THE FACULTY
DAVID S. DENNISON, Instructor in Zoology, has recently been awarded a grant of $11,000 by the National Science Foundation for the support of basic research on "Geotropism and Its Relation to Phototropism." Mr. Dennison's project is designed to discover the relation between sensitivity to gravitational accelerations (geotropism) and sensitivity to light (phototropism) in certain specialized cells of the fungus Phycomyces. He uses a hair-like single-celled organ of spore dispersal, the sporangiophore, for his studies of this stimulus-response system. This organ is useful because of its rapid growth rate - about two inches a day - and because its sensitivity-adjustment system is similar to that of the human eye, thus enabling study of the same fundamental phenomenon of cell function under controlled laboratory conditions.
Mr. Dennison found that the sporangiophore's response to light and gravita- tional force, obtained with his specially designed turntable may be a change in growth rate, in the direction of growth or both, depending on experimental conditions. Photographs of the changes in growth direction show variations as a corkscrew and an oscillating wave under certain conditions. Assisting Mr. Dennison on the project is a National Science Foundation undergraduate fellow, William D. Graham, under a newly inaugurated program of the Foundation to encourage undergraduates to "learn the meaning of science through research."
GRANTS from the National Science Foundation for the support of basic research have been awarded to two other Dartmouth professors. William T. Doyle, Assistant Professor of Physics, was awarded a $43,000 grant for research on "Color Centers in lonic Crystals." Melvin Spiegel, Assistant Professor of Zoology, is the recipient of a $48,600 grant for the study of "Protein Changes in Developing Embryos." Spiegel joined the Dartmouth faculty this fall. He was educated at the University of Illinois and the University of Rochester, where he received his Ph.D. in 1952. Doyle, who joined the Dartmouth faculty in 1955, was awarded an NSF fellowship for research at Oxford University in England last year.
PROFESSOR George A. Taylor has been named adviser to the revised Tuck-Thayer program at Dartmouth. The program, a joint undertaking of the Thayer School and the Tuck School, is designed for specially qualified students who wish to prepare to assume management responsibilities in engineering-oriented industries. Professor Taylor, who teaches engineering and management, will advise Dean Karl A. Hill of the Tuck School and Dean William P. Kimball of Thayer School in administering the program. The position was created recently when the Dartmouth Board of Trustees approved the recommendation of a special committee that the program be strengthened "because it fulfills a distinct and important need in industry today."
Professor Taylor, a graduate of New York University, has been at the Thayer School since 1946. Previously he had worked for Ingersoll-Rand in New York and the Industrial Department of the General Electric Corp. At Thayer he developed the "Work Simplification Laboratory," which attempts to train students in creative methods of doing industrial jobs simpler, faster and cheaper.
VIRGIL POLING, founder and head of the Student Workshop at the College for nearly twenty years, left recently for Morocco to spend two years there as a representative of the U.S. State Department. During that time he is to serve as an adviser to the International Cooperative Administration helping to improve the manufacture of goods by hand skills to better the nation's industry. With Bissell Hall, home of the old Student Workshop, razed, and the Hopkins Center, which will house the new workshop, still two years away from completion, the offer from the State Department came to Professor Poling at a perfect time. The Student Workshop, the first of its kind in the country, is a place where students are given added opportunities to further creative ambitions in the handcrafts. Professor Poling will head the new workshop in the completed Hopkins Center on his return to Hanover.
THE Dartmouth Chapter of the American Association of University Professors once again this year is conducting a poll to determine the economic status of the faculty. The decision to conduct the second poll in two years was made primarily in accordance with a request from the national AAUP for a statement of benefits and minimum and average salaries for each rank of the faculty at the College. The poll conducted by the local chapter plans to ascertain the maximum salary as well. Since the Trustees do not make public the information requested by the national AAUP for the purposes of "grading academic compensation" through-out the United States, the local chapter decided to use the polling method to obtain the necessary annual review of faculty salaries and benefits. Professor George E. Diller, chairman of the Dartmouth Chapter, pointed out that it is part of the general purpose of the AAUP to improve the status of the profession economically on a national as well as a local level.
ON the local scene, faculty activities of interest to alumni include a valuable report on the new Guggenheim Museum in New York City by Professor Churchill P. Lathrop over WDCR's interesting Sunday radio program, Kaleidoscope. Professor Lathrop attended a private viewing of the remarkable structure two days before it was opened to the public and was able to report about the building to his Dartmouth audience. He took a favorable position regarding the controversial structure and felt that it was admirably suited for the display of paintings for both short-range and long-range viewing.
Dean of the Tucker Foundation Fred Berthold '45 has recently concluded a series of three public lectures on "Justifying the Christian Faith." The lectures were delivered in Rollins Chapel and dealt with certain vital issues raised by modern philosophy, but from the perspective of a Christian "believer." Also part of the series was a critical discussion of the material presented in Dean Berthold's lectures led by Associate Professor Willis F. Doney of the Philosophy Department. The discussions were held in Baker Library shortly after the lectures.
