Course Elections Stressed

Emphasis Placed by Defense Group on Important Relation Between Defense Activity and Instruction

IN AN OPEN LETTER of April 12 to departmental chairmen and members of the student body the American Defense Dartmouth Group called attention to the important relation between national defense and course elections for next year and announced that with the approval of President Hopkins the Registrar had extended the April elective period by one week in order to enable students to give thorough consideration to their 1941-42 majors and courses. The Defense Group pointed out the need of facing both shortterm and long-term problems in these choices, and gave special emphasis to the fact that mathematics, physics and chemistry are now the essential basis for most branches of defense endeavor.

The letter of the Defense Group follows in full:

To THE CHAIRMEN OF DEPARTMENTS AND THE STUDENT BODY:

The spring election of courses for next year and the choice of majors come at a time when we are all, students and faculty alike, deeply conscious of the constantly increasing gravity of the present national emergency. A student demand for advice and guidance in selection of courses of instruction has become one of the major considerations of the college community. Students are asking themselves, department chairmen, and members of the faculty generally what courses they can take that will best fit them for service in this period of national crisis.

President Hopkins is much interested in the problem of course elections and desires to have students well informed before spring elections are made and to provide time for them to think the problem over.

For this reason the final date for elections will be advanced from April 21 to April 28. Announcement of the extension is being made by the Registrar.

The gravity of the national situation at present, and the concept of what educational values may be imparted to men at all times, combine to present the faculty and students at Dartmouth with a double problem—a long term problem and a short term problem. The short term problem is the more obvious of the two—how shall a man best fit himself for service to his country in the near future. The long term problem is of equal or greater importance—how shall a man best fit himself for valuable service to his community and his country in later life after the present emergency is over.

From the short term standpoint the following are such pertinent facts and ideas as the Defense Group has been able to gather regarding immediate preparation for military service:

1. Fields of Major Study: The three fields of specialized study offered by Dartmouth College that appear to have the most direct and immediate bearing on national defense are medicine, civil engineering, and the new combined Tuck-Thayer major. In the event of war, the army will require engineers and doctors in very considerable numbers. Young doctors and engineers will be urgently needed to take the place of those called to service from civil life, and for the armed forces. Obviously, whether students choose medicine or engineering as a career should depend on their natural inclinations and abilities. But the situation can be called to their attention. It may help some who have considered these two fields to make a decision. Underclassmen who intend to go to Medical School or Thayer School will have to elect the necessary prerequisite courses.

2. Importance of Mathematics and BasicSciences. The present war is one demanding above all men of special and technical skills. Courses in mathematics, physics and chemistry are therefore important. Mathematics is an essential prerequisite to courses or endeavor in any technical field. Mathematics, physics and chemistry are basic to each of the other natural and physical sciences and to engineering. It is impossible for students not well grounded in these basic sciences to qualify for specialized officer training schools or for certain types of army promotion without this type of college work.

3.Courses Directly Required for SpecialMilitary Services. Many students are, naturally, much interested in the possibility of obtaining commissions in some branch of the military or naval service as an alternative to Selective Service training. The situation here is that there are not many possibilities open to the average student. Reserve commissions for doctors, dentists, engineers, chaplains, are not within the field of wide student interest. Officer training camps of the "Plattsburg" World War I type have not been established. The army does not wish to establish any new R.O.T.C. units and there is no immediate prospect of such a course being established at Dartmouth.

The few fields open to students mostly do not require specific courses. Army Aviation Flying Cadets (Pilots) are required to have completed two years of college, and one-half of the credits necessary for grad uation. Naval Aviation Cadets (Pilots) have the same requirements, as do candidates for Marine Corps training for commissions as reserve corps second lieutenants. Basic science courses for these men would be helpful, though not required.

The training schools or courses for which special preparation is needed are illustrated by specific mathematics requirements for the Naval Reserve, extensive science prerequisites for Army Air Corps Meteorologists, and some other special fields in which details will be provided the faculty and student body as soon as possible.

4. Some Suggestions as to Faculty Helpand Advice: The most obvious way for the faculty to aid students at the present time is to give them advice regarding courses needed or of direct aid in preparing for Government emergency service. But Dartmouth students are also interested in the election of courses that will help them to a better understanding of the great problems—national and international—as represented in the work of the Humanities and Social Sciences. Here is a real chance for the faculty to be of service and we urge students to consult members of the faculty freely before April 28 in selecting courses for next year.

