History of Electrical Engineering at UNH 1959-1969 -- Part IV

by Alden Winn

(Written in the 1970's and modified from a Chairman's report to the Dean)

A four year curriculum in electrical engineering was first offered by New Hampshire College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts in 1890, while the College was located on the campus of Dartmouth College in Hanover. From 1890 to 1908, the electrical engineering and physics curricula were administered by a common department, but in July, 1908 the two curricula were made separate departments with Professor Arthur F. Nesbitt becoming Head of the Department of Physics and Professor Charles E. Hewitt becoming Head of the Electrical Engineering Department. Hewitt, who became the first UNH Dean of the Division of Engineering in 1915, served as electrical engineering head until he resigned in 1919, when Leon W. Hitchcock was appointed acting head. Professor Hitchcock was elevated to Head of the Department in 1921 and served until 1952 when Alden L. Winn was appointed Department Head. Professor Winn served in that capacity until July, 1967, when he relinquished the administrative duties and Dr. Joseph B. Murdoch was appointed Chairman of the Department.

The Department has undergone extremely rapid growth and development during the years since World War II and especially during the past ten years. As contrasted with the period just prior to the close of World War II when all of the courses in the Department were taught by one faculty member, the staff had increased to 7 professorial faculty and 2 instructors by 1959 and this Fall numbers 14 professorial faculty, 3 instructors, 3 teaching assistants, and 6 research assistants. Concurrent with the increase in number of faculty has been an increase in their qualifications and competencies. In 1959, only 2 of the 9 EE faculty held the doctorate, whereas there are 10 Ph.D.'s on the present faculty with 2 others very near completion of the degree.

What has emerged from this growth is an Electrical Engineering department differing, not just in size, but more important in character, from its predecessor of 10 years ago. It is these changes in character, broken down into the categories of faculty, undergraduate programs, graduate programs, and research, that I would like to examine in some detail in the remainder of this article.

Faculty

Ten years ago, when a prospective professorial faculty member was being interviewed, his area of specialization within electrical engineering was of little concern. It was expected that he would possess a broad background in electrical engineering, would be interested in and capable of teaching any undergraduate course offered by the Department, would be heavily oriented toward and interested in laboratory, would be qualified to teach several courses at the graduate level, would have a modest interest and productivity in research, and would be active in University service. Such is not the situation today. This past year, the prime considerations have been the candidate's area of specialization, his promise of research productivity and his interest in teaching and working with students.

Technology and its use of mathematics have advanced so rapidly, and the field of electrical engineering has become so diversified that it is no longer reasonable to expect a faculty member to be qualified to teach all electrical engineering subjects at the undergraduate level, or in more than one area at the graduate level. Rather, there are specialists in electro-magnetic theory, network theory, control systems, electronics, digital systems, energy conversion, information theory, and materials and solid state. And each of these specialists is interested not only in teaching his expertise to students but in applying it in the solution of real-world problems in space, the ocean, medicine, and society.

The demands on a faculty member's time while perhaps not greater than they were 10 years ago, are much more diverse -- he needs to be an expert at shifting mental gears. In 1959, his teaching load during a given semester generally consisted of 2 classroom courses and 2-3 laboratory classes. It was rare when one of his classroom courses was at the graduate level. In addition he served as adviser to a number of students and had significant Department, College, and University committee responsibilities. His research, if indeed he did any, was accomplished on an overload basis. More often his spare time went into improving his courses -- working up new course material or creating new laboratory experiments. He was first and foremost a teacher and his loyalties were to the student, the Department, the University, and his discipline, in that order. He was more concerned with preparing the student for industrial employment than he was with preparing him for graduate school. Laboratory was overstressed, as was the writing of formal technical reports. Homework assignments were more often calculation and drill oriented than they were thought provoking or of real-world importance. He did his own grading of lab reports and homework and spent an inordinate amount of time at it. He had not learned to rely heavily on secretarial and technician assistance because there weren't that many such people around. He knew all his undergraduate majors quite well and by name and spent a good deal of time chatting with them. He appreciated the desirability of a small masters degree program as a supplement to the predominant undergraduate program but doubted that it would or should grow very large. A Ph.D. program in Engineering was a remote glimmer in a few eyes. He spent his summers working in industry, preparing course materials for the following year, or studying. There was little summer activity in Kingsbury Hall.

