Engineering Education in Hawai`i
Prior to 1965

Engineering and agriculture share the distinction of being the progenitors of all higher education in Hawai`i. The College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts of the Territory of Hawai`i opened in September 1908 in temporary quarters near Thomas Square. There were five regular students and four of them were engineering students but John Mason Young was the only engineer in a faculty of eleven members.

The College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts changed its name to the College of Hawai`i in 1911 and moved to the Manoa Campus. John Mason Young continued as Engineer of the College and taught approximately half of all the engineering courses. He also acted as Dean of the College when it had no president and as Acting President during the absence of President Arthur L. Dean. In 1920, after the College of Hawai`i was reorganized as the University of Hawai`i, Young became president of the Pacific Engineering Company, but he continued to teach part-time at the University, until he retired in 1938. For thirty years he taught structural design to all engineering seniors. As president of Pacific Engineering Company he designed and supervised the construction of some of the early buildings of the University. John Mason Young can truly be called the father of Engineering Education in Hawai`i.

In 1909 Arthur R. Keller joined the College faculty as professor of civil engineering. Keller was a man of many talents and boundless energy. He even played football on the College of Hawai`i team in 1911. He had a positive genius for wringing the maximum benefit out of every dollar in the meager budget of the College. The Legislature appropriated $75,000 to build Hawai`i Hall when the College moved to Manoa in 1912, but characteristically provided nothing for sidewalks, roads, and drainage. Keller concocted a project to test materials and methods of road construction to which the City of Honolulu contributed equipment, the Territory contributed materials and Keller, with his engineering students provided plans, supervision and materials testing. When the project ended the City and the Territory had valuable data for specifications for road construction and Campus Road had been paved at no cost to the University. The City planned a drainage system for a real estate development which would dump water onto College lands and flood them in heavy rains. Keller designed a better system to divert storm water to Manoa stream. Engineering students surveyed the route. Keller drew up finished plans, presented them to the mayor, and induced the City to adopt them, incidentally providing storm drainage for College lands.

Most of the money for operation of the College of Hawai`i came from Federal Land Grant College appropriations. Only about one-fifth of the College income came from Territorial funds. The purposes for which Federal Land Grant money could be expended were restricted. Consequently, reasonably adequate funds for engineering instruction, and equipment of the engineering laboratory, were available even when Territorial appropriations for buildings and for liberal studies were stingy. Despite the emphasis of the College of Hawai`i on agriculture, the engineering curriculum attracted the most students.

When the College of Hawai`i moved to Manoa provision had to be made to house engineering laboratory equipment which could not be installed in Hawai`i Hall. The Engineering Materials Testing Laboratory was the second permanent building to be built on the Manoa Campus. This single story concrete building with 3600 square feet of floor space was built at a total cost to the Territory of $8,146. Still standing and in use, it probably represents the Territory's best bargain in public buildings.

The most important piece of equipment in the engineering testing laboratory was a 150,000 pound Reihle Universal Testing Machine, purchased second hand for $800 before the College moved to Manoa. It was installed in the Engineering Materials Laboratory where it not only served its nominal function of demonstrating to engineering students the behavior of materials under stress, but it provided facilities for testing much of the construction material of Hawai`i, including the concrete for Pearl Harbor dry dock. It was an object of general interest and curiosity. The minutes of the Board of Regents report one meeting of the Board that was delayed for an hour while the entire Board of Regents watched John Mason Young, and his engineering students test a large timber to destruction.*

In the beginning, curriculums in Mechanical, Electrical and Civil Engineering were offered, an ambitious program for a faculty of two professors. This caused little difficulty because the program of the first two years was common to all three curriculums and consisted largely of mathematics and general studies. Professor Donaghho, the one-man math department, taught all the math courses. The only engineering courses in the common curriculum of freshman and sophomore years were drafting and surveying. Wood-working, forge, and machine shops were also required until Mr. McTaggart, the shop instructor, died in 1918, after which shop work was no longer required. At that time it was also decided that the expense of equipment for laboratories in mechanical and electrical engineering was not warranted by the limited demand and the College offering in engineering was more realistically reduced to Civil Engineering only.

