THE HISTORY OF THE SEAS UNDERGRADUATE THESIS
This module provides a brief history of the SEAS undergraduate thesis and places that history in the larger
context of engineering education in America. It explains the rationale behind the requirement; how the thesis
has evolved; and why SEAS is, in some respects, unlike any other engineering school.
When you receive your engineering degree, you will
follow in footsteps of young men and women who, for
more than a century, have done exactly what you will
do: Present a “graduating thesis” to the faculty of the
School. This well-blazed trail has deep and
meaningful roots in the past, but it leads to the future
— a future you will be uniquely empowered to build.
Engineering instruction before the Civil War
During the antebellum years, most American colleges
and universities focused on teaching the classics,
including the Greek and Latin languages and
literatures. The notion that higher education ought to
address more practical matters was slow to gain
acceptance at most of them. An exception was the
University of Virginia, whose founder, Thomas
Jefferson, included engineering in his vision for the
new institution.
Soon after the University opened its doors in
1825, instruction in civil engineering was included in
science courses. In 1833, Professor Charles
Bonnycastle offered one of the first civil engineering
courses to be taught as part of the regular curriculum
in any American university. Beginning in 1836,
Virginia was among the first universities to offer
“partial” curricula in engineering. These were one- or
two-year courses of studies designed for students
who were not interested in earning a bachelor of arts
degree (Reynolds, 1992).
To provide the “partial” engineering programs, a
School of Civil Engineering was founded in 1836. But
there was little need for civil engineers in Virginia’s
predominantly agrarian economy. Worse, the
following year saw the beginning of a crippling
depression that would last well into the 1840s. Few
students attended, and even fewer received
certificates — a total of 19. Although the School of
Engineering remained in existence until 1861, by the
1850s the university’s catalog failed to mention this
fact and the program appears to have been
suspended (Bruce, 1921).
Among those observing the general disinterest in
engineering was a professor of natural philosophy
named William Barton Rogers (1804-1882), the
famed founder of the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology (MIT). Rogers joined the Virginia faculty
in 1835. All the evidence indicates that it was during
his Virginia years that Rogers developed the ideas
that later defined MIT’s pioneering curriculum
(Reynolds, 1992).
Rogers’ years at the University of Virginia were
not among his happiest. He missed his family in
Boston. Among the students were more than a few
HISTORY OF THE SEAS UNDERGRADUATE THESIS
roughnecks, one of whom brandished a loaded pistol
in front of his face. Worse, he knew that Virginia could
not then support his ideas for a new, polytechnical
university. From Rogers’ perspective, slavery was
responsible for a long series of ills, including holding
back the development of industry and creating an
environment hostile to science (Angulo, 2005). In
1853, with no job awaiting him elsewhere, Rogers
resigned his professorship and moved to Boston,
where his brothers had long hoped to lure him. His
students and colleagues observed his departure with
deep regret.
Leopold J. Boeck and the rebirth of Virginia
engineering, 1867-1875
The catalyst for establishing a permanent engineering
curriculum at the University was the Civil War, which
left the South’s infrastructure in ruins. The University
led the way to renewal by developing one of the
nation’s first engineering programs. In the decades to
follow, Virginia’s engineering program would lead the
state of Virginia, as President Alderman put it in
1916, from a “medieval agriculturalism” to “modern,
democratic industrialism” (Society for the Promotion
of Engineering Education, 1916, p. 16).
In the 1860s and 1870s, German universities led
the way in science and engineering. To jump-start the
engineering curriculum, the University recruited a
“singular genius” (Barringer, 1949, p. 204): a Polish
immigrant named Leopold J. Boeck (1822-1896), who
held a doctoral degree from a German university.
Boeck had taught applied mathematics at the
Sorbonne. Prior to the Civil War, he founded a
pioneering technical institute in New York City
(“Professor Leopold J. Boeck,” 1896). A veteran of
revolutions in eastern Europe and the salons of Paris,
Boeck spoke “at least six to eight languages” fluently
(Culbreth, 1908, p. 443). Under Boeck’s leadership,
the School of Applied Mathematics, Engineering, and
Architecture first offered instruction in 1867.
