@thecoolboy1234 : Not political as even UGA got one despite it being opposed by many. However, with Wagner and the close ties he’s established to Tech and its president, it would be awkward to become a competitor that currently shares graduate programs (particularly BME).
And yes, partly it’s because of this current mantra (which always existed) of “don’t do or improve things that we aren’t good at yet, especially if there are those in close proximity who do indeed do such things well”. However, even Chicago has let that go to some extent. Emory should look into what Chicago has done and choose an area of engineering that it can do well and introduce a program for it. I think an undergrad. BME or bioengineering wouldn’t be horrible, but I’m guessing we would have to strengthen math and physics, though other schools not particularly strong in those areas for UG education seem not to have a problem (if the non-engineering support departments don’t train students at the proper level, they just make sure that they do it).
If Emory had an engineering school, it would likely help begin to pick up the slack on SAT/ACT scores as well. Many other elite public and privates use (excuse me, I mean, it just so happens that…) their engineering school to cherrypick super high scorers (and it is somewhat justified as, even at schools that I don’t think have particularly good and/or underwhelming non-engineering STEM programs, the engineering courses are very rigorous and indeed match the caliber of the students. Part of that is because ABET sets a decently high bar for a baseline). Given the trend of higher scoring STEM students to aim for engineering or physical sciences, I’m honestly surprised it took Georgia Tech so long to pass Emory’s score range (happened maybe 3 years ago I think). However, I imagine if they went over to common app. sooner, that’s exactly what would have happened.
Also, besides the strategic advantage, I think it brings a different perspective of problem solving and types of problem solvers to campus that could fit well with this movement toward entrepreneurialism and reinvigoration of creativity and arts (while some think of engineering as a very technical, cut and dry thing, there are also lots of inventors and creative problem solvers, perhaps more so than say…most of the traditional pre-health STEM folks Emory has had). It need not be portrayed as this discipline that goes against liberal arts values(an argument commonly made against engineering by some faculty at large, not necessarily at Emory). Plus that makes no sense as it already has a business school.