In the first graduating class of the College of Hawai`i, in 1912 four degrees were awarded. One was in engineering, one was in agriculture, and two were in general science. The following year (1912-13) the total enrollment of the College was twenty-four regular students, of which ten were in engineering, four were in agriculture, one in home economics, and nine in general science. In addition there were 104 special students, not working toward degrees. In the eight graduating classes of the College, before it became the University of Hawai`i in 1920 a total of only nine engineering degrees were awarded.

Under these conditions, junior and senior engineering classes were very small, a fortunate circumstance. As it was, Keller taught ten different engineering courses in a year and Young carried an equally heavy teaching load. Both engineering professors were involved in extracurricular work. Keller was a member of the Territorial Board of Health, a member of a commission to frame a code of sanitary regulations, a member of the planning commission, and on a board to design a sewer system for the City of Honolulu.

In 1915 Keller went on sabbatical leave and at the end of the year came back with two earned Master's degrees in engineering, one from M.I.T. and one from Harvard. In 1918 Keller was called to active duty as a captain in the Army Engineer Corps. World War I created many problems for the College of Hawai`i. The Student Army Training Corps was more popular than the draft, and College enrollment increased by fifty percent to 68 regular students and 77 special students. Part of the engineering testing laboratory was turned into a SATC mess hall. Nevertheless Professor Young, with the help of temporary appointments from local engineers, managed to carry on, and graduated one engineer each war year. In 1920 when Keller returned from the war the College of Hawai`i had become the University of Hawai`i, and Keller became the first Dean of the College of Applied Science.

The College of Applied Science was responsible for curriculums in Engineering, Agriculture, Home Economics, and Sugar Technology. The College of Arts and Sciences, under Dean Arthur L. Andrews, was responsible for all liberal arts and science curriculums. These two colleges, with the Agricultural Experiment Station and the Agricultural Extension Service constituted the University of Hawai`i until the College of Education was incorporated in 1930. For the 1919-21 biennium the legislature appropriated a total of $281,500 for the University (including $142,000 for a physics, chemistry, and sugar technology building -- Gartley Hall). This exceeded the total ($279,000) appropriated to the College of Hawai`i during the entire ten years of its existence. The University was off to a flying start. Enrollment promptly increased to 106 regular students plus 136 special students.

During the years between two world wars, the University steadily increased in stature. By 1940 the enrollment of the University was over 2000 regular students, already exceeding the most optimistic projections. The annual operating expenses of the University, including the Agricultural Experiment Station and the Extension Service, was about one and a quarter million dollars. The faculty numbered 142 individuals.

Engineering participated in this growth, but not proportionately. In 1928 four one-story concrete buildings of the Engineering quadrangle were built around the engineering testing laboratory, at the cost of $64,971. This increased to 15,840 square feet the floor space assigned to engineering, although one of the four new buildings was used for many years as the University carpenter shop. In 1936 fourteen engineering degrees were awarded, but on the average, University graduating classes, between the two wars, included only about seven engineers each.

There were six engineers on the faculty during the 1930's but Engineering and Mathematics departments were combined and most engineers doubled in both. John Mason Young taught structural design on a part-time basis. Ernest Webster was Dean of Student Personnel for the University and also taught engineering mathematics and surveying. Carl B. Andrews, chairman of the engineering department, carried a full load of courses. He was also a member of the Territorial Board of Engineering Examiners. The normal full-time teaching load was fifteen or sixteen semester hours. Russell Brinker, a young instructor in engineering, taught mechanical drawing, surveying, and mathematics. W. J. Holmes, also an instructor, who joined the engineering faculty in 1936 at an advanced salary of $2400 per year, taught a mixed bag of physics, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, civil engineering, and mathematics, varying each semester as the need arose. (One semester, in an emergency caused by the death of the regular instructor, he taught a course in sugar technology.) Alvin Hoy, a mathematician who had his office in the engineering quadrangle, taught all the calculus courses. Willard Eller, from the physics department, taught electrical engineering courses.

Arthur Keller was vice-president of the University as well as Dean of the College of Applied Science. He taught six or eight semester hours of engineering courses each semester. In addition he was a director of Queen's Hospital, and a member of the first Hawai`i Housing Authority. With his life-long interest in public health, he pioneered University courses in nursing, including a program in public health nursing, and a four-year curriculum in medical technology. His short figure, carrying a brief case full of books, hurrying across campus between meetings and classes, was a familiar sight to all engineering students of that period.

