Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Worcester, Massachusetts, ranks as one of the leading engineering and science universities in the United States. Also known as WPI, it offers undergraduate and graduate degrees in engineering, management, science, the humanities and arts, and the social sciences.
The institute was founded in 1865 as the Worcester County Free Institute of Industrial Science. John Boynton, a tinware manufacturer, pledged his life savings to endow the school if the people of Worcester would build a campus. Stephen Salisbury II, a Worcester businessman, gave the land for the new school and helped raise funds for buildings. Ichabod Washburn, the owner of a wire factory, built a model manufacturing facility on the campus so that students could supplement classroom learning with experience in a real manufacturing plant. The institute adopted its present name in 1886. It first admitted women in 1968.
WPI graduates have included many renowned scientists, engineers, and business leaders. Among the best-known are Paul A. Allaire, chairman of Xerox Corporation; Harold S. Black, inventor of a device called the negative feedback amplifier that produces clearer telephone signals; the rocket pioneer Robert H. Goddard; Elwood Haynes, who designed one of the first successful automobiles; and Robert C. Stempel, former chairman of General Motors Corporation.
The school’s website at https://www.wpi.edu/ offers additional information.
