Our Values & Vision

These values and aspirations are supported by practices and initiatives that are individually distinctive and collectively unique, including:

Engineering without boundaries.

Solutions to complex real-world challenges require contributions from multiple disciplines and a fundamentally different approach to engineering education, research, and translation. Our distinct organizational model invites cross-pollination of expertise and enables true integration across disciplines and beyond engineering. We employ Programs Areas to plan and implement curriculum, support student and faculty recruitment, and facilitate multi-investigator research, but unlike traditional departments, our boundaries are porous, encouraging individualized intellectual paths.

• Our undergraduate programs employ a systems-based, interdisciplinary engineering educational model within the context of a liberal arts degree. With the staggering challenges facing humanity, we need systems-trained engineers who can adapt quickly to address complex problems. Hands-on, project-based, real-world problem-solving is integrated into our human-centered engineering curriculum from the start. In contrast to most other institutions, engineering majors fulfill the same distribution requirements as others on campus, including languages, humanities, and social sciences.
• Our graduate programs enable students to pursue creative, high impact educational and research paths. Individualized plans of study commonly combine elements from multiple Program Areas. Our distinctive approach to research enables us to be and educate leaders who embody the true character of human-centered engineering with shared consideration for technology and society, resulting in “first, best, and only” discoveries and new innovations that improve lives and better our world.

An emphasis on the "ends" as well as the "means."

Engineering can progress from two points of origin. We can build from new understanding to achieve societal impact, or identify human and global need first to then propel further understanding. At Thayer, we support both directions, as well as their intersection, but place a particular emphasis on impact-inspired intellectual paths in our research, curriculum, and faculty hiring.

Design-driven methodologies.

Design thinking is a catalyst for transformative education, interdisciplinary research and innovation, and entrepreneurial pursuits. We prepare our students to design innovative solutions that address complex challenges. Students are trained to be human-centered and anticipate potential impact on individuals, cultures, and communities.

An entrepreneurial culture.

Approximately half of Thayer faculty have started companies, which is unusually high compared to our peers. Additionally, many Thayer students have launched or participated in start-ups. Dartmouth provides streamlined intellectual property policies for faculty, and at Thayer, we explicitly consider entrepreneurial accomplishments in tenure and promotion decisions. Thayer offers graduate degree programs focused at the intersection of technology, management, and innovation. Our PhD Innovation Program, the first-ever of its kind in the nation, provides instruction, projects, and financial support to PhD students to assist them in independently developing innovative, high impact ventures alongside their technical work.

An inclusive community.

We offer a personalized education within a collegial and human-centered culture on a campus that evokes a profound sense of place. We are committed to continuing to foster a connected, welcoming and inclusive place to learn, live, and work that attracts a diverse faculty, staff, and student body.

"Thayer 2030" Strategic Plan

Dartmouth Engineering's "Thayer 2030" Strategic Plan lays out the vision and priorities for the future and articulates our school's core values, focus, points of distinction, as well as the major goals and 3-year and 10-year activities to support the school's long-term growth.

"Thayer 2030" Strategic Plan

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Strategic Plan

In addition, through the leadership and vision of Thayer's Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Committee, we have established several major goals to help us build a more equitable, diverse, inclusive and welcoming place to learn and work.

DEI Strategic Plan