In 1940-41 there were 100 engineering students in the College of Applied Science. The curriculum in Civil Engineering required 150 semester hours of academic work compared with 122 semester hours required for a Bachelor of Arts degree. With the world at war, many engineering students wanted to take advanced ROTC and qualify for a Reserve Commission in the Army as well as a B.S. in Civil Engineering. Five years to complete these requirements was more nearly the norm than the exception.

The curriculum closely followed the Civil Engineering curriculums in mainland Land Grant College. Probably as a heritage of its development, a little more than the normal work in electrical and mechanical engineering was required. It was not always safe to judge the courses by the descriptions in the catalogue, as one instructor discovered. In a rash moment he agreed to take over Dean Keller's class in Contracts and Specifications one semester in the Dean's absence. When he got around to studying Keller's course notes he realized that, as the Dean had taught the course, it was more than a textbook course in the economics of cost estimates and the fundamentals of laws governing engineering contracts. Keller, who had a law degree in addition to his engineering degrees, also included a wealth of information on Hawaiian land laws, Hawaiian laws of water rights, statute law, and the case histories of local court decisions of engineering interest. In deep humility the instructor confessed to the Department Chairman (Carl B. Andrews) that he could not teach the course as Keller taught it. "Nobody else can, either" was the only sympathy he got from Andrews. It turned out to be one of the numerous occasions when the instructor learned more from the course than any of his students.

Before World War II, no girl student stuck with the engineering curriculum long enough to obtain junior status. Had any female met the entrance requirements for admission to the informal fellowship of the upper division engineering students, who owned the Engineering Quadrangle, a most embarrassing situation would have been created. When Keller designed the four new buildings of the Engineering Quadrangle he designed them for maximum space utilization and economy, with no corridors, no closets, and no plumbing. The only toilet south of Campus Road was partially concealed from public view in the storeroom of the engineering materials laboratory. To meet the standard academic provisions for four sexes (faculty men, faculty women, student men, student women) would have required a special legislative appropriation. It was not until 1939, when the Home Economics Building (Miller Hall) was built, adjacent to the engineers' domain, that the situation was alleviated.

The bombs that fell on Pearl Harbor disrupted the University of Hawai`i. For nearly two months it ceased to function as a teaching institution. When it opened again Keller was Acting President, in addition to his other duties. Half the student body and a large share of the faculty had been drained off by the war effort. In 1942, however, fourteen degrees in Civil Engineering were awarded. Two years earlier, foresighted Keller had initiated a program of evening classes in Naval Architecture, taught by Pearl Harbor naval architects, to senior engineering students and recent graduates.** The design section of Pearl Harbor Navy Yard eagerly absorbed the graduates of the program, but the engineering department rapidly declined until there were only two engineers on the University faculty and only one degree in engineering was awarded in 1946.

In 1947 Keller retired from the University and Holmes, who had returned from war-time naval service, became the second Dean of the College of Applied Science. The College of Agriculture split off and became the fourth University College, leaving Applied Science with curriculums in Engineering, Nursing, and Medical Technology. The University had been crowded by 2000 students in pre-war years. When Congress passed the G.I. Bill, providing educational benefits for veterans, it was apparent that double the number of students would soon be clamoring for admission. In 1947 the legislature provided funds for an administration building (Bachman Hall) and a chemistry building (Bilger Hall) but even this inadequate building program would not provide usable space during the next three or four years. It was difficult for many to realize that the days of the little cow college, under the rainbow at the foot of Manoa valley were over.

A few nostalgic old timers wanted to restrict the University enrollment, particularly the engineering enrollment, until adequate faculty and facilities could be provided. Fortunately that view did not prevail. In the best Land Grant College tradition, the University determined that the generation that fought the war should not be denied equal educational opportunity, even if classes had to be held under the trees. It did not come to that, but for awhile the facilities were minimal and the faculty overworked and underpaid.

Joseph F. Kunesh, a Honolulu engineer who had been Director of the Hawai`i Territorial Planning Board's Historic Inventory of Resources of the Territory in 1939, joined the University staff. At first as University Engineer and then, for four years, as Dean of the College of Applied Science, he performed the herculean labor of acquiring an entire surplus Army field hospital for the University and transporting about ninety barracks-type wooden buildings to the campus. In any available open space he set them up and converted them into offices, classrooms, work shops, a cafeteria, and apartments for faculty housing. They were equipped largely with surplus army furniture. This made it possible to more than double the University enrollment. It was confidently expected that within ten years these shacks could all be torn down and replaced by proper permanent buildings. In this, the year of our Lord 1975, some of them are still in service where Kunesh placed them.

