The Two Towers: Main

Dean Price was appointed vice-president as well as Dean of the Faculty.

Dr. Van Arsdale, before serving as executive vice-president, had been the first man to hold the Institute's title of Director of Development. He was succeeded by Ross Alger, then by Frederick L. Broad, Jr., in the necessary function of aligning the plans for tomorrow with what can be done today. Public Relations, no more than a new name for an old job, first appeared with its title in 1962 with Robert S. Fox as director. A Tech alumnus, Roger N. Perry, Jr., was appointed in 1964.

In 1959 Dean Price announced the results of a two-year study of academic development. He had not handled this job alone, which was in itself the best part of the effort. With a mania for communication as well as for cooperation, he had excluded or excused no one from participation in the debate. "The left hand should know what the right is doing," he contended as he invited everyone, even the athletic director, Robert W. Pritchard, who had been named full professor of Physical Education, and the ROTC director, Lieutenant Colonel Gardner T. Pierce. At last the humanities were also recognized as part of the family.

Actually the decisions were for direction rather than for details. In brief, they involved a broadening of the humanities, they provided electives instead of options, leaned heavily toward mathematics and science, advanced technology and communications, and encouraged a high level of graduate and research work.

To introduce the new curriculum there was an almost-new staff, the Institute having had many additions and a change of five department heads within a two-year period. These men were new in more ways than one. Since 1888 the Institute had served as its own training school for teachers, many of the graduates making the long, slow climb which took them through the levels as graduate assistant, instructor, assistant professor to full professorship. Sometimes it took as long as twenty years to make the full ascent. This in-breeding, of course, was not peculiar to W.P.I., for many schools had recruited their teaching staff in a similar manner. It was only as the community of learning widened that a better distribution of educational leadership was effected.

Bringing many new capable teachers to Tech during the 1950's was perhaps Arthur Bronwell's greatest contribution to the Institute. President Bronwell, who had been executive secretary of the American Society for Engineering Education, was as well acquainted with the men in the profession as with its trends.

The engineers and educators, in turn, had a high regard for Arthur Bronwell. Recommendation enough for any school was the fact that he was its president. Thanks to him, Worcester Tech grew considerably taller in the minds of many knowledgeable persons in engineering education, a realm where stature really counts. Several teachers of extremely high caliber were thus at-