Boeck’s abstract and highly theoretical approach
to engineering did not sit well with some of his
students, however. Although they respected him as a
“man of great learning,” they nevertheless felt that he
“fell short of being the useful and practical teacher”
they needed (Culbreth, 1908, p. 443). By 1874,
various complaints regarding Boeck — including his
failure to return library books on time — had reached
the Board of Visitors, which appointed a committee to
look into the matter. In the following year, the
committee reported that Boeck’s continued presence
on the faculty was “not in the University’s best
interests,” although no specific allegation was made.
Boeck resigned in a huff. He moved to Philadelphia,
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where he taught engineering courses at the
University of Pennsylvania until his death in 1896.
William M. Thornton and the rise of the School of
Engineering (1875-1930)
To fill Boeck’s position, the University recruited a
recent graduate and distinguished pupil of the
University’s most highly regarded professor, Charles
S. Venable: William M. Thornton (1851-1935), then a
professor of Greek at Davidson College.
Thus began a brilliant career that saw the rapid
expansion of Virginia’s engineering program. Indeed,
from the time of his return to Virginia in 1875,
Thornton was “in a large sense the School of
Engineering” (Society for the Promotion of
Engineering Education, 1916, p. 344). Under
Thornton’s leadership, the School acquired a national
reputation and strongly influenced engineering
instruction throughout the nation.
Thornton fully understood the limitations of
Boeck’s abstract, impractical curriculum. As soon as
he could persuade the Board of Visitors to
appropriate the necessary funds, Thornton
supplemented the “older discipline of books, lectures,
computation, and drawings” with “knowledge of a
practical and positive sort.” The engineering student,
Thornton believed,
must, in the chemical laboratory, learn to
determine the qualities of his building
materials, fuels, ores, and water supplies, and
in the mechanical laboratory, their strength,
heaviness, toughness, and so on; and also
learn to test the qualities of steam, the
performance of engines, boilers, furnaces,
pumps, and dynamos. In the geological
laboratory, he must find out the gross and
microscopical structure of minerals and
rocks; and in the physical laboratory, learn to
measure the amounts, etc., of electrical,
magnetic action, and the transmission of
light, heat, and sound (cited in Bruce, 1922, p.
18).
The “Graduating Thesis” assignment (1904)
Recognizing Thornton’s extraordinary dedication and
his many accomplishments, the University named him
Dean of Engineering in 1904. One of Dean Thornton’s
first actions was to require a “graduating thesis.” The
University Catalogue of 1904-1905 described the new
thesis requirement:
HISTORY OF THE SEAS UNDERGRADUATE THESIS
William M. Thornton
Source: (Missouri Bar Association, 1913, p. 125).
Every candidate for a degree in Engineering
will be required at the beginning of his
graduating year to submit to the Dean some
subject for independent study suited to the
student’s especial course and aims. After
such subject has been approved by the Dean
and the Professor in charge, the student will
be expected to carry out for himself the
necessary literary and laboratory researches
and to present his results in the form of a
Graduating Thesis. Such thesis must be
typewritten on standard sheets, 8 by 10 ½
inches, bound in a proper cover, and handed
in for final approval not later than May 25. All
necessary computations and drawings must
accompany the thesis. Serious weight will be
given to this work in estimating the student’s
fitness for graduation (pp. 226-227).
The idea of a graduating thesis was hardly new.
Indeed, in the 1890s, nearly every engineering school
in the nation required one. What is remarkable about
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Thornton’s thesis requirement is that it almost
audaciously bucked a national trend: Everywhere, it
seemed, engineering faculty were dissatisfied with
the graduating thesis, and many schools had already
dropped the requirement. The reason, as a faculty
committee at the University of Wisconsin was later to
learn, lay in a widespread misconception of the role
an undergraduate thesis ought to play. What should
have been an opportunity for mentoring was
understood as an examination, in which the student
was forced to work alone and with very little
guidance.
