The Junior Engineers and Scientists Summer Institute (JESSI) was a national summer program for high schools students originally founded in 1955 through a collaboration between institutions of higher education and a Portland, Oregon non-profit corporation called “Scientists of Tomorrow.” Each institution hosted either girls or boys, with two to three institutions hosting co-ed sessions. Washington State University hosted the JESSI program beginning in the summer of 1959 with 200 boys in attendance under the direction of Dr. Harry Batey, professor of chemistry. The two-week program allowed students to explore engineering and science-related college programs and careers for a minimum of five hours per day during the summer before their junior or senior year of high school. Students learned about engineering and science opportunities through scheduled activities and informational talks presented by higher education faculty and industry professionals. Subjects covered included bacteriology, astronomy, botany, surveying, chemistry, zoology, electronics, physics, and other science and engineering content. Attendees were selected based on teacher recommendations and on intellectual merit determined by submission of an application and report card. Students entering their junior year were required to have successfully completed at least three years of mathematics and/or science, and students entering their senior year were required to have completed four years, to be eligible for admission.
The JESSI program was an educational program for high school students providing hands-on introductions to various fields of science. The collection consists of letters of correspondence, handwritten notes, information packets, booklets, schedules and rosters, student questionnaires, and financial documents dating from 1956 to 1964. The final folder contains a few photographs, primarily of student groups and activities.
Items are in four small subject-based series, arranged alphabetically by subject. Within each series, items are also arranged alphabetically by subject, and then chronologically within those.
This collection is open and available for research use.
Copyright restrictions apply.
[Item description]
Junior Engineers and Scientists Summer Institute Records, 1956-1964 (Archives 401)
Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections, Washington State University Libraries, Pullman, WA.
Sharon Ledeman, a secretarial supervisor with the School of Architecture transferred this collection to the Washington State University Libraries’ Manuscripts, Archives and Special Collections (MASC) on December 14th, 1988, where it was retained as UA1988-46. Presumably Sharon merely found them in storage; the provenance prior to her bringing them to MASC is unknown.
Ph.D. student Stephanie Mahar processed this collection in July of 2022.
Student applications and some similar materials were discarded during processing due to student privacy concerns.
This collection is indexed under the following headings in the online catalog. Researchers desiring materials about related topics, persons, or places should search the catalog using these headings.