The Two Towers: Main

It is hoped that you . . . will take full advantage of this opportunity to submit for initial consideration those completely uninhibited plans of which you probably have already dreamed at some time or other.
      --Harry Purnell Storke, in letter to faculty, 1962

The charter sets forth a school of instruction in which no one college, to which not all the colleges in America combined, would be adequate. It is hardly less than instruction in all science and art so far as they may be applied to the occupations useful to man.
      --George F. Hoar, 1872

The quickening pulse of research at Worcester Tech should bring new vitality and a more widespread reputation to the school, new outlook and stimulated minds to the teachers, and new challenge and inspiration to the students.
      --Wilmer L. Kranich, 1958

of academic development with a calm and steady hand, balancing how fast with how far there was to go.

There were now a hundred and twenty-four members of the faculty--one to each ten students--plus many assistants and part-time teachers. Eighty-seven had come to Tech during the last ten years; a few had been a part of Institute life for more than forty years. The new ones had already separated into a Young Faculty Association, but the older ones hadn't bothered to organize, so sure were they of themselves in a battle of wits. Strangely enough, some of the younger men were the most conservative; some of the older ones, the most adventurous. Many of these teachers, as had become traditional for teachers and graduates of the Institute, had published textbooks. But authorship was not a measure. "The honor that comes with it," explained one of the authors with tongue in cheek, "is in lieu of salary." Many teachers were officers in local and national engineering societies, and the majority were PhD's who to a man would defend the position held by Carl Johnson, who had had no formal education at all.

Every one of the professors, too, had a theory about the differences between engineering science and scientific engineering, about the desirable proportion of humanities and science, about theory and practice, or chemistry and physics. As meanings came closer and closer together, sometimes they were all talking about the same thing with different words.

With their educational tools becoming obsolete quite as rapidly as their mechanical ones, the faculty now accepted concepts, not courses, as of primary concern. Engineering seemed to be in the middle of the road where civilization began. "What can we do?" looked in one direction, "What does it mean?" in the other. There was emphasis on how students learned rather than what they learned. Finally, after so many years, Solomon's advice, "Wisdom is the principal thing," was beginning to make good sense.

Also to be closely watched were general trends toward the humanities, programmed learning, flexibility, accessibility of materials with microfilm and computer, cooperation with other institutions, and multi-purpose curricula.

Much faculty discussion revolved around the ratio of research to be sponsored by the Institute and by outside sources. Contrasted with former years, when Tech's research was confined largely to the Alden Hydraulic Laboratory and the efforts of a few faculty members, no department was now without its sponsored projects. For instance, Robert C. Plumb, in Chemistry, had designed ingenious equipment for experimental purposes; C. William Shipman had headed a project which won the coveted Silver Combustion Medal for work in turbulent flame equipment. Electrical Engineering was involved with acoustics, controls, communication, and instrumentation; Chemistry with oils, optics, vapors, liquids, and gases; Physics in radioactivity, enzyme synthesis, cosmic rays,