All that has changed in 10 years. This Fall the average teaching load is 2 courses or 1 course and 2 laboratory sections. If he teaches 2 courses, one is a graduate course. He still advises students and has his share of committee responsibilities. A minimum of 25% and a maximum of 50% of his time is devoted to scholarly development -- research, writing, and professional activities. He is more likely to spend any spare time he has on his research or with his graduate students rather than on improving his undergraduate courses. He is still basically an educator but has a definite commitment to contribute to the world's stock pile of knowledge. His loyalties are to his discipline and the student, the Department, and the University, in that order. He realizes that each year a greater percentage of EE students are going on to graduate school and seeks to prepare them for this. However he is also aware of the complexity of the real-world problems young engineers will be facing and he seeks to prepare them for this. Thus he stresses formal laboratory experiments and write-ups less and projects and facility in the laboratory more. His homework problems are still often superficial, but less so than before, but he often does not grade them, leaving this task to a graduate assistant. He relies much more heavily on secretarial and technician assistance, the former for typing, bookkeeping, scheduling etc. and the latter for laboratory and equipment maintenance and development. He still knows his undergraduate majors quite well but doesn't spend as much time with them as he used to, largely because of commitments to graduate students and research. He supports having a healthy masters program and is looking forward to the initiation of the Ph.D. program this year. His summers are now generally spent on sponsored research on campus. The effects of these changes on the undergraduate student has been both good and bad. Certainly on the positive side is his involvement in live engineering problems that he knows need solving. There is a certain excitement in doing significant things, which didn't exist 10 years ago. His courses are technically better and more up-to-date. His mathematics background is vastly improved (Laplace transforms were a senior elective 10 years ago; now all EE sophomores learn their use). He spends much less time on routine calculations and paper work. He receives a greater exposure to the social sciences and humanities than he did in the past. He is concerned more with lasting theory than obsolescing hardware.

On the detrimental side is the reduced accessibility of his faculty, the large lecture courses where he consumes more energy reading what's been written on the board than understanding it, the small recitation sections and laboratories where he encounters a graduate teaching assistant rather than a faculty member, the apparent lack of dedication of some research-oriented faculty to education and the student, and the general impersonal nature of the now much larger University.

Undergraduate Programs

The Electrical Engineering undergraduate curriculum has been in a nearly continual state of revision during the past 10 years. In 1959, 145 credits were required for graduation. These included 18 credits of mathematics, 8 credits of chemistry, 12 credits of physics, 18 credits of social-humanistic electives, 37 credits of required EE courses (including 11 credits of laboratory), and 18 credits of required ME courses. More important in assessing change is the content of these courses. In his required math, the student had considerable review of algebra and analytic geometry and only the barest of introductions to multi-dimensional calculus. His physics experience excluded modern physics. His 37 credits of required EE courses included 16 credits of power and machinery, 12 credits of circuits and fields, and only 9 credits of physical electronics and electronic circuits.

Today's EE curriculum requires only 131 credits for graduation. It is a result of long hours of work and discussion last year in converting our offering over to the University's new 4R curriculum. Basically the 4 means that the student normally takes 4 courses per semester at 4 credits per course and the R denotes that there is to be a 2-week reading or independent study period at the close of each course. The theory behind the change to 4 courses was that an academic load of 6 or 7 courses per semester did not permit the student to delve in depth into anyone of them, that he became an assignment bookkeeper preparing for one test on top of another, and that he did minimal learning. The reason for the reading period is to provide a time without day-by-day assignments for the student to review and extend himself in the course material and perhaps do a piece of creative work based on this material.

The Electrical Engineering department has endorsed the 4R principle. However, converting from a previous 45 courses to the 35 courses in the new curriculum was no easy task. Many "sacred cows" were dispensed creating a curriculum which we feel provides a strong basic education in physical science, mathematics, engineering science, social science, and humanities while at the same time providing sufficient flexibility so that a student may pursue those areas of electrical engineering in which he is most interested. The curriculum includes 4 courses in mathematics, 2 courses in physics, 1 course in chemistry, 2 courses in mechanics, thermodynamics, and fluid mechanics, courses in electrical engineering, and electives, of which must be in the social-humanistic area. The accent on power in earlier EE courses has been replaced by basic experiences in circuits, fields, solid state, systems, electronics, and energy conversion followed by elective opportunities in communications, control, digital systems, instrumentation, and devices. Particularly unique is our senior projects course in which teams of students from engineering and science tackle real problems in the ocean and elsewhere. Project teams receive budgets, deal directly with vendors, design and construct working apparatus, and defend their results before a jury of faculty and individual peers. Most notable of the projects thus far was a sea habitat designed and built by six EE and ME seniors in which four of them lived in 30 feet of water in Lake Winnepesaukee for 72 hours.

