At Purdue University, academic programs are organized under 10 administrative units called “colleges” or “schools”, all led by academic deans. The academic programs where faculty and staff are organized to deliver degree programs, conduct research, and engage with the community and industry are called “departments” or “schools”. Oddly the use of the word “school” can be used to describe an entire administrative unit encompassing multiple “departments” (Krannert School of Management, for example), or it can be used to describe a “department” (the School of Mechanical Engineering in the College of Engineering, for example).
The former College of Technology embarked on a transformation a few years ago that will fundamentally change the learning environment of its students, the teaching methodologies employed, and the degree programs being offered. It will move from offering programs that support the industrial age to supporting the 21st century digital age. The name of the college was changed to the Purdue Polytechnic Institute in May 2015 to reflect this transformation.
The Polytechnic remains one of the 10 academic colleges at Purdue, even though its name is different. Instead of having only “colleges” and “schools” to organize entire academic disciplines led by a dean, “institute” has been added as another name. There are no hard rules in naming academic entities in the nation. Some of the most prominent and progressive academic organizations in the nation have different names, such as the Stanford D School and the Media Lab at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
So Why Change the Name?
Colleges of Technology in the U.S. became popular in the 1960s during the peak of the industrial age to fulfill an important education gap that developed after engineering programs became more science- and theory-based. At first, colleges of Technology offered Associate of Science or Associate of Applied Science degree programs. Over time, most colleges of Technology at large public universities, such as Purdue, added BS degree programs. Unfortunately, many colleges of Technology continued to offer AS degree programs, and others were created at two-year vocational-technical colleges and community colleges. This resulted in many people assuming that all colleges of Technology prepared graduates with a two-year vocational technical degree. Programs that offer four-year bachelor’s degrees, like Purdue’s, had a stigma attached that a technology degree is vocational-technical in nature.
Purdue’s College of Technology had always been a leader in application-oriented engineering technology, computer technology, and applied management degrees. We were one of the first colleges of Technology in the nation and one of the first to offer BS Technology degrees.
The name change to the Purdue Polytechnic Institute is driven primarily by two notions: 1) we are no longer in the industrial age and have moved into the digital age, which requires that academic programs focused on application-oriented engineering, computer science and management programs change; and 2) a rebranding effort is necessary to move away from the perceived notion, by virtue of the name of the college, that our degree programs are vocational-technical.
To further show that the name College of Technology no longer adequately describes our degree programs, the here is list of a few of the colleges of Technology in the nation:
- ITT, a proprietary vocational-technical college, has a College of Technology
- Lincoln Tech, a proprietary vocational-technical college, has a College of Technology
- IVY Tech, the community college of Indiana, has a College of Technology
- Eastern Michigan University
- Indiana State University
- Bowling Green State University
- Idaho State University
- University of Houston
- Westwood College, a proprietary vocation-technical college, has a School of Technology
- Montana State University had a College of Technology before spinning it off to create the City College to offer vocational-technical programs.
- Thaddeus Stevens College of Technology (recently recognized as the top Pennsylvania Junior College/Technical or Trade School)
- Pennsylvania College of Technology, affiliated with Penn State University but located in an entirely different city from the main campus and not branded by Penn State.
None of these colleges and universities is Purdue’s peer, and most of them are community colleges. Of the 14 universities in the Big Ten, Purdue is the only university that had a College of Technology. There are no colleges of Technology at large public research universities that are Purdue’s peers. It could be argued that Purdue got it right by having a College of Technology, if it were not for the fact that over the years when we were copied nationwide, it was not by our peers but by less Wdistinctive universities and by proprietary and community colleges.
The college has also lost its momentum and was a college in decline. Over the last decade enrollment dropped by 28 percent, and it was at risk of falling further. It is imperative that we rebrand the college because of our transformation and to stay true to our heritage of leading the nation in application-oriented BS and graduate degree programs.
Why Purdue Polytechnic Institute as the new name?
The first Polytechnic, the Ecole Polytechnique, was started in Paris, France, in 1794 to provide instruction in the many technical arts and applied sciences needed to serve the needs of the emerging Industrial Age. The root of the word Polytechnic is the Greek word polytekhnos, meaning skilled in many crafts or arts. The English translation of tekne is techne, which is the root for the word technology. The Ecole Polytechnic was created primarily to teach the emerging discipline of engineering. It provided instruction in the many technical arts and applied sciences needed to serve the needs of the emerging industrial age and to deal with the shortage of engineers in France.
Many other countries modeled their new universities with a focus on engineering using the name Polytechnic in their title, such as Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in the U.S. Its founding documents reads, “…the application of sciences to the common purposes of life”.
The selection of the Purdue Polytechnic Institute as the name for the transformed College of Technology was very deliberate. Just as the first Polytechnic started at the dawn of the 19th century, in part, to create a new type of higher education to better serve the needs of an emerging age of industrialization, the new Polytechnic of the 21st century will better serve the needs of the emerging age of knowledge, information, and innovation. Through the transformation it is possible for the Purdue Polytechnic Institute to be viewed as the thought leader for the nation in preparing 21st century polytechnic graduates in engineering technology, computer and information technology, and applied management in the broad fields of construction, manufacturing, transportation, and computing.
Purdue Polytechnic Institute is a forward-thinking academic unit in higher education that represents and redefines the polytechnic for the 21st century. The Purdue Polytechnic encompasses new teaching methodologies; integrates humanities with technical studies in a learn-by-doing environment; provides a focus on design thinking, creativity and the offering of new degree attainment approaches and majors to address the needs of the innovation- and technology-driven economy.
Purdue’s version of the polytechnic will become the leading example for higher education transformation for the 21st century in the preparation of application-oriented technology graduates. The Purdue Polytechnic Institute does not represent engineering education, nor career and technical education; rather, the Purdue Polytechnic Institute is a 21st century poly-technical education that will prepare the “T-shaped professional” with the skills, knowledge, and experiences required by business and industry today and in the decades to come.
Here is a current list of polytechnics in the U.S. They are all four-year institutions, and some are considered Purdue’s peer institutions:
- Arizona State University at the Polytechnic campus (formerly called the College of Technology)
- California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
- California State Polytechnic University, Pomona
- Florida Polytechnic University (a new university recently created by the State of Florida)
- Northwestern Polytechnic University
- Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
- Southern Polytechnic State University
- State University of New York Polytechnic Institute
- NYU Polytechnic School of Engineering
- University of Wisconsin–Stout (officially designated as Wisconsin's Polytechnic University)
- Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech)
- Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Purdue’s version of the Polytechnic will be viewed nationally and internationally based on how we describe it and the outcomes we produce. It is an opportunity for us to rebrand the college and reestablish its leadership in application-oriented degree programs to serve the needs of society in the 21st century. The proud heritage of the former College of Technology will continue with the academic departments and degree programs in the college now named the Purdue Polytechnic Institute. We still offer and will continue to offer some of the finest degree programs in the nation in aviation, engineering technology, construction management technology, computer and computer graphics technology, and leadership. These degree programs combined with the curriculum innovation being integrated throughout the college will result in an academic college that will again lead the nation and define a technology education for the 21st century.
