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WPIlQurnal 

i7r»Pf-F<5XFR  POT  VTFCHNIC  ^INSTITUTE 


WORCESTER  POLYTECHNIC^  INSTITUTE 


AUGUST  1985 


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A  CHANGE  AT 
THE  HELM 

WANTED:  MORE 
AD  STUDENTS 
:IENCE  AND 
ENGINEERING 

AN  ENTREPRENEURIAL 
SPIRIT 


THE  NEW  MEDICINE 


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WPI  Journal 

WORCESTER  POLYTECHNIC^ INSTITUTE 


VOLUME  89,  NUMBER  1 


Staff  of  The  WPI  JOURNAL 

Editor,  Kenneth  L.  McDonnell 

Alumni  Information  Editor,  Ruth  S.  Trask 

Sports  Editor,  Gene  Blaum 

Alumni  Publications  Committee:  William  J. 
Firla,  Jr.  '60,  chairman;  Judith  Nitsch,  '75, 
vice  chairman;  Paul  J.  Cleary  '71;  Carl  A. 
Keyser  '39;  Robert  C  Labonte  '54;  Samuel 
Mencow  '37;  Maureen  Sexton  '83. 

The  WPI  Journal  (ISSN  0148-6128)  is  pub- 
lished quarterly  for  the  WPI  Alumni  Associa- 
tion by  Worcester  Polytechnic  Institute  in  coop- 
eration with  the  Alumni  Magazine  Consortium, 
with  editorial  offices  at  the  Johns  Hopkins  Uni- 
versity, Baltimore,  MD  21218.  Pages  I-XVI  are 
published  for  the  Alumni  Magazine  Consor- 
tium (Franklin  and  Marshall  College,  Hartwick 
College,  Johns  Hopkins  University,  Rensselaer 
Polytechnic  Institute,  Villanova  University, 
Western  Maryland  College,  Worcester  Poly- 
technic Institute)  and  appear  in  the  respective 
alumni  magazines  of  those  institutions.  Second 
class  postage  paid  at  Worcester,  MA,  and  addi- 
tional mailing  offices.  Pages  1-22,  39-60  ® 
1985,  Worcester  Polytechnic  Institute.  Pages  I- 
XVI  ®  1985,  Johns  Hopkins  University. 

Staff  of  the  Alumni  Magazine  Consortium: 

Editor,  Mary  Ruth  Yoe;  Design  and  Production 
Coordinator,  Amy  Doudiken;  Assistant  Editor, 
Leslie  Brunetta;  Designer,  Allen  Carroll; 
Editorial  Assistant,  Claire  E.  Brown,  Time  Inc. 
Fellow,  Joe  Levine. 

Advisory  Board  of  the  Alumni  Magazine 
Consortium:  Franklin  and  Marshall  College, 
Bruce  Holran  and  Linda  Whipple;  Hartwick 
College,  Merrilee  Gomillion;  Johns  Hopkins 
University,  B.J.  Norris  and  Elise  Hancock; 
Rensselaer  Polytechnic  Institute,  Robert  M. 
Whitaker;  Villanova  University,  Eugene  J. 
Ruane  and  Joan  DelCollo;  Western  Maryland 
College,  Joyce  Muller  and  Pat  Donohoe;  Wor- 
cester Polytechnic  Institute,  Donald  F  Berth 
and  Kenneth  L.  McDonnell. 


Acknowledgments: 

Typesetting,  BG  Composition,  Inc. 
American  Press,  Inc. 


Printing, 


Diverse  views  on  subjects  of  public  interest  are 
presented  in  the  magazine.  These  views  do  not 
necessarily  reflect  the  opinions  of  the  editors  or 
official  policies  of  WPI.  Address  correspon- 
dence to  the  Editor,  The  WPI  Journal,  Worces- 
ter Polytechnic  Institute,  Worcester,  MA 
01609.  Telephone  (617)  793-5609.  Postmaster: 
If  undeliverable  please  send  form  3579  to  the 
address  above.  Do  not  return  publication. 


CONTENTS 


AUGUST  1985 


4  Edmund  Titus  Cranch, 
12th  President  of  WPI 

.  .  .  And  his  memorable  years  at  the  Institute. 
Roger  N.  Perry,  Jr.  '45 

9  Jon  Calvert  Strauss, 
13th  President  of  WPI 

.  .  .  And  where  we  go  from  here. 

13  The  New  Medicine 

Engineers  expand  frontiers  in  patient  care. 
Evelyn  Herwitz 

19  The  Entrepreneurial  Spirit 

First  in  a  series:  Robert  J.  Harvey  '70  Ph.D. 
Michael  V.  Shanley 

I  The  Meaning  of  Life 

II  Wanted:  More  Graduate  Students  in 
Science  and  Engineering 

How  fast  are  the  numbers  going  up? 
Sharon  Begley 

X  After  cars,  the  garage  .  . . 

Automobiles  transformed  U.S.  architecture. 
Robert  Kanigel 

39  Project  Update 

42  Light  at  the  End  of  the  Tunnel 

Theoretical  physicist  Prof.  Michael  W.  Klein's 
research  is  solving  an  old  puzzle. 
Kenneth  McDonnell 


Page  4 


Page  13 


nun 


45  Reunion  '85:  Pictures  tell  it  best. 

Departments 

News  from  the  Hill        2 

Class  Notes       48 

Completed  Careers        59 

Cover:  Dr.  Edmund  T.  Cranch,  12th  president  of  the  Institute. 

Opposite:  Reunion  '85.  See  it  all,  beginning  on  page  45.  Photos  by  Michael  Carroll. 


Page  X 


AUGUST  1985        1 


NEWS  FROM  THE  HILL 


College  Dedicates 
Stoddard  Laboratories 

Other  than  Boynton  Hall,  no  building  has 
played  a  more  vital  role  in  the  history  and 
traditions  of  WPI  than  Washburn  Shops. 
Completed  in  1868  as  WPI's  second  build- 
ing, the  Shops  then  housed  commercial 
machining  and  manufacturing  facilities 
where  students  served  as  apprentices  to 
skilled  workers,  for  a  half  century  turning 
out  products  that  added  significantly  to  the 
Institute's  reputation— and  to  its  purse. 

So  successful  was  this  enterprise  that  in 
1892  a  three-story  wing  was  constructed  to 
provide  additional  manufacturing  space. 
Yet  important  as  this  space  has  always 
been,  until  recently,  it  was  known  simply 
as  the  North  Wing. 

But  all  that  is  history  now,  for  at 
Reunion  on  June  1,  before  a  large  audi- 
ence of  alumni,  trustees  and  friends  of  the 
college,  WPI  dedicated  the  Wing  as  the 
Robert  W.  Stoddard  Laboratories,  honor- 
ing the  community  leader  who  served  the 
college  as  a  trustee  for  33  years  before  his 
death  in  December  1984.  Stoddard  was  a 
longtime  supporter  of  the  materials  engi- 
neering program  of  the  Mechanical  Engi- 
neering Department,  which  is  housed  in 
these  laboratories. 

"I  think  it's  appropriate  for  these  metal- 
lurgy laboratories  to  be  named  for  Bob 
because  he  was  fascinated  by  precision, 
delicacy  and  perfection,"  said  Helen  E. 
Stoddard,  thanking  WPI  for  its  tribute  to 
her  late  husband. 

Stoddard  began  his  lifelong  career  with 
Wy man-Gordon  Company  in  1929  as  a 
laboratory  helper.  In  1967,  he  was  elected 
chairman  of  the  Wyman-Gordon  Board  of 
Directors,  a  post  held  earlier  by  his  father, 
Harry  G.  Stoddard.  This  company, 
founded  in  1883  by  two  WPI  alumni,  is 
the  western  world's  largest  supplier  of 
forgings  to  the  automotive,  aircraft  and 
gas  turbine  industries. 

For  the  last  2 1  years  of  his  life,  Stoddard 
also  served  as  chairman  of  the  Worcester 


A  distinguished  name  for  a  distinguished  building:  Mrs.  Helen  E.  Stoddard  receives  a 
gift  from  Dr.  Edmund  T.  Cranch  at  the  dedication  of  the  Stoddard  Laboratories ,  named 
in  honor  of  Mrs.  Stoddard 's  late  husband,  Robert  W.  Stoddard.  Looking  on  are  Joseph 
R.  Carter,  chairman  of  the  board  of  Wyman-Gordon  Co.,  and  Robert  C.  Steele,  chair- 
man and  president  of  the  Worcester  Telegram  and  Gazette  Inc. 


Telegram  and  Gazette  Inc.  He  was  a  direc- 
tor of  some  of  the  region's  most  presti- 
gious business  firms,  as  well  as  a  trustee  of 
banks,  museums,  and  educational  and 
research  institutions. 

"In  his  lifetime,  Bob  Stoddard  modestly 
declined  any  offer  we  made  to  honor  him 
in  some  manner,"  said  Dr.  Edmund  T. 
Cranch.  "The  one  exception  was  his  hon- 
orary Doctor  of  Engineering  degree  which 
WPI  awarded  him  in  1952. 

"When  he  participated  in  the  dedication 
of  the  Stoddard  Residence  Center  in  1970, 
and  later  in  announcing  the  establishment 
of  the  Stoddard  Professorship  in  Manage- 
ment, he  stressed  that  these  were  to  honor 
the  memory  of  his  father,  Harry  G.  Stod- 
dard," added  Dr.  Cranch. 

Following  Robert  Stoddard's  death, 
WPI  officials  discussed  with  his  family  the 
possibility  of  placing  his  name  on  the 
building  which  for  nearly  a  century  has 
been  nameless.  His  family  concurred. 

The  Stoddard  Laboratories  were  com- 
pletely renovated  in  1983-84  during  the 
$4.3  million  reconstruction  of  the  entire 
Washburn  Shops  complex. 


Three  Alumni  Term 
Trustees  Elected 

Howard  G.  Freeman  '40  ME,  WPI  Board 
of  Trustees  chairman,  has  announced  the 
election  of  three  alumni  to  trustee  posi- 
tions, effective  July  1,  1985. 

Raymond  J.  Perreault  '38  ME,  an  eight- 
year  incumbent,  will  serve  a  second  term, 
until  June  30,  1988.  Robert  F.  Stewart  '50 
EE,  also  an  incumbent  with  five  years  of 
Board  service,  will  serve  a  second  five- 
year  term.  Donald  E.  Ross  '54  ME  will 
serve  an  eight-year  term,  his  first. 

Perreault  is  president  and  treasurer  of 
Falls  Machine  Screw  Co.  Inc.,  Chicopee, 
MA,  manufacturer  of  precision  industrial 
and  consumer  items.  He  has  been  active  in 
alumni  and  college  affairs  as  a  member  of 
the  President's  Advisory  Council,  the 
Connecticut  alumni  chapter  and  the  40th 
Reunion  gift  committee. 

Perreault  is  active  in  organizations  such 
as  the  Greater  Chicopee  Chamber  of  Com- 
merce, of  which  he  is  a  director,  Chicopee 
Boys  Club  and  Springfield  YMCA,  and 


WPI  JOURNAL 


Raymond  J.  Perrault  38        Donald  E.  Ross  '54 


Robert  F  Stewart  '50 


the  National  Association  of  Manufactur- 
ers. He  lives  in  Suffield,  CT. 

Ross  is  president  of  MPB  Corporation 
of  Keene,  NH,  manufacturer  of  precision 
bearings.  He  has  served  as  vice  president 
of  the  Alumni  Association,  as  a  member  of 
the  Association's  Executive  Committee,  as 
chairman  of  the  Alumni  Publications 
Committee,  and  as  chairman  of  the  25th 
Reunion  gift  committee.  At  Reunion  in 
June,  he  was  given  the  Herbert  F.  Taylor 
Award  for  service  to  WPI. 

He  has  served  as  director  of  the  Leba- 
non, NH,  Chamber  of  Commerce,  the 
Lebanon  Industrial  Development  Associa- 
tion, the  Daniel  Webster  Council  of  the 
Boy  Scouts  of  America  and  the  United 
Way.  He  is  a  corporator  of  Mary  Hitch- 
cock Memorial  Hospital  and  Keene  Sav- 
ings Bank,  and  is  a  director  of  Troy  Mills 
Inc.  He  resides  in  Surry,  NH. 

Stewart  is  senior  executive  vice  presi- 
dent for  IC  Industries  Inc.,  Chicago.  In 
1971,  he  was  given  the  Robert  H.  God- 
dard  Award  for  professional  achievement. 
WPI  awarded  him  an  honorary  Doctor  of 
Engineering  degree  in  1978.  He  is  a 
member  of  the  President's  Advisory  Coun- 
cil. 

He  is  a  director  of  Incom  International 
and  a  former  trustee  of  the  University  of 
Connecticut.  Previously,  Stewart  was 
senior  vice  president  for  strategic  planning 
of  United  Technologies  Corporation  and 
corporate  vice  president  and  group  presi- 
dent (industrial  products)  for  Rockwell 
International.  He  lives  in  Glenview,  IL. 


Toward  More  Humane 
Technologists 

"The  great  engineers  of  the  past— the  Roe- 
blings,  the  Eiffels,  the  builders  of  the  Pan- 
ama Canal— didn't  see  themselves  as 
heroic  figures,  or  as  characters  in  the 
drama  of  history.  The  giants  of  19th-cen- 
tury technology  were  'civilized'  engi- 
neers, whose  creativity,  not  just  their 
mathematical  prowess,  made  the  real  dif- 


ference. Besides  their  work,  many  were 
interested  in  poetry,  theater,  literature, 
even  growing  roses.  They  didn't  divorce 
technology  from  the  humanities.  They  are 
models  which  technologists  today  might 
well  emulate."— David  McCullough, 
writer,  historian,  and  featured  speaker  at 
the  inaugural  Friends  of  the  Humanities 
Program  at  WPI,  held  this  past  May  15. 

McCullough  came  to  WPI  to  help  initi- 
ate the  Friends  program  as  well  as  to  be  on 
hand  for  announcement  of  the  new  Paris 
Fletcher  Distinguished  Professorship  in 
the  Humanities,  named  to  honor  the  WPI 
trustee  emeritus  who  has  served  the  col- 
lege for  more  than  30  years.  John  F. 
Zeugner,  professor  of  history,  was  named 
recipient  of  the  first  Fletcher  professor- 
ship. 

Zeugner  has  twice  been  awarded  fellow- 
ships to  teach  in  Japan.  In  May  he  was 
awarded  the  26th  annual  WPI  Trustees 
Award  for  Outstanding  Teaching.  A  spe- 
cialist in  American  history,  he  has  pub- 
lished both  as  a  historian  and  as  a  writer  of 
fiction. 

Fletcher,  a  senior  partner  in  the  Worces- 
ter law  firm  of  Fletcher,  Tilton  &  Whip- 
ple, was  a  WPI  trustee  from  1953  until 
1973,  serving  as  vice  chairman  for  11 
years  and  on  the  Board's  executive  and 
investment  committees.  A  trustee  emeritus 


since  1973,  he  was  awarded  an  honorary 
Doctor  of  Science  degree  in  1967  and  the 
WPI  Award  for  Distinguished  Service  to 
the  College  in  1977. 

McCullough  is  the  author  of  four  books, 
all  of  which  have  received  wide  critical 
and  popular  acclaim:  The  Johnstown 
Flood,  The  Great  Bridge,  The  Path 
Between  the  Seas  and  Mornings  on  Horse- 
back, a  biography  of  Theodore  Roosevelt 
that  won  the  1982  American  Book  Award. 
In  addition  to  narrating  the  "Smithsonian 
World"  series  on  public  television,  he  is 
working  on  a  biography  of  Harry  S.  Tru- 
man. McCullough  received  an  honorary 
Doctor  of  Engineering  degree  from  WPI  in 
1984. 

Sigma  Phi  Epsilon  Closed 

Undergraduate  members  of  the  WPI 
chapter  of  Sigma  Phi  Epsilon  Fraternity 
have  been  informed  by  their  alumni  board 
that  the  chapter  and  the  chapter  house  have 
been  closed  and  will  remain  closed  for  the 
foreseeable  future. 

The  fraternity  was  placed  on  suspension 
by  the  college  in  March.  Complaints 
against  the  chapter  included  violations  of 
campus  party  regulations,  neighbor  com- 
plaints, and  hazing  of  pledges.  The  mem- 
bership status  of  individual  members  will 
remain  suspended  until  graduation  when 
they  become  alumni  members  of  the 
national  fraternity. 

In  his  letter  to  the  undergraduate  mem- 
bers, Sig  Ep's  Alumni  Board  President, 
John  P.  Jacobson  '65  wrote,  in  part:  "We 
remain  committed  to  the  goals  and  ideals 
of  Sigma  Phi  Epsilon  Fraternity  and  fully 
support  the  WPI  fraternity  system.  We 
expect  to  recolonize  the  fraternity  within 
three  to  four  years." 


(L.  to  R.)  Author-historian  David  McCullough,  Dr.  Edmund  T  Cranch,  Paris  Fletcher 
and  Robert  Cushman,  president  and  CEO  of  Norton  Company,  at  the  announcement  of 
the  Paris  Fletcher  Distinguished  Professorship  in  the  Humanities. 


AUGUST  1985       3 


The  Twelfth 

presidency 

of  WPI  proved 

golden  years 

for  the  Institute. 

Edmund  Titus  Cranch 


By  Roger  N.  Perry,  Jr.  '45 

The  walk  Edmund  Cranch  took  to 
campus  that  warm  July  morning 
in  1978,  from  his  newly  occu- 
pied presidential  residence, 
across  Alumni  Field  and  the 
Quadrangle,  would  become  an  almost 
daily  ritual  for  the  next  seven  years. 

He  stopped  to  chat  briefly  with  campus 
staff  as  he  went — groundskeepers  at  work 
and  faculty  passing  by.  In  short  order,  the 
entire  WPI  community  would  come  to 
know  his  cordial  manner. 

That  summer,  Boynton  Hall,  WPI's 
administration  building,  was  in  the  final 
stages  of  its  first  renovation  since  con- 
struction in  1868  as  one  of  WPI's  two  orig- 
inal buildings.  The  office  Ed  Cranch 
entered  that  morning  had  been  temporarily 
relocated  in  a  modest  building  nearby,  a 


building  that  had  once  served  as  a  working 
foundry  for  the  college. 

As  he  entered  this  office,  he  was  con- 
fronted by  the  bare  polished  wood  surface 
of  his  new  desk.  And  though  it  didn't 
remain  empty  for  long,  neither  did  it 
become  cluttered  in  the  next  seven  years. 
For— ever  the  engineer— his  exacting  stan- 
dards kept  the  desk  well  organized,  even 
as  his  presidential  workload  increased. 

The  normally  slower  paced  campus  life 
of  summer  was  for  Dr.  Cranch  a  time  of 
intensive  learning  about  the  institution  he 
had  been  chosen  to  lead.  He  used  the  time 
well,  assessing  the  job  which  lay  ahead 
and  the  faculty  and  administrative  staff 
who  stood  by  eager  to  assist  him. 
After  an  academic  career  spanning  three 
decades  at  Cornell,  Ed  Cranch  was  mak- 
ing a  new  beginning  on  a  new  campus,  in  a 
new  city,  and  in  a  new  role.  His  would  be 
the  task  of  fine-tuning  the  WPI  Plan. 


