The Faculty
FACETS OF DARTMOUTH EDUCATION: One of the most interesting among the new arrivals in the Dartmouth curriculum is Art 29-30, which has the title of "Basic Design." This is a studio course, taught by a remarkably talented artist, Richard Wagner. It seeks to offer a truly liberating experience through the creative process. It is not Mr. Wagner's intention to train professional artists. That is a job for the art schools. Neither does he seek to supply men with an opportunity for undisciplined expression or with a chance to begin a hobby, so that they might join after graduation the thousands of amateur painters. Rather the course seeks to fill a real gap in the total experience of the liberal arts college. Much more is involved here than a simple effort to link courses in the history and appreciation of art with practical and creative work in the studio. The course rests on the assumption that the truly creative experience is one of the most valuable parts of life. It involves a synthesis and integration of an individual's whole experience, and it develops within him an awareness of his own potential.
If one were to visit the classes he might find the men working in the fields of painting, sculpture, architecture - even, perhaps, planning an advertising layout. He might find Mr. Wagner talking with the men about some of the disciplines of the different mediums. If he were to visit the course late in the semester he would find each man busy on his individual project. Most important of all, he would find a group of men intensely interested in expressing themselves working closely with a practicing, creative artist. As Mr. Wagner puts it, "For the liberal arts student, the emphasis must be placed on the doing, not on the object produced. What the student produces in most cases is of little importance, but what the doing stimulates within the student is of supreme importance. All the teacher's effort and planning must be concentrated toward this, yet his efforts must follow a devious route. The teacher must lead the student to the threshold of the creative experience, but he cannot lead him across or even push him across. The student must cross by himself. He must feel that he has gone out ahead of the experience of the teacher and his fellow students, and certainly he has. When this happens, the student has had a significant liberating experience. The dignity of the individual is upheld and enhanced in a manner that can affect the student's whole attitude and philosophy. The passive acceptance of the pattern of living by precedent is refuted when the student realizes the breadth of his own vision and learns to use it with confidence and authority. His imagination has been drawn into focus with his everyday life, and wonder and excitement take the place of sophisticated boredom."
As many as 45 students are enrolled in the two-semester course and they are enthusiastic about it. It has the effect of adding a new dimension to their lives. The world in which they move becomes a richer, more exciting, more wonderful place to be, and they themselves become more vital in it.
PROFESSOR H. Gordon Skilling of the Government Department has been selected to participate in a series of four seminars on the United Nations. They are being held under the auspices of the Woodrow Wilson Foundation in New York. Twelve professors from colleges and universities mostly in the East and specialists from the United Nations make up the seminars, and the topics for discussion concern such vital matters as the U.N. technical assistance program and the problem of U.N. membership for Red China. It is the hope of the foundation that these seminars will contribute to the more successful functioning of the U.N. and to better public understanding of its problems.
PROFESSOR Albert S. Carlson of the Geography Department has been appointed to the newly formed Economic Advisory Committee of the New England Council. The committee, which is made up of thirty specialists and business leaders, is under the direction of George Ellis, Director of Research for the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, and the group will concern itself with immediate and long-range problems of New England's economic well-being.
PROFESSOR Arthur E. Jensen, Chairman of the English Department, has been appointed to the Committee on Examinations of the College Entrance Examination Board.
DURING the Christmas vacation several Dartmouth professors read papers at meetings of the learned societies. Professor Robert A. Kavesh and Instructor James B. Jones of the Economics Department delivered a joint paper to the American Economic Association meeting in Detroit. The purpose of the paper was "to point out the inequalities between government tax obligations in New England and the South." New England is taxed more heavily by the Federal government in proportion to financial benefits received, according to Kavesh and Jones, whereas the situation in the South is exactly the opposite. They also pointed out that "funds spent in New England tend to diffuse from there, while southern spending stays in that area." Other papers read during the holidays were "Cooper's Early Creative Years," by Professor James F. Beard Jr., at the meeting of the Modern Language Association in New York, and Professor Roy P. Forster's "Active Cell Transport of Urea," at the American Society of Zoologists meeting at North Carolina University.
ON the local scene the faculty has been very active in speaking before student organizations. The Dartmouth Psychology Club presented a panel discussion on "Aesthetics and Psychology." Participating faculty members were Professor James A. Sykes of the Music Department, Instructor Richard E. Wagner of the Art Department, and Professor Charles L. Stone '16 of the Psychology Department. Professor Louis Menand of the Government Department talked on the question, "Why is American Foreign Policy What It Is?" before the Cosmopolitan Club; Professor Robert Gutman of the Sociology Department discussed "The American Religious Consciousness" before the Dartmouth Christian Union; and Professor Gerald Thompson gave the third in a series of Mathematics Department talks on important areas of modern mathematics.
PROFESSOR John B. Lyons of the Geology Department has received a grant of $7200 from the National Science Foundation to investigate systematic chemical changes in metamorphic rocks and their relation to the origin of granite. He will study compositional differences ire garnet and other minerals found in New Hampshire's most famous stone to determine whether granite may be a metamorphic rock and not a solidified molten rock.
Until about ten years ago geologists Were certain they knew where granite came from and how it was formed, but now many of the world's geologists are taking another look at the question. "Since the end of World War II," Professor Lyons states, "one of the hottest controversies in world geology is the problem of just how granite was formed. Geologists thought they had it all explained very nicely, but now we are not so sure."
The present project will require about two years and will study by petrographic, chemical and spectrographic techniques the variations in composition of certain metamorphic minerals, such as garnet. It will then be possible to determine how they vary systematically under different geologic environments. If these variations in garnet and similar minerals exist as Professor Lyons believes they do, then he will have taken the first step to prove that much granite is formed as a metamorphic rock and not as a cooling and crystallizing lava. A metamorphic rock is one that undergoes great changes through heat and pressure.
For the past three years, Professor Lyons has been studying the radio-activity of New Hampshire granite for the U. S. Geological Survey and in the course of this research has examined many granite bearing areas in regions where folding of the earth's crust has been of both high and low intensity. He now plans to examine samples of granite from these areas and to look at them again in the light of how they were formed.
