History Of Mechanical Engineering
Chapter 4

N.R. Sparks
M.S. Gjesdahl  1946 - 1962

In 1946, Norman R. Sparks became the head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering, succeeding Harold A. Everett, who retired. N. R. Sparks had joined the Penn State faculty in 1924. In 1941, he received a commission as a lieutenant in the navy and ran the V-12 program at Cornell. One of his students at Cornell, Arthur D. Brickman, was such a good student that Sparks asked him to become an instructor in the program. In 1945, Sparks left the navy with the rank of lieutenant commander and returned to Penn State along with A. D. Brickman, who was offered a position on the faculty. Enrollment grew dramatically in the School of Engineering during the years after the war. This massive influx of students, many of them veterans of the war, caused serious classroom and laboratory overcrowding. The problem was alleviated somewhat by admitting all freshmen and a portion of the sophomore class to the state teachers colleges or one of Penn State's four undergraduate centers (Altoona, DuBois, Hazleton, Schuylkill) to complete initial academic requirements. This permitted the school to admit returning veterans to the University Park Campus.

In 1944, John J. Light retired. J. J. Light received his baccalaureate degree from Penn State in 1915 after being persuaded by L. A. Harding (his supervisor at Armstrong Cork Company in Lancaster) to attend Penn State when Harding became department head in 1909. J. J. Light was a part-time student and worked as the department mechanic. He graduated in 1915 and was immediately offered a position on the faculty. He taught mechanical engineering laboratory courses and the heat power service course. His son, John Harding Light, studied at Penn State and was an NCAA wrestling champion. He later became a physician in State College and treated many of the members of the mechanical engineering faculty and their families in his office in the house that A. J. Wood built on Allen Street.

Research continued in the thermal laboratories of the Engineering Experiment Station on insulating materials for construction applications in response to the demand for housing immediately following the war. Research also continued in the diesel laboratory to increase the efficiency of diesel engines.

In June 1951, Dean Hammond retired and Eric A. Walker became the sixth dean of engineering. Eric Walker was born in England, but spent his youth in Wrightsville, Pennsylvania. He was educated as an electrical engineer and received his Ph.D. and M. B.A. from Harvard. During World War II, he participated in the underwater acoustic research program at Harvard. Following the war, the entire underwater acoustic program was transferred to Penn State and became known as the Ordnance Research Laboratory (ORL). Eric Walker was the original director of ORL and also head of the electrical engineering department.

Relief to the overcrowded conditions in mechanical engineering came with the $1.16 million appropriated by the legislature to enlarge the Mechanical Engineering Laboratory. Completed in 1951, the enlargement consisted of two three-story wings that included space for offices, computation rooms, a large lecture room, and laboratories for air conditioning and refrigeration, lubrication, and test cells for internal combustion engines (see photo, page 38). These new facilities enabled freshmen to begin their engineering studies at the University Park Campus for the first time since 1945.

R. D. Fellows and E. E. Ambrosius assumed the primary role in defining the department's needs in the design of the new wings. R. D. Fellows received his baccalaureate degree from Penn State in the early 1920s. He joined the faculty after graduation and retired after thirty-six years of service. E. E. Ambrosius was educated at the University of Illinois in the 1920s and arrived at Penn State in 1944 from the University of Oklahoma to oversee the Mechanical Engineering Laboratory. Well over six feet tall, E. E. Ambrosius had a commanding presence, yet he had a gentle demeanor. Ambrosius did not like to use contractions and discouraged his students from using them as well.

Both Fellows and Ambrosius had an intense interest in the laboratory aspect of engineering education. Together they wrote the book Mechanical Engineering Laboratory Practice, Ronald Books, 1957. They shared an office with a vast number of file cabinets containing detailed descriptions of every piece of equipment in the department. They were also the caretakers of "Fort Knox," an infamous storage room in the bowels of the building where all used equipment was kept on the theory that it might be needed again someday.