Forces  external  to  the  college  required  a 
president  with  national— indeed,  interna- 
tional—perspectives on  higher  education, 
particularly  in  engineering  and  science. 
Edmund  Cranch  took  office  in  an  eco- 
nomic climate  where  even  meeting  the 
basic  financial  needs  of  the  institution 
required  larger  budgets  each  year. 

Cranch  tackled  the  presidency  with  the 
thorough  vigor  that  characterized  his  han- 
dling of  every  endeavor  he'd  ever  under- 
taken. His  low-keyed,  "please  and  thank 
you"  manner  often  belied  the  intensity  of 
his  concerns  for  the  college. 

At  his  inauguration  in  October  1978, 
Cranch  was  quoted  as  saying  that  WPI's 
position  as  a  leader  in  quality  undergradu- 
ate education  was  one  of  the  most  enticing 
reasons  for  his  coming  to  WPI.  And  as 
president,  he  even  taught  a  course  on 
vibrations  within  the  mechanical  engineer- 
ing curriculum. 


4       WPI  JOURNAL 


Teaching  was  a  way  to  get  to  know  the 
WPI  student  better,  he  claimed.  Yet,  much 
as  he  enjoyed  the  challenge  of  the  class- 
room, Cranch  understood  that  this  was  no 
longer  his  primary  domain.  It  was  a  presi- 
dential luxury  that  he  soon  found  required 
more  time  than  he  could  justify. 

For  the  most  part,  the  academic  deans 
and  department  chairs  enjoyed  Ed 
Cranch 's  confidence  in  matters  of  instruc- 
tion and  academic  affairs.  At  the  same 
time,  he  followed  the  academic  planning 
activities  of  the  faculty  with  great  interest. 
He  put  his  full  support  behind  strengthen- 
ing WPI's  fledgling  biology  program  and 
adding  graduate  programs  in  firesafety 
engineering,  materials  engineering  and 
business  administration. 

But  Ed  Cranch's  real  forte  had  been 
demonstrated  several  years  earlier  at  Cor- 
nell, when  he  served  as  chairman  of  the 
President's  Special  Committee  on  Long 
Range  Financial  Planning.  The  commit- 
tee's report,  known  in  Cornell  circles  as 
the  "Cranch  Report,"  had  been  disturbing 
to  many  faculty,  but  the  hard  economic 
facts  and  planning  consequences  outlined 
in  the  report  were  right  on  target. 

At  WPI,  too,  with  double-digit  inflation 
a  reality  in  1978  and  freshmen  enrollments 
nationwide  projected  to  turn  down  dramat- 
ically in  the  decade  ahead,  planning  for 
this  volatile  environment  rapidly  became 
almost  a  full-time  endeavor  for  Ed 
Cranch. 

In  1982,  with  the  professional  assistance 
of  Earl  Flansburgh  Associates,  Cranch 
commissioned  a  frank  assessment  of 
WPI's  campus  facilities.  The  Flansburgh 
Report  provided  important  guidelines  on 
land  use  and  student  needs  for  the  coming 
decade  and  beyond. 

One  key  outcome  of  this  study  was  a 
plan  for  a  new  230-bed  student  residential 
center  at  the  eastern  end  of  the  campus. 
Cranch  became  actively  involved  in  this 
project,  reflecting  his  well-known  concern 
for  the  quality  of  student  life.  In  fact,  the 
$7.3  million  residence  center,  Founders' 
Hall,  to  be  completed  for  the  fall  1985 
academic  session,  is  WPI's  largest-ever 
construction  project. 

In  addition,  he  oversaw  the  1983-84, 
$4.3  million  renovation  and  expansion  of 
WPI's  second  oldest  building,  the 
Washburn  Shops  and  Stoddard  Laborato- 
ries. As  a  result,  Washburn's  tradition  of 
excellence  in  engineering  education  has 
been  restored  in  full— and  enlarged  to  bet- 
ter serve  future  generations  of  WPI  stu- 
dents. 

Perhaps  Ed  Cranch's  most  challenging 
and  ambitious  planning  endeavor,  how- 


ever, was  in  preparing  the  campus  and  the 
faculty  for  a  comprehensive  network  of 
latest-generation  computing  power.  While 
some  colleges  have  attracted  national 
attention  for  requiring  freshmen  to  pur- 
chase their  own  personal  computers  (too 
often,  time  has  shown,  a  premature  strat- 
egy), WPI  has  chosen  not  to  follow  suit  at 
this  time. 

In  1981,  President  Cranch  selected  Pro- 
fessor Owen  Kennedy,  Jr. ,  '45  as  Dean  of 
Academic  Computing.  Under  Kennedy's 
guidance,  the  Committee  on  Academic 
Computing  recommended  and  is  now 
managing  a  comprehensive  plan  for  inte- 
grating personal  computers  into  academic 
and  research  activities  at  WPI.  (See  "Tun- 
ing Up  for  the  Computer  Generation," 
WPI  Journal,  May  1985.) 

WPI  is  bringing  its  students  into  the 
computer  age  by  providing  ample  access 
to  latest-generation  computers  in  laborato- 
ries and  at  terminal  locations  across  cam- 
pus. Computer  equipment  is  being 
upgraded  continually  through  purchase 
and  the  generosity  of  companies  such  as 
AT&T,  Data  General,  Digital  Equipment 
Corporation  (DEC),  IBM  and  Wang.  Stu- 
dents may,  however,  purchase  a  PC 
through  the  college  at  reduced  cost  should 
their  individual  needs  indicate  that  owner- 
ship is  in  their  own  best  interest. 


Opposite:  Taking  the  floor  at  a  faculty 
meeting  to  outline  WPI's  plans  for  student 
recruitment  in  a  volatile  marketing  envi- 
ronment. Below:  Dr.  Cranch  met  weekly 
with  his  executive  academic  and  adminis- 
trative staff  to  work  on  the  pressing  issues 
confronting  WPI.  In  1982,  Data  General 
selected  WPI  as  recipient  of  a  $300,000 
DG  ECLIPSE  MV/8000  computer  system. 
Bottom:  Dr.  Cranch  is  shown  with  Data 
General  president  Edson  de  Castro. 


AUGUST  1985       5 


On  his  daily  walk  to  campus  across 
the  athletic  fields,  former  high 
school  baseballer  and  college 
hockey  player  Ed  Cranch  became  only  too 
well  aware  of  the  unreasonable  demands 
placed  on  WPI's  playing  fields  since  their 
construction  in  1915.  As  recently  as  20 
years  ago,  enrollment  stood  at  1,000  stu- 
dents, all  of  them  men.  In  1985,  with  an 
undergraduate  student  body  of  2,500,  20 
percent  of  it  women,  and  another  1,000 
graduate  students,  WPI  has  long  since  out- 
grown the  fields'  capacity  to  meet  the 
growing  need  for  sports  and  recreational 
space. 

Renovation  of  the  athletic  fields  had 
been  one  goal  of  The  Capital  Program, 
announced  early  in  Cranch's  tenure.  Yet, 
inflation  twice  caused  postponement  of  the 
work.  Finally,  in  February  1985,  the  time 
was  right  for  the  Board  of  Trustees  to 
authorize  the  sorely  needed  fields  renova- 
tion, and  work  began  in  May. 

The  plan  for  Alumni  Field  calls  for  a 
synthetic  surface  on  the  existing  football 
field,  installation  of  an  all-weather  surface 
on  the  running  track,  regrading  and  sod- 


ding of  the  natural  grass  surfaces  on  the 
baseball  and  Class  of  '93  (soccer)  fields, 
improved  lighting  on  Alumni  Field,  and 
the  addition  of  two  tennis  courts. 
Long-range  planning  did  not  involve 


physical  facilities  alone,  however.  Again, 
working  with  expert  outside  consultants, 
Cranch  and  a  committee  of  faculty  and 
staff  studied  how  WPI  is  perceived  by 
potential  students  and  those  who  influence 


COLLEAGUE,  TEACHER 
AND  FRIEND 

I  can  recall  that  January  day  in  1978 
when  a  "news  leak,"  as  reported  in  the 
Cornell  Daily  Sun,  said  that  Ed  Cranch, 
then  dean  of  engineering  at  Cornell,  had 
been  elected  president  of  WPI.  He  was  in 
Colorado  at  the  time,  tending  to  some 
important  fundraising  chores  that  I  and 
others  were  forever  putting  on  his  plate.  A 
few  days  before,  he  had  announced  a 
multi-million  dollar  gift  to  help  the  devel- 
opment campaign  for  the  geological  sci- 
ences. Upon  their  return,  Virginia  got  hold 
of  Mai  Burton  (WPI  '40)  and  me,  and  had 
us  over  to  dinner  that  night.  Mai  was 
responsible  for  undergraduate  affairs  in  the 
College  of  Engineering,  and  I,  external 
affairs.  We  were  then  associate  dean  and 
assistant  dean,  respectively,  so  Ed  had 
more  than  his  hands  full  with  a  WPI  pres- 
ence among  his  senior  staff. 

While  both  Mai  and  I  were  devoted  to 
our  work  and  to  Cornell,  each  of  us  left  the 
Cranches'  home  that  night  feeling  espe- 
cially good  about  WPI.  We  knew  our  alma 
mater  would  be  in  caring  and  competent 
hands,  even  though  we  ourselves  would 
have  to  face  the  prospects  of  "breaking 
in"  a  new  dean.  Ed  and  Virginia  seemed 
"right"  for  WPI— and  ready  for  a  change 
of  their  own.  Their  three  children  had  been 


raised  and  were  on  their  own,  and  the 
number  of  attractive  opportunities  that  Ed 
was  receiving,  we  knew,  would  sooner  or 
later  take  him  from  Ithaca. 

Ed  was  one  of  those  rare  faculty  types. 
Whatever  his  ego,  he  has  more  than  man- 
aged to  suppress  it.  He  was  then,  and 
remains  today,  an  unprepossessing  man. 
Ed  is  not  flashy;  he  is  not  interested  in 
cosmetic  concerns  or  subordinate  matters. 
That  is  what  makes  him  fun  to  work  with. 
He  was  a  fiscal  conservative,  a  cautious 
innovator,  and  one  who  seemed  to  recog- 
nize who  had  good  ideas  and  were  likely 
to  run  soundly  with  them,  if  supported. 

He  also  had  acquired  a  reputation  as  one 
of  the  nation's  few  engineering  deans  who 
were  serving  as  chairs  of  key  university- 
level  committees  such  as  minority  affairs, 
long-range  financial  planning,  and  on  the 
executive  committee  of  the  Board  of  Trust- 
ees. His  thoughtfulness,  balance  and  fair- 
ness—coupled with  thoroughness — had 
served  Cornell  well  through  the  range  of 
key  issues  confronting  higher  education  in 
the  early  and  mid-1970s.  In  short,  he  was 
not  a  parochial  university  engineering 
dean,  though  he  certainly  worked  hard  for 
his  college's  share  and  more! 

Ed  also  enjoys  life's  simple  pleasures. 
He  is  an  avid  collegiate  sports  fan— espe- 
cially hockey.  And  I'm  told  he  was  a  dif- 
ferent man  on  the  ice.  I'm  too  young  to 
have  seen  him  play  during  his  palmier 


days.  God,  he  even  camped  out  overnight 
to  be  in  line  for  season  hockey  tickets  at 
Cornell.  He  also  enjoyed  teaching  and 
worked  with  a  group  of  Cornell  faculty  to 
introduce  more  relevance  into  the  sopho- 
more core  math  sequences  for  engineering 
and  applied  science  students.  And  he 
increased  the  support  staff  responsible  for 
the  undergraduate  engineering  programs, 
something  that  isn't  easy  to  do  within  a 
research-oriented  university.  In  short,  he 
cared  about  the  undergraduate. 

It  was  these  qualities  that  suggested  his 
"fit"  with  WPI  would  be  a  good  one. 

I  was  particularly  proud  as  a  WPI  alum- 
nus all  that  last  Cranch  spring  at  Cornell. 
For  too  long,  I  .suspect,  a  good  many  of 
my  Cornell  and  Ithaca  area  friends  had  lis- 
tened to  me  wax  on  about  the  merits  of 
WPI  and  of  New  England.  I  even  claimed 
the  weather  to  be  superior  (which,  except 
for  more  gray  skies  in  the  typical  Finger 
Lakes  winter,  wasn't  so!).  To  me,  his 
going  to  WPI  demonstrated  that  all  my 
posturing  was  really  true! 

Most  of  all,  though,  I  guess  I  liked  him 
because  he  taught  me,  by  example,  that 
there  is  a  real  difference  between  form  and 
substance.  He  was  never  personally  ambi- 
tious yet  he  was  ambitious  in  his  own 
quiet,  unassuming  way— first  for  Cornell, 
and  for  the  past  seven  years  here  at  WPI. 
Donald  F.  Berth  '57 
Vice  President,  University  Relations 


6       WPI  JOURNAL 


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K    Mf**fT**S-.  mw                  a                ■  »«>      .pi 

Bl  ^^fejS^tjt^^';  Sb         ■ 

B^    J^  ipC-       v^lfc*3gr  Jn                                 jf  B^ 

their  choices  of  college.  As  the  number  of 
secondary    school    graduates    declines 
sharply  nationwide  and  especially  in  the 
Northeast  into  the  early  1990s,  such  infor- 
mation is  vital  to  WPI  student  recruiting 

efforts  for  the  future.  Ed  Cranch  autho- 
rized this  study  at  a  time  of  strength  for 
WPI,  enabling  the  college  to  actively  plan 
for  the  future,  rather  than  reacting  too  late 
to  adverse  conditions  in  the  marketplace. 

"A  BOLD,  IMAGINATIVE 

AND  CHALLENGING  VENTURE" 

I 


t  was  with  these  words  that  Edmund 


employer— Wang  Institute  of  Graduate 
Studies-when  he  resigned  the  presi- 
dency of  WPI  last  October. 

Wang  Institute,  located  in  Tyngs- 
boro,  MA,  is  a  nonprofit  educational 
institution.  Its  dual  purpose  is  to  pro- 
vide graduate  education  to  meet  the 
growing  demands  of  industrial  software 
development,  and  to  alleviate  the 
nation's  acute  shortage  of  highly  skilled 
software  specialists. 

On  July  1,  Cranch  succeeded  Insti- 
tute founder  Dr.  An  Wang  as  president. 
Wang,  chairman  of  Wang  Laboratories 
Inc.,  the  giant  computer  company, 
remains  the  school's  trustee  chairman. 

Founded  five  years  ago,  the  Insti- 
tute's School  of  Information  Technol- 
ogy specializes  in  software  engineer- 
ing. It  is  one  of  the  three  schools  in  the 
country  offering  the  Master  of  Software 
Engineering  degree.  The  School  has 
awarded  about  35  degrees  to  date;  cur- 
rently about  55  students  are  enrolled  in 
the  program.  The  Institute  also  has  a 
non-degree,  postdoctoral  fellowship  in 
Chinese  Studies,  to  support  the  growth 
and  development  of  a  deeper  under- 


Dr.  Cranch  watches  as  Milton  P.  Higgins 
(center)  and  Peter  Morgan  officially 
open  the  renovated  Washburn  Shops  last 
October. 

standing  of  Chinese  society,  history 
and  culture. 

While  Ed  Cranch  says  he  views 
Wang  Institute  as  a  sort  of  laboratory 
for  futuristic  education,  the  school 
should  enable  him  to  pursue  his  dual 
convictions— to  the  practical  and  to  the 
abstract,  to  practicing  in  the  field  and  to 
teaching. 


Ed  Cranch  greets  Edward  R.  Delano  '30 
(far  left),  at  the  completion  of  Delano's 
3,100-mile,  33-day  bicycle  trip  in  June 
1980:  Delano,  75,  cycled  from  California  to 
his  50th  class  reunion.  Left:  Dr.  Cranch 
with  Mrs.  Miriam  Rutman,  widow  of  Wal- 
ter Rutman  '30,  and  Cathy  Kruczek  Vignaly 
'84,  at  the  public  announcement  of  the 
Walter  and  Miriam  Rutman  Scholarship 
Fund,  the  largest  gift  ever  received  by 
WPI  for  financial  aid  endowment. 

Many  of  the  study's  recommendations  are 
already  in  place  or  are  being  implemented. 

In  his  inaugural  message,  Dr.  Cranch 
also  referred  to  WPI's  strong  ties  with 
industry  as  another  inducement  to  accept- 
ing the  presidency.  Yet  during  his  seven 
years  in  office,  WPI  expanded  these 
exchanges  substantially. 

One  of  the  most  visible  of  these  indus- 
trial relationships  is  the  Manufactur- 
ing Engineering  Applications  Center 
(MEAC).  In  close  working  sessions, 
teams  from  sponsoring  companies  collabo- 
rate with  WPI  faculty  and  students  to 
develop  applications  of  programmable 
flexible  automation.  MEAC's  comprehen- 
sive robotics  laboratory  occupies  new  fa- 
cilities in  the  renovated  Washburn  Shops. 

Founded  in  1980,  the  Center  for  the 
Management  of  Advanced  Automation 
Technology  (MAAT)  is  an  industry-col- 
lege cooperative  research  program. 
MAAT  brings  together  advanced  manage- 
ment practices  and  research  on  flexible 
manufacturing,  robotics  and  office  auto- 
mation. The  goal  is  to  enable  industrial 
sponsors  to  effectively  integrate  advanced 
automation  into  their  companies. 

Further  industrial  ties  take  form  in 
WPI's  widely  successful  Cooperative  Edu- 
cation Program.  Since  1978,  student  inter- 
est in  Co-op  has  doubled,  and  today  more 
than  50  companies  hire  some  1 15  students 
for  eight- week,  professional-level,  paid 
positions. 

In  addition,  WPI  maintains  and  con- 
tinues to  open  new  interchanges  with  busi- 
ness and  government  through  both  faculty 
research  and  student  projects.  In  1983-84, 
for  example,  sponsored  and  contract 
research  totaled  $3.45  million.  Mean- 
while, some  100  companies  and  govern- 
ment agencies  provided  sponsorship  for 
approximately  500  students  working  on 
research  projects. 

A  president  of  earlier  times  is 
reported  to  have  once  told  the 
chairman  of  the  Board  of  Trustees: 
"Sir,  your  job  is  to  raise  the  money.  Mine 
is  to  spend  it."  While  this  delineation  of 


AUGUST  1985       7 


VIRGINIA  CRANCH:  AT  ONCE  DIRECT, 
COMPASSIONATE  AND  REFINED 


Virginia  Cranch  may  have  been 
WPI's  most  spirited  first  lady.  Lit- 
tle escapes  her  sharp  wit  and  outspoken 
viewpoint,  and  she  is,  according  to 
close  friends,  deeply  committed  to 
humanitarian  ideals  and  ardent  in  her 
concern  for  women's  rights. 

Her  first  joy  will  always  be  garden- 
ing, as  visitors  to  the  presidential  fam- 
ily residence  so  amply  discovered.  And 
though  a  rather  private  woman,  on 
campus  she  could  be  found  serving  reg- 
ularly as  a  Red  Cross  volunteer  at  WPI 
blood  drives;  attending  alumni,  athletic 
and  dramatic  events;  and  accompany- 
ing her  husband  during  the  countless 
appearances  expected  of  WPI's  chief 
spokesperson. 

