I was admitted to Case Institute of Technology in 1968. The admission letter came on Case Institute of Technology stationary. By the time I came to campus Case had federated with Western Reserve and Case Western Reserve University was born. I graduated in May 1972 with a Case Institute of Technology diploma — the last class to receive a real Case Institute diploma.
I will add Case related stuff to this page as I collect it.
HISTORY OF THE ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING AND APPLIED PHYSICS DEPARTMENT
By Yoh-Han PaoFor about six or seven years after that, there was an accredited EE degree program at Case, but no Electrical Engineering Department. Instead, there were professional or research groups headed by senior professors, each with a research focus. There were the Plasma research group headed by Professor O.K. Mawardi and the Electromagrictics group headed by Professor R.E. Collin. From these there developed, subsequently, a strong effort in Optics and Lasers, and a Solid State group involving Professor Eric Thompson and Professor Wen H. Ko. The solid state effort had strong ties with the Physics Department. In addition, there was a Systems research effort strongly tied with efforts in the area of Mechanical Engineering In 1967, at about the same time as the Institute's merger with Western Reserve College, the various Electrical Engineering and Applied Physics research efforts coalesced to form the Department of Electrical Sciences and Applied Physics with Professor Bruce W. Johnson as Department Head. In 1968, that department moved from its Bingham Building quarters to spacious new quarters in the Glennan Building, built with NASA and alumni support.
Prior to 1958-1959, there used to be an Electrical Engineering Department at the Case Institute of Technology. The last Head of that department was Professor Samuel Seely, known for very well received texts on electronics books that helped to make advances in electronics achieved during the war years available to the Electrical Engineering curriculum.
The new facilities included a super isolated Optics laboratory on the ground floor of the eight story building and a radio club penthouse. In 1967, Professor Yoh Han Pao had joined the department to help develop the laser and optics effort. In May 1969, Bruce Johnson passed away suddenly because of illness, and Professor Yoh Han Pao took over as department head until 1977. The department was renamed the Electrical Engineering and Applied Physics Department in 1974, The department did well in those years, advancing in national ranking from 21st in the nation to 11th in 1976. During those years, Professor Harry W Mergler developed a strong program in Digital Electronics, Professor Wen H. Ko led efforts in solid state devices and electronics, and headed the Electronics Design Center and a Biomedical Electronics National Resource Laboratory. Professor Dov Hazony continued to anchor the Systems work and curriculum, working closely with the Systems Department and Research Center. Professors Collin and Tannenbaum had strong programs in microwave sensing and communications.
Professor Collin served as chairman from 1978 until 1983, after which Professors P.C. Claspy, Sheldon Gruber, and Robert Trew served successively as chairman.
There were a lot of changes in faculty personnel during Professor Gruber's tenure, due to retirements. New appointments have brought along new directions, new programs, and new emphases. Professor Mehran Mehregany initiated and developed a vigorous program in MEMS research. Professor Wyatt Newman has built up several related efforts in robotics, agile manufacturing, and intelligent systems. In that work he has the collaboration of his colleagues, Professor Michael Branickv and Professor Frank Merat. Professor Yoh Han Pao augments their intelligent systems effort with activities in neural networks and related matters. Professor Dave Smith has an exciting program in optical communications, and Professor Steve Gaverick is active in microcircuitry design research. Professor Massood Tabib Azar covers several related areas in solid state research, working in collaboration with Materials Science and Physics.The Center for Automation and Intelligent Systems Research continues to contribute across disciplinary and departmental fines and is still a part of the state funded Cleveland Advanced Manufacturing Program.
Note: During all those tumultuous years, this department has always enjoyed wonderful relations with all the other academic departments of the University, and the help of Professor Donald Schuele should be acknowledged Don served as Acting Chairman of the Department on more than one occasion.
HISTORY OF THE SYSTEMS ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT
By Irv LefkowitzThe origins of the Department of Systems Engineering go back to the establishment by the late Don Eckman in 1953 of the pioneering interdisciplinary research program in Process Automation. Don, already a world leader for his contributions to industrial process control, had joined Mechanical Engineering two years earlier to start undergraduate and graduate programs in automatic control. This soon led to informal collaborations with Electrical Engineering and Chemical Engineering on courses, curricula, and research. With the merger of the existing engineering departments into a single Division of Engineering in the 1960's, control joined with the newly emerging areas of computers, information sciences, and systems, to constitute the largest faculty grouping in the Division. In time, the Departments of Systems Engineering, and Computer Engineering and Sciences evolved out of this interest group.
The Process Automation project gained wide recognition as the first reported research to demonstrate real time computer control of a chemical process that used a mathematical model of the process to optimize economic performance. The project, now called the Control of Industrial Systems program, expanded over the years in number of industrial sponsors, scope of the research, and students and faculty supported. For over 35 years it comprised one of the major research and graduate study components of the Systems Engineering Department.
