The Two Towers: Main

Finally, in 1937, the position of dean became a full-time actuality when Jerome W. Howe (who had been head of Civil Engineering succeeding A. W. French) was appointed as the first Dean of Admissions and Students.The Techniquest was one of the first programs to be announced from the new administrative office. The Journal recorded it as "frankly an experiment" and the term as a "Howism." Actually, it was a Mrs. Howism. Dean Howe wrote in his personal journal two months after his first suggestion for a pre-freshman boys' camp, "My Helen suggested the name Techniquest." On June 18 of 1934 he wrote again: "Monday, Fair and fine. We launched the Worcester Techniquest [already the Army man had adopted the Admiral's language] with a first group of twenty-five boys." Paul Swan was named the director of the program.

Dean Howe moved into President Thompson's old house, where the Jennings family had lived for so many years. The old ark, as Mrs. Jennings often called it, was badly in need of repairs. There was not a closet in the whole house, it needed rewiring, its heating system was two generations old. But modernization of this house, which soon became known as the Deanery, was given priority on President Earle's list of minor projects--a concession to sentiment, for his father had designed it in the 1860's.

When in the fall of 1937 the faculty held their first meeting of the school year in Room 19 of Boynton Hall, many new men were sitting in the chairs which for forty years and more had been occupied by older men. Five senior professors had reached the retirement age of seventy at the same time, and with almost a shock, the school discovered that the average age of its new professors was forty-three.

Sitting in George Haynes' chair was Albert J. Schwieger, the youngest department head in the history of the Institute with the exception of George Alden. Dr. Duff, who had worked for years as chairman of the special analysis committee, was no longer present to enliven the discussion with his strong Scottish burr. His department of Physics had become a degree-granting course, replacing the controversial General Science course of earlier years, and Arthur W. Ewell had taken over the responsibility as head of the department.

Dr. Jennings' Chemistry had branched off to a strong tangent of engineering. Two men, Frederic R. Butler and Frank C. Howard, now represented the dual interests of this department. Arthur W. French, who was teaching a light load until he reached seventy, had relinquished his department of Civil Engineering several years previously to Dean Howe, but with Jerome Howe's new status as dean, the job went to another man, Andrew H. Holt, from the Midwest. It had been a long time since so many persons new to the school had been appointed.The Journal facetiously counted the men who were to take