To  these  activities  she  has  made  a 
very  real  contribution.  She  leaves  us  a 
lasting  impression  of  a  woman  with  a 
heart  of  gold,  faithful  to  her  convic- 
tions, and  a  thorough  advocate  of  the 
mission  of  higher  education  and  WPI's 
role  in  reaching  that  goal. 


responsibilities  may  be  accurate,  no  col- 
lege president  today  can  minimize  his  or 
her  role  in  developing  institutional  sup- 
port. 

During  the  seven-year  presidency  of 
Edmund  Cranch,  total  revenues  received 
by  the  Institute  doubled,  and  in  all  seven 
years  the  budget  was  more  than  amply  bal- 
anced. Excess  revenues  over  expenditures 
($18  million)  reverted  to  the  physical  plant 
maintenance  and  property  acquisition 
account  or  as  gifts  to  the  endowment.  The 
market  value  of  the  endowment  rose  from 
$31.6  million  to  more  than  $60  million. 

In  the  year  of  his  arrival  at  WPI,  annual 
giving  by  alumni  totaled  just  under 
$400,000.  Results  of  the  1984-85  year 
will  almost  triple  that  level.  And  in  the 
academic  year  1983-84  the  Annual  Fund 
topped  $1  million  for  the  first  time. 

Each  of  these  financial  milestones  is  the 
result  of  hundreds  of  inspired  volunteers 
who  have  contributed  thousands  of  hours 
on  behalf  of  WPI,  as  well  as  the  profes- 
sional staff  of  the  Office  of  University 
Relations  and  prudent  day-to-day  manage- 
ment of  WPI's  resources— both  human  and 
material. 

It  can  be  said  that  the  Cranch  years  were 
"golden  ones"  for  WPI.  In  all  nearly  $30 
million  was  obtained  from  fundraising 


efforts  from  1978  through  1985.  Without 
the  support  of  friends,  corporations  and 
foundations,  motivated  largely  by  the 
character  of  the  person  "managing  the 
shop,"  such  material  achievements  would 
not  have  been  possible. 

By  virtue  of  the  office,  college  presi- 
dents are  the  chief  spokespersons  of 
the  institutions  they  represent.  The 
intellectual  stature  of  these  individuals,  the 
wisdom  of  their  words,  the  significance  of 
their  deeds  in  the  world  beyond  their  cam- 
puses become  their  institutions  to  the  many 
who  may  never  actually  visit  or  attend 
their  colleges. 

Throughout  his  entire  career,  Edmund 
Cranch  has  played  key  professional  roles 
nationally  as  well  as  in  his  academic 
appointments.  He  has  been  an  active 
member  and  officer  of  the  American  Soci- 
ety for  Engineering  Education  for  many 
years.  In  June  1985  he  was  honored  by  his 
peers  in  education  with  his  appointment  as 
national  president  of  ASEE.  This  is  one  of 
the  final  honors  to  come  to  him  during  his 
WPI  presidency,  and  one  which  WPI  can 
share  with  pride. 

In  recent  years  he  has  served  as  well  on 
advisory  commissions  for  President 
Ronald  Reagan,  the  National  Research 


Council  and  the  U.S.  Naval  Academy. 
Through  the  years  he  has  been  a  member 
of  no  fewer  than  ten  scientific  honorary 
societies  worldwide. 

Edmund  Cranch  learned  before  com- 
ing to  WPI  one  of  the  secrets  of  suc- 
cessful academic  leadership:  One 
cannot  be  all  things  to  all  people.  Thus  he 
apportioned  his  time  to  those  individuals 
and  projects  he  felt  were  most  critical  to 
WPI's  destiny. 

Faculty  members  whose  proposals  for 
pet  projects  languished  in  the  presidential 
in-basket  may  have  thought  him  a  procras- 
tinator.  They  could  not  know  the  long  list 
of  other  business  on  his  agenda — a  docket 
he  addressed  with  care  and  depth  of  atten- 
tion. 

His  October  1984  announcement  of 
plans  to  leave  WPI  at  the  end  of  the  1984- 
85  college  year  to  accept  the  presidency  of 
the  Wang  Institute  of  Graduate  Studies 
was  anticipated  by  no  one.  It  was  gener- 
ally expected  that  this  popular  president 
and  his  wife,  Virginia,  would  occupy  the 
home  of  the  WPI  presidential  family  until 
at  least  normal  retirement  time. 

As  Cranch  explained  to  the  WPI  com- 
munity in  announcing  his  plans,  he,  too, 
had  expected  to  complete  his  academic 
career  at  WPI.  There  were  still  projects 
here  that  he'd  looked  forward  to  complet- 
ing and  people  he'd  hoped  to  work  with  on 
them.  Leaving  the  many  new  friends  he 
and  Virginia  had  made  in  their  seven-year 
Worcester  stay  would  not  be  easy.  Still, 
this  new  challenge,  this  unique  opportu- 
nity—to help  set  the  course  for  a  futuristic, 
fledgling  graduate  school,  to  be  a 
"builder"  in  the  Ezra  Cornell  sense— won 
out  over  all  the  reasons  to  stay  at  WPI. 

As  he  takes  leave  of  the  post  he  has  so 
ably  filled  since  1978,  Edmund  Cranch, 
himself  an  avid  sailor,  is  perhaps  mindful 
of  the  sage  advice  once  given  by  WPI's 
seventh  president,  Admiral  Wat  Tyler 
Cluverius.  "Always  leave  on  the  crest!" 

WPI  has  prepared  a  booklet,  The  Presi- 
dency of  Dr.  Edmund  T.  Cranch  1978- 
1985,  commemorating  the  twelfth  presi- 
dency of  the  Institute. 

We  have  set  aside  a  limited  supply  of 
these  booklets  for  readers  of  the  WPI 
Journal.  Should  you  wish  to  receive  a 
complementary  copy,  please  write  or 
call: 

Worcester  Polytechnic  Institute 

Department  of  Publications 

100  Institute  Road 

Worcester,  MA  01609 

Phone:  617-793-5305 


8       WPI  JOURNAL 


Jon  Calvert  Strauss 

Thirteenth  President  of  WPI 


Jon  Strauss 's  two  decades  in  academe 
have  been  remarkable,  albeit  some- 
what fortuitous,  preparation  for  his 
present  position. 

Strauss,  45,  has  been  a  nuclear  physi- 
cist, the  director  of  a  computer  center,  a 
professor  of  electrical  engineering  and 
computer  science,  a  university  financial 
vice  president,  and  even  a  faculty  master 
to  136  students  in  a  college  house. 

"Every  day,"  he  says,  "you  compete 
against  your  own  standards,  telling  your- 
self, 'By  God,  I  can  do  it!'  " 

Education  was  top  priority  in  the  Strauss 
home,  as  both  his  father  and  mother  taught 
school.  In  addition,  Strauss 's  father  was  a 
professional  cartoonist,  which  perhaps 
accounts  for  his  quiet  yet  prevalent  sense 
of  humor. 

He  denies  having  been  a  '50s  whiz  kid, 
but  he  entered  an  experimental  accelera- 
tion program  at  the  University  of  Wiscon- 
sin after  just  two  years  of  high  school. 
Majoring  in  electrical  engineering  and 
minoring  in  physics,  he  earned  his  bache- 
lor's degree  in  1959. 

Strauss  went  on  to  earn  a  master's 


He  brings  to  WPI 
20  years  of  teaching 

and  academic 
management  at  some 
of  the  nation's  finest 

universities — just 
the  sort  of  experience 

needed  to  lead 

the  Institute  toward 

the  21st  century. 


degree  in  physics  at  the  University  of 
Pittsburgh  (1962).  He  worked  for  a  while 
as  a  physicist  at  the  Bettis  Atomic  Labora- 
tory and  a  systems  engineer  for  IBM,  then 
earned  a  Ph.D.  in  electrical  engineering  at 
the  Carnegie  Institute  of  Technology  (now 
Carnegie-Mellon  University)  in  1965. 

He  went  to  work  for  a  computer  com- 
pany, "didn't  like  it,"  and  went  to  Carne- 
gie-Mellon as  an  assistant  professor  of 
electrical  engineering  and  computer  sci- 
ence. There  he  did  normal,  professor-like 
things— taught,  published,  directed  gradu- 
ate students  and  consulted. 

In  1970,  he  was  lured  to  the  top  of  the 
world.  With  his  first  wife,  Joan,  and  their 
two  children,  he  moved  to  Scandinavia, 
where  he  directed  a  computer  center  and 
taught  computer  science  at  the  Technical 
University  of  Norway.  Though  the 
Strausses  moved  to  Norway  "lock,  stock 
and  barrel,"  they  stayed  for  just  a  year 
before  moving  back  to  the  States.  In 
reflection,  he  allows  that  "it  was  an  excit- 
ing and  valuable  experience,  but  it  cer- 
tainly convinced  us  that  we  needed  to 
reside  in  America." 


AUGUST  1985 


Strauss  returned  to  a  visiting  position 
at  the  University  of  Michigan,  Ann 
Arbor,  then  moved  to  St.  Louis  to 
direct  computing  facilities  and  serve  as  an 
associate  professor  of  computer  science  at 
Washington  University  there. 

In  1974,  he  went  to  work  at  the  Univer- 
sity of  Pennsylvania  as  director  of  comput- 
ing activities  and  professor  of  computer 
and  decision  sciences.  Six  months  later,  he 
took  on  the  additional  job  of  budget  direc- 
tor. 

As  if  that  weren't  enough,  Strauss 
served  as  faculty  master  to  the  136  men 
and  women  living  in  the  Stouffer  College 
House  on  the  Penn  campus.  The  house 
was  modeled  after  the  live-in  colleges  of 
Yale  and  Cambridge,  "where  students 
lived,  and  presumably  learned,  together.'* 
Strauss  explains. 

"Living  at  Stouffer  House."  he  says, 
"we  found  ourselves  getting  involved  with 
those  kids  .  .  .  giving  advice,  taking  sides. 
It  was  quite  an  experience." 

In  1978,  the  University  of  Pennsylvania 
appointed  Strauss  vice  president  for  bud- 
get and  finance. 

"A  college's  mission  is  to  generate  and 
disseminate  information."  Strauss  says, 
"and  it  runs  on  information.  To  do  that 
well .  it  needs  modern  information  systems 
to  support  its  operations— its  financial  net- 
work, its  personnel  and  student  records,  its 
data  on  alumni  donors,  and  so  on.  So  my 
years  of  experience  with  computer  science 
and  the  academic  world  turned  out  to  be 
just  the  background  needed  for  managing  a 
college  or  university  today." 

University  of  Southern  California  Presi- 
dent James  H.  Zumberge  apparently 
thought  so.  too.  Soon  after  assuming  the 
presidency.  Zumberge  made  the  first  in  a 


"In  these  days  of  tight 
federal  policies  toward 
higher  educations  and 
a  declining  high  school 

population,  I'd  be 
crazy  to  lead  any  col- 
lege that  couldn't 
weather  the  storm." 


series  of  senior  appointments  essential  to  a 
major  restructuring  of  the  university's  cen- 
tral administration.  In  the  spring  of  1981. 
he  announced  the  appointment  of  Strauss 
as  senior  vice  president  for  administra- 
tion— to  manage  the  university's  business, 
financial  and  legal  affairs,  computer  ser- 
vices, and  personnel. 

Strauss  quickly  set  out  to  implement  the 
administration's  plan  for  a  decentralized 
management  system  that  would  more 
actively  involve  the  university's  academic 
units  and  faculty  members  in  revenue  gen- 
eration. 

Working  with  senior  vice  president  for 
academic  affairs  Cornelius  J.  Pins,  Strauss 
introduced  a  "revenue  center"  concept, 
making  academic  units  responsible  for 
their  income  and  expenses.  As  an  incen- 
tive, deans  and  directors  were  given 
authority  and  responsibility  in  such  areas 
as  admissions  and  fund  raising. 

"Each  school  is  responsible  for  earning 
revenues  sufficient  to  pay  for  its  total 
expense,"  Strauss  explains,  "so  that  each 
is  aware  of  what  it  costs  to  pay  its  profes- 
sors, to  aid  its  students,  to  heat  and  light 
its  buildings,  and  so  on. 

"The  decentralized  fund-raising  ap- 
proach may  seem  unconventional,  but  the 
best  fund  raisers  are  people  who  can  artic- 
ulate their  programs  well — especially  if 
they  have  the  added  incentive  of  control- 
ling allocation  of  the  funds  they  raise." 

Along  with  the  revenue  centers,  a  new 
financial  accounting  system  was  put  into 
place,  providing  more  accurate  reports  on 
the  university's  financial  performance. 

According  to  Strauss,  the  decentralized 
management  system  "increased  the  finan- 
cial awareness  of  faculty  and  deans  and 
maximized  the  university's  use  of 
resources."  He  says  that  operating  deci- 
sions and  plans  are  now  being  made  "by 
those  who  can  and  should  implement 
them." 


The  move  to  California  seems  to  have 
suited  Strauss  just  fine. 
"I  liked  the  weather,"  he  says.  "I 
like  to  do  things  outdoors,  and  you  can  do 
them  all  year  round  there."  And  though  the 
Worcester  snow-belt  reputation  may  be  a 
long  way  from  southern  California,  he 
admits  that  he  is  happy  to  be  near  his  Long 
Island  roots  once  again. 

Among  the  things  he  likes  to  do  are  run- 
ning, sailing  and  swimming.  "I've  had  a 
number  of  boats;  but  I'm  not  a  very  good 
sailor."  confesses  Strauss.  "In  California. 
I'd  buy  boats  that  needed  a  lot  of  repairs 
and  spend  most  of  my  time  working  on 
them  instead  of  sailing  them."  One  time  he 
resurrected  a  37-foot  motor  sailer  that  he 
bought  in  pieces.  "The  mast  was  down, 
and  the  engine  wasn't  working,  among 
other  things  gone  wrong  on  her."  he 
recalls. 

Strauss  did  much  of  his  running  in  Cali- 
fornia as  a  member  of  an  international 
group  of  runners  called  the  Hash  House 
Harriers.  "Somebody  would  lay  a  trail, 
marking  it  with  chalk  or  flour,"  he 
explains.  "Every  quarter  mile  or  so,  the 
trail  markings  end,  and  the  runners  have  to 
search  around  to  find  where  they  start 
again.  The  objective  is  to  lay  the  trail  over 
the  most  interesting  terrain,  up  mountains, 
through  forests,  over  streams.  We  run 
about  five  or  six  miles  at  a  time." 

And,  an  avid  swimmer,  he  is  accus- 
tomed to  swimming  about  1,250  meters 
two  or  three  times  a  week.  In  fact,  the  pool 
he  trained  in  at  USC  was  the  one  used  for 
the  1984  Olympics  swimming  competi- 
tion. 

Right  now,  WPI's  "Foot  Pounders,"  a 
group  of  15  or  20  faculty  and  staff  runners, 
are  eager  to  have  Strauss  join  them  on 
WPI's  spanking  new  all-weather  running 
track.  At  least  the  conditions  under  foot 
may  remind  WPI's  new  president  of  the 
ideal  training  climate  of  the  California  he 
left  for  Massachusetts. 

On  June  14,  Jon  Strauss  was  married  in 
Los  Angeles  to  Jean  Sacconaghi .  The  cou- 
ple's  honeymoon— unconventional  by  any 
measure— suited  the  adventurous  newly- 
weds  just  fine:  a  trip  east  to  their  new 
home  at  One  Drury  Lane,  with  travel 
along  the  way  alternating  between  short 
rail  hops  and  bicycle  touring  through 
national  parks  and  other  points  of  interest. 
The  trip  culminated  with  the  120-mile 
stretch  between  Albany,  NY,  and  Worces- 
ter on  two  wheels,  a  leg  of  the  trip  that  got 
them  to  WPI  on  July  2.  "Lots  of  time  on 
the  road,"  Strauss  concludes,  "to  collect 
my  thoughts  for  the  voyage  ahead.  The 
Berkshires  were  more  than  we  expected." 


10       WPI  JOURNAL 


Opening  Remarks 

An  interview  with  the  president 


Dr.  Strauss,  how  will  you  rank  your  pri- 
orities as  you  enter  the  thirteenth  presi- 
dency of  WPI?  We've  got  to  give  faculty 
and  students  a  better  sense  of  involvement 
in  the  Institute.  This  process  has  already 
begun  under  the  leadership  of  Dean 
Richard  Gallagher  with  the  development 
of  goals  by  each  academic  department. 
The  next  step  will  be  to  set  specific  imple- 
mentation plans  for  how  each  department 
will  achieve  these  goals  with  the  resources 
that  can  be  made  available. 

Most  faculty  I've  talked  to  perceive  a 
general  need  for  greater  involvement  in 
scholarship.  This  self-perception  is  most 
fortunate,  as  it  is  generally  recognized  that 
the  best  teachers  are  those  who  are  also 
active  scholars.  It  is  also  the  case  that 
more  active  scholarship  will  lead  togreater 
sponsorship  of  research  and,  in  turn,  to 
more  distinguished  graduate  work  at  WPI. 

As  you  know,  nationwide  there  appears 
to  be  a  downturn  in  the  number  of  students 
majoring  in  the  sciences  and  mathematics, 
but  the  improved  recognition  for  the  Insti- 
tute, together  with  greater  faculty  involve- 
ment in  scholarship  will  lead  to  improved 
student  representation  in  these  areas.  For- 
tunately, our  departments  of  mathematics, 
biology,  chemistry  and  physics  have  set 
good  goals  which  recognize  their  current 
strengths  and  their  future  opportunities. 

From  your  observations  to  date,  what 
are  WPI's  greatest  strengths  and  needs? 

WPI  is  a  fundamentally  strong  institution. 
These  strengths  derive  mainly  from  the 
quality  of  its  people:  students,  alumni, 
faculty,  staff  and,  of  course,  the  Board  of 
Trustees.  Derivative  strengths  include  a 
quality  physical  plant  in  an  attractive  set- 
ting, a  good  and  growing  endowment,  a 
strong  fund-raising  record,  an  exciting 
academic  curriculum,  and  an  excellent 
reputation.  My  job,  as  I  see  it,  will  be  to 
work  with  our  people  to  build  on  these 
strengths  and  on  the  heritage  of  the  college 
to  enrich  its  sponsored  research  and  gradu- 
ate education. 
While  I  see  many  challenges  ahead  for 


WPI,  I  would  not  want  to  give  the  impres- 
sion that  I  think  WPI  is  plagued  by  unsolv- 
able  problems.  We  have  some  obvious 
opportunities  for  improvement  which 
we're  going  to  begin  working  on  immedi- 
ately. 

I  might  emphasize  that  our  fund-raising 
endeavors  have  been  particularly  effective 
in  recent  years.  Our  alumni  have  built  an 
almost  unprecedented  record  of  sustained 
growth  in  their  annual  giving.  And  our 
outreach  efforts  have  successfully  gained 
the  attention  of  institutional  leaders  in  both 
the  private  and  public  sectors.  Still,  as  our 
academic  and  physical  resources  planning 
goes  forward  in  the  years  immediately 
ahead,  we  will  be  paying  even  more  atten- 
tion to  fund  raising  and  institutional  devel- 
opment. 

