MIT to Offer Undergraduates Nuclear Engineering as Major

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology will inaugurate an undergraduate program in September leading to a bachelor of science degree in nuclear engineering.

The new department will train students to take positions in the nuclear engineering industry following graduation and provide the academic groundwork for graduate study in the field. Kent F. Hansen, professor of nuclear engineering at MIT and acting head of the department, said yesterday.

Growth in Demand

The decision to establish the new department at MIT stems from recent growth in the demand for nuclear engineers trained to participate in the design and operation of nuclear power plants, Hansen added.

A spokesman for the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS)--a Cambridge, based research group which has called for a moratorium in the construction of nuclear power plants for safety reasons--yesterday called new nuclear engineering programs such as MIT's a "very, very necessary" development.

Good Staffing

Robert S. Duboff, the UCS spokesman, added that undergraduate nuclear engineering programs will help ensure that existing, nuclear power plants are staffed as well as possible.

Estimates indicate that there will be a need for 1700 new nuclear engineers with bachelor of science degrees this year. Hansen said. He added that the 17 American institutions which now offer an S.B, degree in nuclear engineering produce about 400 graduates yearly.

Hansen said that, although the program will not try to train "technicians," graduates of the department will be employable as reactor operators, health physicists, environmental protection officers and on-site nuclear engineers.

Students in the department will gain design and operation experience by working at the MIT nuclear reactor. Hansen added.

Instruction in the new department will emphasize the concepts of radiation and its effects, Hansen said. He added that the theories involved in nuclear weapons design--highly complex hydrodynamic and electrical problems--will not be taught in the new department.