Why did other engineering schools end their use of
the undergraduate thesis?
Most engineering schools saw the graduating thesis
as a test of the student’s mastery of the material:
therefore, the student was to be “thrown on his own
resources” to see whether he could produce “definite
results,” in spite of the absence of supervision. The
thesis was viewed, in short, as a “trial of strength and
a measure of character” (Esty, 1902, pp. 1163-4).
Considering that students received little or no
supervision, but were simply turned loose in the
library, it is hardly surprising that students
frequently failed to produce “definite results.” In
consequence, the typical graduating thesis was, as the
author of an article on the subject politely put it, “a
most variable piece of work” (Norris, 1904).
For their part, students looked on the graduating
thesis with “distaste and dissatisfaction,” in part
because they so often failed to produce results
“commensurate with the effort expended”
(Karapetoff, 1917, p. 1525). Not inclined to mince
words, the dean of the engineering school at Syracuse
University described the typical senior thesis as
“farcical” (Shepard, 1911, p. 188). Syracuse soon
abandoned the requirement. By 1915, about half of
the engineering schools in the nation had followed
suit.
Still, support for the thesis requirement remained
strong where it was properly conceptualized:
specifically, as a beneficial educational experience
rather than as a test of the student’s mastery. In these
schools, the thesis supervisor maintained close
contact with the work, ensuring that the student did
not waste his time or acquire “false impressions” as
the result of his work. To be sure, care was taken to
avoid supervising the student too closely, to avoid the
danger of making the thesis a “mere echo of the
instructor’s ideas” (Van Hagan, L. F., 1915, pp. 118-9).
From this point of view, what mattered was not
whether the student came up with “definite results,”
HISTORY OF THE SEAS UNDERGRADUATE THESIS
let alone original findings, but rather whether the
educational experience had been beneficial.
Thornton’s graduating thesis falls into the latter
category. It was a mentored, supervised, and
designed to provide a beneficial educational
experience. But in many respects it was unlike
comparable projects at other schools, to an extent
that can best be grasped by understanding
Thornton’s vision of the undergraduate engineering
curriculum.
An engineering curriculum modeled on schools of
law
Thornton saw the thesis as one component in a
broader series of activities and experiences that was
designed to build students’ communication skills and,
at the same time, impart an awareness and
appreciation for culture. These exercises were
expressly modeled on the law curriculum:
I look... to our law school, in which the
students are trained in oral discussion of
legal problems, in preparation of written
briefs, and in the technique of public
speaking; whose graduates easily and swiftly
press forward to the front ranks of the legal
profession and to the high seats of political
life....
To emulate the law curriculum within engineering
successfully, Thornton believed, the engineering
faculty had to become actively engaged in mentoring
the students’ writing and speaking skills. This could
best be done, he believed, by engaging undergraduate
engineering students in debate, discussion, and
writing involving engineering materials.
Attesting to Thornton’s interest in emulating the
law curriculum was the Conference Club, which was
introduced at the same time as the thesis project and
comprised an integral part of the thesis experience.
All juniors, seniors, and faculty automatically
belonged to this “club,” which met once per week.
Seniors kicked off the meetings by discussing the
progress they had made on their thesis projects and
the problems they had encountered; other students
and faculty provided commentary, suggestions, and
criticism. The juniors in attendance undoubtedly
learned a great deal by observing the give-and-take.
Some of the student presentations would have
involved teams, for Thornton expressly encouraged
students to collaborate on their thesis projects if they
shared a common interest.
Although other engineering schools were quick to
imitate many of Thornton’s innovations, the “great
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mass” of engineering schools did not emulate
Thornton’s method of teaching speaking and writing
skills, as Thornton conceded in a 1916 speech to the
Society for the Promotion of Engineering Education,
which held its annual conference that year in
Charlottesville (Thornton, 1916). “We are in a small
minority.”
