Philadelphia -- Crotchety old science professors are becoming a rarer breed, at least for students at the University of Pennsylvania School of Engineering and Applied Science. \nIn the last five years alone, Penn's Engineering School has made a total of 35 new hires, and more than half of the engineering faculty were hired within the last eight years, according to Engineering School Dean Eduardo Glandt.\nAnd some of these professors are just a few years older than the students they teach. \n"When I first started teaching at Penn, before people knew who I was, I was sometimes mistaken for a graduate student," said computer engineering professor Milo Martin, who started teaching in January 2004 when he was 29.\nRecords show that the average age of the engineering faculty hired in the last five years is just 33, said Sandy Rathman, director of faculty affairs for the engineering school. This is because of the fact that new faculty members are usually hired immediately after completing their post-doctoral fellowships. \nThe recent increase in young faculty hires comes as no surprise to the engineering administrators.\nBioengineering professor Jason Burdick attributes the recent massive faculty recruitment effort to the fact that "the engineering school had undergone a rapid expansion 40 years ago, and as a result there is a large set of faculty who've reached retirement age."\nGlandt said the 1960s expansion was a response to the Sputnik launches in the 1950s, which "caused a tremendous reaction, leading to an investment into the sciences."\nFaculty of the "Sputnik generation" are now in their 70s or older, Glandt said.\nWhile Penn says goodbye to some longtime members of its faculty who have retired, a surge of young faculty are coming in to take their place, and many engineering administrators see this as a positive thing.\n"People are coming to Penn fresh out of other labs, bringing new twists and new ideas," Burdick said.\nFernando Pereira, chairman of the Department of Computer and Information Sciences, had a similar reaction.\n"I love having groups of young, energetic colleagues, who are bringing ideas from the outside and new approaches to teaching," he said.\nPereira said many engineering courses have had "great success" because of curriculum revisions made by new faculty.
Associate Engineering Dean Sampath Kannan agrees that new faculty are making positive improvements to the engineering school.\n"Young people are all doing cutting-edge things. Especially in engineering, there is a need to keep up with the latest research," he said.\nIn addition to bringing new ideas, younger faculty are also likely to have good rapport with their students, simply because of the fact that they are closer in age, Glandt said.\nStill, some students appreciate having more senior professors. \n"I like having older teachers," junior Eric Fisher said. "Young teachers may not have as much teaching experience"