Fellows and Ambrosius were the best of friends. They were devoted to education and to maintaining high professional standards. When it was necessary to define the activities the new wings would have to satisfy, Ambrosius and Fellows compiled detailed specifications. Each floor in the wings was built to support engine test beds. Suffice it to say it was a solid structure. Ambrosius retired in 1965 and returned to LaGrange, Illinois, and Fellows retired in 1963 and moved to Oregon.

In 1953, President of the College Milton Eisenhower (brother of U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower) persuaded the trustees to change the institution's name to The Pennsylvania State University. He believed that this name reflected the nature of the institution's teaching, research, and service activities. As a result, the schools within the old college became colleges themselves, and the old School of Engineering became the College of Engineering and Architecture.

Eric A. Walker, dean of the College of Engineering and Architecture, was a strong proponent of research. He believed that research opportunities would serve to attract a high-quality faculty. However, the undergraduate teaching requirements left the average professor little time for research. N. R. Sparks complained in 1954 that the department was operating with a serious staff shortage, causing graduate research to become secondary to undergraduate instruction. In 1956, Walker became University vice president for research and within five months, he became Penn State's twelfth President. Under President Walker (1956-70), the University expanded more rapidly than ever in its history. The enrollment climbed from 13,000 to 45,000, and the budget grew from $34 million to $165 million. A hundred new buildings were constructed on the University Park Campus alone.

In the 1950s, Consumer Research of Washington, New Jersey, contacted Sparks and asked him if he and his associates would like to act as consultants and test automobiles for their monthly reports. Sparks asked C. C. Dillio and J. D. Decker to run the program. In six years, they tested 110 automobiles. One of the tests consisted of applying the handbrake at 40 miles per hour. On nearly all cars, the handbrake acted on the wheels, and the cars came to a halt in a hasty but expected fashion. Unexpectedly, the handbrake in one car clamped the drive shaft. As Dillio and Decker sped along the road and applied the brake, the unexpected jolt nearly sent them through the windshield.

Merritt A. Williamson was selected to be the dean of the College of Engineering and Architecture in July 1956. Williamson received his B.S. and M.S. degrees from Yale in 1938 and 1940. He began a doctoral program but interrupted his studies in 1944 to accept a commission in the navy. In 1946, he completed his Ph.D. at Yale in the field of metallurgy. In 1952, he received an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago. Prior to coming to Penn State, Williamson was manager of the research division of the Burroughs Corporation.

In the fall of 1956, 591 mechanical engineering students out of a total of 2,891 engineering undergraduate students were enrolled at the University Park Campus. Out of a total of 129 engineering graduate students, 25 were enrolled in mechanical engineering.

In the early 1950s, responsibility for administering graduate degrees became the responsibility of the departments. Graduate students conducting research in the Engineering Experiment Station were accountable to the degree-granting departments. The name of the station was changed to the Department of Engineering Research in 1958. During this period (and certainly by the end of the decade), it became abundantly clear that graduate study and research needed to be an integral part of each department. Thus as faculty spawned new research laboratories, they increasingly chose to affiliate with the conventional departments and not with the Engineering Experiment Station. The dominant activity of the station and of the Department of Engineering Research was research concerning the thermal properties of building materials. In 1964, the department was renamed the Institute for Building Research and was eventually absorbed into the Department of Architectural Engineering.

The Engineering Experiment Station had been highly successful in ways its originators could hardly have realized. Whereas Reber and Jackson envisioned the station's output to be disseminated through continuing education and extension (as was the case in agriculture), in fact the results were more effectively transmitted through technical meetings and publications of the engineering professional societies, consulting, and contract research. The station was staffed by a group of enterprising people who appreciated the distinction between teachers who did research and researchers who taught. Wolfgang E. Meyer, Julius DeCarolis, and Richard G. Cunningham, who served the department so effectively in the decades ahead, began as members of the Engineering Experiment Station.

