MIT Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science

Gordon S. Brown, former MIT Dean of Engineering, dies at age 88

August 23, 1996

To: EECS Faculty and Staff
From: Paul Penfield, Jr.
Date: August 23, 1996
Subject: Gordon Stanley Brown
August 30, 1907 - August 23, 1996

We have just received word that Gordon Brown died peacefully in his sleep at 5:30 this morning, in Tucson, AZ, where he has lived since his retirement from MIT in 1973.

Gordon Brown influenced the directions of engineering education in the past 50 years more than any other single person. During the second World War, he (and others) noted that engineers were less able to develop radically new devices and systems than those trained in the sciences, and were also slower to understand them. Many of the advances that enabled the deployment of radar, for example, were led by physicists, not electrical engineers. Gordon reckoned that the difference could be traced to the fact that the education of engineers emphasized practical, contemporary techniques and know-how, rather than eternal scientific fundamentals. Then, when he got a chance, he did something about it.

Gordon became Head of our department in 1952. He immediately made himself chairman of the department's Educational Policy Committee, and pushed through his vision of an undergraduate education based on fundamental science -- not the same science that was of interest to scientists, but rather "engineering science," those aspects that underlie the practice of engineering. The 1950s and 1960s were exciting times here. The entire curriculum was replaced and an extensive series of textbooks written. Gordon's engineering-science approach has served us well ever since, and today forms the guiding principle behind most if not all engineering education, in all disciplines, at MIT and elsewhere.

Born and raised in Australia, Gordon came to the U.S. to study at MIT. He stayed here his entire career, earning three degrees and joining the faculty in 1939. In that same year he founded the MIT Servomechanisms Laboratory (later called the Electronic Systems Laboratory, and now known as the Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems), and was its Director until he became Department Head in 1952. During the 1951-52 academic year he also served as Chairman of the MIT faculty.

In 1959 Gordon was named Dean of Engineering, a position from which he could influence other engineering disciplines. Upon leaving that post in 1968, he was made the first Dugald C. Jackson Professor. In 1973, the year of his retirement, he became Institute Professor. In 1985 the MIT Corporation named Building 39, which currently houses the Microsystems Technology Laboratories, the Gordon Stanley Brown Building.

Since his retirement Gordon has kept as active as ever. He and his wife Jean moved to Tucson, AZ, and for several years he has acted as an energetic citizen-champion to introduce and promote aspects of system dynamics into the public schools there.