As  demographic  projections  for  18- 
year-olds  turn  against  higher  education 
in  the  coming  decade,  how  can  WPI 
best  position  itself  for  the  shift?  The  key 

to  recruiting  in  higher  education  is  quality. 
WPI  has  got  to  provide  what  is  known  in 
marketing  circles  as  "value  added."  The 
WPI  Plan  helps  provide  this  value  added 
to  the  college's  academic  programs  in  a 
unique  and  exciting  fashion,  and  the  great 
majority  of  faculty  and  staff  with  whom  I 


have  met  are  committed  to  the  philosophy 
of  the  Plan.  However,  if  we  do  not  execute 
the  Plan  very  well,  we  are  much  more  at 
risk  than  if  we  were  to  maintain  a  conven- 
tional academic  program.  The  Plan 
requires  greater  faculty  commitment  than 
do  conventional  programs,  because  of  the 
time  required  to  work  with  students  in 
courses  and  projects  and  to  coordinate 
project  activities  with  off-campus  spon- 
sors. Consequently,  a  potential  drawback 
to  the  Plan  is  the  danger  of  faculty  not 
having  time  to  maintain  their  scholarly 
activities  and  remain  abreast  of  the  work 
of  their  colleagues  at  other  institutions. 
But  this  problem  can  be  overcome  both  by 
staffing  to  properly  reflect  the  special 
needs  of  our  curriculum  and  by  encourag- 
ing our  faculty  to  better  balance  their 
scholarship  and  teaching. 

The  Plan  resembles  remarkably  the  phi- 
losophy of  education  I  experienced  as  a 
graduate  student  at  Carnegie  Institute  of 
Technology  in  the  early  1960s.  There  the 
focus  was  on  learning  through  professional 
problem  solving  with  little  emphasis  on 
rote  memory  or  textbook  solutions.  Hav- 
ing just  come  from  a  more  traditional 
undergraduate  program  at  the  University 
of  Wisconsin,  I  found  this  Carnegie  Plan 
an  exciting  revelation  of  how  engineering, 
and  most  other  disciplines,  should  be 
taught  and  learned.  I  practiced  this 
approach  in  my  own  teaching  at  several 
institutions  since  then,  but  I  generally 
stood  out  as  being  unconventional,  if  not 
eccentric.  You  can  imagine  my  enthusiasm 
at  finding,  and  now  joining,  an  institution 
committed  to  an  approach  to  learning  that 
mirrors  my  own. 

What  experience  do  you  feel  you  can 
bring  to  bear  on  the  opportunities  you 
observe  at  WPI?  To  a  first-order  approxi- 
mation, our  faculty  are  the  Institute.  They 
attract  and  teach  our  students,  they  recruit 
and  judge  their  colleagues,  they  commit 
budgetary  resources,  they  help  to  solicit 
research  and  gift  funds,  and  they  set  the 
tone  for,  and  determine  the  reputation  of, 


AUGUST  1985        11 


"The  risk  of  executing 
the  WPI  Plan  poorly 
is  far  greater  than  is 
haphazard  manage- 
ment of  more  conven- 
tional academic 
programs." 


the  Institute.  It  has  been  my  experience 
that  while  we  faculty  exercise  tremendous 
authority  over  these  activities,  we  are 
sometimes  reluctant  to  accept  responsibil- 
ity for  these  activities.  The  major  empha- 
sis of  my  work  in  higher  education  man- 
agement these  past  ten  years  has  been  on 
bringing  the  faculty  closer  to  the  manage- 
ment issues  and  helping  them  understand 
and  become  more  active  in  resource  gener- 
ation. While  I  am  interested  in  faculty  par- 
ticipation in  more  responsible  and  effec- 
tive use  of  resources,  my  major  interest  is 
in  faculty  involvement  in  resource  devel- 
opment; i.e.,  increasing  the  size  of  the 
resource  pie  more  than  slicing  it  finer.  To 
do  this  you  have  to  create  incentives  for 
participation— disciplinary  incentives,  you 
might  call  them— where  you  call  upon  the 
professional  commitment  of  faculty  mem- 
bers to  initiate  improvements  in  their  own 
disciplines  and  increase  resources  through 
tuition,  gifts  and  research  support. 
Another  major  element  of  this  emphasis  on 
faculty  involvement  is  in  recruiting  both 
faculty  and  students. 

What  should  be  the  role  of  athletics  at 
the  Division  III  intercollegiate  level?  For 

some  time,  I've  believed  that  athletics  are 
out  of  balance  with  academics  at  many 
Division  I  schools.  We  must  be  careful  not 
to  allow  athletics  to  distort  the  emphases 
and  values  of  the  academic  process.  On 
the  other  hand,  athletics  are  fundamentally 
important  to  the  education  of  young  peo- 
ple, whether  they  participate  or  watch  at 
the  varsity,  intramural,  or  club  level.  In 
lots  of  ways,  athletics  bind  the  various 
campus  constituencies  together.  It  can  also 
act  as  a  kind  of  psychological  release  valve 
at  a  time  of  immense  pressure  on  students. 


WPI  seems  to  be  forging  stronger  part- 
nerships with  industry.  Where  do  we  go 
from  here  and  why?  As  you  know,  the 
federal  government's  sponsorship  of  pure 
research  has  been  reduced  in  recent  years. 
At  a  time  when  WPI  is  looking  for  greater 
sponsorship  of  research  and  graduate  pro- 
grams, this  shift  in  funding  suggests  that 
we  need  to  find  alternative  sources  of  re- 
search support.  But,  in  our  efforts  to  seek 
corporate  sponsorship,  we  will  be  mindful 
that  our  research  address  real  world 
problems  and  is  not  pushed  too  far  in  the 
direction  of  sponsors' financial  imperatives. 

Do  you  have  plans  to  increase  the  num- 
ber of  women  and  minorities  in  the  stu- 
dent body?  Despite  the  progress  of  the 
last  20  years  in  interesting  and  attracting 
women  to  the  sciences  and  engineering, 
their  interest  hasn't  grown  as  quickly  as 
society's  desire  to  bring  them  into  science 
and  technology.  As  all  colleges  of  engi- 
neering and  science  try  to  respond  to  soci- 
etal pressure  in  this  regard,  accomplishing 
this  goal  continues  to  be  an  uphill  battle- 
but  we  must  keep  at  it.  We  must  also  work 
at  increasing  numbers  of  minorities  in  sci- 
ence and  technology.  But  in  either  case, 
we  will  not  increase  the  number  of  women 
and  minorities  in  the  student  body  at  the 
expense  of  reduced  academic  standards. 

The  Greek  system  at  WPI  and  at  virtu- 
ally all  colleges  is  undergoing  close  scru- 
tiny by  administrators  and  alumni 
alike.  What  are  your  views  on  the  fra- 
ternity system  at  WPI?  I  am  a  strong 
supporter  of  the  fraternity/sorority  con- 
cept. I  was  a  fraternity  member  myself  at 
Wisconsin,  and  I  believe  that  many  stu- 
dents can  benefit  significantly  from  the 


fraternity /sorority  experience.  The  Greek 
system  can  help  young  men  and  women 
deal  more  effectively  with  society  in  lots 
of  ways— academically,  socially,  profes- 
sionally. Given  some  of  our  recent,  well- 
publicized  difficulties,  we've  now  got  to 
build  on  the  strengths  of  the  Greek  system, 
and  not  allow  a  few  problem  houses  to 
bring  down  the  entire  system. 

When  I  was  in  a  college  fraternity,  we 
consciously  used  that  communal  living 
experience  to  learn  to  interact  and  function 
within  society  both  on  campus  and  off.  It 
would  appear  that  some  fraternities  at 
WPI,  USC,  and  elsewhere  have  lost  sight 
of  their  societal  responsibility.  Fraternities 
and  their  members  must,  and  will,  assume 
responsibility  for  their  actions. 

WPI  has  always  had  a  relatively  large 
international  student  population.  What 
are  the  challenges  and  opportunities 
confronting  this  program?  Put  simply, 
we've  got  to  assure  that  there's  interaction 
between  students — both  foreign  and 
domestic.  One  of  the  primary  reasons  for 
having  an  international  student  population 
is  to  provide  opportunities  for  both  Ameri- 
can and  foreign  students  to  interact 
socially  and  culturally.  If  the  social  system 
of  the  college  does  not  facilitate  this  inter- 
action, this  benefit  cannot  be  realized. 

What  are  the  challenges  you  see  imme- 
diately ahead  for  you  as  president  of 

WPI?  First  and  foremost,  we've  got  to 
preserve  and  even  enhance  the  quality  of 
our  students  in  the  face  of  demographic 
shifts.  But  this  is  a  challenge  with  which 
we  are  well  prepared  to  deal.  Already  this 
year  the  number  of  applications  for  admis- 
sion is  up  by  roughly  8  percent.  Some 
might  argue  that  this  trend  cannot  possibly 
continue,  but  I  believe  WPI  will  fare  far 
better  than  most  because  of  the  quality  of 
our  programs  and  our  ability  to  relate  this 
quality  to  society's  needs. 

Next,  we've  got  to  build  on  the  strengths 
of  the  Plan  as  it  applies  to  undergraduates 
and  faculty  so  as  to  enhance  scholarship 
and  improve  the  quality  and  quantity  of 
graduate  studies  at  WPI.  We  don't  have  an 
obligation  to  be  a  leader  in  all  aspects  of 
graduate  education,  but  we  will  lead  in 
that  which  we  attempt.  It  is  my  experience 
that  a  quality  graduate  program  emerges 
from  enhanced  faculty  scholarship; 
increased  scholarship  will  lead  to  better 
teaching,  more  recognition,  and  increased 
resources  which  will  lead  in  turn  to  greater 
opportunities  for  graduate  study.  All  this 
will  derive  from,  and  build  on,  our  current 
strengths. 


12       WPI  JOURNAL 


Physicians  know  medicine.  Engineers 
know  technology.  Now,  the  two  are 
joining  forces  to  bring  to  patient  care 
the  best  of  both  worlds.  And  it's  hap- 
pening right  here  in  Worcester. 


The 


New 


Medicine 


By  Evelyn  Herwitz 
Photos  by  Michael  Carroll 


The  patient  is  an  elderly  woman  on 
an  operating  table.  She  is  draped 
with  sterile  plastic  and  blue  cloth, 
her  chest  cavity  held  open  by  steel  retrac- 
tors as  the  University  of  Massachusetts 
Medical  Center  (UMMC)  surgical  team 
repairs  her  damaged  heart.  From  the 
patient's  neck  and  chest,  a  mass  of  plastic 
tubing  splays  outward,  connecting  her 
body  with  an  array  of  machines  which  sup- 
port and  monitor  the  operation. 

So  far,  the  triple-bypass  procedure  is 
progressing  well.  The  patient's  heart,  re- 
started by  a  defibrillator,  is  pumping  on  its 
own  once  again,  and  she  has  been  taken 
off  the  heart-lung  machine.  Now  the  anes- 
thesiologist proceeds  with  a  crucial  test  of 


how  well  her  heart  is  functioning,  using  a 
portable  cardiac-output  computer. 

Closely  watching  the  visual  display  pro- 
vided by  two  electrocardiograms  and  four 
blood  pressure  tracings  on  a  physiological 
monitor,  the  anesthesiologist  injects  a  5 
percent  dextrose  and  water  solution  into  a 
yellow  thermo-dilution  catheter  protruding 
from  the  patient's  jugular  vein.  Placed 
there  at  the  start  of  the  operation,  the  cath- 
eter passes  through  the  patient's  veins  and 
heart,  ending  in  her  pulmonary  artery. 

At  the  catheter's  tip,  a  sensor  registers 
the  bloodstream  temperature  change  as  the 
room  temperature  dextrose  solution  passes 
through  the  heart.  Next,  a  computer  calcu- 
lates how  quickly  the  repaired  heart  can 


AUGUST  1985        13 


pump  a  given  quantity  of  blood. 

Within  seconds  of  the  dextrose  and 
water  injection,  the  cardiac-output  com- 
puter prints  a  measure  of  the  heart's  blood 
flow  rate.  The  measurement  is  made  at 
least  twice,  or  until  it  is  clinically  accept- 
able. When  it  is,  the  surgeon  begins  to 
close  up  the  patient's  chest. 

To  the  lay  observer,  that  small  sam- 
ple of  state-of-the-art  biomedical 
technology  seems  nothing  short  of 
miraculous.  But  experts  like  UMMC's  Dr. 
Albert  Shahnarian  see  much  room  for 
improvement.  A  graduate  of  WPI's 
Biomedical  Engineering  program  ('73 
MS,  '82  PhD)  who  is  now  chief  biomedi- 
cal engineer  and  a  professor  at  UMMC's 
Anesthesiology  Department,  Shahnarian 
has  worked  with  WPI  graduate  students  to 
find  better  ways  to  measure  cardiac  out- 
put. In  particular,  he  is  trying  to  develop  a 
self-heated  thermistor  catheter  flow  probe. 
"Initially,  you  would  still  have  to  inject 
a  solution  into  the  catheter  to  calibrate  the 
system,"  explains  Shahnarian,  who  also 
holds  a  BS  in  Electrical  Engineering  ('69) 
from  WPI  and  is  an  affiliate  professor  of 
biomedical  engineering  here.  "Then, 
using  a  self-heated  thermistor  (or  sensor) 
you  would  increase  the  current  to  heat  the 
sensor  above  blood  temperature,"  he  con- 
tinues. "The  amount  of  heat  drawn  away 
by  the  blood  is  related  to  the  blood  flow. 
The  more  rapid  the  flow  of  blood,  the 
more  rapidly  the  thermistor  would  cool." 

Such  a  device,  says  Shahnarian,  would 
have  several  advantages  over  the  current 
system,  which  relies  on  temperature 
changes  produced  by  dextrose  solution 
injections.  First  of  all,  he  says,  the  self- 
heated  thermistor  would  provide  a  contin- 
uous readout,  rather  than  discrete  mea- 
surements of  cardiac  output.  Second,  the 
method  would  reduce  the  amount  of  fluid 
added  to  the  patient's  system— a  factor  that 
can  become  critical  for  infants  and  chil- 
dren because  of  their  size. 

So  far,  the  research  is  still  at  the  early 
animal  phase.  But  Shahnarian  is  encour- 
aged by  the  initial  findings,  and  says  he 
hopes  to  have  additional  WPI  graduate 
students  working  on  the  project  in  the 
future. 

That  project  is  just  one  of  many  each 
year  involving  WPI's  Biomedical  Engi- 
neering Program.  Maintaining  a  strong 
link  with  UMMC  and  St.  Vincent  Hospi- 
tal, the  program  allows  WPI  graduates  and 
undergraduates  to  work  closely  with  hos- 
pital researchers  and  clinicians,  applying 
engineering  know-how  to  a  wide  range  of 
technological  problems  in  medicine. 


For  all  parties,  the  benefits  of  this  rela- 
tionship are  significant.  "Physicians  are 
trained  in  medicine,  not  technology,"  says 
Biomedical  Engineering  Department 
director  Dr.  Robert  A.  Peura  '64  EE. 
"When  developing  or  improving  medical 
devices,  they  need  a  knowledgeable 
biomedical  engineer  to  work  with." 

In  turn,  the  students  gain  a  working 
knowledge  of  medical  systems  and  tech- 
niques. "A  lot  of  engineering  goes  into  the 
biomedical  equipment  that  we  get,"  says 
UMMC's  Dr.  Robert  M.  Giasi,  clinical 
coordinator  for  anesthesiology  and  an 
affiliate  professor  of  biomedical  engineer- 
ing at  WPI.  "But  the  problem  is  that  the 
engineer  often  just  has  no  experience  with 
what  we're  looking  for.  Sometimes  using 
the  equipment  is  as  awkward  as  taking  a 
straight  pipe  and  bending  it  into  a  pretzel 
shape  to  make  it  usable." 

"With  the  WPI  program,"  continues  Dr. 


Giasi,  "the  students  see  what  the  operating 
room  is  like,  how  we  use  technology  in 
medical  devices,  and  how  patients  are  best 
served  by  these  devices.  The  experience 
should  help  them  in  the  real  world,  dealing 
with  design  problems." 

Created  in  1962  by  Dr.  Richard 
Beschle,  the  Biomedical  Engi- 
neering Program  draws  together  a 
multi-disciplinary  group  of  faculty.  Work- 
ing with  Peura,  Professors  Yitzhak  Men- 
delson  and  Frederick  M.  Bennett  make  up 
the  core  biomedical  engineering  faculty. 
They  are  joined  by  two  electrical  engineer- 
ing faculty— Professors  Fred  J.  Looft  and 
Marc  S.  Fuller— as  well  as  three  mechani- 
cal engineering  faculty— Professors  Wil- 
liam W.  Durgin,  Allen  H.  Hoffman  '63 
ME,  '67  MS,  and  Brian  J.  Savilonis  '72 
ME,  '73  MS.  Rounding  out  the  Program 
are  Professors  James  M.  Coggins  (com- 


14       WPI  JOURNAL 


puter  science)  and  Edward  L.   O'Neill 
(physics). 

Granting  both  a  master's  and  doctorate 
in  biomedical  engineering  and  a  master's 
in  clinical  engineering,  the  Program  cur- 
rently enrolls  about  30  graduate  students. 
Ongoing  research  ranges  from  an  elec- 
troanesthesia  generator,  which  creates  var- 


ious electrical  currents  to  induce  an  anes- 
thetic state,  to  a  non-invasive  glucose 
sensor,  which  measures  sugar  concentra- 
tions in  the  blood. 

Bennett's  research,  for  example,  con- 
cerns the  structure  and  function  of  the  res- 
piratory control  system.  He  is  identifying 
the  pathways  responsible  for  the  increase 
in  breathing  that  accompanies  physical 
exercise.  In  addition,  he  is  developing 
greater  understanding  of  how  the  muscles 
of  the  upper  airway  may  play  a  role  in 
sleep  apnea,  a  cessation  of  breathing 
caused  by  an  obstruction  in  that  airway. 

While  the  Program  offers  no  undergrad- 
uate degree,  upperclassmen  from  various 
disciplines  can  choose  to  graduate  with  an 
option  in  biomedical  engineering.  At 
present,  approximately  120  undergradu- 
ates are  involved  in  the  program.  The 
decision  not  to  grant  a  BS  harks  back  to  the 
department's  interdisciplinary  approach. 
"You  need  to  be  a  solid  engineer,  first  and 
foremost,"  explains  Peura. 

Undergraduates  must  complete  the 
requirements  of  their  chosen  engineering 
field,  as  well  as  at  least  three  life  sciences 
courses.  In  addition,  they  must  complete 
their  junior  Interactive  Qualifying  Project 
(IQP)  and  Major  Qualifying  Project 
(MQP)  in  biomedical  engineering. 

Recent  undergraduate  projects  have 
included  a  voice-activated  nurse  call 
device  for  quadriplegics,  a  ligament  ten- 
sion gauge  for  use  in  reconstructive  knee 


Seated  in  a  wheelchair  that  may  be  the 
first  of  its  kind  (far  left)  is  ME  Professor 
Thorn  Hammond.  Its  lateral  push  bar 
attachment,  to  propel  the  chair  and  give 
some  handicapped  persons  extra  mobility, 
was  designed  by  seniors  Angela  Franku- 
dakis  (left),  Nancy  Ar me ry,  and  Donald 
DeMello.  Advanced  research  in  the 
UMMC  lab  (left)  of  Dr.  Frederick  A. 
Anderson,  Jr.  75  MS,  '84  Ph.D.,  is 
developing  new  methods  for  detecting 
blood  clotting  in  veins  of  the  legs  and  pel- 
vis. For  their  MQP,  seniors  Karen  McCue 
and  Martin  Travers  (below)  are  develop- 
ing a  fiber  optic  catheter  for  sensing 
blood  gases. 

surgery,  and  a  push-bar  mechanism  for 
propelling  a  wheelchair.  The  breadth  of 
Program-related  research  reflects  the 
diversity  of  engineering  applications  in 
medicine.  Development  of  new  medical 
tools,  computer  modeling  of  biological 
systems  and  interpretation  of  diagnostic 
data  are  just  a  few  fields  of  inquiry. 