Mae Nakatani, the first woman ever to earn an engineering degree from the University of Hawai`i graduated in 1950. She, with 52 male classmates, constituted the largest class in engineering up to that time. On 1 October 1951 the civil engineering curriculum was accredited by the Engineers' Council for Professional Development. In a period of only four years the University graduated as many engineers as it had graduated in the previous forty years. Moreover, what had been regarded as a peak of engineering graduates turned out to be no more than a brief plateau before the trend turned upward again. For a year or two an artificial limitation was imposed on freshman engineering enrollment, but fortunately this idea was short-lived. Statehood, air travel, a new engineering faculty of bright young men, and national accreditation of the engineering curriculum broke down inherent insularity and engineering education in Hawai`i became an integral part of engineering education in the United States. Some Hawai`i engineering graduates went to mainland colleges for post graduate work. Mainland organizations sent recruiting teams to Hawai`i to hire graduating seniors, and what had threatened to be a surplus of engineers quickly turned into a shortage.

Increasing engineering enrollment made it desirable to broaden the engineering program. In 1953 the Hawaiian Electric and the Westinghouse Electric companies gave the University the equipment for a heat power laboratory. This made it possible to increase course offering in the mechanical engineering field and enabled the University to offer a curriculum in General Engineering in addition to Civil Engineering. Further expansion of the engineering program had to be deferred because of very limited University budgets.

The academic year ending in 1953 was the first post war year that the Engineering Department and the Mathematics Department were separated administratively. The expenditure of the University that year, for practically everything except self-supporting auxiliary enterprise, totaled $4,095,030. Engineering's share of this was approximately $52,990 for personal services, $938 for supplies and $506 for equipment. A low expenditure for equipment in any one year, however, could be misleading. The legislature appropriated funds on a biennial basis. If the purchase of an expensive item of equipment, such as a surveying instrument or an attachment for the Olsen testing machine, was budgeted the expenditure would be deferred until the last quarter of the biennium. This unbalanced the equipment expenditures between years but provided ready money which could be used to cover expenses which might be incurred by an unexpected casualty early in the biennium.

One evening John Evans, Scott Daniel, Chuck Engman and the Dean were all in the materials testing laboratory testing a concrete beam on the old Reihle testing machine. The beam was too big for the machine and John Mason Young was probably restless in his grave. Suddenly, with a loud report, one of the heavy cast iron beam support arms broke clear across.

The next morning Honolulu Iron Works estimated that a new casting would cost $2100. This was over twice what the machine had cost and was more than the whole equipment budget for the biennium. The prospects for making the old machine available for the remainder of the year's instruction schedule appeared to be remote. Then Island Welding Company came to the rescue and, for about $200, repaired the break by brazing. The next week the Reihle was back in service as good as ever-well, almost as good. From then on it carried the golden scar of its wounds and had to be treated with respect for its age and infirmities. In 1969 a new structures laboratory was put into service and the engineering materials laboratory became a print shop for student publications. After rounding out sixty years of service to the University the Reihle Universal Testing Machine was transferred to Honolulu Community College.

When the civil engineering curriculum was accredited, a student chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineers was organized with Professor J. Gardner Bennett as faculty adviser. This development increased the interchange between the University and professional engineers in Hawai`i. In the next few years there were also a number of administrative changes in the University that indirectly affected engineering education. When President Gregg M. Sinclair retired Paul S. Bachman became President of the University, Holmes became Administrative Vice President. In 1958 the School of Nursing achieved college status with Virginia Jones as the first Dean. When Nursing and Medical Technology left the bed and board of the College of Applied Science only engineering remained. The name was then changed to the College of Engineering. William M. Wachter became the first Dean of the College in early 1959. About six months later, Wachter took over the administrative vice presidency and Holmes became Dean of the College of Engineering.