The same could be said today. Few engineering
schools support an entire department of scholars who
have made career commitments to the study of
science, technology, and society from the viewpoints
of the humanities and social sciences, as does Virginia
Engineering. Devoted to teaching small classes and
engaging them in debate and discussion, the STS
program’s faculty are carrying out precisely the
vision formulated by Thornton more than a century
ago: To bring the benefits of a law school’s
communication-intensive curriculum to engineering
education. That these benefits have paid off for
generations of Virginia Engineering students is
affirmed by the School’s long-standing reputation for
graduating students with outstanding communication
skills.
Bringing liberal arts Instruction within the fold of
the School, 1918-1927
Most engineering schools of the early 20th century
sent their students off to the humanities in order to
learn speaking and writing skills — and they still do
today. But the results, Thornton believed, were
disastrous. Thornton’s views on the role of the
humanities in engineering education led him to
support positions within the School of faculty
specializing in the history, literature, and sociology of
engineering and technology. The Science, Technology,
and Society program is the living embodiment of
Thornton’s vision.
In the early 20th century, the inability of
engineering graduates to “write with clarity” and
“speak with force,” Thornton observed, was
approaching the dimensions of a scandal, resulting in
“caustic comments” and “admonitions addressed to
our colleges” to do something about the problem. Yet
when engineering students enrolled in humanities
courses, their instructors required them to emulate
“those weak broths of English literature, those
tenuous emulsions of political history, [and] those
dry-as-dust post toasties of economics.” Until
Thornton could be shown good results from these
works, which were “dished out... as if they were the
fruits of life,” he would continue “to doubt the
nutritive value of these breakfast foods of the
technological banquet” (1916, p. 20). Let the
engineering faculty mentor the students in their
HISTORY OF THE SEAS UNDERGRADUATE THESIS
writing and speaking skills, Thornton urged, and
draw materials for debate, discussion, and emulation
from the engineering literature.
Thornton knew that most humanities professors
would scoff at the idea that the engineering literature
could provide suitable materials for discussion, let
alone emulation. Yet Thornton strongly disagreed:
There is, I am persuaded, as much cultural
value in a carefully studied and
conscientiously prepared report on an
engineering project as in any legal brief or
medical essay. The very history of
engineering is full of romance, full of interest,
full of inspiration.
In 1918, the University Catalogue announced a
new, required course in English for engineering
students, which included a unit on literature. But the
literature in question was not to be the “weak broths”
and “tenuous emulsions” offered in the College, but
rather “prose literature about science.”
At first, Thornton had trouble finding faculty
capable of teaching the new course. Faculty trained in
English simply were not interested in works about
the history of technology, biographies of engineers,
and studies of the role of technology in society.
Moreover, Thornton had been hiring instructors on a
part-time, temporary basis, which gave them little
incentive to develop a career interest in the
engineering literature. By the mid-1930s, Thornton
had decided that the problem could not be solved
unless the School hired permanent, full-time faculty
from the humanities and social sciences, providing
them with the incentive to focus their work on
engineering and its literature.
Origin of the Science, Technology, and Society
Program
In 1936, Joseph L. Vaughan (1905-1999), a graduate
of Virginia’s English department, accepted a position
within the School in order to implement Thornton’s
vision for an engineering-oriented liberal arts
curriculum within the School. Vaughan was hired as a
full voting member of the School’s faculty and became
the head of a humanities and social science faculty
within engineering.
Beloved by his students, Vaughan touched the
lives of whole generations of Virginia engineering
students. Among the many students of Joe’s who went
on to great distinction was Thomas Parke Hughes
(1923-2014), who received a B.S. degree in
Mechanical Engineering in 1946. Hughes’ story may
surprise you, because it shows that the fields in which
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most STS Department faculty specialize — science &
technology studies and the history of technology —
are themselves partly the product of Thornton’s
vision.