One  area  of  research,  image  processing, 
involves  the  analysis  of  information  gath- 
ered by  sophisticated  diagnostic  tools. 
"When  you're  looking  at  pictures  you  get 
back  from  high-tech  devices  like  a  CAT 
scanner  or  Nuclear  Magnetic  Resonance 
(NMR)  device,"  explains  Peura,  "you  get 
a  view  of  the  body.  But  you  need  to  know 
how  to  correlate  that  information  with  the 
patient's  condition.  You're  trying  to  sepa- 
rate the  clinical  information  from  the 
extraneous  'noise'." 

Biomedical  engineering  research  is  not 
confined  to  high-tech  diagnostic  equip- 
ment, however.  Another  specialty  focuses 
on  developing  aids  for  the  elderly  and 
handicapped.  While  seemingly  simple 
when  compared  with  a  CAT  scanner, 
devices  such  as  a  nurse  call  system  can 
present  challenging  design  problems  for 
the  engineer. 

This  past  year,  electrical  engineering 
students  Mari-Agnes  Flynn  ('85, 
Arlington,  MA),  Anne  McGurl  ('85,  Win- 
throp,  MA)  and  Carolyn  Thompson  ('85, 
Gales  Ferry,  CT)  continued  the  work  of  a 
prior  year's  MQP  team  to  develop  a  voice- 
activated  nurse  call  system  for  quadriple- 
gics. Advising  them  were  St.  Vincent 
Hospital's  biomedical  engineer  Stephen  D. 
Scheufele  '85  MS  and  EE  Professor  Dan 
H.  Wolaver. 

The  goal  of  the  MQP  was  to  improve 
current  hospital  practice,  which  relies  on 
an  air  bag  placed  next  to  the  quadriplegic's 
head.  To  summon  a  nurse,  the  patient 
must  depress  the  air  bag  with  his  or  her 
head,  thus  triggering  the  call  system. 


AUGUST  1985        15 


As  an  alternative,  the  students  worked 
on  developing  a  waj  for  the  patient  to  acti- 
vate the  nurse  call  by  simply  saying  the 
letters  "S-O-S  "  Their  design  involved 
placing  a  microphone  near  the  patient's 
bed.  The  microphone  would  be  connected 
to  a  microprocessor  capable  of  recognizing 
the  correct  sound  pattern  and  then  switch- 
ing on  the  nurse  call  device. 

That  system  would  involve  several  com- 
ponents: an  automatic  gain  controller 
would  adjust  the  volume  of  sound  being 
analyzed,  while  a  feature  extraction  sys- 
tem would  develop  and  store  a  pattern  of 
phonemes  comprising  the  trigger  phrase  S- 
O-S.  That  patient's  speech  would  then  be 
compared  to  stored  standards  within  the 
microprocessor.  When  a  match  was  found, 
the  call  signal  would  be  switched  on. 

This  year  the  students  were  able  to  get 
each  of  the  system's  components  to  func- 
tion independently.  "We  could  probably 
get  it  to  work  for  selected  patients."  says 
Thompson.  "It  was  a  real  challenge  for 
us." 

While  often  related  to  research  on  aids 
to  the  handicapped,  another  biomedical 
engineering  specialty— biomechanics— 
deals  specifically  with  the  forces  and 
stresses  on  the  body's  skeletal,  muscular 
and  circulatory  systems.  Working  on  a 
biomechanics  problem  related  to  sports 
injuries.  ME  students  Douglas  Miles  ('85 
Northboro.  MA)  and  Joseph  Mooney  ('85 
Warren.  MA)  furthered  research  of  a  pre- 
vious MQP  to  design  a  ligament  tension 
gauge  device  for  reconstructive  knee  sur- 
gery. 

Guided  by  WPI's  Hoffman  and  St.  Vin- 
cent Hospital  orthopedist  Dr.  Dudley  Fer- 
rari, the  students  created  a  small,  three- 
pronged  tool.  Still  in  the  development 
phase,  the  device,  when  perfected,  would 
be  hooked  onto  the  damaged  anterior  cru- 
ciate ligament  (ACL)  inside  the  knee  joint 
during  exploratory  surgery.  By  measuring 
the  force  and  deflection  applied  to  the 
ACL.  the  surgeon  would  be  able  to  deter- 
mine how  badly  the  ligament  was  dam- 
aged. If  reconstructive  surgery  were  nec- 
essary, the  surgeon  could  then  use  the 
device  to  set  the  reconstructed  ligament  or 
a  tendon  which  replaces  the  ACL  at  the 
proper  tension,  facilitating  a  faster  recov- 
ery. 

Exploring  another  biomechanics  prob- 
lem. Hoffman  is  looking  into  prosthetic 
de\ices  for  hip  injuries.  "When  there's  a 
fracture  in  the  hip.  the  orthopedist  puts  a 
rod  through  the  femur  to  stabilize  the 
bone."  says  Hoffman.  "But  the  rod 
doesn't  always  fit  tightly— or  fit  at  all."  To 
solve  that  dilemma,  he  is  creating  a  mathe- 


16       WPI  JOURNAL 


matical  model  of  the  process  of  inserting 
the  rod  into  the  bone.  "We're  analyzing 
the  stresses  and  loads  on  the  system." 

Hoffman's  background  in  non-Newto- 
nian fluids  and  viscoelastic  materials  has 
also  prompted  him  to  do  research  in  bio- 
logical fluid  mechanics.  To  leam  more 
about  the  effects  of  arterial  sclerosis,  he  is 
working  with  WPI's  Savilonis  and  UMMC 
Pathology  Department  chair  Dr.  Guido 
Majno  (also  an  affiliate  professor  at  WPI) 
to  investigate  the  dynamics  of  blood  flow 
through  constricted  arteries. 

"We're  looking  at  the  interaction 
between  blood  flow  and  cells  of  the  inner 
walls  of  the  blood  vessels."  says  Hoffman. 
Modeling  flow  patterns  on  a  computer,  his 
students  relate  findings  about  stresses 
along  vessel  walls  to  pathological  changes 
in  rats  on  high-cholesterol  diets.  "We're 
modeling  animal  experiments  conducted 
previously  by  Dr.  Majno  and  correlating 
our  data  with  biological  findings." 

Biomedical  instrumentation  is  another 
specialty  within  biomedical  engineering 
that  is  absorbing  much  faculty  and  student 
interest.  In  particular.  Professor  Men- 
delson  has  developed  a  non-invasive  sen- 
sor— called  a  transcutaneous  reflectance 
oximeter— to  measure  oxygen  in  the 
blood. 

Trained  as  an  elec- 
trical engineer  in 
Israel  and  the  United 
States.  Mendelson 
became  interested 
in  biomedical  appli- 
cations when  his 
father  became  very 
ill.  "I  was  forced  to 
spend  a  lot  of  time 
in  hospitals."  he 
says.  "Among  other 
things.  I  witnessed 
the  inconvenience 
and  pain  of  drawing 
blood  samples.  It 
occurred  to  me  that 
if  that  process  could 
be  eliminated,  it 
would  help  the  pa- 
tient and  also  pro- 
vide continuous 
monitoring  of  blood 
chemistry." 

Mendelson's  de- 
vice, still  in  the  pro- 
totype phase,  uses  a 
small  sensor  con- 
taining two  light- 
emitting  diodes  that 
can  be  placed  on  the 
skin.  Two  different 


wavelengths  of  light— one  red  and  one 
infrared— penetrate  the  skin  and  are  parti- 
ally absorbed  by  the  blood.  The  light 
which  is  not  absorbed  is  reflected  back  to  a 
silicon  photodiode,  which  senses  the  per- 
centage of  reflected  light.  That  informa- 
tion is  then  converted  by  the  oximeter  into 
a  measure  of  oxygen  saturation  of  the  red 
blood  cells. 

While  non-invasive  oximeters  have  been 
on  the  market  since  1975,  Mendelson's 
device  has  the  advantage  of  small  size 
(20mm  in  diameter)  and  light  weight  (less 
than  3  grams).  In  addition,  the  sensor  can 
be  placed  anywhere  on  the  body  where 
there  is  sufficient  blood  circulation  close 
to  the  skin,  whereas  commercially  avail- 
able oximeters  are  limited  to  use  on  the 
earlobe  or  fingertips.  Designed  to  help 
diagnose  misfunctions  of  the  heart  or 
lungs,  the  instrument  will  help  physicians 


determine  how  well  cells  in  the  body 
receive  oxygen. 

In  a  related  effort,  research  on  invasive 
blood  sensors  initiated  by  UMMC's 
Shahnarian  resulted  in  an  MQP  which 
used  fiber  optics,  fluorescent  technology 
and  colorometric  technology  to  continu- 
ously monitor  blood  gases.  Working  with 
Shahnarian,  Mendelson  and  Dean  Emeri- 
tus of  Graduate  Studies  Wilmer  L. 
Kranich,  chemical  engineering  students 
Michael  Deshaies  ('85,  Holyoke,  MA), 
Karen  McCue  ('85,  Worcester,  MA)  and 
Martin  Travers  ('85,  Nutley,  NJ)  built  and 
tested  three  fiber  optic  sensors  designed  to 
measure  oxygen  partial  pressure  (p02), 
carbon  dioxide  partial  pressure  (pC02)  and 
hydrogen  ion  concentration  (pH)  in  the 
blood. 

Just  as  litmus  paper  changes  color  in  the 
presence  of  acids  or  bases,  certain  dyes 


will  change  color  and  intensity  depending 
on  the  p02,  pC02  and  pH  concentrations. 
The  sensor  developed  by  the  students  was 
based  on  this  principle,  using  a  fiber  optics 
cable  containing  a  reagent  chamber  at  its 
tip.  When  placed  in  a  test  solution,  the  dye 
inside  the  chamber  is  illuminated  with  a 
specific  wavelength  of  light.  Changes  in 
the  reagent's  optical  properties  as  it  reacts 
to  the  solution  form  the  basis  for  a  mea- 
sure of  blood  gas  concentration. 

"This  is  a  really  new  technology,"  says 
McCue.  "Eventually,  the  sensor  would 
have  to  be  miniaturized  and  incorporated 
into  a  catheter."  Another  problem  involves 
finding  a  way  to  prevent  blood  clotting  on 
the  catheter  while  in  use.  But  once  those 
problems  are  solved,  Shahnarian  says,  the 
device  will  have  significant  applications, 
particularly  during  surgery  and  in  other 
critical-care  settings,  such  as  intensive- 
care  units. 

"You  would  have  a  single,  in-dwelling 
catheter  that  could  continuously  measure 
patient  blood  gases  in  real  time,"  he  says. 
"It  would  enable  the  anesthesiologist  to 
respond  immediately,  rather  than  wait  for 
an  analysis  from  the  blood  gas  lab." 

Still  in  the  early  phases  of  research  and 
development,  another  blood  sensor  is  also 
under  investigation  at  WPI.  Working  with 
graduate  students,  Mendelson  and  Peura 
are  trying  to  devise  a  non-invasive  optical 
sensor  that  would  continuously  measure 
glucose  levels  in  the  blood.  Of  great  value 
to  diabetics,  the  sensor  could  be  used  in 
conjunction  with  an  insulin  pump  to 
deliver  insulin. 

As  part  of  that  research  effort,  second- 
year  graduate  student  Gus  Glaser  of  New 
Bern,  NC,  has  made  his  thesis  project  the 

By  using  the  "patch-clamp  "  technique  to 
measure  the  current  flowing  through  sin- 
gle ionic  channels  in  smooth  muscle  cell 
membranes,  Drs.  Michael  Kirber  and 
Michel  Vivoudou  of  the  Physiology 
Department  (top  left)  investigate  the  elec- 
trical activity  associated  with  transmission 
of  information  in  nerve  cells  and  contrac- 
tion of  muscle  cells.  The  frequency 
response  of  disposable  blood  pressure 
transducers  and  associated  pressure  tub- 
ing is  studied  by  UMMC  's  Albert 
Shahnarian  '69  BS,  '73  MS,  '82  Ph.D. , 
and  graduate  student  Wei  Chyun  Yang 
(bottom  left).  Oxygen  in  arterial  blood  can 
be  measured  with  a  new  non-invasive 
transcutaneous  oximeter  developed  by 
Professor  Yitzhak  Mendelson  (near  left) , 
who  compares  its  readings  with  those  of 
an  ear  oximeter  with  graduate  student 
Burt  Ochs. 


AUGUST  1985        17 


Chief  of  biomedical  engineering  at 
UMMC.  Michael  F.  Hnelan    76  (above). 
Biomedical  Engineering  Program  director 
Robert  A.  Peura  '64  and  graduate  student 
Been-Chyaun  Lin  at  work  on  an  experi- 
ment to  develop  a  non-invasive  sensor  to 
measure  blood  gases. 

development  of  a  non-invasive  palpebral 
conjunctiva  glucose  sensor.  "It's  an  elec- 
trochemical sensor  which  fits  under  the 
eyelid  to  detect  the  flux  of  glucose  across 
the  inner  eyelid."  explains  Glaser.  "The 
vascular  cell  bed  is  only  two  cells  thick 
underneath  the  inner  eyelid,  so  you  can  get 
really  close  to  the  blood  supply  without 
having  to  invade  it." 

While  projects  like  the  glucose  sensor 
are  still  at  the  conceptual  stage,  other 
research  has  led  to  commercially  viable 
products.  Starting  as  a  volunteer  at 
UMMC  while  still  a  biomedical  engineer- 
ing graduate  student.  Dr.  Frederick  A. 
Anderson.  Jr..  ("5  MS.  "84  Ph.D.)  has 
spent  the  past  13  years  working  with  chief 
of  surgery  Dr.  H.  Brownell  Wheeler  on  a 
test  to  detect  blood  cloning  in  major  veins 
of  the  legs  and  pelvis. 

The  subject  of  a  half  dozen  MQPs.  sev- 
eral master's  theses  and  two  Ph.D.  disser- 
tations, their  method  of  impedance  pleth- 
ysmography (IPG)  is  now  performed  with 
an  instrument  called  an  IPG-200  Impe- 
dance Phlebograph.  manufactured  by 
Johnson  and  Johnson's  Codman  Division. 
More  than  800  of  the  IPG-200s  are  now 
used  by  hospitals  around  the  country. 

"We  developed  a  simple,  painless  and 


inexpensive  way  to  detect  blood  clots  in 
the  vein  before  they  get  large  enough  to 
break  off  and  cause  a  pulmonary  embo- 
lism." says  Dr.  Anderson,  who  is  now  an 
affiliate  professor  at  WPI  and  chief  biome- 
dical engineer  of  L'MMC's  Department  of 
Surgery.  Using  a  pneumatic  cuff  around 
the  thigh,  the  test  involves  obstructing  cir- 
culation to  the  veins  until  the  venous  pres- 
sure equals  that  under  the  cuff.  The  cuff  is 
then  released,  and  the  rate  of  blood  flow 
from  the  veins  is  measured.  If  blood  clots 
are  present  and  blocking  flow,  the  blood 
volume  takes  longer  to  regain  equilib- 
rium— much  as  a  partially  clogged  drain 
increases  the  time  it  takes  to  empty  a  full 
sink  of  water. 

"You  can  bring  the  IPG  right  to  the 
patient's  bed  and  the  results  are  95  percent 
accurate."  says  Anderson.  "In  addition, 
the  cost  of  an  IPG  test  is  less  than  S50  in 
most  hospitals.  That  represents  a  consider- 
able cost  savings  over  existing  alterna- 
tives." To  train  technicians  in  the  use  of 
the  IPG.  the  Medical  School  runs  a  special 
training  program.  "People  come  from 
around  the  country  to  learn."  he  says. 

Even  as  clinicians  are  still  finding  out 
about  the  IPG-200.  however,  work  is 
already  under  way  to  develop  the  next  gen- 
eration of  machine,  the  fully  computerized 
IPG-300.  With  some  support  from  John- 
son and  Johnson.  WPI  graduate  student 
Katherine  Graham  ("85  MS)  has  written  a 
software  program,  and  a  prototype  has 
been  constructed  and  is  currently  being 
debugged. 

While  the  IPG  system  has  been  the 
bread  and  butter  for  Department  of  Vascu- 
lar Surgery  research.  Anderson  is  also 
searching  for  ways  to  detect  cerebral  vas- 
cular disease.  By  assessing  blood  flow  in 
the  neck  arteries  using  a  technique  called 
Doppler  Ultrasound,  he  is  evaluating  a  test 
to  screen  likely  stroke  patients. 


"It's    like    using 
sonar."  explains  An- 
derson. "The  signal 
reflects  back  from 
the     blood     cells. 
Because  the  blood 
cells    are    moving. 
you  can  process  the 
frequency    shift  to 
detect     the     blood 
flow.    You   see   an 
image  of  the  vessel 
and  walls   moving 
and  can  measure  the 
velocity  of  the  blood 
How  \\  ithin  the  ves- 
sel." 
That   information 
is  used  to  tell  if  the  blood  vessels  are 
clogged.  "The  majority  of  strokes  seem  to 
result  from  plaque  in  the  carotid  artery  in 
the  neck."  continues  Anderson.   "That's 
an  easy  place  to  get  at  surgically.  If  you 
can  clean  out  the  plaque,  the  incidence  of 
strokes  is  much  less  than  if  you  do  noth- 
ing." 

In  spite  of  the  creativity  involved  in  that 
research.  Anderson  says  none  of  their 
findings  were  "major  breakthroughs."  A 
machine  selling  for  S100.000  that  per- 
forms the  tests  has  been  available  for  four 
years  and  is  in  use  at  UMMC. 

"The  technology  is  moving  so  fast." 
says  Anderson,  "that  for  every  idea  you 
have,  probably  after  a  good  night's  sleep 
you're  left  with  only  one  in  ten  worth  pur- 
suing. Then  only  a  small  percentage  of 
those  are  scientifically  successful.  And  the 
pace  of  technology  may  pass  by  your  idea 
before  you've  developed  it." 

Fueling  that  race  is  the  ever  increasing 
demand  for  sophisticated,  easy-to-use 
diagnostic  equipment.  "The  trend  is  to 
have  as  much  data  available  as  possible  to 
the  physician  at  the  patient's  bedside." 
says  Mendelson. 

That  trend  means  not  only  saving  lives 
in  intensive-care  units  or  by  such  technol- 
ogy -intensive  operations  as  open  heart  sur- 
gery.  but  also,  ideally,  avoiding  the  need 
for  people  to  come  to  the  hospital  in  the 
first  place.  "Instrumentation  can  help  in 
aiding  screening  techniques  "  says  Men- 
delson. "You  could  take  the  devices  out  of 
the  hospital  and  bring  them  to  the  patient's 
home. 

"It  might  make  medicine  more  readily 
available  to  those  who  might  not  receive  it 
otherwise." 

