Thayer School
WHY ALL THE ENGINEERING societies, particularly those concerned with engineering education, have to hold meetings during October and November each year, when we're all pretty well occupied with the start of a new school year, is one of the unsolved mysteries of our day. And when they insist on meeting Saturdays, that poses an additional complication and our attendance at football games is seriously threatened unless we undertake some pretty careful planning. I have just returned from such a meetingengineering, not football—in Chicago where the Engineers' Council for Professional Development met with an -agenda which included action on the accreditation of the Thayer School curricula. It is now possible to report that on October 28 said Council re-accredited our civil engineering curriculum and accredited our electrical engineering and mechanical engineering curricula, an action most welcome to us, to be sure, since ECPD accreditation is practically the sine qua non of an engineering school.
Other Thayer School alumni with whom I had an opportunity to visit at this meeting were Morton Wit hey '55, Dean of the College of Engineering at the University of Wisconsin, and Thorndike Saville '15, who holds the same position at New York University. Dean Saville was honored last June by election to the presidency of the American Society for Engineering Education.
The fall meeting of the New England Section of the above-mentioned ASEE was held in New Haven on Saturday, October 8— the wrong Saturday, as usual. It was attended by nearly 700 engineering educators from this area including two Thayer School representatives, Al Wood, professor of electrical engineering, and Joe Ermenc, professor of mechanical engineering. Professor Wood was a member of the Nominating Committee and Professor Ermenc has been a member of the Program Committee for the past two years.
Millett Morgan, assistant dean and assistant professor o£ electrical engineering, spent several days in Washington during October attending a joint meeting of the International Scientific Radio Union and the Institute of Radio Engineers on antennas and propaga- tion at the National Academy of Sciences. He was accompanied by Bob Paulson '49, staff engineer, and Ray Evans '50, research assistant, from his ONR Thayer School research staff.
Ed Brown '35, professor of civil engineering, attended the annual meeting in Boston in October of the National Federation of Sewage Works Associations. As a member of the Executive Committee of the New England Section which sponsored the meeting, Professor Brown shared responsibilities for organizing and directing the meeting which was attended by some eight hundred engineers.
It is with deep regret that we record the death on September 13 of one of our early graduates, William N. Hazen '90. His preThayer education was taken in New Hampshire College which awarded him the B.S. degree in 1888. After about twenty years in the iron and steel industry, Mr. Hazen joined the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad where he remained as Assistant Engineer until his retirement in 1939. At the time of his death, he was eighty years old.
The September issue of the Journal of theNew England Water Works Association carries a thirty-page article by Byron McCoy '34, who is hydraulic engineer with Charles T. Main, Inc. in Boston, entitled "New England Power." His paper forecasts the probable growth of power demand over the next decade, indicates the increase in generating capacity which will be necessary to meet the probable demand, and discusses the methods of providing for this increase by new steam, hydro, and internal combustion plants. The substance of his paper was taken from a report prepared by the Power Survey Committee of the New England Council. Byron was active in the preparation of the committee's report under the chairmanship of Edgar H.Hunter '02, chairman of the New Hampshire Public Service Commission.
Our beautiful fall weather, or our foliage, or the football team, or just plain nostalgia has given us the pleasure of visits from several Thayer alumni during the past month including Marge and Jim Rogers '42, Larry Denton TT '49, Fritz Geller TT '4B and family, Ham Chase and Buck Buckingham, both '49 ME's, Gil Tricco EE '48, Peggy and Ed Bergethon '48, and Molly and Barney Oldfield '48. And if there have been others whose names I omitted to jot down at the time, I hope I may be forgiven.
We were forewarned of Barney Oldfield's visit by Vol. 1, No. 4 of the Mecca Mailcall, an organ of which he is editor, owner and publisher, and possibly financier if I know the ME class of 1948. By referring back into my files I find that Mecca designates the Mechanical Engineers Coffee Club Association, an Associated School of Dartmouth College. At any rate, it seems to me that the content of Vol. 1, No. 4, justifies its reproduction in full herewith: "Trust you lads will forgive this abbreviated edition, but as Molly and her Folly plan a honeymoon through Hanover, I figured I would be able to make the next a Super issue. Yep, October 22 is the big day, which explains also a lack of free time at the present—plus the fact that Bergie was the only contributor this time. Plan to be up to see you, Bergie, plus ALL the Hanoverites. C-c-c-c-coool, c-c-c-calm & c-c-c-collected, Bb-b-b-barney." (Ed. note: they came, we saw, she conquered).
And so a Merry Christmas—may you have not only hearths, but something to burn in them.
