The Faculty
THREE DARTMOUTH INSTRUCTORS, R. Alberto Casas, Francis E. Lawlor, and Richard B. McCornack '41, were promoted to the rank of Assistant Professor, effective with the second semester.
Professor Casas, a member of the Romance Languages Department, is a native of Puerto Rico. He is a graduate of the University of Barcelona in Spain, and studied at Columbia University. He joined the Dartmouth faculty in 1947.
Professor Lawlor became a member of the College's Music Department in 1946. He is a graduate of Harvard, and last year received his M.A. degree from Boston University's Graduate School of Music.
A graduate of Dartmouth, Professor Mc-Cornack accepted his appointment to the History Department in 1947. He holds M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Harvard.
AN INTERESTING EXPERIMENT in outside- the-classroom study is being con- ducted by Merle C. Cowden, Professor of German and Frank G. Ryder, Assistant Professor of German. Calling their project a "Proseminar," they launched over a year ago a well-planned program which met with such success that it is being repeated for the second time this spring.
In the belief that there is an informal approach to learning, impossible in classrooms, which has real value in encouraging student interest and discussion, Professors Cowden and Ryder decided to offer, on alternate weeks, their own homes as meeting places for informal study groups. Applications for membership were sent out to boys taking German a, and although the group had been officially limited to eight, 11 were accepted. Each applicant agreed to act as a co-leader on one evening in the discussion of a definite topic related to course work in German 1-2.
The voluntary nature and informality of the occasions did nothing to decrease the willingness to work, on the part of the students. As Professor Cowden stated, "The amount of library work the boys did in preparing their papers was impressive, and the way they handled their presentation was a pleasure to watch." Questions brought up by members of the group on linguistic and literary subjects revealed intelligent and spontaneous interest, and discussions were well sustained.
Two MEMBERS of Dartmouth's Department of English plan to teach on the faculty of the Bread Loaf School of English this coming summer. Professors Hewette E. Joyce and Arthur E. Jensen will be in Middlebury, Vt., from June 27 until August 11 for the 32nd session of this summer school on Bread Loaf Mountain, spon- sored by Middlebury College and attended by students of English and the Romance Languages from all over the country. Robert Frost '96, formerly Dartmouth's poetin-residence, will also be a lecturer at Bread Loaf at the Writers' Conference.
THE APPOINTMENT of Dr. Robert G. Fisher as Instructor in Neurosurgery at the Dartmouth Medical School has been announced by President Dickey. Dr. Fisher will also serve as neurosurgeon at the Mary Hitchcock Hospital and as an associate in neurosurgery at the Hitchcock Clinic.
Dr. Fisher is a graduate of Rutgers University, receiving his M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. He served with the U. S. Army as a neurosurgeon with the rank of captain for a three-year period, and has recently been an instructor in neurological surgery at the Johns Hopkins University Medical School. He interned at the University of Pennsylvania Hospital and served his residency at the Johns Hopkins Hospital.
As AN AUTHORITY on the economic geography of New England, Albert S. Carlson, Professor of Geography, has lectured frequently on this subject and has served on a number of research and advi- sory boards. Early in May he will speak again, on "The Resources and Future of New England Industry," at Keene (N. H.) Teachers College as part of a series presented by representative men from New England colleges and public services.
Professor Carlson represented Dartmouth also at the annual meetings of the Association of American Geographers in Chicago, March 19-22. The Chicago session on Geographical Research in Northern Lands was arranged by Trevor Lloyd, Professor of Geography, now on leave in Europe.
RICHARD B. MCCORNACK '41, Assistant - Professor of History, is on leave from the College to analyze and make reports on foreign policy records in the State Department in Washington. Working in the American Republics Section, Division of Historical Policy Research, Professor McCornack's present assignment is to compile facts taken from a set of selected documents—letters, telegrams, memoranda, etc. dealing with bi-lateral relations between the United States and the Latin American Republics in 1940. After this material is evaluated and assembled, it is sent on for approval to the proper State Department Desk; then to the nation concerned in the report. Finally it can be added to the other volumes on Foreign Relations, published by the U. S. State Department. Professor McCornack writes that this first-hand ap- proach to foreign policy is of great interest, and he says, "I still get a kick out of handling many papers with a scrawled, 'O.K. F.D.R.' in the margin."
This specialized type of research is not entirely new to Professor McCornack. While on a Woodbury Lowry Travelling Fellowship from Harvard in 1946, he went to Mexico to study government archives there.
