ChE at NMSU

Department History

In 1924, when the Board of Regents decided to institute a curriculum in chemical engineering, that field was the youngest of the major branches of engineering. Major institutions such as MIT and Wisconsin had developed curricula shortly before the turn of the century, with many other colleges and universities following the trend in the next two decades. The American Institute of Chemical Engineers had been formed in 1908, and assumed the role of accreditation of chemical engineering curricula in 1926.

It is not clear what rationale Dean Goddard presented for establishing the curriculum at NMCA&MA (New Mexico College of Agriculture and Mechanical Arts). But it is safe to assume that he and the regents wanted to render assistance to the infant agricultural chemical industry, to the chemical processes in the mining industry, and to oil and gas production and refining.

The first assistant professor of chemical engineering arrived on campus in 1926. Luke Berry Shires, who had just completed his M.S.Ch.E. degree at Penn State, was the first chemical engineering faculty member to be found in the vast area of the desert Southwest, literally the only one between Austin, Texas, and Pasadena, California. "Prof Shires," as he was known to his colleagues, was an individual very much concerned about the well-being of others, students and faculty alike, and was widely admired by undergraduates and alumni. "Demanding, but compassionate," was the common description of his relations with students. Despite the meager resources with which he had to work, his students received a first-class education, which provided a strong foundation for their professional careers.

Luke Barry Shires
1949 - 1962

Upon arrival, Professor Shires was assigned space in the Science Hall, which was to remain the home of the chemical engineering program until 1966. Although combined with chemistry, the chemical engineering curriculum was administered by the School of Engineering from the beginning. The early curriculum followed the industrial chemistry model; however, the 1930s saw changes in the curriculum brought about by an emphasis in the leading universities upon the unit operations and unit processes concepts, thus giving greater importance to engineering than to industrial chemistry. The institution followed suit with a bona fide unit operations laboratory course.

The war years brought a halt to instruction, but the postwar period was characterized by an expanding student population and changing curricular demands. In 1949, a new chemical engineering department was formed, with Professor Luke B. Shires as the first department head. For over a decade there were only two faculty members in the department. With the arrival of Dr. Dinwiddie C. Reams in 1956, to fill the second faculty position, research was added as a vital component of the chemical engineering curriculum.

Funds for modernizing the laboratory equipment were very scarce in all the engineering departments. This deficit, plus the small size of the faculty and the deteriorating physical plant, rendered accreditation impossible, thus making it difficult to retain qualified faculty.

In 1961, Professor Shires asked to retire the next year. Although the university administration seriously considered abandoning the curriculum, it was decided instead to allocate sufficient funds for upgrading it to accreditable status.

Professor Shires recruited his own replacement in the person of Dr. Edward F. Thode. The two men had met in 1948 and had maintained correspondence over the years. One condition of Dr. Thode's move to NMSU was that Shires remain for one year as professor after Thode became head, in order to assist with the transition.

Edward F. Thode
1962 - 1970

Dr. Thode (Sc.D., MIT) assumed his new position in September 1963 and renewal of the department began in earnest. The faculty was expanded rapidly, as four professors with doctorates (one of whom was Donald Bruce Wilson) were hired in the next four years. It was essential that the physical facilities be improved, since the department could delay no longer in installing modernized equipment and in making room for a growing student body. The Science Hall had to be renovated. Realignment of the interior space was not easily accomplished in the old building. Once Professor Thode asked Dean Bromilow if a door which was nailed and blocked shut could be unblocked to permit easier flow of student traffic to a laboratory. Dean Bromilow gazed reflectively at a long diagonal crack in the brick wall and responded, "You had better not. That door is holding the wall up!"
An objective of Dr. Thode's which held high priority was establishing co-op opportunities for chemical engineering majors. The first co-op program established for these students was a "first" in another way: Los Alamos National Laboratory had never employed undergraduate co-op students before its arrangement with the university in 1964-65. Within five years, over twenty NMSU chemical engineering students were working at various industrial and government facilities.

A requisite for a stable undergraduate program is the presence of a graduate program. A Master of Science degree in chemical engineering was approved in the late fall of 1965, and the M.S. program began in 1966.

Beginning in 1964, the department submitted a series of proposals to the National Science Foundation for undergraduate equipment grants. These proposals were successful. Also in 1964, Dr. Thode worked with Dean Bromilow in designing the portion of the Jett Hall addition to be allocated to chemical engineering. The department moved into facilities which were modem and spacious, although not yet fully equipped, in September 1966. At this point the requisites for accreditation - competent faculty, good facilities, and a strong curriculum - had been met. Accreditation was awarded in the 1966-67 academic year.

In 1970, engineering enrollments began a four-year "down cycle" which resulted in an administrative decision in 1974 to reduce the chemical engineering faculty from five to four. Rather than participate in a decision to terminate one of his tenured colleagues, Dr. Thode resigned as department head and transferred to the department of management, in the College of Business Administration and Economics.

The years following Dr. Thode's departure were not easy ones for chemical engineering. The curriculum suffered, and accreditation problems soon followed. Because of the internal strife and resulting resignations, the department's accreditation was reduced from six to two years.

Dean John Hernandez, who had replaced Dean Bromilow, initiated a search for a new head and, during the interim, appointed Associate Dean C. Q. Ford as acting head. After many months, the search committee recommended that Professor John T. Patton (Ph.D. 1959, Oklahoma State) be hired as the permanent head. Arriving in Las Cruces in June of 1977, Dr. Patton immediately faced the problem of rebuilding the faculty and curriculum to accreditable stature.