Throughout all these curricular changes undergraduate enrollment in Electrical Engineering stayed reasonably constant between 160 and 180 students, until last year when it dipped to 125 due to an unusually small junior class. This follows the national trend of steady or slightly increasing engineering enrollments. Through a new undergraduate brochure and visits to high schools, we hope to acquaint more New Hampshire youth with the opportunities available to them in Electrical Engineering at their state university.

Graduate Program

Prior to 1961, the Electrical Engineering Masters program was conducted largely on a University extension, part-time basis. In 1960, there were only 2 resident graduate students, whereas there were 18 extension graduate students, the bulk of which were engineers from the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard. The Department has had a long and pleasant relationship with the Shipyard, and continues to offer graduate courses in the late afternoon so that Shipyard employees may attend.

Graduate course listings in Electrical Engineering prior to 1960 were indeed sparse. Seldom were more than two graduate courses offered in a given semester and more often than not, one course was offered. The average student, on extension, took 3 or 4 years to complete his MS degree. Two MS degrees were awarded in 1959, 2 in 1960, and 3 in 1961.

In 1961, the College of Technology began its Air Force Institute of Technology program. Air Force officers were sent to UNH to study engineering at both the undergraduate and graduate levels on a full-time basis, including summers.

The arrival of 4 AFIT graduate students in Electrical Engineering in the Fall of 1961 marked the beginning of our resident graduate program. To succeeding AFIT contingents we added civilian students, swelling our resident graduate enrollment to 16 in 1963-64 and a high of 25 in 1967-68. Twenty-one students received the MS in EE degree in 1969. This Fall, despite the adverse effect of the draft, we still have a resident graduate enrollment of 21 students. Meanwhile, the extension graduate enrollment has held reasonably constant since 1961.

More important than the increase in numbers of resident students is their effect on the character of the program. Prior to 1961, graduate courses were normally held in the evening and often away from the campus. With the growth of the resident program, evening classes were replaced by late-afternoon classes, the entire program was moved on campus, and resident and extension students take courses together. The result is a better integrated program for both types of students.

In 1961, there was no fellowship or assistantship help for EE graduate students. This year we have 2 National Science Foundation fellows, 3 part-time instructors, 3 teaching assistants, and 7 research assistants. This support has enabled us not only to swell our graduate student ranks, but also to attract higher-caliber students than we could in the past.

Early in 1965, plans were begun for an Engineering Ph.D. program. After much discussion, an important decision was made to offer the Ph.D. in certain areas of specialization, rather than along conventional departmental lines. The four areas chosen, based on faculty strength and interest, were Transport Phenomena, Solid Mechanics and Structures, Signal Processing, and System Design. Proposals were written by each of the area faculty and assembled into an Engineering Ph.D. proposal. This was carefully reviewed by the University's Graduate Council and by a site-visit team of outside educators last Spring. We anticipate early approval of our Ph.D. program by the University this Fall.

Electrical Engineering faculty are participating in two of the Ph.D. areas. The Signal Processing program includes all disciplines having to do with the acquisition, manipulation, and control of signals. It encompasses antenna theory, electro-magnetic fields and waves, communication theory, instrumentation, control, network analysis and synthesis, and solid state devices. Nine Electrical Engineering and one Mechanical Engineering faculty comprised this group.

The System Design group contains faculty from all four Engineering departments. The prime objective of its rather unique program will be to educate engineers to serve as technical leaders of large project teams. This will be accomplished by exposing the student to course work in management, as well as engineering, and by involving him in research work of such scope that its execution will require a group effort similar to that in industry.

One other development in graduate work merits mention. With the industrial growth in the Merrimack Valley, there has been increasing interest in having a graduate program in Electrical Engineering located in the Manchester-Nashua area. The University has established its Merrimack Valley branch, and as a part of that activity, our Department, with the help of Sanders Associates, initiated in the fall of 1968 a Masters degree program in Electrical Engineering in Nashua. Two graduate courses are offered each semester, each course meeting one night per week for three hours. A cyclic course sequencing has been worked out so that a student may enter the program at the beginning of any academic year and proceed at his own pace toward the degree. Last Fall 34 students were enrolled in this program.

Research

Prior to 1958, there was no organized research activity in Electrical Engineering at UNH. Such research as was done was generally an outgrowth of a faculty member's consulting work, and student involvement in research was minimal.

