Engineering Memory of the Month

Live from Stanford…

In 1954 Stanford Engineering began offering masters degrees to qualified working professionals who could come to campus as part-time students. By 1969, nearly 800 engineers had earned their masters degrees via the Honors Cooperative Program. The problem was that many more professional engineers couldn’t spare the time to commute to campus, and classroom space was anything but infinite.

The solution was television. Forty years ago, after two years of rigorous study, the school launched whole heartedly into the instructional broadcasting business and made live lectures of 12 courses available to subscribing corporations around the Bay Area. Subscribers needed a special “downconverter” to view the transmissions, which went out across the Bay Area over two channels (later expanded to five) of special government-licensed instructional TV frequencies. The picture above was shot in the broadcast control room of the Stanford Instructional Television Network during a lecture by former electrical engineering Professor James Angell.

While not on the scale of the top-rated comedy show “Laugh-In,” the idea was nevertheless a hit. The Stanford Center for Professional Development, which absorbed the SITN, continued to offer courses via television until last year (not many shows last 39 years). Now SCPD’s numerous offerings for degree credit, certificates, or for continuing education are available online (and still in person). Ten popular courses, in fact, are even available online for free via an aptly named service: Stanford Engineering Everywhere.

We are interested in your nostalgic photos and the stories they tell. If you'd like to share them with the Stanford Engineering community, e-mail them to David Orenstein , Manager, Communications and P.R.

– June 2009