Evelyn  Herwitz,  a  free-lance  writer  living 
in  Worcester,  is  also  senior  writer  at  Busi- 
ness Digest. 


18       >XTI  JOURNAL 


FIRST  IN  A  SERIES 

THE  ENTREPRENEURIAL  SPIRIT 


Of  Miracle  Berries, 

Second  Skins  and 

Plastic  Hearts 


The  Rise  and  Fall 

and  Rise  of 

Dr.  Robert  J.  Harvey 

70  PhD. 


By  Michael  Shanley 


Bob  Harvey  mounts  the  stairs  to  his  second-floor 
conference  room  two  at  a  time.  Like  Thoratec, 
the  company  he  founded,  this  energetic  53-year- 
old  travels  in  leaps  and  bounds. 
From  a  seat  in  that  modest  conference  room, 
part  of  an  attractive  but  unprepossessing  building 
on  a  quiet  side  street  in  Berkeley,  CA.  Harvey 
tells  a  story.  It  is  a  tale  of  miracle  fruit  berries, 
artificial  hearts  and  synthetic  skin;  of  backroom  politics,  and 
fortunes  won  and  lost  overnight.  But  more  than  anything,  it  is  a 
tale  of  this  remarkable  man's  ingenuity  and  perseverance. 

The  story  begins  in  the  late  Sixties,  when  Thermo  Electron 
Corporation  of  Waltham,  MA.  which  started  out  as  a  small 
research  company,  went  public.  Harvey,  who  had  been  associ- 
ated with  the  firm  since  its  beginnings,  became,  as  he  puts  it,  "a 
small  millionaire." 

A  graduate  of  the  U.S.  Military  Academy  and  Drexel  Institute 
of  Technology  (now  Drexel  University),  Harvey  decided  to 
enroll  full  time  as  a  doctoral  student  in  biomedical  engineering  at 
WPI,  where  he  had  been  taking  courses  off  and  on.  "At  that 
time,"  Harvey  says,  "WPI  was  one  of  the  few  schools  with  a 
biomedical  engineering  program." 

In  1968,  while  attending  a  seminar  at  Clark  University,  he  met 
Dr.  Linda  Bartoshuk  of  the  U.S.  Army  Research  Laboratories  in 
Natick,  MA.  Bartoshuk,  a  physiological  psychologist,  first  intro- 
duced Harvey  to  the  miracle  fruit  berry— a  remarkable,  cherry- 
sized  fruit  that  would  change  his  life. 
Bartoshuk  was  leading  a  Natick  research  team  that  was  investi- 


AUGUST  1985        19 


In  hospitals  ail  across  the  country 
patients  are  wearing  wound  dressings  with  some 
amazing  skin-like  characteristics,  They're  absolutely 
waterproof,  yet  totally  elastic  and  breathable.  This 
allows  the  healing  process  to  occur  naturally 

These  dressings  are,  in  fact,  a  successful  duplies 
tion  of  the  skin's  own  unique  properties.  And  now  we've 
adapted  this  technology  to  fabrics 

The  result:  a  fabric  coating  that,  when  bonded 
to  a  material,  makes  that  material  absolutely  waterproof, 
t  breathable  and  comfortable.  A  fabric  coating  that 
water  out  yet  allows  body  heat  and  vapor  to  escape. 


FROMMISINAI TOMIEVEREST 


vet  br 
keeps 


We  call  it  Bion  II.  And  it  truly  is  a  second  skin 
for  fabrics. 

Now  that  Bion  II  has  left  the  hospital,  hikers, 
cumbers  and  outdoors  people  everywhere  will  be  feeling 
much  better. 

That's  because  the  outerwear  coated  with 
Bion  II  that  will  soon  be  available  already  has  proved  it 
performs  like  no  other  outerwear  that  has  ever  existed. 


This  is  outerwear  that  can  stand  up  to  anything 
the  weather  throws  at  you;  from  snow  to  sleet  to  driving 
winds  to  the  heaviest  downpours. 

In  fact,  we  guarantee  it. 

If.  during  the  first  three  years  of  ownership, 
the  tiniest  amount  of  moisture  seeps  through  the  Bion  1 1 
coating,  well  repair  or  replace  the  garment.  We're  that 
sure  of  it. 


So  look  for  the  outerwear  with  the 
Bion  II  coating.  Better  yet,  insist  on  it. 

We're  betting  you'll  be  drier 
and  more  comfortable  than 
you've  ever  been  on  the 
trail  or  on  the  mountain. 

Why  not  take 
us  up  on  it? 


mwmmm 

WATBlPflOOf,  BREATHABLE  COMFOitl 


gating  the  startling  effects  of  the  berry,  whose  juices  interact  with 
the  taste  buds,  making  bitter  or  sour  substances  taste  delightfully 
sweet.  The  effect  lasts  up  to  two  hours  after  eating  just  one  berry. 
Unlike  artificial  sweeteners,  the  fruit  is  organic  and  completely 
safe.  (The  term  "miracle  berry"  was  coined  in  the  1850s  by  a 
British  doctor  stationed  in  Africa.  The  Latin  name  is  Synsepalum 
dulcificum.) 

Harvey  decided  to  do  his  doctoral  thesis  on  the  miracle  berry,  a 
plant  indigenous  to  West  Africa,  where  its  taste-altering  effects 
have  been  recognized  for  more  than  250  years.  The  natives  there 
use  it  to  sweeten  gruel  and  wine. 

Besides  working  on  the  berry's  scientific  aspects  (his  thesis 
involved  the  electrophysiological  effects  of  the  berry  on  ham- 
sters), Harvey  began  to  investigate  its  commercial  applications. 

The  possibilities,  he  sensed,  were  staggering.  The  obese  or 
simply  weight-conscious  could  enjoy  a  sweet  taste  while  eating 
sugarless  foods.  The  berry  could  be  used  to  sweeten  drinks, 
snacks,  jellies,  sauces,  salad  dressings— virtually  the  entire  food 
spectrum.  But  diabetics,  who  generally  must  avoid  sugar,  would 
benefit  most. 

Convinced  that  he  could  develop  a  commercial  product  with 
tremendous  potential,  Harvey  formed  a  company  called  Medi- 
tron  in  1968,  based  in  Wayland,  MA.  He  acquired  several  mira- 
cle berry  plants  from  a  Florida  State  University  biophysicist  who 
also  was  studying  the  plant.  From  there,  things  moved  quickly. 

Harvey  secured  a  greenhouse  to  begin  growing  the  plants.  He 
lined  up  several  investors  and  assembled  a  world-class  board  of 
directors  and  consultants,  including  nutritionists  Jean  Mayer 
(now  president  of  Tufts  University)  and  Robert  Harris,  then  pro- 
fessor emeritus  at  Massachusetts  Institute  of  Technology.  A  lab- 


oratory was  set  up  and  a  small  cadre  of  assistants  hired. 

By  the  time  Harvey  received  his  Ph.D.  from  WPI  in  1970,  his 
company,  now  called  Miralin,  had  established  a  procedure  for 
extracting  the  plant's  active  principle  and  transforming  it  into 
concentrated  tablets.  Agreements  had  been  made  with  the  Jamai- 
can government,  and  soon  miracle  berry  plantations  were  estab- 
lished in  that  country  and  in  Puerto  Rico. 

Through  all  this,  Harvey  and  his  associates  had  been  keeping 
the  U.S.  Food  and  Drug  Administration  (FDA)  abreast  of  their 
activities.  Since  extensive  tests  commissioned  by  Miralin  unfail- 
ingly showed  the  product  to  be  completely  safe,  FDA  officials 
had  expressed  little  concern  about  commercial  production  of  the 
miracle  berry. 

In  1974,  Miralin  marketed  a  series  of  products  aimed  primarily 
at  diabetics:  chewable  fruit  drops,  snacks  and  salad  dressings,  to 
be  used  as  part  of  a  comprehensive  diet  plan.  The  response  was 
tremendous. 


Then— and,  in  hindsight,  perhaps  this  was  the  turning 
point— students  from  Harvard  Business  School  con- 
ducted a  double-blind  taste  test  comparing  regular 
sugar-sweetened  popsicles  with  popsicles  coated  with 
miracle  berry  extract.  Children  from  New  England  playgrounds 
were  the  arbiters. 

"They  preferred  our  popsicles  almost  two  to  one,"  says  Har- 
vey. But  this  great  bit  of  news  signaled  the  beginning  of  the  end 
for  Miralin.  "People  in  the  sugar  industry  heard  about  it,"  he 
says.  "They  mounted  a  multimillion  dollar  campaign  to  reduce 
the  threat.  Using  scare  tactics,  they  sent  lobbyists  to  the  FDA." 


20       WPI  JOURNAL 


This  two-page  ad  that  appeared  in  such 
publications  as  The  New  York  Times 
Magazine  is  part  of  Thoratec  's  $3  million 
campaign  to  promote  its  Bion  II  fabric, 
which  competes  directly  with  long- 
established  Gore-Tex.  Creating  an 
environment  where  creativity  and 
productivity  are  rewarded  is  a  key 
element  of  the  entrepreneurial  genius  of 
Robert  J.  Harvey  '70  Ph.D. 


In  September  1974,  just  weeks  before  Miralin  was  to  mount  a 
major  marketing  campaign  (with  all  its  financial  resources  com- 
mitted for  inventories),  the  FDA  ordered  miracle  berry  products 
off  the  shelf.  Expensive,  time-consuming  tests  were  ordered. 

The  directive  was  equivalent  to  a  death  sentence.  "At  that 
point,  we  didn't  have  the  time  nor  the  money  to  follow  through," 
Harvey  says.  "The  FDA  had  regulated  us  out  of  business." 

Miralin,  with  285  employees  in  three  countries,  went  under. 


I  was  broke,"  says  Harvey.  "I  went  from  being  a  millionaire  to 
being  in  debt  to  the  bank.  Fortunately,  I  had  enough  good 
contacts  to  get  some  consulting  work  with  technology  com- 
panies." Soon  he  was  back  on  his  feet  again. 
Then,  late  in  1975,  there  was  more  bad  news.  "Polyps  formed 
on  my  vocal  cords,  became  infected  and  began  to  bleed,"  Harvey 
says.  He  and  his  wife,  Sue,  at  that  time  a  teacher  at  Tufts,  were 
faced  with  the  terrifying  prospect  of  cancer.  "I  thought  I  was 
going  to  die,"  he  says,  matter-of-factly. 

The  polyps,  which  doctors  later  termed  stress-induced,  were 
removed.  They  were  benign. 

In  February  1976,  while  Harvey  was  at  home  recovering  from 
the  surgery— unable  to  speak  but  with  a  new  zest  for  life— one  of 
his  old  friends  from  Thermo  Electron  came  to  town  from  Berke- 
ley. Harvey  invited  him  to  stay  at  his  house.  The  night  he 
arrived,  they  stayed  up  late,  the  friend  talking  and  Bob  writing 
out  responses  on  a  pad. 

Harvey  learned  that  Searle  Cardiopulmonary  Systems  Inc., 
wanted  to  sell  its  research  and  development  division.  It  sounded 
interesting. 


"Sue  and  I  decided  to  get  away  and  spend  a  week  in  California 
and  maybe  do  some  business." 

While  there,  Harvey  met  Dr.  J.  Donald  Hill,  chairman  of 
cardiovascular  surgery  at  San  Francisco's  Pacific  Medical  Cen- 
ter, who  had  been  associated  with  Searle 's  research  products.  By 
the  end  of  the  week,  Harvey  and  Hill  had  made  an  offer  to  buy 
Searle 's  R&D  division. 

A  few  days  later,  Harvey  packed  his  bags.  He  was  now  presi- 
dent, chairman  of  the  board  and  chief  executive  officer  of  Thora- 
tec Laboratories  Corporation  (newly  named  to  reflect  "thoracic 
technology"). 

As  he  had  at  Miralin,  Harvey  quickly  got  things  rolling.  "We 
planned  to  concentrate  in  the  cardiopulmonary  area,  especially 
artificial  heart  devices,  because  both  Dr.  Hill  and  I  had  done 
work  in  this  area  for  several  years,"  he  says.  Harvey  holds  a 
number  of  patents,  including  one  for  a  nuclear-powered  heart. 

In  the  early  years,  Thoratec  sought  to  establish  a  technology 
base  in  blood  compatible  polymers  and  biomedical  devices.  As 
Harvey  puts  it,  "Before  we  could  develop  products  we  had 
targetted,  a  whole  new  generation  of  biomaterials  was  needed." 

They  did  a  good  deal  of  research  for  the  National  Institutes  of 
Health,  as  well  as  for  private  companies.  The  latter  resulted  in 
several  licensing  agreements. 

In  recent  years,  Thoratec,  which  went  public  in  1981,  has 
developed  a  number  of  products  in  the  areas  of  blood  conserva- 
tion, circulatory  support  and  respiratory  monitoring.  Last  year, 
they  introduced  BloodStat™,  an  autotransfusion  system  that 
allows  a  patient's  own  blood  to  be  reinfused,  in  place  of  banked 
blood. 

Thoratec 's  work  on  artificial  heart  devices  reached  a  milestone 


AUGUST  1985       21 


■*' 

Monolithic 

nonporoiis 

#  •*  *    « 

surface 

••♦*■♦*♦ 

;=«  *\v  **  * 

»*«  #,»«  ** 

**«****.* 

v  *  u      *             =  4  •  ■ 

■♦;-♦;•♦■ 

*  =  ■  * « •  * 

» ■  *  ♦  „*  *  •  ^ 

'**;•*";» ' 

*:*&:•] 

HI  ^9 

»* » f  aribjr*  ♦  " 

*»!»■»*  ■"TH 

~  *  *  *  — * — 

*  *  ■»  .  *  *  i 

■>P."*d 

Fabric 


Rain 
droplets 


=> 


.«*  * 


Although  Bion  II  is  nonporous,  sweat  vapor  still  diffuses 
outward  through  the  film;  but  rain  can  V  penetrate. 


last  fall  when  Dr.  Hill  implanted  a  Thoratec-manufactured  Ven- 
tricular Assist  Device  (VAD)  in  a  patient  with  acute  heart  failure. 
The  VAD  took  over  the  work  of  the  diseased  heart,  saving  the 
patient's  life.  For  two  days,  the  VAD  kept  the  man  alive — time 
enough  for  a  suitable  donor  heart  to  be  found. 

In  March,  another  Thoratec-produced  VAD  kept  a  16-year-old 
boy  alive  for  the  five  days  it  took  to  locate  a  donor  heart. 

Nine  centers  in  the  U.S.,  as  well  as  several  abroad,  now  use 
Thoratec's  VAD  and  related  equipment. 

The  National  Heart,  Lung  and  Blood  Institute  has  concentrated 
much  of  its  research  funding  on  development  of  a  long-term 
VAD,  rather  than  an  artificial  heart.  An  estimated  80  percent  of 
all  heart  disease  centers  on  weakened  left  ventricles.  Also, 
VADs  are  smaller,  less  expensive  and  easier  to  install  than  com- 
plete artificial  hearts. 

Thoratec  is  the  only  company  that  currently  markets  VADs. 


B 


ob  Ward  was  bummed  out,"  Harvey  is  saying  now,  by 
way  of  explaining  the  early  history  of  Bion  II,  Thoratec's 
newest  and  most  spectacular  product. 


Ward,  now  president  of  Thoratec's  subsidiary  in  specialty 
polymers,  had  developed  a  new  family  of  wound  and  burn  dress- 
ings. The  material  allowed  water  vapor  to  escape  through  the 
dressing,  while  keeping  the  wound  safe  from  moisture,  bacteria 
and  other  outside  contaminants. 

At  the  center  of  the  process  was  a  thin  (less  than  one  thou- 
sandth of  an  inch)  polyurethane  film  that  provided  a  transparent 
membrane  coating— a  "second  skin."  (See  figure  above.) 

But  problems  emerged  after  a  marketing  study  found  the 
wound-dressing  field  to  be  highly  competitive— "all  the  biggies 


were  in  it,"  as  Harvey  puts  it.  So  a  decision  was  made  not  to  run 
with  the  wound  dressing  product.  At  the  time,  Ward  was  disap- 
pointed. 

"We've  got  a  couple  gallons  of  that  goop,"  Harvey  said  jok- 
ingly to  Ward.  "Get  your  60-40  parka  and  let's  see  what  it  does 
to  fabric." 

"After  we  tried  it,"  Harvey  says,  "we  stopped  joking."  It 
made  the  jacket  completely  waterproof  without  compromising  its 
breathability. 

Harvey  knew  instinctively  he  was  on  to  something  big  again. 

A  textile  subsidiary  was  organized,  and  intensive  market 
research  was  begun.  Unlike  the  wound  dressing  study,  this  one 
struck  gold.  Gore-Tex,  the  only  "breathable"  sports  fabric  on 
the  shelves,  had  a  major,  worldwide  market  all  to  itself. 

While  Bion  II  was  officially  launched  at  the  company's  annual 
meeting  in  1983,  only  recently  has  it  fully  emerged  into  the 
spotlight.  A  $3  million  advertising  campaign  was  kicked  off  in  a 
big  way  last  fall  with  a  series  of  two-page  spreads  in  major 
national  magazines. 

Perhaps  the  most  impressive  indication  of  Bion  II's  early  mar- 
ket acceptance  is  the  list  of  endorsements  the  product  has 
received.  The  Outward  Bound  U.S.A.  program,  which  had 
never  before  endorsed  a  commercial  product,  spoke  up  enthusi- 
astically for  Bion  II.  Field  &  Stream  called  it  "a  dream  come 
true." 

Gerry  sportswear  signed  an  agreement  and  is  using  Bion  II 
fabric  in  much  of  their  line  of  skiwear  and  outdoor  wear.  And  an 
expedition  of  Americans  climbing  Mt.  Everest  was  outfitted  with 
Bion  II-coated  gear. 

Since  the  "second  skin"  can  be  applied  to  any  kind  of  fabric 
without  changing  the  material's  color  or  appearance,  Harvey 
figures  that  so  far  they've  just  scratched  the  surface. 

"We're  increasing  our  business  base  every  week.  We  plan  to 
move  into  fashion  raincoats,  shoes  and  gloves." 


To  an  entrepreneur,  knowing  what  to  give  up  is  as  impor- 
tant as  knowing  what  to  pursue.  To  simply  believe  in  a 
product  is  not  enough;  mere  conviction  can  be  destruc- 
tive, even  if  the  product  is  a  good  one.  Like  a  poker 
player,  an  entrepreneur  must  know  when  it's  time  to  cut  losses 
and  move  on.  More  important,  knowing  that  you  are  bound  to 
lose  more  often  than  win,  you  must  have  the  resilience  to  take  a 
high-stakes  beating  and  not  be  emotionally  crushed. 

Bob  Harvey  still  believes  that  the  miracle  berry,  now  marketed 
in  Japan,  will  be  proven  safe  and  made  available  in  this  country. 
Yet  he  was  able  to  leave  behind  the  miracle  berry  and  other 
projects  (he  holds  several  patents  from  his  days  at  Thermo-Elec- 
tron)  when  he  sensed  the  time  had  come. 

