Third Century Professorship Established

JOHN G. KEMENY, Professor of Mathematics, has been named the first member of the faculty to hold a newly created Third Century Professorship at Dartmouth College.

The new professorship embodying innovative concepts in education is named in honor of Albert Bradley '15, retired chairman of the board of the General Motors Corporation, whose gift to the Dartmouth Third Century Fund made the academic chair possible.

Among its distinctive features, the Albert Bradley Third Century Professorship provides for a non-renewable ten-year tenure for the incumbent and carries released-time and support funds specifically for the development of new approaches to undergraduate teaching, rather than for topical research.

"Through this new concept," President Dickey said, "Dartmouth seeks to give to teaching and the educational purposes of the institution the high recognition and the opportunity so often reserved for research in contemporary academic communities. The prescribed term of ten years is a determined effort to encourage the circulation of fresh ideas.

"It is noteworthy in this context that in their professional lives, Mr. Bradley, as one of America's foremost industrial leaders, and Professor Kemeny, a leading thinker and scholar, already have contributed importantly to both industry and learning by their cross-fertilization of ideas and resources."

Mr. Bradley, who lives in Greenwich, Conn., has made several important gifts to Dartmouth. Together with the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, he was a major donor toward the Albert Bradley Center for Mathematics, dedicated in 1961. He also gave the Albert Bradley Class of 1915 Fund, one of Dartmouth's major scholarship and loan endowments. His endowment of a Third Century Professorship, the first of several planned, represents a significant contribution toward the Third Century Fund. One half of the campaign's $51-million goal has been allocated to the support of the faculty and academic programs.

The 43-year-old Dr. Kemeny has a distinguished reputation in academic, professional, and industrial circles. Several of his 12 books, many of them translated into several other languages, provided the foundation for new mathematics curricula. One, Introduction toFinite Mathematics published in 1957, has been used as the basis of a modern mathematics course in several hundred colleges in the United States and abroad. He was instrumental in developing the philosophical and educational concepts which led to the creation of the timesharing computer system for education, introduced at Dartmouth in 1964 with the cooperation and assistance of the General Electric Company. In connection with this he was co-inventor of BASIC, a computer language now used the world over.

Professor Kemeny, who was research assistant for Dr. Albert Einstein at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton before joining the Princeton faculty, came to Dartmouth in 1954 as chairman of the Mathematics Department. His 12-year chairmanship was marked by the establishment of the first honors program for talented mathematics students, the recruiting of a distinguished mathematics faculty, and the inauguration of a Ph.D. program.

Mr. Bradley, one of Dartmouth's most loyal and active alumni, retired as Chairman of General Motors in 1958 but remained a director and until recently a member of the Finance Committee and Chairman of the Bonus and Salary Committee. He has just been reelected to the Board of Directors and thus looks back on a span of service with General Motors of 50 years. A close associate of the late Alfred P. Sloan, management architect of the modern General Motors Corporation, he continues to serve as honorary chairman of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

A Trustee of Dartmouth from 1954 to 1961, Mr. Bradley also is a former member of the Board of Overseers of Tuck School and is a member of the Major Gifts Committee of the Third Century Fund. He was awarded the honorary Doctor of Laws degree by Dartmouth in 1954, and in 1962 the Dartmouth Alumni Council bestowed on him its highest honor, the Dartmouth Alumni Award.

Prof. John G. Kemeny