Hughes took Thornton’s views concerning the
romance, interest, and inspiration of literature on the
lives of the great engineers quite seriously — so much
so, in fact, that he decided to enroll in the University
of Virginia’s history program, from which he received
a Ph.D. in 1953.
Appointed to a faculty position in the University of
Pennsylvania’s history and sociology of science and
technology program, Hughes won an international
reputation for his work on inventors such as Edison
and Sperry. He was among the co-founders of the
Society for the History of Technology (SHOT) in 1959.
But he also played a very important role in the
formation of a new research area called science &
technology studies (S&TS). In 1986, he co-edited a
book that is today regarded as perhaps the single
most important foundational work in the early years
of S&TS, The Social Construction of Technological
Systems (MIT, 1986).
Hughes’ acclaimed works should put to rest any
remaining doubts concerning Thornton’s views
concerning the literature on engineering. In 1990, his
retelling of 20th century American history from the
perspective of a technology studies scholar, American
Genesis (MIT, 1989), was a finalist for the Pulitzer
Prize. Reviewers called the work “masterful” and
“stimulating.” Writing in the Times Literary
Supplement, Adam Wishart called Hughes’ latest book,
The Human-Built World (Chicago, 2004), an
“incisively rendered and engaging history of
humanity’s relationship to technology.... A timely and
urgent book.”
Tom has retired from active teaching, but his
intellectual legacy lives on within the STS
Department, thanks to the interest he took in our
program and the presence among us of one of his
Ph.D. students, Professor W. Bernard Carlson, who
currently serves as chair of the Department of
Engineering and Society.
The “Conference Club” today
Law students are quite garrulous in discussion
classes, and for good reason: Unless they can express
themselves clearly, their chances for success and
contribution are very limited. The same could be said
of U.S. engineering graduates.
possible to promote lively discussion. Make the most
of the year.
References
Angulo, A. J. (2005). William Barton Rogers and the
Southern Sieve: Revisiting Science, Slavery, and
Higher Learning in the Old South. History of Education
Quarterly, 45(1), 18-37.
Barringer, P. B. (1949). The Natural Bent: The
Memoirs of Dr. Paul B. Barringer. Chapel Hill, NC: Univ.
of North Carolina Press.
Bruce, P. A. (1921). History of the University of
Virginia, 1819-1919. The Lengthened Shadow of One
Man. New York: MacMillan.
Culbreth, D. (1908). The University of Virginia:
Memories of Her Student Life and Professors. New
York: Neale Publishing Co.
Esty, W. (1902). Electrical engineering courses at
college and the education of the electrical engineer.
Transactions of the American Institute of Electrical
Engineers, 19, 1155-1164.
Karapetoff , V. (1917). Suggestions for electrical
research in engineering colleges. Transactions of the
American Institute of Electrical Engineers, 35, 895903.
Norris, H. H. (1904). The engineering thesis. Sibley
Journal of Engineering, 18, 199-201.
Reynolds, T. S. (1992). The education of engineers in
American before the Morrill Act of 1862. History of
Education Quarterly, 32(4), 459-482.
Shepard, G. (1911). Notes on the German technical
Unversities. In Talbot, A.N., Munroe, H. S., & Norris, H.
H. (Eds.), Society for the Promotion of Engineering
Education, Proceedings of the Eighteenth Annual
Meeting (Madison, WI, June 23-25, 1910), 167-201.
Thornton, W. (1916). Address of welcome.
Proceedings of the Twenty-Fourth Annual Meeting of
the Society for the Promotion of Engineering
Education, June 19-22, 1916(Vol. 24). Pittsburgh, PA:
Society for the Promotion of Engineering Education.
University of Virginia. (1896). “Professor Leopold J.
Boeck.” Alumni Bulletin, 3(1), 17-18
So take full advantage of the living descendent of
Thornton’s Conference Club: your STS 4500 and
4600 sections. These classes are kept as small as
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HISTORY OF THE SEAS UNDERGRADUATE THESIS
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