Patience,  too— the  ability  to  move  at  a  painstaking  pace  when 
you  want  so  badly  to  rush  headlong— is  a  vital  trait  in  successful 
entrepreneurs.  For  example,  the  start-up  of  Miralin,  the  miracle 
berry  company,  was  more  exacting  a  process  than  the  thumbnail 
sketch  presented  here  indicates.  And  Thoratec  has  required  enor- 
mous investments  of  time  and  capital  while  building  a  strong 
technological  foundation  on  which  to  grow. 

All  this  requires  a  certain  attitude,  a  certain  set  of  priorities. 
Glancing  down  the  list  of  strategies  for  Thoratec's  future,  you'll 
find  a  clue  to  why  Bob  Harvey  is  the  consummate  entrepreneur. 
Near  the  top,  you'll  find  this  one:  "Promoting  a  climate  within 
the  company  in  which  creativity  and  productivity  are  rewarded." 

Michael  Shanley  is  director  of  the  WPI  News  Bureau. 


22       WPI  JOURNAL 


hat  makes 
your  life 
worthwhile? 


Your  family,  your  friends,  your  job? 
Having  enough  money?  Having  enough 
time?  Enough  time  for  what? 
Think  about  it  for  a  moment. 
Quality  o{  Life  is— well,  what  life  is  all 
about.  It  comes  down  to  one  question: 
What  makes  life— your  life,  or  Life- 
worthwhile? 

Think  back.  Is  your  answer  the  same  as 
it  was  five,  ten,  15  years  ago?  Is  it 
intensely  personal,  or  bound  up  with  a 
larger  community? 

We'd  like  to  know.  Readers  are  invited 
to  share  with  us  their  reasons  for  living. 

Those  whose  essays  are  chosen  to 
appear  in  these  pages  will  receive  $100, 
if  they  promise  to  put  it  to  worthwhile 
use.  We'll  accept  essays  until  October  1 , 
1985.  Please  send  them  to  the  magazine, 
in  care  of  the  editor,  and  marked  "Qual- 
ity of  Life". 


AUGUST  1985        I 


WANTED : 


More  Graduate: 


Each  year,  more  students  seek  advanced  degrees  in 
science  and  engineering.  But  the  numbers  aren't  rising 
fast  enough,  say  some  observers,  to  meet  the  needs 
of  academe  or  industry. 


By  Sharon  Begley 

Photographs  by 
Bill  Denison 


T 


he  odd  thing  is  how  reassuring  the  numbers  all 
seem:  enrollment  in  graduate  programs  of  sci- 
ence and  engineering  increased  an  average  of 
2.7  percent  annually  between  1976  and  1983 
(the  last  year  for  which  the  National  Science  Foundation 
has  records).  And  there  is  no  obvious  sign  that  the 
growth  is  tailing  off:  enrollment  rose  an  even  higher  3.7 
percent  between  1982  and  1983.  But  as  educators  and 
industry  look  into  the  future,  they  see  a  grim  picture: 
undergraduates  turned  away  from  popular  classes  like 
computer  science  because  there  are  not  enough  qualified 
instructors  to  teach  them,  American  industries  unable  to 
match  Japanese  innovations  in  electronics  and  robotics 
because  too  few  students  aspire  to  the  PhD,  the  ticket  to 
cutting-edge  research. 

"The  risk  of  having  too  few  students  going  on  to  grad- 
uate school  is  that  the  country  will  not  be  regenerating  its 
seed  corn,"  says  Daniel  Berg,  president  of  Rensselaer 
Polytechnic  Institute.  "A  decline  in  the  number  of  grad 
students  undermines  the  unique  competitive  strength  of 
the  United  States— namely,  that  by  exposing  undergradu- 
ates to  leading-edge  ideas  and  people,  we  have  the  best 
educational  research  system  in  the  world.  If  we  lose  that, 
the  students  will  lose  out  and  so  will  the  country." 

Such  concerns  are  born  of  the  realization  that  the  over- 
all numbers  are  deceiving.  For  one  thing,  a  sharp 
increase  in,  say,  graduate  enrollment  in  computer  sci- 
ence and  electrical  engineering  camouflages  decline  or 
stagnation  in  PhD  enrollment  in  other  fields.  And  even 
an  increase  in  the  popular  disciplines  is  not  necessarily 
sufficient  to  meet  the  soaring  demand.  For  another,  grad- 
uate enrollment  now  includes  a  high  proportion  of  for- 
eign students— as  high  as  50  percent  in  some  fields- 
many  of  whom  are  on  temporary  visas  and  thus  are  likely 
to  return  home  instead  of  giving  the  United  States  the 
benefit  of  their  education.  Overall,  foreign  students 
account  for  almost  all  of  the  increase  in  graduate  enroll- 
ment; without  them,  the  numbers  would  have  remained 
stagnant  since  1977. 

Now  that  the  U.S.  is  competing  with  its  strategic  allies 
on  the  economic  front  almost  as  intensely  as  it  is  compet- 
ing with  the  Soviet  Union  on  the  political  one,  federal 

Sharon  Begley  is  science  editor  at   Newsweek. 


II       ALUMNI  MAGAZINE  CONSORTIUM 


Students  in  Science  and  Engineering 


AUGUST  1985       III 


agencies  track  science  and  engineering 
manpower  as  assiduously  as  the  CIA 
tracks  Soviet  missile  counts. 

The  news  is  disconcerting:  Europe  and 
Japan  outpace  this  country  on,  for 
instance,  the  number  of  years  of  calculus 
students  take  and  on  the  percentage  of  the 
federal  budget  allocated  to  research  and 
development.  According  to  the  National 
Science  Foundation  (NSF),  the  number  of 
scientists  and  engineers  engaged  in  R&D 
increased  25.5  percent  in  the  U.S. 
between  1965  and  1979.  Meanwhile, 
Japan  boasted  a  139  percent  increase,  the 
Soviet  Union  140  percent,  West  Germany 
100  percent,  Britain  76  percent,  and 
France  74.4  percent.  Admittedly,  the  U.S. 
started  from  a  greater  base  than  did  many 
other  nations.  But  there  is  no  small  irony 
in  this  country's  beating  a  retreat,  relative 
to  other  nations,  on  the  science  and  engi- 
neering front  in  what  is  widely  hailed  as 
the  age  of  the  computer  and  the  technology 
revolution. 

Laments  about  a  dearth  of  scientists  and 
engineers  have  been  heard  before,  of 
course,  most  often  when  the  roller-coaster 
cycle  in  the  supply  of  engineers  hits  bot- 
tom. But  this  time  the  worries  run  deeper, 
and  there  is  a  sense  that  factors  dissuading 
seniors  from  enrolling  in  graduate  school 
will  only  become  stronger.  Moreover,  the 
accelerating  pace  of  technological  change 
gives  a  new  urgency  to  the  problem.  In  the 
past,  even  if  there  were,  for  example,  too 
few  aerospace  engineers-to-be  in  the  edu- 
cational pipeline,  the  shortage  would  cre- 
ate a  plethora  of  available  jobs,  drawing 
enough  students  to  the  field  to  meet  the 
demand  within  four  years  or  so.  But  nowa- 
days, points  out  Lester  Gerhardt,  chair- 
man of  electrical,  computer  and  systems 
engineering  at  RPI,  technology  changes  so 
fast  that  "it  has  become  more  difficult  to 
be  responsive  to  new  developments."  Just 
as  the  generation  time  for  new  technolo- 
gies has  shrunk,  so  the  time  required  to 
educate  people  proficient  in  them  has 
lengthened.  Because  of  that  lag  time,  a 
system  that  merely  responds  to  shortages 
once  they  develop  will  forever  run  behind. 

To  be  sure,  not  all  fields  of  science 
and  engineering  are  feeling  the 
same  shortfalls  of  graduate  stu- 
dents. Here's  a  breakdown  by  dis- 
ciplines: 

•  That  most  basic  of  sciences,  mathe- 
matics, has  been  faring  poorly.  According 
to  the  American  Mathematical  Society,  the 
number  of  doctorates  conferred  on  Ameri- 
can citizens  has  declined  steadily  for  the 
past  decade,  from  a  high  of  just  over  700 


in  1975-6  to  fewer  than  500  today.  The 
number  of  doctorates  awarded  to  foreign 
nationals  has  remained  roughly  constant, 
at  around  200  per  year  for  the  past  15 
years. 

•  The  number  of  physics  PhDs  awarded 
climbed  throughout  the  1960s  and  peaked 
at  around  1,500  in  1970-1,  reports  the 
American  Institute  of  Physics.  But  then 
the  numbers  fell  steeply,  falling  to  900  or 
so  by  the  end  of  the  1970s.  Each  year 
since  then,  it  has  hovered  below  1,000. 
During  that  time  the  foreign  component 
has  increased  while  the  U.S.  share  has 
dropped:  in  1982-3,  foreign  nations 
accounted  for  40  percent  of  first-year  grad- 
uate students  in  physics.  That  figure,  of 
course,  predicts  their  share  of  the  PhDs 
awarded  in  the  next  year  or  so. 

•  Chemistry  doctorates  awarded  in 
1984  increased  for  the  fifth  year  in  a  row, 
reaching  1,777  from  a  low  of  1,532  in 
both  1978  and  1979,  according  to  the 
American  Chemical  Society.  But  this 
increase  should  be  seen  more  as  a  recovery 
than  as  unqualified  good  news:  universi- 
ties conferred  2,145  chemistry  PhDs  in 
1970;  then  the  numbers  declined  precipi- 
tously until  the  nadirs  in  1978  and  1979. 


•  Engineering  has  indeed  been  as  cycli- 
cal as  the  conventional  wisdom  says.  The 
rise  and  fall  is  most  obvious  in  freshman 
enrollment  in  the  field,  reports  the  Ameri- 
can Association  of  Engineering  Societies, 
reflecting  the  influence  that  the  job  market 
has  on  students'  choice  of  a  major.  The 
peaks  in  enrollment  have  fallen  roughly 
ten  years  apart— in  1946,  1956,  and 
1966— with  lows  coming  in  1951,  1962, 
and  1972.  Graduate  enrollment,  in  con- 
trast, has  shown  a  steady  overall  growth 
during  the  past  40  years,  but  lately  the 
curve  has  turned  downward:  3,600  stu- 
dents earned  a  PhD  in  engineering  in 
1970,  but  only  2,800  did  so  in  1981.  For- 
eign students  account  for  an  increasing 
proportion  of  those  advanced  degrees- 
today  they  earn  roughly  half  of  them. 

In  fact,  the  difference  among  disciplines 
offers  clues  to  why  spot  shortages  exist. 
For  starters,  engineering  graduates  can 
secure  good  research  positions  without  a 
PhD.  They  thus  have  to  balance  the  lure  of 
a  good  job  straight  out  of  college  against 
the  potential  prestige,  better  position, 
and— sometimes— better  salary  available 
to  the  PhD  engineer  four  years  or  so  later. 

But  "bachelor's  degrees  in  chemistry, 


IV       ALUMNI  MAGAZINE  CONSORTIUM 


Even  for  engineers,  the 
employment  picture  varies 
from  discipline  to  disci- 
pline: civil  engineering  is 
down,  mechanical  engi- 


neering is  up. 


physics,  and  biology  are  not  regarded  the 
same  way  as  bachelor's  degrees  in  engi- 
neering," says  James  Pavlik,  chairman  of 
the  chemistry  department  at  Worcester 
Polytechnic  Institute.  For  science  majors, 
the  undergraduate  degree  is  rarely  a  ticket 
to  university  teaching;  it  seldom  qualifies 
the  graduate  for  a  job  in  industry  at  any- 
thing higher  than  the  technician  level,  at 
least  to  start.  Pavlik  sees  another  reason 
why  job  offers  from  industry  tempt  under- 
graduate science  majors  less  than  they  do 
undergraduate  engineers:  "Science  stu- 
dents go  into  the  field  because  they're 
really  interested  in  it,"  he  says.  Engineers, 
he  observes,  are  often  more  interested  in 
job  prospects. 

Traditionally,  a  soft  job  market  has 
encouraged  greater  enrollment  in  graduate 
school.  For  example,  in  1980,  243  stu- 
dents earned  doctorates  in  chemical  engi- 
neering; in  1984,  357  did  so.  One  major 
reason:  the  demand  for  chemical  engineers 
with  bachelor's  and  master's  degrees 
roughly  matched  the  supply  through  1981, 
but  then  plummetted  badly.  From  essen- 
tially no  unemployment  in  1980-1,  nearly 
60  percent  of  the  seniors  graduating  in 
1983  were  not  getting  job  offers.  "When 


jobs  are  tough,"  says  RPI's  Berg,  "the  stu- 
dents figure  they  might  as  well  go  on  to 
graduate  school.  But  if  they  can  immedi- 
ately get  a  well-paying  job,  they  ask  them- 
selves, 'Why  should  I  go  to  grad  school, 
lose  out  on  four  years  of  pay,  and  then 
struggle  with  a  low-salaried  academic 
position  when  I  could  do  better  in  industry 
[which  seldom  requires  PhDs  of  its  engi- 
neers]?' "  Unfortunately,  the  best  students 
aren't  always  the  ones  who  elect  grad 
school— because  they  are  ones  who  usu- 
ally have  the  easiest  time  finding  a  desir- 
able job. 

Financial  considerations  play  a  larger 
role  now  that  undergraduate  tuition  has 
risen  into  the  five-figure  range.  "At  Vil- 
lanova,"  says  Robert  Lynch,  dean  of  engi- 
neering there,  "many  seniors  are  in  hock 
up  to  their  ears.  When  they  have  to  pay 
back  loans  for  their  undergraduate  educa- 
tion, the  idea  of  graduate  school  seems 
impossible."  Although  students  can  post- 
pone loan  payments  if  they  are  enrolled  in 
a  PhD  program,  their  debts,  in  some  cases 
growing  larger,  still  hang  over  them.  And 
now  that  the  Reagan  Administration  is  try- 
ing to  cut  back  on  student  aid,  financial 
pressures  on  students  can  only  become 
worse. 

Indirect  financial  factors  also  influence 
graduate  enrollment.  In  the  heyday  of  the 
post-Sputnik  era,  federal  support  for  grad- 
uate education  soared— such  support  is,  of 
course,  subject  to  the  whims  of  the  federal 
budget.  Graduate  students  in  the  sciences 
generally  are  supported  out  of  grants  to 
their  professors.  The  number  who  win 
such  financing  therefore  depends  on  total 
federal  support  for  the  sciences. 

But  graduate  students  can  also  be 
awarded  fellowships,  teaching  assistant- 
ships,  research  assistantships— among 
other  types  of  support— directly  by  such 
federal  agencies  as  the  Departments  of 
Defense  (DoD)  and  Health  and  Human 
Services  (HHS),  which  includes  the 
National  Institutes  of  Health  (NIH).  The 
trends  are  none  too  encouraging  for  finan- 
cially strapped  grad  students: 

•  The  number  of  full-time  doctoral  stu- 
dents supported  by  federal  funds  dropped 
1.8  percent  between  1975  and  1983, 
according  to  figures  tabulated  by  the  NSF 
late  last  year.  The  distribution  of  support 
indicates  how  federal  priorities  changed: 
DoD  supported  36  percent  more  students 
and  NSF  grants  went  to  8  percent  more 
students;  HHS  supported  28  percent  fewer 
students.  NIH  cut  its  graduate  support  so 
that  it  funded  1 1  percent  fewer  students  in 
1983  than  it  did  in  1975. 

•  Not  surprisingly,  physical  and  mathe- 


matical sciences,  which  receive  the  bulk  of 
DoD  money,  fared  better  than  biology, 
where  NIH  and  HHS  funnel  their  grants. 
The  number  of  students  in  physical  sci- 
ences supported  by  federal  sources 
increased  an  average  3  percent  per  year 
from  1975,  the  number  in  mathematical 
and  computer  sciences  grew  at  an  average 
3.8  percent  and  the  number  in  engineering 
rose  1.1  percent.  Meanwhile,  the  number 
of  biology  grad  students  receiving  federal 
support  went  up  only  .2  percent  per 
annum.  (Psychology  and  the  social  sci- 
ences were  struck  hardest:  the  number  of 
grad  students  receiving  federal  support  in 
these  fields  actually  fell.) 

•  Congress  is  currently  considering  leg- 
islation, as  part  of  the  reauthorization  of 
the  Higher  Education  Act,  that  addresses 
the  need  for  federal  support  for  graduate 
schools  and  students.  Although  the  num- 
ber of  students  receiving  such  support  has 
risen  lately,  many  educators  feel  that  it  has 
not  kept  pace  with  the  need  for  trained 
PhDs. 

Several  academics  point  out,  however, 
that  "the  number  of  students  going  on  to 
graduate  school  is  influenced  by  more  than 
whether  their  education  is  paid  for,"  as 
Gordon  M.  Wolman,  chairman  of  geogra- 
phy and  environmental  engineering  at 
Johns  Hopkins,  puts  it.  For  example,  "one 
of  the  crying  needs  right  now  is  for  state- 
of-the-art  equipment  in  universities,"  he 
continues.  As  financially  pressed  colleges 
cut  back  on  capital  expenditures,  the  qual- 
ity of  their  lab  equipment  is  falling  seri- 
ously behind  that  available  to  researchers 
in  private  industry. 

Other  frequently  cited  deterrents  to 
graduate  education  in  the  pure  sciences  are 
cultural.  "When  students  hear  about  Bho- 
pal,  about  Love  Canal  and  other  toxic 
dumps,"  says  chemist  Don  Jones  of  West- 
ern Maryland  College,  "they  think, 
'chemistry  is  not  an  area  I'd  like  to  work 
in.'  "  Aaron  Martin,  who  was  trained  in 
chemistry  at  Franklin  and  Marshall  Col- 
lege and  is  now  chairman  of  Advanced 
Microcomputer  Systems,  believes  that  stu- 
dent perceptions  of  how  "hot"  a  field  is 
also  influences  enrollment.  "In  the  movie 
'The  Graduate'  the  advice  was  'Get  into 
plastics,'  but  now  the  perception  is  that 
chemistry  is  not  making  the  advances 
today  that  it  had  been  in  the  heyday  of 
nylon,  Teflon,  and  other  breakthroughs," 
he  says. 

One  venue  for  communicating  the 
excitement  in  the  sciences  is  the  high 
schools.  But  because  of  the  well-publi- 
cized shortage  of  qualified  teachers,  as 
well  as  the  setbacks  that  science  suffered 


AUGUST  1985       V 


during  the  back-to-basics  movement 
(when  schools  emphasized  reading,  writ- 
ing, and  mathematics  at  the  the  expense  of 
science),  students  are  not  getting  the  early 
exposure  to  science  that  could  sow  an 
abiding  interest  in  the  field.  Marvin  Gold- 
berger,  president  of  the  California  Institute 
of  Technology,  comes  down  hard  on  the 
job  the  high  schools  do  in  fostering  an 
interest  in  science.  "I  want  to  emphasize, 
in  the  current  debate  over  science  and 
technology,  that  all  aspects  of  high  school 
education  are  lousy  .  .  .  The  whole  thing 
is  rotten." 

Finally,  longtime  professors  speculate 
that  the  current  crop  of  students  is,  in  gen- 
eral, less  driven  than  their  predecessors. 
"To  pass  up  the  chance  to  earn  a  great  deal 
of  money  straight  out  of  college  in  favor  of 
going  to  graduate  school,  you  have  to  have 
a  real  drive  to  enter  teaching  or  to  become 
a  top-flight  researcher,"  says  chemist  J.L. 
Zakin  of  Ohio  State  University,  who  has 
served  on  the  Council  for  Chemical 
Research's  manpower  committee. 
"Lately,  we  have  been  seeing  a  stronger 
drive  and  greater  interest  in  getting  the 
PhD  among  foreign  students  than  among 
American  ones." 