We suggest (1) that the members of the several departments carefully consider which of their course offerings they recommend to students for election on the basis of giving them background for a better understanding of present day problems. It would be presumptuous for the Defense Group to attempt to prepare such a list. But if the members of the different departments will do so, as we trust they will, we shall be glad to assemble the list and make it widely available to the students through The Dartmouth, whose editors are collaborating closely with the Defense Group.

(a) We should also like to have any further information that members of the faculty and students can give us.

a. Do faculty members and students have information on specific requirements of an academic nature for various types of military and other national service?

b. Are there specific courses now offered by departments which are regarded as directly helpful to students about to enter military service—either via the Selective Service process or otherwise?

c. Are departments contemplating changing the emphasis or content of existing courses to make them more directly helpful to students in the present emergency?

d. Are new courses in prospect that are designed to aid students about to enter military service, or to give them wider backgrounds in understanding current domestic or international problems?

Because of the short time available before the close of the elective period, chairmen of departments are asked to provide the Defense Group (330 Baker) with as much of the material outlined above as is now available. We should like to have this information before Saturday, April 19, so that it may be passed on to the student body.

5. Educational Policy in the Emergency: The above questions are concerned with both the short term and long term problems mentioned earlier in this letter. The Committee on Educational Policy assures us of its interest and desire to be helpful in relation to specific questions of curricular revisions that may be referred to it. It is not the function or desire of the Defense Group to make specific recommendations to the faculty in the field of educational policy. We do, however, feel that we can without impropriety call to the attention of the departments the need of examining course offerings in the light of present conditions both from the long term and short term viewpoints.

Many of the national associations, particularly in the fields of mathematics and the sciences, are carefully considering problems of education in this period of emergency and some have reached the stage of specific recommendations. We therefore suggest that departments keep in close touch with their national societies to get the benefit of their investigations and advice.

If you have ideas or suggestions on the problems involved in this memorandum, please let us have them. Everyone in the Dartmouth community is vitally interested in how Dartmouth as a national institution and as a college of liberal arts can keep abreast of the times, and can best serve its students and the nation. And everyone's ideas help.

Very sincerely yours, AMERICAN DEFENSE DARTMOUTH GROUPCentral Committee

Comment by The Dartmouth

THE LETTER WAS carried in full by TheDartmouth, which gave it editorial backing and which in subsequent issues published factual stories and faculty interviews about the courses in the present curriculum that can contribute to the defense aptitudes of the undergraduates. In its editorial of April 14 entitled "To Fill a Demand" the student daily declared:

"It may take perseverance to read through the entire letter of the American Defense Dartmouth Group which is published in today's Dartmouth, starting on page one, and which is addressed 'To the Chairmen of Departments and the Student Body.'

"It may take perseverance, but it will be worth it.

"It will be worth it so that the average student reader of The Dartmouth can find out why the Registrar suddenly announces the one-week postponement of the nextsemester's electives deadline. There was a reason for it.

"The Ad building looked at something the Defense Group was doing and found it sensible. And then the Ad building did something very sensible itself. It postponed the electives deadline. For a purpose.

A BIG UNEASINESS'

"The Ad building found out that the Defense Group had decided to undertake a project which has as its motivation a student demand for help and advice and training. The students of Dartmouth—and we said this back in October—have been pretty generally lost as to what concept could be hammered together out of themselves and College and the war. At that time we said 'The College is busting up' and we meant it right up to the week-end of the Cornell game when we found it wasn't so; nevertheless, it was and is so that 'There are Big Things going on. And a big restlessness, a big uneasiness enfolds the College.' The big uneasiness has never passed off. As the shadow of voluntary or compulsory military service has drawn closer to undergraduates this winter and spring, the attitude of individuals has grown closer and closer to a dull, frustrated, happy-go-lucky stage in which you either sat tight and waited for whatever would come or yon quit school and enlisted in some branch of the service. You stopped thinking, too much (especially in terms of a long-run view) of your courses and what they might make of you.

"But now the Defense Group has taken a step which may supply the juice needed to revitalize student interest in the curriculum. It may answer a fairly perceptible undergraduate demand for specific College training prerequisite to entering larger defense fields.

"It may not. But it sounds good."