Just over a century after its founding, WPI reinvented its time-tested Two Towers model. In the late 1960s, as societal and technological challenges spurred in students a desire to use their knowledge in a practical way to solve the world’s problems, a faculty planning committee, drawing on the ideas and input of the entire WPI community, shaped a radically new approach to undergraduate education. Known simply as the WPI Plan, the curriculum placed project work at its core.
In fact, two of the Plan’s degree requirements are major projects, including the Interactive Qualifying Project, or IQP, a pedagogical innovation unique to WPI. Requiring students (and faculty advisors) to step beyond the disciplinary bounds of their fields, this project brings interdisciplinary teams together to attack problems with both technological and human dimensions. Many IQPs are conducted off-campus through WPI’s pioneering Global Projects Program, a network of over 50 project centers around the world that began in 1974 with a residential center in Washington, D.C
A Groundbreaking Idea Becomes a Global Revolution
Fifty years ago this spring, the WPI faculty approved the WPI Plan , a radically new, project-based approach to undergraduate education. The Plan has evolved and changed, but it has also endured and, in important ways, grown stronger. Former architects of the Plan, current faculty members, President Laurie Leshin, Provost Wole Sobe, and others reflect on how our project-based education has evolved.
A Miracle at Worcester
A feature in the October 1996 issue of the WPI Journal encapsulates the history of WPI’s revolutionary blueprint for a more impactful education.
A Planning Program for WPI: The Future of Two Towers
Browse the original four reports of the Faculty Planning Committee that formalized the creation and adoption of the WPI Plan.
50 Years of the WPI Plan
In 1970 the WPI Plan was a bold experiment––and 50 years later, this proven and highly effective model stands as a potent model for academic innovation, one that could help guide further change at WPI and throughout higher education.