The Faculty
Two appointments to the Medical School faculty were announced last month. They were of more than usual interest because they were in departments from which several members resigned last year in a dispute over policies.
Dr. Mahlon B. Hoagland, currently Associate Professor of Bacteriology and Immunology at the Harvard Medical School, has been appointed Professor and Chairman of the Department of Biochemistry. Dr. Elmer R. Pfefferkorn, now Silas Arnold Houghton Assistant Professor of Bacteriology at the Harvard Medical School, has been appointed Associate Professor of Microbiology.
Dr. Carleton B. Chapman, Dean of the Medical School, said that the two new faculty members were among the country's outstanding young biomedical scientists. Both are equally at home in several basic fields and their unusual talents as scientists and teachers make them welcome additions to the faculty, he added.
Dr. Hoagland discovered in 1955 the mechanism by which amino acids, the building blocks of proteins, are "activated." This is the first step in protein synthesis in living cells. Later, in collaboration with Dr. Paul C. Zamecnik, he discovered transfer ribonucleic acids, the key carriers of amino acids in cells.
Dr. Hoagland, a native of Boston, was graduated from Harvard and the Harvard Medical School. He served in various research capacities at the Massachusetts General Hospital from 1948 to 1960 and was appointed to the Harvard faculty in 1958. He also studied at the Carlsberg Laboratory in Copenhagen and at the Cavendish Laboratories in Cambridge, England.
He has contributed about 40 articles to ranking biochemical publications and is a member of several scientific groups.
Dr. Chapman said that Dr. Hoagland comes to Dartmouth's Department of Biochemistry "at a time when concern and enthusiasm for curriculum planning and revision are very marked. The school looks forward to a new phase of responsible and imaginative experimentation in biomedical education. In addition to his competence as an investigator and teacher, Dr. Hoagland brings to Dartmouth a keen interest and considerable experience in planning for education in the area."
Dr. Pfefferkorn was graduated from Lawrence College in Wisconsin in 1954 and was a Rhodes Scholar at Trinity College, Oxford. On returning to this country, he became a research fellow at Harvard and received his Ph.D. degree there in 1960. He was appointed to the endowed Silas Arnold Houghton Chair in 1965.
Dr. Pfefferkorn's research has dealt mainly with biochemistry and genetics of viruses and has been published in ranking journals. At Dartmouth he expects to continue his studies of the genetics governing the assembly of virus particles within mammalian cells and to undertake new studies on the reactivation by light of viruses damaged by irradiation.
HENRY B. WILLIAMS, Professor of English and Director of the Experimental Theater, is the new President of the American Educational Theater Association. He was elected at the group's 30th annual convention in Chicago, a meeting that he had planned as first vicepresident of the Association and conference chairman.
The AETA has a membership of more than 2,000 and includes educational theater people from colleges and universities, children's theaters, secondary schools and community theaters.
As conference chairman, Professor Williams was responsible for organizing 54 separate panel discussions. One aspect gave him considerable joy. He arranged for Frank Gilroy '5O, Pulitzer Prize playwright and a former student of Professor Williams, to speak at a general gathering and he was the hit of the conference, Professor Williams said. Mr. Gilroy has a new play opening in Chicago in February.
Another faculty member, George W. Schoenhut, Associate Professor of Drama and Scenic Director for the Dartmouth Players, participated in a panel at the meeting. He discussed "The Undergraduate Scenic Designer."
DEAN Myron Tribus of Thayer School was one of 16 members named to a national panel to investigate the possibilities of developing an electrically powered automobile. Secretary of Commerce John T. Connor charged the panel with surveying the current technology, determining the technical and economic feasibility of electric vehicles, comparing per- formance with other types of vehicles, especially regarding air pollution, and recommending a role for the Federal Government in research and development.
Dean Tribus also served as a panelist at a conference on technological change at the University of Rochester. He discussed key points in recognizing and using technology and innovation.
THE National Academy of Athens presented its prize for Italian history to James Barros, Assistant Professor of Government, for his book, The CorfuIncident. This was the first time the Academy had so honored an American publication.
The book is a move-by-move account of the diplomatic crisis early in Mussolini's career which severely tested the League of Nations. It is a case study of the use of international organizations to settle a major international crisis.
THREE faculty members from the History Department and one Professor of Government presented papers at the 81st annual meeting of the American Historical Association in New York. Prof. Louis Morton was chairman of a session on Pearl Harbor: Twenty-FifthAnniversary. At other sessions Edward N. Saveth, Visiting Professor of History, discussed American History, Prof. Kalman Silvert of the Government Department commented on The Interpretationof Twentieth-Century Latin AmericanPolitical History, and Peter H. Smith, Assistant Professor of History, discussed Beef Interests and Politics: Argentina.
THREE faculty members served on the New Hampshire Rhodes Scholarship Selection Committee this year. They were Arthur M. Wilson, Professor of Biography and Government; William E. Slesnick, Associate Professor of Mathematics; and Thomas Vargish, Instructor in English.
Two History Department faculty members have received awards to further their research. Jere R. Daniell II '55 was awarded a grant-in-aid from the American Association for State and Local History for a study of community development in the Upper Connecticut Valley during the period 1760-1820. The American Council of Learned Societies awarded a grant-in-aid to Assistant Professor R. Burr Litchfield. It provides funds for archival and clerical assistance for the application of computer techniques in a social study of the patrician aristocracy of Florence under the Old Regime.
A merikanska Professorer Motte Moderna Sverige. That was the headline on a clipping from the Svenska Dagbladet of Sweden. Accompanying the news story was a picture of Alvar O. Elbing, Associate Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Tuck School. There are no Swedish translators on the ALUMNI MAGAZINE'S staff so we had to learn from others that Professor Elbing toured Sweden as a member of a group sponsored by the Experiment in International Living.
English Professor Henry B. Williams,newly elected President of the AmericanEducational Theater Association.
Dr. Mahlon B. Hoagland is a new Professor and Chairman of the MedicalSchool's Department of Biochemistry.
Dr. Elmer R. Pfefferkorn, formerly ofHarvard Medical, has been appointedAssociate Professor of Microbiology.