P. H. Schweitzer brought the department increasing recognition in the 1950s. He was an entrepreneur of the first rank. Bright, always ready to promote his research and enhance his professional standing, he had an international reputation and a personal style befitting a celebrity. Nowhere was this more evident than in his behavior at national professional meetings. Schweitzer would arrive late to a plenary session and, while the speaker was at the podium, would stroll down the center aisle nodding to his friends on the right and left and take a seat in the front row. At the end of the address, he would be the first to rise. He would begin to pose a (long) question facing the speaker but would finish with his back to the speaker addressing the audience. If Schweitzer was a speaker on a program, the chair would either have to abandon the time schedule or interrupt Schweitzer and withstand his enmity. After retirement from Penn State in 1958, Schweitzer remained active in engineering research and maintained an office as a consultant in State College. He could be seen regularly, nattily dressed in a beret and cravat, strolling along the street reading a newspaper (it is a wonder he never walked into a post or was run over). In his will, he left money to the borough to fund the planting of shade trees in a popular downtown parking lot that was unbearably hot in the summertime. All in all, Schweitzer was a colorful character whose professional reputation brought renown to Penn State.

Following World War II, the goal of engineering education was the same as before the war — to prepare professionally qualified engineers for positions in industry.

Curriculum published in the 1975-58 University Bulletin.

Financial support of the department's activities was woefully inadequate. While aeronautical engineering had become a separate department in 1944, the engineerinng drafting courses taken by all engineering freshmen were made a department responsibility in 1951. In addition, the basic 3-credit thermodynamic course and a 3-credit thermodynamic laboratory taken by all engineering students were also the responsibility of the department. Evidence of the austere conditions and low morale can be gleaned from the laments of N. R. Sparks in his annual reports.

— in 1951, 35 percent of the faculty resigned and a hiring freeze prevented filling the positions by permanent appointments.

— salaries were so low and teaching loads so high that Sparks could only hire instructors (four of whom were members of the class of 1952 who remained to pursue graduate degrees) and borrow staff from the Ordnance Research Laboratory and the Engineering Experiment Station.

— in 1956, typical salaries in the department were more than 20 percent below the national average for mechanical engineering departments.

— in 1955, 36 percent of the faculty received annual (ten-month) salaries less than the starting salaries of graduating seniors.

— between 1950 and 1956, teaching loads increased by 50 percent.

— typical faculty teaching assignments required their attendance in class for approximately twenty hours per week.

Faced with such conditions, a large number of the young and productive faculty accepted positions at other universities where salaries and teaching loads were more favorable. Many established successful careers in teaching, research, and publishing.

In spite of the heavy teaching loads, faculty at Penn State also found time to publish and their output is remarkable under the circumstances.

Zerban, A. H., and Doolittle, J. S. Engineering Thermodynamics: Theory and Applications, International Textbook Co., Scranton, Pennsylvania, 1948; second edition 1955; third edition 1962.

Zerban, A. H., Doolittle, J. S., and Eye, E. P. Steam Power Plants, International Textbook Co., Scranton, Pennsylvania, third edition 1952.

Dillio, C. C., and Eye, E. P. Thermal Engineering, International Textbook Co., Scranton, Pennsylvania, 1959; second edition 1963.

Ambrosius, E. E., and Fellows, R. D. Mechanical Engineering Laboratory Practice, Ronald Books, 1957.

Ambrosius, E. E., Fellows, R. D., and Brickman, A. D. Mechanical Engineering Laboratory Practice, Ronald Books, second edition 1966.

Bradford, L. J., and Eaton, P. B. Machine Design and Kinematics, John Wiley and Sons, New York, second edition 1928; fourth edition 1940.

Guillet, G. L. Kinematics of Machinery, John Wiley and Sons, New York, fifth edition 1950.

Dusinberre, G. M. Gas Turbine Power, International Textbook Co., Scranton, Pennsylvania, 1952.

Dusenberre, G. M., and Lester, J. C. Gas Turbine Power, International Textbook Co., Scranton, Pennsylvania, second edition 1958.