John T. Patton
1970 - 1988

In rapid succession, three recent Ph.D. graduates were hired to bolster the faculty resources. They were ably assisted by two retirees, Herb Minter and Ed Groth, both of whom had distinguished industrial careers. Through their mature counsel and dedicated effort, these two men contributed significantly to the department.
The careers of the three young faculty members failed to mature as fast as each had hoped. One by one, they left the department so that by 1980 the department was again faced with a rebuilding chore. Following the wise counsel of Joe Genin, who had become dean in 1980, the department decided to recruit more mature, established professors. In the next eighteen months, four outstanding professionals had joined the chemical engineering faculty: Dr. K. H. McCorkle, Dr. Allen Rakow, Dr. Richard Long, and Dr. Rudi Roubicek.

Dr. Roubicek provided much valuable research leadership. He established the Biotechnology Center of Excellence, later renamed the Center for Biochemical Engineering Research. His capacity for coping with adversity was demonstrated by his building a bioengineering laboratory on the roof of Jett Hall when conventional space was unavailable!

The outstanding quality of chemical engineering students and graduates became evident as they assumed positions of leadership and received College and university honors. Even in lean years, the chemical engineering enrollment was of the highest caliber. In 1980, as the number of quality students increased, the department continued to strengthen.

Undergraduate enrollment grew at a rate of approximately 10 percent per year from 1977 through 1981, when it peaked at, what was then, an all-time high of 230 students. Graduate enrollment grew from three in 1977 to twenty-four in 1981. This growth could not be sustained indefinitely, of course. As both internal pressures and outside forces were brought to bear, the enrollment declined. This was not without some benefit, however. As teaching loads were lightened and research activity maximized, the overall program achieved a better research-teaching balance.

The surging vitality in research and graduate education generated numerous requests for doctoral level training. Accommodating these requests would have been impossible without the support and assistance of Dr. W. H. Matchett, dean of the Graduate School. Dean Matchett established the Ph.D. program in interdisciplinary studies to satisfy students' needs in areas not included in established Ph.D.-granting departments. Dr. Bruce A. Barna received the first degree in 1984 and soon gained national recognition for excellence in teaching design at Michigan Technological University.

The demand for and productivity of the I. Doc. (Interdisciplinary Doctoral) program generated administrative support for a bona fide Ph.D. in chemical engineering. In 1985, under the leadership of J. Derald Morgan, the then new dean of engineering, a petition was initiated to gain approval for this degree. Final approval was received in NMSU's Centennial Year, 1988.

Two additions to the faculty in the mid-1980s contributed to the quality of the program. Joe Creed, an NMSU graduate of 1959, was initially hired on a part-time basis to teach the undergraduate laboratories; his duties were increased in 1985 to include the teaching of the undergraduate design class. In 1988, Joe Creed became assistant dean, with a primary responsibility of program development. Dr. Ricardo Bogaert was hired upon the completion of his Ph.D. in June 1986, to replace Dr. Ken McCorkle in teaching material science.

Research funding increased as the established faculty matured. This allowed the department to employ two additional faculty on research funding: Dr. Francisco del Valle (Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from The Massachusetts Institute of Technology) came from the University of Chihauhua, and Dr. Stan Holbrook, who received his Ph.D. in the Interdisciplinary Doctoral program at NMSU in 1987.

As of the university's centennial year, 1988, the department stood at an all-time high with respect to faculty quality and strength of programs. The faculty, which then totaled ten, included four faculty members with tenure and three individual research programs receiving national and worldwide attention. Undergraduate and graduate enrollment bottomed out in 1986, but since that time both have growing continuously.

Ron K. Bhada
1988 - 1993

There were two faculty changes during 1988. Donald B. Wilson retired in January, and in May Dr. Ron K. Bhada (Ph.D., Michigan) replaced Dr. Patton as Department Head. Under Dr. Bhada's leadership, the Waste-management Education and Research Consortium (WERC) was founded, and in 1990, the NMSU Chemical Engineering Academy was started. WERC grew rapidly and soon required full-time leadership from Dr. Bhada. During 1992 a nationwide search was conducted and in January 1993 Dr. James Eakman (Ph.D., Minnesota) succeeded Dr. Bhada as Department Head.

James M. Eakman
1993 - 1997

Dr. Eakman's was successful at bringing many new resources into the department, including the development of a computer room with sixteen PC stations for the chemical engineering students, and the departments own network server. In addition, Dr. Eakman brought in some young, outstanding faculty members: Dr. Mark Montoya (1994), Dr. Sarah Harcum (1995), Dr. David Rockstraw (1995), and Dr. Martha Mitchell (1996).
With Dr. Eakman's departure for Nebraska in January of 1997, Dr. Bhada resumed the role of Department Head in Chemical Engineering. Under Dr. Bhada's guidance, Dr. Paul Andersen was added from Purdue to the faculty upon the departure of Dr. Montoya, who left to join the research and development efforts of Motorola.

Dr. Bhada announced his retirement from the CHE Department Head position in 1998, at which time Dr. Munson-McGee took the position on an interim basis while a national search took place. In January 2000, former NMSU ChE alumni Dr. Charles L. Johnson took the helm.

Dr. Charles L. Johnson
2000-2004

Dr. Mitchell took over as interim Department Head in 2004, then was awarded the position permanently in 2005 when a search was concluded. Under Dr. Mitchell's guidance, the department attained a full 6-year ABET accreditation. Dr. Mitchell is now striving to increase the enrollment of the department through various outreach efforts.

Dr. Martha M. Mitchell
2005 - present

This information is provided courtesy of Fred Emshousen & David Rockstraw