Faculty

For some time, planning has been going forward aimed at increasing the numbers of women and minority members on the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, in part to provide a balance within the faculty and the entire academic environment approximating conditions found in society.

As a result of those efforts, which actually began well before the decision last November to inaugurate coeducation at Dartmouth, Leonard M. Rieser '44, Vice President and Dean of the Faculty, was able to report significant statistics to the Trustees at their fall meeting.

Of the 62 new faculty members appointed for 1972-73 or longer—most of them filling vacancies caused by retirement or normal attrition but some reflecting growth required by initiation of the Dartmouth Plan for year-round operation—17 are women and six are members of minorities.

Addition of 17 new women raises the number of women on the faculty to 40—28 full-time and 12 part-time—and to about 15 per cent of the total arts and sciences faculty, while appointment of six faculty members from minority groups brings the total in that area to 13, or about five per cent of the total. Yet in terms of the specific recruiting effort, the 17 women faculty added this year represent almost exactly one-third of the new faculty hired, working from a base which does not include visiting or other temporary appointments.

In the minority category, similarly, the appointment of six persons represents more than 10 per cent of the total. These recruiting ratios, Dean Rieser pointed out to the Trustees, conform to the guidelines voted by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences during the past academic year, and actually exceed the goals set forth in the Dartmouth Affirmative Action Plan placed on file at the College last spring in keeping with requirements of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare.

Of the new women faculty, five joined the English Department, while one went to each of the following departments: math, psychology, drama, music, art, government, speech, education, philosophy, environmental studies, biological sciences, and Romance languages and literatures. Departmental affiliation of the six minority faculty are: anthropology and Native American Studies, chemistry, sociology, history, English and black studies, and Romance languages and literatures.

Most faculty appointments for 1972-73 were at the rank of instructor or assistant professor, but two carried the full rank of professor, or visiting professor. They are: Blanche H. Gelfant, a specialist on modern American literature, appointed Professor of English after having served a year at Dartmouth as a visiting professor; and S. Jay Walker, named Visiting Professor of English and Director of the Black Studies Program.

Professor Gelfant, whose book TheAmerican City was a Pulitzer Prize nominee in 1954 and was reissued in 1970, came to Dartmouth from the State University of New York Upstate Medical Center, Syracuse, where she had been an English professor and director of the English program since 1959. She also has taught at Syracuse University, University of Wisconsin at Madison, Queens College, University of Southern California, and Brooklyn College.

She was graduated from Brooklyn College in 1943 and received both an M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin. While at Dartmouth last year as a visiting professor, she was selected for a senior fellowship by the National Endowment for the Humanities. In addition to her book, she is the author of several monographs and articles on such writers as Thomas Wolfe, George Elliott, Faulkner, Hemingway, Dos Passos, and Edith Wharton.

Professor Walker, an authority on early and contemporary black literature, comes to Dartmouth from the University of Rochester, where he has been visiting professor of English and Afro-American studies since 1970. He has also held an appointment as professor of English and director of black studies at State University College at Geneseo, N. Y., since 1960. He taught earlier at Tottenham Technical College in London, Tuskegee Institute, and the University of Alaska.

Professor Walker, who spent the academic year 1966-67 traveling in Africa and the Middle East, was graduated from the College of the City of New York in 1951, received an A.M. from Columbia University, and was awarded the Ph.D. from the University of Nottingham, England.

He has written widely and appeared on several television series dealing with black culture and black-white relations.

Stephen G. Nichols Jr. '58 Professor of Romance Languages and Comparative Literature, has been elected to membership of the Academy of Literary Studies. The academy was founded at Johns Hopkins University in 1971 for the purpose of advancing scholarly knowledge and to develop a critical understanding of literature. Membership of the academy consists of established scholars who have attained distinction in the study of literature and is limited to 200 persons.

For his work in algebra, Ernst Snapper, the Benjamine Cheney Professor of Mathematics, has been awarded continuation of his research grant in the sum of $10,000 from the National Science Foundation.

Other grants have also been awarded to Mathematics Professors J. Laurie Snell, chairman of the department, and John W. Lamperti for their work in probability theory; Prof. Kenneth P. Bogart for his work in combinatorics, and Professors Reese T. Prosser and Kenneth I. Gross for their work in analysis.

The National Science Foundation has given support for work in topology to Mathematics Professor Richard H. Crowell and three colleagues: Professors Martin Arkowitz, Edward M. Brown, and Marianne S. Brown.

