Robert E. Englekirk, Ph.D., SE

摘要

Q: Please provide us with your educational background.nA: I started at Tulane in 1954; my father was a professor and head of the Department of Spanish andnPortuguese at Tulane University. I entered the Arts and Sciences program as a mathematics major. Mynfather insisted that I get a liberal education insisting on 2 years of undergraduate studies in Arts andnSciences. I admit I was not a very good student—some would say not a student at all. The secondnsemester of my sophomore year I lived in Europe. I had lost my interest in mathematics. A lot of buildingsnwere under construction in Europe in 1956 and I thought the end product was much more interestingnthan solving a math problem. So I decided to switch to engineering. My father knew the dean ofnengineering, and we had dinner with him one night. The dean told me that I was exactly the type ofnstudent they sent the other way, from Engineering to Arts and Sciences. I started in an engineering classnof 100 students and graduated along with 12 others. The attrition rate was a little high, but we werenexpected to get the right answer. I was blessed with fine professors, one of which was Walter Blessey.nWalter became president of the American Society of Civil Engineering (ASCE), and was a practicingnengineer; he did design work throughout New Orleans and the south, and as president of ASCE wasnpretty well known. He taught design classes like the one I try to teach, except they consisted of 5 hoursnof lecture a week and 8 hours of lab, and with only 12 students we learned something about design.