Thayer School

WITH the beginning of a new school year, the anticipated upswing in Thayer School enrollment has become a reality. Thirty-nine first-year students have entered Thayer and Tuck-Thayer this year, compared with nineteen last year. The distribution among curricula is: civil, 10; electrical, 8; mechanical, 9; Tuck-Thayer, 12. Our second-year class numbers fifteen.

Starting this year, we have moved our required summer back to the summer preceding first-year work, thus reverting to the schedule which was followed up to World War 11. This transition brought all our students, secondyear as well as first-year, back at the opening of summer session cn August 20 and the School has been a busy place since then. The electrical engineering curriculum has been substantially modified as a result of a twoyear study of that program and the scheduling of courses and choice of elections in the Tuck-Thayer curriculum have been adjusted to provide for better integration of subject matter.

The printing of the 1952-1953 Thayer School catalog has been delayed in order to show these modifications and other minor course and schedule adjustments. The new catalog will be mailed to all Thayer and Tuck-Thayer alumni at an early date.

The College and the School have lost the services of a loyal and respected teacher by the retirement in June of Pete Dow 'll, professor of engineering and graphics, after 41 years of teaching at Dartmouth. The best wishes of all his colleagues and of many hundreds of his former students who remember him with respect and affection go with him.

With Professor Dow's retirement, the College Trustees have terminated the Department of Graphics and Engineering and requested the Thayer School to offer courses in engineering drawing and descriptive geometry to students in the College.

Two teachers have been added to the faculty this year. Kenneth A. LeClair has been appointed instructor in civil engineering. After serving eight years in the Army, including two years' duty in Germany during 1944 and 1945, he was discharged with the rank of captain and entered the University of Massachusetts where he earned both his bachelor's and master's degrees in civil engineering. In his graduate work, he concentrated on structural design and studied MeritWhite '3l, professor of civil engineering. Mr. and Mrs. LeClair and their two-year-old son moved into an apartment on College Street August first.

William B. Conway '54 has been appointed Teaching Fellow. In this position, he will devote half time to second-year civil engineering studies as a candidate for the master's degree and half time to laboratory instruction.

Professor John Minnich '29 has been relieved of a portion of his teaching duties for the coming year to enable him to engage more actively in consulting structural engineering work.

At the Thayer School graduation exercises on June 1, twenty Thayer and Tuck-Thayer students were awarded the Master of Science degree. The graduation address was given by Overseer Frank Cudworth 'O2 whose talk on the opportunities and obligations of engineers was received with well-deserved enthusiasm and appreciation.

The Dartmouth Society of Engineers Prize was awarded to Bob Fiertz and Jack Woods, who received their degrees in mechanical engineering, for their papers on "Determination of Air Velocity by Electric Strain Gage Measurements."

The Charles F. and Ruth D. Goodrich Prize, awarded each year to the second-year student who has shown the most outstanding ability in his Thayer or Tuck-Thayer work with scholastic accomplishment during second-year work a major consideration, was awarded to Don Jorgensen who received his degree in Tuck-Thayer.

The Annual Meeting of the American Society for Engineering Education was held in Hanover during the week of June 22 with a total attendance, including members, guests, wives, and children, of something over 1800 persons. Some pre-convention meetings actually started about three days early and postconvention meetings extended for a day or two after the close of the main meeting. Most of those in attendance roomed in college dormitories, all of which were put into service for the occasion, and meals were regularly served in the cafeterias of Thayer Hall. Special luncheons and dinners, numbering about fifty, were served in the separate dining rooms of Thayer Hall and in College Hall, the Outing Club House, and the Hanover Inn. Principal events of the week included a reception held by President and Mrs. Dickey in the garden of their home attended by about 1300 people: the Annual Banquet of the Society in College Hall for which 525 tickets were sold" and the Players' production, financed by gilts from the Hanover Chamber of Commerce and the Dartmouth Society of Engineers. During the week over a hundred section and technical sessions were held in College lecture rooms with papers presented by some 400 speakers.

Although Hanover "enjoyed" two of the hottest days of the summer during the convention, the visitors agreed that it was one of the most successful and enjoyable meetings in the sixty-year history of the Society and were unanimous in their admiration of the College's hospitality and facilities. AH members of the Thayer School faculty and their wives and several members of the College Administration gave unstintingly of their time and efforts to make the convention a success.

For a report of alumni activities including the Centennial of Engineering Convocation in Chicago, don't miss next month's installment.