The total amount of these awards represents just under $150,000.

Two Dartmouth faculty were among 24 members of the National Humanities Faculty which this summer conducted a workshop on "The Question of Authority" for 100 secondary school teachers and administrators from 20 public, parochial, and private schools in 15 states.

The Dartmouth representatives were Errol G. Hill, chairman of the Drama Department and an authority on black theater, and William E. Slesnick, Professor of Mathematics and a member of the executive board of the area Boy Scout Council.

The workshop, conducted at the University of New Hampshire, is scheduled to be repeated next summer and the summer of 1974 as part of a long-range and searching examination of that current social trend that has seen authority and authorities being questioned throughout the world.

The National Humanities Faculty, a non-profit organization based in Concord, Mass., was founded four years ago by Phi Beta Kappa to foster the teaching of the humanities. It is sponsored also by the American Council on Education and the American Council of Learned Societies.

As president-elect of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Leonard M. Rieser, Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, attended the recent annual meetings of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in Leicester, England. From England, he travelled to Paris to visit UNESCO to discuss the international role of the American association.

A paradox in the problems of environmental protection has been pointed to recently by Dennis Meadows, Associate Professor of Engineering and Business Administration an international authority on long-range global analysis of complex social and environmental situations.

Speaking before the Connecticut River Basin's Coordinating Group, a branch of the New England River Basins Commission, Professor Meadows cautioned that development of a higher quality of life along the Connecticut River Basin than that enjoyed by the nation as a whole would be self-defeating.

While urging long-range goals be set, he said planners must realize that Utopia is impossible, and that to avoid self-defeating imbalance there must be some parity in environmental planning on a national scale.

Noting that the Connecticut River Basin, which runs from the U. S.-Canadian border to Long Island Sound through four of the six New England states, is growing exponentially in population and material output, Dr. Meadows said: "If we were to attempt to hold all qualities of life in the region higher than the national average, we would encourage an in-migration from the rest of the country that would tend to depress the quality of life."

Dr. Meadows, co-author of the Club of Rome's widely acclaimed book TheLimits to Growth, said long-range planning like that being done by the New England River Basins Commission is absolutely essential for growth to be in the right direction.

A grant for specialized cancer research has been awarded to the Dartmouth Medical School's Department of Microbiology by the Milheim Foundation for Cancer Research.

Dr. Martin Lubin, Professor of Microbiology, who heads the laboratory where the research will be done, said the planning for the project and the actual research are to be carried out by Dr. Philip Furmanski and Philip C. Phillips, both research associates in microbiology.

The Milheim Foundation grant of $16,950, to be expended between July 1, 1972 and June 30 next year, is to carry out research on "properties of the specific Concanavalin A binding site of tumor cells." The reaction of cells with Concanavalin A, Dr. Furmanski explained, is an indication of the state of the membrane of tumor cells. Study of the membrane leads to information about the growth of tumor cells. Thus, the research done under the Milheim grant will increase knowledge of cancer.

Dr. Saul Blatman, Professor and Chairman of Maternal and Child Health at the Medical School, addressed the second annual meeting of the Association for Pediatric Education in Europe, held September 29 through October 1 in Copenhagen. He discussed "A New Approach to Pediatric Education: A Clinical Department of Maternal and Child Health," based in part on the Dartmouth Medical School's newly functioning Department of Maternal and Child Health, combining pediatrics and obstetrics.

Under standard medical procedures, the practices of obstetrics and pediatrics tend to compartmentalize the treatment of mothers and their newborn children. Though this has long been accepted, it has now been termed "unnatural." Prior to leaving Hanover, Dr. Blatman noted that one of the physicians beginning his internship at the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center was practicing both pediatrics and obstetrics.

In Dr. Blatman's personal invitation to the meeting in the Danish capital there was reference to the "exciting new program" in the Dartmouth Medical School's Department of Maternal and Child Health. It was stated that there was particular interest in the department chairman's educational approach to the combination of obstetrics and pediatrics.

Before joining the Dartmouth Medical School faculty last summer Dr. Blatman lived in Stamford, Conn., and was long associated with the Beth Israel Medical Center in New York. He also served as chairman at symposia on pediatrics and adolescence held in Athens and Tokyo.

Prof. Carl F. Long of Thayer School (left) with President Kemeny and Vice President and Dean of the Faculty Leonard Rieser as announcement was made lastmonth that he had been named Dean of Dartmouth's engineering school.