UChicago will be Launching a New Engineering Program Next Year

[JHS]

<p>I think the OP is engaging in a little wishful thinking. The molecular engineering school will not have a full faculty complement for up to a decade. The possibility of an undergraduate major – in molecular engineering only, no one is even suggesting “mechanical, chemical, electrical” – may be some years beyond that, and subject to approval by a faculty that has practically defined itself by its rejection of engineering as an appropriate subject for undergraduate education. This is an exciting long-term development for the University of Chicago, and there will be cool research opportunities for interested students long before there is a major. But I think Chicago’s first molecular engineering SB graduates are probably still in elementary school.</p>

<p>Here is what the university’s press release says:</p>

<p>

The institute is the largest new academic program that the University has started since the founding of the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy Studies in 1988. Molecular Engineering will have a target size of 24 faculty members, many of them with joint appointments at Argonne, who *will be recruited over the next decade * to work in four to six thematic areas to be determined by the director and other faculty.</p>

<p>The faculty of the institute will develop introductory and specialized courses, and later will propose a curriculum in molecular engineering to support an undergraduate major as well as graduate degrees, which will require separate faculty approval.

Emphasis added.</p>