Dusinberre, G. M. Heat Transfer Calculations by Finite Differences, International Textbook Co., Scranton, Pennsylvania, 1961.

Dusinberre's book on finite difference calculations was prescient. Numerical calculations are mainstays of mechanical engineering today (heat transfer and fluid mechanics in particular), and the department is one of the leading institutions in the United States in the field of numerical methods in heat transfer and fluid mechanics. Dusinberre made his contributions when computers were just beginning to have an impact on engineering. He died in December 1960 before he could see the veritable explosion numerical computation was to experience.

"Dusie," as his colleagues called him, was a witty man, who coined many aphorisms that have become department folklore.

• to someone who'd just made a fool of himself, Dusie would evoke the "Equestrian Theorem-There are more horses' asses in the world than there are horses."
• to someone who'd just arrived at a foolish conclusion based on an absurd hypothesis, Dusie would evoke the "Avuncular Theorem — If your aunt had balls, would she be your uncle?"

Dusie, a baseball fan, wore a hearing aid. He was known to attend faculty meetings with a radio in place of his hearing aid so that he could listen to the World Series. At one college faculty meeting, he was asked by the dean to respond to an issue under discussion. Caught off-guard, he rose to his feet and announced, "Top of the ninth inning, Cubs 4 — Dodgers 3!"

In 1954, Nancy Boodley was appointed as an instructor to teach engineering drawing and began graduate study. She was the first woman faculty member in the department. In 1970, Janice Margle was appointed as a research assistant.

The department has had a long association with the navy. Professors H. A. Everett and F. G. Hechler had been at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. The navy had been the most faithful supporter of the diesel engine research of P. H. Schweitzer during the 1930s and Penn State's renowned Diesel Engineering School in World War II. N. R. Sparks, O. R. Swigart ("Swig"), J. C. Lester, A. H. Zerban, G. M. Dusinberre, and Schweitzer were retired naval officers. The 1950s were known as the "admiral years." Sea stories, navy jargon, and navy habits were commonplace, all to the amusement of the students. Salty sea songs performed by Lester and Swigart enlivened many a faculty social gathering. Lester acquired a reputation as a stern disciplinarian. He once told a student to leave an exam because he was dressed in short pants and no shoes; another student was told to shave off his mustache — one wonders how he would react to today's student dress and life-style.

In 1960, after thirty-six years on the faculty, including fourteen as department head, Sparks retired as professor emeritus of mechanical engineering. He was succeeded by Maurice S. Gjesdahl. M.S. Gjesdahl received his baccalaureate degree from the University of Minnesota and his master's degree from Lehigh. He joined the Penn State faculty in 1929. Gjesdahl was named acting head in July 1960 and permanent head in December 1960.

The decade of the 1960s began with the dedication of the Hammond Building. Originally designed and named in 1957 (when the Main Engineering Building was renamed in honor of Dean Sackett), it was to consist of three separate structures. However, to economize, the three structures were combined into one building with minimal internal design modifications. Thus, one of the most labyrinthine buildings at Penn State came into being.

The new decade also brought curricular changes. In 1959, the freshman courses in mechanical drawing were transferred to the newly formed Department of General Engineering under the leadership of E. R. Weidhaas, who was also responsible for the faculty teaching engineering courses at the Commonwealth Campuses.

Mechanical Engineering faculty in spring 1960.

In 1959 Dean Merritt A. Williamson created the Industrial and Professional Advisory Council to advise the faculty and administration on ways to improve its curricula and research programs. An advisory committee composed of prominent engineers in each discipline, many of whom were alumni, visited the campus twice a year to meet with faculty and students. The program has continued to the present.

In 1962, M. S. Gjesdahl retired with emeritus rank. His work in engineering education, however, was far from over. After retirement, he accepted appointments in India and Japan to assist in the development of engineering curriculum and graduate research programs. He spent a year at three different institutions.