Stem at Yale ― Up Down Up: History of Science and Engineering at Yale University

STEM at Yale: Up Down UpThis book is a history that tracks Yale’s progress in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) over two centuries. This period includes three major wars, numerous recessions, and one Great Depression. Yale University is now fully capable of meeting the enormous challenge of preparing highly intelligent students to forward mankind's quest for a better world.In my extensive research to write this book, I perused the writings and biographies of many great people. We begin with President Timothy Dwight IV and Benjamin Silliman, two Yale legends who brought science and engineering to Yale. Dwight’s goal was the formation of the Yale Medical School, and Silliman was the creative force that made this happen. Silliman, in his continuing enquiry into new sciences, was also responsible for the Yale Scientific School, the first geology department in the country, and the building of the Peabody Museum.Joseph Sheffield emerges in the midst of the 19th century as the philanthropic supporter of a separate Sheffield Scientific School that grew rapidly to become the leading school of its kind in the United States. The turn of the century in 1900, combined with Yale’s 200th anniversary in 1901, brought many alumni organizations into being, including the Yale Engineering Association, founded in 1914 on the eve of WWI. The Yale Aero Club and Marc Wortman’s compelling book, “The Millionaires’ Unit” introduced me to Trubee Davison and John Hammond, a Yale Sheffield Scientific School graduate and aviation pioneer, formed the first U.S. Navy air patrol unit during World War I. These Yale men are the acknowledged founders of the U.S. Naval Air Force, born in WWI and essential in WWII.My history ends positively. The remarkable efforts of President Richard Levin’s emphasis in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) at Yale has increased Yale’s impact globally and, in the biomedical cluster businesses in the New Haven, CT region. Levin and his colleagues have brought Yale into the company of elite world universities. His response to a national call to educate our youth for the Computer Age finds Yale once again in a leadership position.Ivy league schools have slowly accepted and are now introducing reinvigorated STEM programs. In 2007, Harvard announced its first new school in seven decades: the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. Columbia University’s program, through its Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science, is the largest in the Ivy league. MIT is highly rated, but recognizes the need to build up its liberal arts programs. Our country’s future as a global economic powerhouse is challenged as other nations realize that economic growth brings a better life for their people. To retain economic leadership in high technology, our best universities need new goals and major changes. In elementary and secondary school education, many countries are superior to the U.S. At the college and university level, our schools are judged superior to those of other countries. For the U.S. to retain its economic leadership, we need improved STEM education policies at all levels -- particularly in our public school system. “Rising Above the Gathering Storm,” a government study that dealt with this problem, is being implemented by follow-up projects and renewed concerns within the country’s top universitiesThe best world universities must offer students a blend of humanities and the sciences to serve a fast-developing, complex world driven by new inventions. Leaders, schooled at Yale, will be among those who use these new tools to create a unified, peaceful, and better world.William Davison GloverFebruary 2015