The Faculty
AS THE time draws near for shifting over to the new three-term, three-course curriculum, the faculty is completing plans for revisions in courses and in the requirements for various maors. This month, with a discussion of the new curriculum in Psychology, we inaugurate a series of reports to the alumni on some of the interesting changes taking place on the Dartmouth educational scene.
Placing primary emphasis on independent experimental research in the senior year, the Psychology curriculum under the three-term, three-course system includes a tripled number of seminar courses and significant alteration of the junior year program for majors. The 26-course curriculum represents the completion of two years of gradual revision. According to Professor Albert H. Hastorf, chairman of the Department, there is no reason why a good student who completes his major under the new program cannot have the equivalent of the Master's degree in many graduate schools.
"Fitting the stated ideal of giving the student enough training so that he is capable and sophisticated enough for independent work as a senior," the curriculum requires majors to take a three-term laboratory sequence, plus one other course during the junior year. The laboratory sequence, introducing experimental techniques in the study of sensory perceptual processes, learning, motivation and social psychology, is arranged so that all majors will go through the program together and each course will depend on the preceding one - a change over the present system in which students take their required courses in any order. Further revisions of the junior-year program include the integration of statistics with the laboratory work and the addition of the term of experimental work in motivation and social psychology.
Four courses, at least one of which must be a seminar, are required in the senior year. With eight seminars being offered per year - in mathematical models in psychology, social psychology, physiological psychology, personality theory, sensory processes, psychological theory, human discrimination, and learning - Professor Hastorf notes that senior majors may spend just about all their time in independent work. "The emphasis in seminars," he says, "will vary with the topic as to reading or experiment, and with the students as to the specific areas taken up under the general course title."
The Department continues to offer its independent research program in which one or two students work with a faculty member on either a reading or experimental topic. The greater emphasis is on laboratory work, however. The expected result of reading research might be a term paper. In the case of laboratory work it would be a report. "The overall hope of both seminars and independent reading courses is to significantly involve senior majors in research problems now being done by the staff," Professor Hastorf explains.
Also included in the curriculum is provision for a modified major, which requires six courses in psychology plus four terms outside the Department. Course 1, Introductory Psychology, continues to be concerned with a scientific treatment of individual differences, perception, learning, and motivation. It is a prerequisite for all further work in the Department.
FACULTY residents for the new Choate Road dormitories were announced recently. They are Professor and Mrs. Norman A. Doenges of the Classics Department and Professor and Mrs. Richard W. Sterling of the Government Department. The Doenges with their daughter will occupy the east residence attached to Little and Brown Halls. The Sterlings, with their three children, will live in the residence attached to Cohen and Bissell Halls. As faculty residents they will be available for counseling on personal matters and advice on intellectual and social affairs.
Professor Doenges received A.B. degrees from Yale and Oxford and a Ph.D. from Princeton. In 1951-52 he attended the American School of Classical Studies in Athens on a Fulbright Fellowship. Professor Sterling received, his A.B. and M.A. degrees from Yale and was a Foreign Service officer in Germany from 1947 to 1951. He came to Dartmouth in 1954 and has received his Ph.D. from Yale.
ARTHUR M. WILSON, Professor of Biography and Government, presented a paper entitled "Why Did the Political Theory of the Encyclopedists Not Prevail?" at the annual meeting of the Society of French Historical Studies held recently at Duke University and the University of North Carolina. Professor Wilson also gave a lecture at Wheaton College, Norton, Mass., entitled "The Enlightenment and Our World Today."
PROFESSOR of English Henry B. Williams has been reelected a member of the Executive Committee of the American National Theatre and Academy. Professor Williams represents the Educational Panel on the Board of Directors of ANTA. A talk by Mr. Williams, "Are Audiences Getting the Plays They Want?", given at the fall meeting of the New England Theatre Conference in Boston, has been printed for distribution to the Conference.
A 424-PAGE study of the advertising industry has been published recently by Professors Albert W. Frey '20 and Kenneth R. Davis of the Tuck School. Titled "The Advertising Industry - Agency Services - Working Relationships - Compensation Methods," the report was commissioned more than a year ago by the Association of National Advertisers. The report is based on interviews with people in advertising and on comprehensive questionnaires answered by a sampling of company presidents, directors of advertising, agencies and media. In commenting upon the work of these Dartmouth professors, Carl Spielvogel of The New YorkTimes said, "A framework for major changes in traditional advertising industry practices was presented . . . with the publication of the long-awaited Frey Report. According to the . . . study, the areas most in need of change were the method of compensation and advertising-agency relationships." The report also notes that "the problem of finding improved means for measuring the effectiveness of advertising is undoubtedly the most basic."
HAROLD R. BRUCE, Professor of Government, who retires in June, has been awarded a John Hay Whitney Foundation Visiting Professorship for 1958-59 and has accepted appointment as Visiting Professor of Government at Pomona College, Claremont, Calif.
Professor Bruce's award is one of only sixteen made in the entire country each year, enabling professors just retired to teach at other colleges in the fields of the humanities and social sciences. William Stuart Messer, Daniel Webster Professor of the Latin Language and Literature, Emeritus, received a Whitney award when he retired in 1952 and taught at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Wash.
Professor Bruce' began his teaching career at Pomona, and he and Mrs. Bruce have many friends in Claremont. They will retain their home in Hanover.
THE world premiere of "The Good Soldier Schweik" by the late Robert Kurka, who taught music at Dartmouth in 1955-56, will be presented by the New York City Opera during its five-week season opening April 3. The opera, based on the novel of World War I by the Czech author, Jaroslav Hasek, is scored for a small band. Mr. Kurka completed the score only a few weeks before he died of leukemia last December 12, at the age of 35. The libretto is by Lewis Allen. While at Dartmouth, Mr. Kurka wrote two Works for the Dartmouth Glee Club.
Albert W. Frey '20, Professor of Marketing at Tuck School, who with Prof. Kenneth R. Davis, also of Tuck, produced the long-awaited report on the advertising industry.
The new Choate Road dormitories which are nearing completion. On the left, Little and Bissell Halls; on the right, Brown and Cohen Halls. Little Hall is now partly occupied. The glassed-in ramps lead to the social lounges which are a feature of the new plan.
A typical study-bedroom in the new residence unit, which will house 300 men. Suites for eight have single and double rooms of this sort, plus living room and bath.
Amos N. Blandin Jr. '18, Associate Justice,New HampshireSupreme Court
Allen R. Foley '20, Professor of History
Roy P. Forster, Professor of Zoology
Richard B. McCornack '41, Professorof History
George Z. Dimitroff,Professor ofAstronomy
Robert E. Huke '48,Assistant Professor ofGeography