Early in 1958, through the leadership of Dr. Albert D. Frost, the Department installed a tracking station for the early United States and Russian satellites. From this beginning, the Antenna Systems Lab (ASL) was founded. The work of this Laboratory was discussed in detail in the Spring 1969 issue of the Tech Alumni newsletter. In the years since its inception, ASL has been a major influence in the growth of the Department, providing a stimulating research environment for a number of faculty and graduate and undergraduate students. Its current activities center around two research projects -- the development of a long-baseline interferometer and the measurement of high altitude wind velocities using meteor trails. Dr. Ronald R. Clark, who has just returned from a year at Jodrell Bank in England, continues to be Dr. Frost's prime associate in ASL work. Dr. Filson H. Glanz has had major responsibility for the meteor trails project and has been assisted in this work by Mr. Ernest E. Nichols. Dr. Kerwin C. Stotz has also been active in the group with his work in partial coherence.

In 1962, Dr. Joseph B. Murdoch began a modest research program in network theory. He was joined a year later by Professor Donald W. Melvin and these two faculty have continued in this area ever since, resulting in several master's theses and technical papers.

In 1964 a group of engineering faculty from the four departments began meeting on a regular basis to discuss the possibility of interdisciplinary work on real world problems. Out of these meetings, the Engineering Design and Analysis Laboratory (EDAL) was founded under the direction of Professor Godfrey H. Savage. EDAL has flourished during its brief lifetime. Its primary focus has been on ocean related problems and has resulted in UNH establishing a strong reputation nationally in ocean engineering.

Four of our current Electrical Engineering faculty have been actively engaged in EDAL-related research. Professor Alden L. Winn, working closely with scientists and engineers at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, has developed an underwater instrumentation device called an autoprobe, which is a platform with measuring instruments, the platform being self-controlled in its depth and freely moving with lateral ocean currents. Several UNH graduate students have been involved in this project, a few of whom have participated with Professor Winn in tests of the device off Bermuda.

Professor Fletcher A. Blanchard, in addition to serving as acting director of EDAL during Professor Savage's leave of absence this past year, has participated actively in UNH's Man in the Sea Program. In 1968, Professor Blanchard, with the assistance of two graduate students, designed and modeled a SEADOPOD diving system, a support barge maintained over a diving site on a 4-point moor and containing a cylindrically-shaped diving elevator and a control system to decouple the barge from the elevator. This past summer Professor Blanchard and one of his graduate students participated in the archaeological work of Dr. George Bass in the eastern Mediterranean Sea and attended a 2-week oceanographic conference in Malta involving students and faculty from UNH and the University of London.

Dr. H. Richard Skutt, whose primary interest is bioengineering, is carrying on three EDAL-related projects, each involving one or more graduate students. In cooperation with the Psychology Department, Dr. Skutt is seeking to telemeter the electrical activity from the brain of a free-swimming fish. A second project involves the telemetering of data from sheep and deer. The monitoring of humans during violent physical exercise, in conjunction with the Men's Physical Education Department, is the third project.

Dr. John L. Pokoski, whose area of specialty is control theory, is working with two mechanical engineering faculty on the design and development of a thruster system and control strategy for small research submarines. Several graduate students are working under Dr. Pokoski's direction on this project.

Within the past two years, the Department has begun a research activity in solid state devices under the direction of Dr. Glen C. Gerhard. Dr. Gerhard has shown unusual initiative in building from scratch a solid state laboratory facility. Now, with external research support, he has two students working with him in the area of solid state sensing devices.

Two years ago the Department had only the barest of offerings in the important area of digital systems. At that time, Professor Harold F. Wochholz joined the Department and in two years time has created a digital laboratory which is providing students with a unique experience in real-world digital system problems. In addition he has directed three graduate student theses involving interfacing problems with UNH's computer. This year Professor Robert W. Goodrich, in addition to retaining his interests in energy conversion and fluid mechanics, is joining Professor Wochholz in the digital system area.

The newest research activity in the Department is in the area of social systems -- bringing engineering expertise to bear on the problems of society. Dr. Murdoch is directing a project in the use of linear graph theory and the computer to model the traffic flow in New Hampshire. This Fall he will participate in weekly discussion sessions with a group of business, resource economics, political science, and engineering faculty in an effort to initiate an inter-College research activity in social systems.

In conclusion, it is worth noting that not only has the size and scope of the Electrical Engineering activity at UNH increased during the past 10 years, but its whole character has changed. Our Department is a much more exciting organization than it was 10 years ago.