A Summer Graduate Program for Electrical Engineering Faculty Members

Few formal programs have been developed with the specific goals of enabling faculty members to further their education in new and developing technical areas and to work towards advanced degrees in a planned sequence of summer courses. A summer graduate program for electrical engineering teachers was instituted in 1962 at Worcester Polytechnic Institute as a result of many months of discussion in the ASEE Division of Electrical Engineering of how best to serve a critical continuing education need of faculty members, particularly in the smaller and sometimes isolated engineering schools of the nation. In six years of operation, the summer graduate program has enrolled 91 students from 71 different schools in 31 states, Puerto Rico, and five foreign countries. Many participants had no specific degree goals. However, in this period six have completed M. S. degrees and seven have earned a Ph.D. degree. Twelve additional faculty members are well along on their doctoral programs. Most doctoral students spend at least a year on the Worcester Polytechnic Institute campus doing their research, although provisions are made for their research to be done at their own schools in some cases. The upgrading accomplished by the program is evident from the jobs many of the participants accepted at the completion of their programs. The summer program is beginning to attract increasing numbers of participants from technically oriented junior colleges. The program concept is applicable to faculty members in most or all engineering disciplines.