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Building a Different Degree
Olin College Students, Faculty Help Design Their Ideal Campus
 Listen to Jason Beaubien's report.
 View an Olin College photo gallery
August 28, 2001 -- It's back to school time across the United States, and many East Coast universities are scrambling to find room for an unexpected overflow of new students. But at one college campus outside Boston -- the first new college in the area in 40 years -- incoming engineering students are already hard at work on their first big project: helping to design the curriculum for the college itself.
Olin College hopes to overhaul the way engineering colleges teach, by making the college infrastructure and coursework part of the curriculum. Jason Beaubien from NPR member station WBUR reports that the students and faculty are hoping to create a new academic atmosphere focusing on real-world results.
"This is not all about saying that others are doing it wrong," says Richard Miller, Olin's new president. "What it is saying is that there's room for... wild ideas for people to try out."
Some of those new ideas are indeed a little wild compared to the staid academic model many colleges follow. Professors won't have tenure, and each student will get a full scholarship, room and board for four years. The catch? The students and professors must play an active part in defining the curriculum before formal classes are slated to start in the fall of 2002.
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Professor John Bourne advises a student team during a tower building
contest at an Olin College recruiting event.
Photo: M. J. Maloney
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The 30 students in the pilot group may also a bit different from what you might consider typical engineering students. The board of the Franklin W. Olin Foundation, which is financing the college with a $300-million grant, is looking to foster well-rounded scientists who look beyond the challenges of pure engineering to include the financing, planning, muscle and sweat it takes to create a college.
Judging by the opening-day student introductions, the foundation may have found the students they were looking for. One student tap danced, others recited poems, and another made a pitch for making duct tape the official school mascot.
Student Molly Tromblay McCann of Santa Cruz, Calif., says she chose Olin over MIT and Cal Tech because she wants her other talents to play a role in earning her engineering degree. "I'm a writer and I'm also a costume designer, and I didn't want to lose those parts of myself when I went to college," she told Beaubien.
Other Resources:
Olin College Web site
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