THE FACULTY
RAMON GUTHRIE, Professor of French, gave three readings in December from his new book of poetry, Graffiti. The first was at the University of Massachusetts, where he appeared in the university's "Meet the Author" series. This was followed by a reading in "The Enjoyment of Poetry" program over Radio Station WEVD, New York. Professor Guthrie also went to Washington to make a recording of most of his book for the Library of Congress.
WING-TSIT CHAN, Professor o£ Chinese Culture and Philosophy, recently visited Charlotte, North Carolina, serving as a consultant to Queen's College in setting up a program of Asian studies. His visit was arranged by the Asia Society of New York, promoting studies of Asia in undergraduate colleges in the United States.
PROFESS.OR Andrew H. McNair of the Geology Department attended the first International Symposium on Arctic Geology held recently at Calgary, Alberta. Last summer Professor McNair was head of the field work in Canadian Arctic Islands sponsored by Dominion Explorers Ltd. In this project the geology of a large part of Bathurst Island was mapped in order to evaluate petroleum possibilities in the area. One of the scientific by-products of Professor McNair's study was the determination of the relationship of two major deformational belts which occupy the Central Arctic Islands. This subject was presented by Professor McNair to the Symposium.
PROFESSOR Ralph A. Burns of the Education Department returned to Dartmouth for the winter term after four and one-half months in Asuncion, Paraguay. Working under State Department auspices, he was technical adviser to the National University of Asuncion, a government-supported institution, the only university in Paraguay. The University has ten separate faculties, completely independent of each other, with no central or over-all organization. The students number over three thousand, with degree programs in medicine, law and economics the most popular. Professor Burns's task was to study the administrative problems of the University, and to make recommendations for basic reorganization of the physical plant, the administration, the curriculum, and faculty-student relationships. His report in Spanish and English will be published in Washington by the University with the aid of special United States State Department funds.
HISTORY Professor Louis Morton of the University of Wisconsin has joined a Dartmouth research project investigating the preparation of civilians engaged in forming national security policies. Professor Morton, on leave from Wisconsin for a year, was historical officer with the Army in the Pacific in World War II, and from 1946 until this year he served with the office of the Chief of Military History, United States Army. He supervised the preparation of twelve volumes on Pacific fighting in the Army's series, UnitedStates Army in World War II, and he is the author of several articles and books on military history. Among these are TheFall of the Philippines and Strategy andCommand.
Dr. Morton will be associated with Professors John Masland and Gene M. Lyons of the Dartmouth Government Department in the third of a series of studies of policy-makers in the national security area, undertaken through grants from the Carnegie Corporation of New York. The first study in the series led to the publication of Soldiers and Scholars: Education andNational Policy, by Professors Masland and Laurence Radway. The second resulted in Education and Military Leadership by Professors Masland and Lyons.
PROFESSOR Elmer Smead of the Government Department, author of one of the articles in Faculty Forum in this issue, appeared recently before the Federal Communications Commission in hearings to consider what authority the Commission has over regulation of radio and television programing. The hearings were prompted by broadcasting scandals over the rigging of television quiz shows and charges of "payola" and "plugola." Professor Smead took the position that the Commission cannot avoid the regulation of programing. Author of the recently published Freedom of Speech by Radioand Television, Professor Smead cited a long series of actions by the old Federal Radio Commission and a collection of Appeals Court decisions to support his position. He argued that "the regulation of programs is not per se censorship," and added that the privileges extended by the courts to the press and to motion pictures do not apply to radio and television.
A BOOK by Professor of Comparative Literature Vernon Hall Jr., Renaissance Literary Criticism: A Study of ItsSocial Content, first published by Columbia University Press in 1945, has been reprinted by Peter Smith, Gloucester, Mass., 1959.
PROFESSOR Francis W. Sears, chairman of the Department of Physics at Dartmouth and President of the American Association of Physics Teachers, announced recently that a national program has been started to study methods of improving the teaching of physics in colleges. The A.A.P.T. is sponsoring this program with an initial grant of $69,000 by the National Science Foundation. Three meetings have been scheduled on the subject of improving college physics courses. Serving as a steering committee with Professor Sears are the following: Dr. Frank Verbrugge of the University of Minnesota, Dr. Jerrold R. Zacharias of M.I.T., Dr. Francis Bitter of M.I.T., Dr. Francis L. Friedman of M.I.T., and Dr. Walter Michels of Bryn Mawr College.
The first conference was held recently at M.I.T. The second and third meetings will be held in February and May. Those invited to attend include members of the A.A.P.T. Advisory Committee and other prominent physicists, 63 in number. In addition to the three conferences, the A.A.P.T. plans to sponsor a book on lecture demonstrations in order to supplement and bring up to date a volume now issued by the society, and to prepare and validate two tests at the introductory level.
Professor Sears points out that for many reasons "it seems wise at this time to consider continuing the attack on the problem of physics instruction at the college level, taking advantage of the great amount of work that has been done in various conferences, on both course content and laboratory, that have been sponsored by the American Association of Physics Teachers and other groups over the past ten years."
