The Faculty
HERBERT W. HILL, Professor of History, has been granted leave of absence by the College for the second semester, to work for the State Department in Washington as a member of the Department's Policy Staff on European Affairs.
The Policy Staff of the State Department, with which he will be affiliated, is made up of a small group of specialists in foreign affairs who collect and interpret information on various European nations, including the British Commonwealth and Russia, with recommendations for long range policies in dealing with these nations.
Democratic nominee for Governor of New Hampshire in 1948, Professor Hill has long been active in community and state affairs. From 1946 to 1948 he served as chairman of the New Hampshire State Democratic Committee. In addition he was a member of the State Constitutional Convention in 1948 and a member of the State Reorganization Commission in 1949-50.
WING-TSIT CHAN, Professor of Chinese Culture, has been named by the American Council of Learned Societies to serve on a four-man committee on Far Eastern studies. The committee will work to promote teaching, publishing and research on the Far East; to aid Chinese scholars in the United States; and to assist in the award of graduate fellowships.
A well-known writer and lecturer, Professor Chan joined the Dartmouth faculty in 1942. He was the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1948 and before ing to Dartmouth was Professor of Chinese Philosophy and Institutions for six years.
As a Public Service Program Officer in the Civil Information and Education Section of the U. S. Occupation in Japan, Almon B. Ives, Professor of Speech, on leave for a year, has undertaken an unusual assignment in his special field of radio.
Concerned with the Government's longterm efforts to present the viewpoint and various aspects of democratic institutions, Professor Ives' work is largely advisory meeting with Japanese planners, writers and producers of radio programs, who broadcast religious and educational programs, round-table discussions and features which stress such subjects as the United Nations, women in industry, local autonomy, politics, and the new legal rights of plain people.
One of the major challenges of Professor Ives' duties lies in the fact that while radio is perhaps the most important medium for spreading ideas, the lack of trained Japanese personnel in radio is acute, since none of their colleges or universities include courses on this subject. A pioneer phase of his work is helping to initiate, in communities outside of Tokyo, orientation courses in radio which, if successful, will later be offered in the city itself.
Ar THE invitation of the Danish Government, Trevor Lloyd, Professor of Geography and department chairman, left Hanover for Copenhagen in February to study contemporary developments in the geography and administration of Greenland. He made plans to visit a number of British universities on his way, in order to observe their methods of teaching and research in geography. Granted leave from the College for the second semester, Professor Lloyd has been offered the facilities of the Geographical Institute of the University of Copenhagen and the Greenland Department in that city for the duration of his stay.
In World War II Professor Lloyd, a native of Winnipeg, served as Canadian Consul in Greenland for a year. He later established the Geographical Branch of the Canadian Government, at that time concentrating research on exploration in the Far North.
Professor Lloyd's Greenland study is being undertaken with the support of the Arctic Institute of North America, a research organization in which Dartmouth maintains an active interest. Accompanying him to Europe are Mrs. Lloyd and their two children.
BRUCE W. KNIGHT, Professor of Economics, has been serving on a committee of experts making a survey for the American Economics Association, as part of a general study of the teaching of undergraduate economics. The group recommended, in part, that economics should be granted a more important place in liberal arts requirements, that students should receive more training in the use of analytical tools and should be taught to follow current news, and that the quality of classroom instruction should be improved.
Two MEMBERS of Dartmouth's Music Department have been chosen to head national music societies. A. Kunrad Kvam, Professor of Music, was elected president of the College Music Association at the annual meeting in Washington in December. This organization, which includes members from over 150 colleges and universities from 38 states, is concerned with the problems of teaching music in colleges.
Frederick W. Sternfeld, Assistant Professor of Music, was named president of the Society for Music in the Liberal Arts College, also at an annual meeting in Washington. As a Council member he attended, in addition, the annual convention of the American Musicological Society.
Professor Kvam, who is state chairman of the American String Teachers Association, has recently accepted the directorship of the Pioneer Valley Symphony Orchestra and will conduct two concerts this spring. He will also be director of the New England Music Camp Symphony Orchestra at its camp in Maine next summer.
AN APPEAL to the nation's secondary schools to return to training their students in the basic fundamentals of good English, issued by Donald L. Cross and Harold G. Ridlon Jr., instructors of English who are in charge of the College's remedial writing clinic, received wide press notice last month.
Hitting at the so-called "progressive type" of education, the Dartmouth instructors reported that many students seeking assistance in the Clinic are graduates of "progressive" institutions and complain they are handicapped by a lack of knowledge of the fundamentals of grammar and good English usage.
Supplementing these findings was a recent report made by Frank G. Ryder, Assistant Professor of German, who headed a Committee on Student English. The committee found that an increasing number of letters from men in business and industry to college officials decry the college graduate's inability to write even simple business letters and reports correctly. In the opinion of the committee the blame lies not only in the lack of preparation on the secondary level but also in fairly low standards on the college level. A survey made last year showed that more than 50 per cent of the faculty consistently grade students down for poor English usage, while 70 per cent stress the importance of good English. Approximately 60 to 70 students are assisted each semester by the Writing Clinic.
JOSEPH M. MCDANIEL '4Oh, formerly Professor of Economics at Dartmouth and a member of the College faculty from 1930 to 1946, has been named Assistant Director of the multi-million dollar Ford Foundation. To accept this post under Paul G. Hoffman, director, and Robert M. Hutchins, associate director, he has resigned as Dean of the Northwestern University School of Commerce and will move to the foundation headquarters in Pasadena, California, on June 1.
PRESCOTT ORDE SKINNER, Professor of Romance Languages, Emeritus, died February 15 at the home of his daughter, Mrs. John P. Carleton ('22) in Bedford, N. H. A memorial article will appear next month.
IN DENMARK: Trevor Lloyd, Professor of Geog- raphy, who left for Copenhagen last month to undertake a study of Greenland's geography and administration for the Danish government.
IN JAPAN: Almon B. Ives, Professor of Speech, shown at his desk in Tokyo where as U. S. Public Service Program Officer he is working with radio as a medium of civil information and education.