This research program, with its unique focus on control as a systems problem and its emphasis on interdisciplinary research led Eckman to the idea of a Systems Research Center. This was established in 1959 with the help of a generous Ford Foundation grant — the first such center anywhere. The SRC provided the spawning grounds for subsequent Case activities in mathematical systems theory, information sciences, and biomedical engineering in particular, it served as precursor to establishment of the Systems Engineering Department in 1969. Its Systems and Control Engineering degree program was the first in the country to be ABET accredited. Eckman died in an automobile accident in 1962 an immeasurable loss to Case and to the control field. In his memory, the Automatic Control Council set up the Eckman Award to recognize promising young professionals in the field. Recipients of this award reads like a Who's Who of current leaders in the field.
In 1970 a research and graduate studies program in water resource systems was introduced. This marked the beginning of a steadily increasing commitment to large scale systems methodology applied to societal systems. and problems involving decision making and policy analysis. The department continued to specialize in control theory, mathematical systems theory. and systems analysis, producing a healthy mix of theory and application. Fruitful applications of theory developed in the areas of environmental systems, biomedical systems, world dynamics, and others. During the early eighties, the Department established an undergraduate degree program in Industrial Engineering
A SHORT HISTORY OF THE COMPUTER DEPARTMENT
By Fred Way, with notes from George Ernst
First off, one might well wonder "What Department?" A reasonable question, but not easily answered. "Have patience. The first time any course (Logic of Digital Computers, Math) actually used a digital computer was in the spring of 1956, when I was lucky enough to persuade Mr. J. Bednar of TRW to let a class use one of their IBM 650 machines during several evenings. The students got their first exposure and performed some calculations for Physics Prof. Leslie Foldy.
A 650 was installed in old Chem (the beginnings of the Computer Center) during the summer of 1956, and my Math 5 course commenced using it. The next major event was the move of the Center to the Quail Building and the offering of the Numerical Methods classes under the sponsorship of engineering faculty; courses in Engineering, Mathematics, and Operations Research were added, all of which had students using the Center facilities. Most of the courses were listed in Engineering and somewhere along the line the Computer Engineering Department was established.
The Department began looking like a real academic entity with the move to the Crawford Building, with Prof. E. L. Glaser as department chair. In the subsequent years we had a number of majors, second only to Electrical Engineering (and not always second). We soon had faculty and 's students involved in language development, artificial intelligence, numerical methods, logical design, graphics, operating systems design and analysis, and data base design and research. Alter much soul searching and some rather spirited discussions the department became the Department of Computer Engineering and Science.
Sometime after Glaser left, an administrative fiat merged Computers with Systems, and then after another change in administration the merger was undone. As of this date another merger has happened with yet another entity included (Electrical).
Note that the academic Program(s) really did not suffer under the various administrative arrangements. The students still received their money‘s worth and emerged with ambition, energy. and a CWRU education that has proven to be of unarguable value to them. The most casual look at their accomplishments over the years will bear out the truth of the assertion.
Notes
1987: The B.S. degree in Computer Science was approved. Prior to this we had only a B.S. in Computer Engineering (and the first to be accredited by ABET).
1987: We offered an off campus M.S. in Computer Science to AT&T in Columbus. Faculty went to Columbus to teach the courses. This was a sizable program — over 60 students and in exchange, AT&T created a Unix Workstation Lab for the department.
1991: The B.A. degree in Computer Science was approved.
1996: The CES department created a Winclows NT lab. Prior to this almost everything was done on Unix Workstations. At the same time our old Unix workstations were replaced with new ones.
1996: The CES department moved to its current quarters in the Olin BuildingMany of us fondly recall the old Univac's and, of course, the Algol compiler. John Walker has assembled a nice recollection of the Case 1107 in the old Quail Building. When I was a student we upgraded to the 1108 and later moved it across the street as part of the Chi Corporation.
NOTE: If anyone has any old Case Tech Web sites or information, and wishes to help expand the histories here please let me know.
Fred Way describes the early history of computing at Case (Video Podcast, 400MB, 75 minutes) in this recent ACM student seminar. His story starts in 1956 before there was any computer engineering engineering or computer science at Case. It begins in 1956 with the Univac 1 and its mercury memory and ends with the 1108.
The Case Alumni Association is a great organization as well as a terrific supporter of the current Case School of Engineering. Check out their activities.
This was the original school which later became Case Institute of technology and much later the Case School of Engineering of Case Western Reserve University.
Read the 1897 Student Handbook. This was a little before my time!
All Case Institute of Technology students were responsible for the Case yell.
Who rah! Kai rah!
S - C - I - E - N - C - E
Hai! Hai! Rah! Rah!
CAS....E.!