Meanwhile, in step with changes in curriculums in mainland universities, a gradual change was taking place in the civil engineering curriculum. More engineering science courses were included in the curriculum at the expense of pre-calculus mathematics, surveying, and some of the electrical and mechanical engineering courses previously required in the civil engineering curriculum. A Master's degree in engineering, with professional experience and a professional engineer's license, had been considered adequate qualification for a faculty appointment but higher academic qualification now became desirable. Dr. Shigeo Okubo was the first member of the engineering faculty with a doctor's degree. He was followed by Fujio Matsuda, Stephen Lau, Arthur Chiu, Mateo Go and others until about half of the faculty had doctor's degrees in their fields. The faculty was also enriched by a system of visiting professors. President Sinclair had obtained a generous grant from Carnegie Foundation for a succession of distinguished visiting professors, spread out over several years, and engineering received its fair share. Visiting professors in engineering included L. E. Grinter, Charles Norris, Harold Martin, Henry Gomberg, and Wilbur Meserve, each of whom taught engineering classes, often scheduled in the late afternoon so they could be taken by practicing engineers as well as senior engineering students.

The year Hawai`i became a state (1959) was also a banner year in the development of the College of Engineering. Keller Hall, a classroom and faculty office building for engineering and mathematics, was completed. This made space available in the old engineering quadrangle for electrical engineering laboratories. It thus became possible to offer a curriculum in Electrical Engineering, a development that had been too long deferred by lack of space and lack of funds. The engineering enrollment that year numbered 761 students. There were 71 Bachelor of Science degrees in Civil Engineering and 14 in General Engineering awarded in 1959. The University expended in that year, for Education and General, $10,563,532. Engineering's share was $277,263, including an extraordinary equipment budget of $52,464 to provide for equipment for the new electrical engineering laboratories. Keller Hall cost $632,211 and the book value of all University buildings, great and small, was then $10,305,052.

Under the direction of Ralph Partridge at first, and later under Paul Yuen, the electrical engineering curriculum developed rapidly. In 1961 the first group of 15 electrical engineers graduated. The next year (1962) the Engineers' Council for Professional Development accredited the electrical engineering curriculum. A curriculum in mechanical engineering was first offered in 1960 and in 1963 the first group of three mechanical engineers graduated.

Until then organized research and graduate instruction had been neglected due to the urgent need to concentrate on the development of the undergraduate programs. Master's degree programs in civil engineering and in electrical engineering were authorized by the University in 1963. A Hawai`i Engineering Experiment Station was authorized in 1962 and Dr. Fujio Matsuda was appointed the first Director. Before the program could get off the ground, the Governor of Hawai`i (John Burns) requested the service of Dr. Matsuda as Director of the State Department of Transportation. As it was expected that Matsuda would return to the University in two years, the position of Director of the Engineering Experiment Station remained unfilled during that period. Research studies, financed by various agencies, were conducted by some faculty members but the Experiment Station during that time was a paper organization. Dr. Matsuda remained away from the University for ten years and when he returned he became the first University of Hawai`i alumnus and the first engineer to be President of the University of Hawai`i.

In 1964 the College of Engineering was organized with four departments: Department of Civil Engineering, Dr. Arthur Chiu, Chairman; Department of General Engineering, Don Avery, Chairman; Department of Electrical Engineering, Dr. Paul Yuen, Chairman, and Department of Mechanical Engineering, Dr. Willem Stuiver, Chairman. Nicholas Corba was Assistant Dean. It is noteworthy that since World War 11, through all the changes of organization and personnel, there have been only two secretaries of the College, Matsue Miyamoto succeeding Hazel Hee when the Administrative Vice President's office was organized. Between them these two secretaries have been acquainted with about ninety-five percent of all the engineering graduates since engineering education began in Hawai`i.

In 1965 Holmes retired as Dean of the College of Engineering and Dr. John Shupe became the new Dean. The University was growing rapidly. That year, the University expenditure (including East-West Center) was over thirty-two million dollars. The buildings of the University were valued at over thirty million dollars on a cost basis. The expenditures for the College of Engineering that year were over five hundred thousand dollars. One hundred and eighteen engineering degrees were awarded during the year. Dean Shupe arrived just in time to take over the reins as the College of Engineering began the most interesting period of its development.

Prepared for the Hawai`i Bicentennial Encyclopedia, 1976 by Wilfred J. Holmes, Dean Emeritus

Document written in 1975

* See Kittelson: The History of the Hawai`i College. Thesis for Master of Arts in History, September 1961.

** He also organized a Federally sponsored course in aviation as a part of the national preparedness program and at the age of 58 took flight training with his students.