The 1955 report of the Committee on Evaluation of Engineering Education was brought into sharp focus by the unanticipated launch of the Soviet Sputnik. The 1930s saw the initiation of accreditation with related tightening of departmental curricular requirements. Soon these took on imperatives nearly as rigid as the Ten Commandments. In contrast, science and mathematics departments retained much greater freedom in providing for an individual’s interests. The 1960s gave increasing evidence that engineering technology education would provide industry, government, and the engineering profession with a valued channel of new employees not available when the ASEE Evaluation Report was published in 1955. In 1971, the ASEE Technology Committee issued an interim report followed shortly thereafter by its final report and recommendations. Clearly, the U.S. must recapture and enhance its long period of superiority in research and development and also in competitive technological production. Our immediate effort must be to regain faculty strength both in numbers and in quality.
