.

Another major goal of the Strategic Planning Committee is to increase research output in the engineering school. The committee has created actionable recommendations to evolve the culture, deploy resources and prompt more research to support the success of students and faculty as a whole.

Additionally, the committee has designed a new fellowship called the Accelerator for Collaborative engineering. The fellowship will be based on a competitive application process for seniors, graduates and postdoctoral students and is meant to motivate people to become involved in research by facilitating a competitive spirit as resources and teammates will be assigned to those with the strongest ideas.

“Stanford is very selective, and if someone wants to show up and study engineering, we should have the best resources,” Drell said. 

Contact Anna Cole at annacole ‘at’ stanford.edu.