The  frequent  allusions  to  the  high  num- 
bers of  foreign  students  in  doctorate  pro- 
grams should  not  be  interpreted  as  xeno- 
phobia. Although  that  may  be  an  element 
in  some  people's  uneasiness,  by  and  large 
both  academics  and  businessmen  view  the 
foreign  nationals  as  a  valued  but  lost 
resource.  Because  graduate  departments 
need  a  certain  number  of  bodies  to  support 
research— the  students  serve  as  anything 
from  glorified  bottle-washers  to  de  facto 
principal  investigator  in  their  adviser's  lab- 
oratory—they have  increasingly  made  up 
the  shortfall  of  American  students  by 
accepting  foreign  nationals. 

Most  of  these  students  are  on  temporary 
visas  and  are  legally  obliged  to  return  to 
their  native  countries  before  seeking 
employment  in  the  U.S.  (There  are  numer- 
ous exceptions  to  and  loopholes  in  the  law, 
including  graduates  in  computer  science 
whose  skills  are  valued  enough  for  them  to 
be  considered  "special  cases".)  "There  is 
an  inconsistency  here,"  notes  RPI's 
Gerhardt.  "The  recent  increase  in  PhD 
enrollment  over  the  last  couple  of  years 
has  been  almost  solely  due  to  foreign 
nationals,  and  almost  half  of  the  doctorates 
in  engineering  are  awarded  to  foreign  stu- 
dents. Since  a  fair  number  of  them  want  to 
remain  in  this  country,  it  would  seem  wise 
to  let  them  stay  here  as  a  national 
resource." 

This  is  particularly  true  considering  both 


the  time  and  money  the  U.S.  invests  in  the 
students:  according  to  a  survey  by  the 
Electronic  Industries  Association,  when 
foreign  students  accounted  for  20.4  per- 
cent of  all  science  and  engineering  gradu- 
ate students  in  1980-1,  only  3.3  percent  of 
them  showed  their  major  sources  of  finan- 
cial support  as  foreign.  F.  James  Ruther- 
ford, chief  education  officer  at  the  Ameri- 
can Association  for  the  Advancement  of 
Science,  has  written  of  the  irony  in  the 
U.S.'s  "spending  its  dwindling  resources 
to  support  foreign  graduate  students  in  the 
science  and  engineering  fields.  .  .  .  The 
United  States  neglects  the  science  educa- 
tion of  its  students  and  makes  an  invest- 
ment in  the  graduate  education  of  foreign 
students." 

Concern  about  the  dearth  of  PhDs 
tends  to  be  greatest  in  engineer- 
ing—specifically, computer,  elec- 
trical, and  mechanical  engineer- 
ing, all  now  regarded  as  hot  fields.  That 
has  affected  not  only  the  quantity  but  also 
the  quality  of  students  in  other  disciplines, 
much  as  the  increasing  popularity  of  pro- 
fessional schools  has  caused  "the  best  of  a 
generation  of  scholars  [to  be]  lost  forever 
to  our  colleges   and  universities,"   as 


Columbia  University  President  Michael 
Sovern  put  it  in  his  annual  report  this 
spring.  "The  really  good  students  are 
siphoned  off,"  notes  WPI's  Pavlik.  "As 
soon  as  they  matriculate  they  hear  about 
the  great  jobs  available  in,  say,  electrical 
engineering,  so  I  lose  50  percent  of  my 
chemistry  majors  before  they've  even  had 
a  chance  to  register.  Years  ago,  the  best 
undergraduates  were  in  my  labs.  Now 
they're  in  engineering." 

Industry  has  an  insatiable— or,  at  least 
so-far  unsated— appetite  for  students  with 
bachelor's  degrees  in  these  fields,  and 
therefore  is  prepared  to  offer  generous  sal- 
aries to  graduating  seniors.  The  most 
extreme  case  seems  to  be  in  electrical 
engineering  and  computing.  A  bachelor's 
degree  in  electrical  engineering  com- 
manded an  average  $26,556  in  1984, 
while  a  master's  brought  $30,684. 
Although  it  might  pay  a  student  to  invest 
the  extra  year  for  a  master's  degree  in 
return  for  an  extra  10  percent  in  salary,  the 
numbers  don't  argue  for  a  four-year 
investment  in  a  PhD  in  return  for  the  aver- 
age $38,868  starting  salary.  Whether 
money  should  be  the  determining  factor  is 
a  moot  point;  that  it  is  a  strong  influence  is 
undeniable. 


VI       ALUMNI  MAGAZINE  CONSORTIUM 


As  a  result  of  skimming  off  students 
early  in  the  game,  it  is  estimated  that  com- 
puter manpower  shortages  will  plague  the 
industry  for  at  least  the  next  decade:  there 
will  be  enough  students  to  fill  jobs  requir- 
ing two-year  degrees,  but  only  half  the 
number  of  bachelor's  graduates,  one-sixth 
the  number  of  master's  and  one-fifth  the 
number  of  PhDs  required  by  industry,  let 
alone  by  academia. 

The  shortage  is  already  severe  enough 
that  Intel  Corporation,  the  giant  semicon- 
ductor manufacturer,  has  opened  design 
facilities  in  Israel,  France,  and  Japan, 
where  the  company  finds  the  requisite  sup- 
ply of  skilled  technical  talent.  The  firm 
emphasizes  that  its  overseas  operations 
have  been  forced  upon  it  not  out  of  a  desire 
for  low-priced  labor,  but  because  the  U.S. 
does  not  have  enough  trained  technical 
workers  to  fulfill  Intel's  needs.  (It  should 
be  noted  that  when  industries  project  their 
manpower  demands,  it  is  in  their  own  best 
interest  to  overestimate  the  need.  If  the 
word  gets  out  to  students  that,  say,  fer- 
mentation chemists  are  going  to  be  writing 
their  own  tickets  five  years  from  now,  that 
helps  assure  a  greater  pool  of  talent  from 
which  the  industry  can  choose.) 

Even  for  engineers,  the  employment 


picture  varies  from  discipline  to  discipline. 
Civil  engineering  is  experiencing  less- 
than-robust  times  because  construction  has 
slackened  off  across  the  nation.  Mechani- 
cal engineering,  on  the  other  hand,  has 
experienced  a  renaissance  of  late  because 
of  the  interest  in  robotics  and  CAD/CAM 
(computer-aided  design  and  manufacture). 

The  demand  for  PhD  chemical  engi- 
neers peaked  in  1980-1  before  falling 
again  and  is  expected  to  reach  the  record 
high  levels  again  in  1985.  In  1986  and 
1987,  demand  is  projected  to  outstrip  sup- 
ply, according  to  a  survey  of  86  companies 
by  the  American  Institute  of  Chemical 
Engineers.  It  is  not  hard  to  see  why:  aver- 
age salary  offers  to  new  graduates  with  a 
bachelor's  degree  in  chemical  engineering 
reached  $27,420  in  1984  (petroleum  engi- 
neers topped  the  list  at  $29,568). 

Shortfalls  in  the  pure  sciences  vary  from 
field  to  field  as  well.  Chemistry  PhDs 
might  soon  become  too  scarce  to  meet  the 
demand  if  the  current  spot  shortages  are 
any  indication.  Du  Pont  predicts  that  there 
will  be  no  problem  for  the  next  couple  of 
years,  although  the  market  for  PhD  chem- 
ists is  currently  tighter  than  it  is  for  chemi- 
cal engineers.  But  Dow  Chemical  has  been 
struggling  to  fill  vacancies  in  certain  spe- 


cialties: Flooded  with  organic  and  inor- 
ganic chemists,  Dow  never  has  enough 
polymer  scientists,  physical  chemists,  or 
ceramics  experts. 

In  general,  however,  the  supply  of 
chemistry  PhDs  is  about  in  balance  with 
the  demand.  "Students  have  no  difficulty 
getting  jobs,  but  employers  are  not  bang- 
ing on  their  doors  either,"  says  John  Gry- 
der  of  the  Johns  Hopkins  chemistry 
department.  Nevertheless,  Gryder  worries 
about  the  long-term  prospects  for  univer- 
sity chemistry  research  because  "chemis- 
try is  no  longer  getting  the  best  and  bright- 
est. They  are  going  into  biology  or 
medicine  instead." 

That  may  be  a  mistake.  Unlike  chemis- 
try, physics,  and  engineering,  biology  has 
no  national  organization  to  track  man- 
power supply  and  demand,  so  biology 
majors  seem  unaware  that  there  is  an  over- 
supply  of  biologists.  The  publicity  given 
to  the  emerging  biotechnology  industry 
may  have  fostered  this  oversupply,  but  in 
fact  biotech  needs  very  few  research  biolo- 
gists. Once  the  fledgling  companies  begin 
production,  the  industry  will  have  a  much 
greater  need  for  technicians,  fermentation 
chemists,  and  chemical  engineers  that  it 
does  for  research  biologists.  As  for  aca- 
demic employment,  there  are  more  biolo- 
gists than  jobs,  according  to  the  Scientific 
Manpower  Commission  (SMC). 

Every  two  years,  the  National  Sci- 
ence Foundation  conducts  an 
employment  survey.  Its  latest 
installment  presents  a  striking  pic- 
ture of  industry's  appetite  for  PhD  scien- 
tists and  engineers.  Between  1981  and 
1983,  employment  of  scientists  and  engi- 
neers with  advanced  degrees  increased  7 
percent  a  year— compared  to  only  2.4  per- 
cent in  academia.  This  shift  continues  a 
trend,  begun  in  the  early  1970s,  toward 
nonacademic  employment:  in  the  decade 
ending  in  1983,  industry  more  than  dou- 
bled its  number  of  PhD  scientists  and  engi- 
neers. As  a  result,  it  now  employs  31  per- 
cent of  these  graduates  (up  from  24 
percent  in  1973).  Industry's  gain  has  been 
academia 's  loss:  schools  and  universities 
employed  59  percent  of  the  PhD  scientists 
and  engineers  in  1973  but  only  53  percent 
ten  years  later. 

What  explains  the  declining  growth  in 
academic  employment  of  PhDs  in  science 
and  engineering?  The  NSF  mentions  such 
possibilites  as  demographics,  particularly 
the  shrinking  college-age  population,  and 
tenure  practices— the  hesitancy  of  finan- 
cially pressed  institutions  to  offer  perma- 
nent positions— as  well  as   "financial 


AUGUST  1985       VII 


incentives  offered  by  industry." 

Left  unsaid  is  whether  the  slow  growth 
in  academic  jobs  reflects  too  few  openings 
or  too  few  qualified  candidates.  In  fact,  a 
recent  survey  found  that  one  in  four  posi- 
tions in  engineering  colleges  was  going 
unfilled  for  lack  of  acceptable  applicants. 
Two  years  ago,  2,500  posts  in  science  and 
engineering  at  all  colleges  remained 
unfilled  for  the  same  reason.  The  fields 
with  the  most  severe  shortages  are  engi- 
neering, computer  science,  and,  to  a  lesser 
extent,  mathematics.  Since  about  1981, 
according  to  the  Scientific  Manpower 
Commission,  there  has  been  a  chronic  10 
to  12  percent  shortage  of  qualified  PhDs  to 
fill  university  positions  in  these  disci- 
plines. 

"The  reasons  are  perfectly  clear,"  says 
Betty  Vetterof  the  SMC.  "Salaries  offered 
to  those  who  have  just  gotten  their  bache- 
lor's are  about  equivalent  to  what  a  univer- 
sity can  offer  a  PhD."  In  addition,  the  tra- 
ditional lures  of  academia  are  vanishing. 
With  undergraduate  enrollment  in  com- 
puter science  and  engineering  soaring- 
Lester  Gerhardt  of  RPI  estimates  that  stu- 
dent-faculty ratios  have  increased  30 
percent  in  these  popular  fields  over  the 
past  five  years— professors  are  teaching 
more  and  larger  classes  and  thus  have  less 
research  time.  "The  things  that  made  the 
ivory  tower  worth  taking  a  pay  cut  for  no 
longer  exist  in  these  fields,"  says  Vetter. 

The  recruiting  problems  reported  by 
various  universities  bear  out  Vetter's 
gloomy  assessment.  Although  first-class 
institutions  can  still  compete  for  the  very 
best  PhDs,  their  needs  may  soon  exceed 
the  supply— if  they  haven't  already.  "Vir- 
tually every  engineering  school  has  a 
greatly  expanded  faculty  need  because  of 
greater  undergraduate  enrollment  in  these 
fields,"  says  WPI's  Gallagher,  "and  that's 
independent  of  the  competition  from 
industry."  WPI  has  had  particular  trouble 
filling  openings  in  electrical  engineering, 
mechanical  engineering,  and  computer 
science.  Since  it  does  not  restrict  course 
enrollment,  the  result  has  been  bigger 
classes.  At  Villanova,  says  graduate 
school  dean  Bernard  Downey,  "the  people 
we're  hiring  in  the  sciences  are  extraordi- 
nary. But  the  opposite  is  the  case  in  engi- 
neering—they're not  of  poor  quality,  but  it 
is  becoming  harder  and  harder  to  attract 
the  best  before  industry  gobbles  them  up." 

RPI,  too,  is  falling  short  when  it  comes 
to  recruiting  for  electrical  engineering 
positions,  and  as  a  result  has  been  forced 
to  curtail  matriculation  in  that  and  other 
understaffed  fields.  According  to  admis- 
sions director  Chris  Small,  "We  try  not  to 


limit  admission  based  on  the  student's 
stated  preference  of  major,  but  what  we 
might  do  is  deny  admission  in  engineering 
but  offer  it  in  the  school  of  science." 

The  irony  is  that  by  limiting  undergradu- 
ate enrollment,  schools  are  also  restricting 
the  potential  numbers  of  future  PhDs  and, 
therefore,  professors.  To  escape  that 
vicious  circle,  many  schools  are  hiring  the 
foreign  nationals  who  make  up  so  large  a 
proportion  of  the  new  engineering  and  sci- 
ence PhDs.  Few  see  that  as  an  ideal  solu- 
tion. At  Villanova,  where  about  10  per- 
cent of  the  science  and  engineering  faculty 
are  now  foreign  nationals,  "we've  seen 
some  problems  of  communication  because 
of  the  language  barrier,"  reports  Lynch. 
Other  schools  report  the  same  thing,  but 
Lynch  sees  another,  more  serious  prob- 
lem, looming  on  the  horizon.  He  notes 
that  Villanova,  a  Catholic  university,  was 
established  with  the  goal  of  both  educating 
and  transmitting  cultural  values  to  its  stu- 
dents. "This  additional  mission  makes  the 
situation  different  here,"  he  explains.  "If, 
in  five  or  ten  years,  the  engineering  pro- 
gram were  cut  off  from  that  mission 
because  so  many  of  the  faculty  were  peo- 
ple with  quite  different  cultural  identities, 
it  might  raise  questions  about  whether  we 
should  continue  to  have  that  program." 

There  is  no  dearth  of  ideas  about 
how  to  reverse  the  trend  away 
from  university  teaching,  or  about 
how  to  increase  the  pool  of  sci- 
ence and  engineering  PhDs  generally.  The 
ideas  tend  to  focus  both  on  practicalities, 
like  increasing  and  sustaining  financial 
support  for  graduate  work,  and  on  PR 
campaigns  intended  to  get  the  word  out 
that  exciting  opportunities  await  the  new 
PhD.  More  and  more  educators  emphasize 
that  such  a  campaign  has  to  begin  early, 
and  they  are  adding  their  voices  to  the 
many  raised  on  behalf  of  improving  sci- 
ence education  in  the  secondary  schools. 
But  that,  obviously,  is  a  task  of  national 
proportions,  so  there  are  smaller-scale 
efforts  under  way,  too.  WPI,  for  instance, 
has  a  summer  program  in  which  high 
school  students  work  at  the  university's 
labs  and  see  how  scientific  research  is 
done. 

Industry,  too,  has  a  fear  of  eating  its 
own  seed  corn  and,  as  RPI's  Gerhardt  puts 
it,  "wants  to  support  universities,  for  its 
own  good,  even  if  it  is  in  direct  competi- 
tion with  us  for  scientists  and  engineers." 
Corporations  are  plowing  millions  of  dol- 
lars into  efforts  to  keep  bright  young 
investigators  in  universities  so  they  can 
train  the  industrial  scientists  of  tomorrow. 


About  30  companies,  for  example,  offer 
fellowships  to  RPI  faculty:  IBM  has  a  fac- 
ulty development  program  dispensing 
about  $30,000  to  support  the  research  of 
new  faculty  members  and  keep  them  in 
academia;  General  Electric  guarantees 
consulting  work  for  faculty  in  an  effort  to 
narrow  the  salary  disparity  between  indus- 
try and  academia. 

Nationally,  Du  Pont  awards  "young  fac- 
ulty grants"  of  $25,000  for  each  of  two  or 
three  years  to  encourage  new  professors  in 
their  research.  In  addition,  the  chemical 
giant  is  trying  to  encourage  graduating 


VIII       ALUMNI  MAGAZINE  CONSORTIUM 


NORTHERN     MS  600     „..,., 


/ 


% 


t  f  c 

I  w   • 

10 

1         '* 

^3 

19        »v  I 

3 

1         ■> 

|P--v 

seniors  to  resist  tempting  salary  offers  and 
opt  for  graduate  school:  Du  Pont  awards 
about  25  grants  of  $4,000,  plus  guaranteed 
summer  employment,  to  doctoral  candi- 
dates nominated  by  a  consortium  of  partic- 
ipating schools. 

In  a  similar  vein,  the  National  Science 
Foundation  has  a  Presidential  Young 
Investigators  program  aimed  at  keeping 
young  scientists  and  engineers  on  campus. 
It  awards  a  basic  grant  of  $25,000  for  each 
of  five  years  to  100  scientists  and  100 
engineers  (the  budget  crunch  will  reduce 
those  numbers  by  half  next  year).  Then,  if 


the  investigator  can  attract  industry  sup- 
port, NSF  will  match  up  to  $37,500  of 
those  funds.  So  far,  industry  has  indeed 
been  coming  through:  the  first  group  of 
scientists  and  engineers  (in  1984)  got  70 
percent  of  the  total  possible  matching 
funds.  "Industry  has  a  deep  awareness  of 
the  contributions  academic  institutions 
make  in  providing  them  with  trained  man- 
power," says  NSF's  Michael  Frodyma. 

Can  such  programs  divert  some  of  the 
new  graduates  from  industry  into  grad 
school?  Can  the  new  PhDs  be  sold  on  uni- 
versity life?  The  awareness  of  the  problem 


on  the  part  of  professional  organizations, 
industry,  and  universities  offers  hope,  as 
witnessed  by  the  spate  of  programs  that 
have  sprung  up  to  deal  with  the  shortages. 
But  such  programs,  however  well- 
intended  and  well-funded,  are  up  against 
some  very  imposing  cultural  and  market 
forces.  In  the  end,  the  most  disturbing 
question  is  how  seriously  the  current 
dearth  of  faculty  will  curtail  the  training  of 
science  and  engineering  undergraduates. 
For  unless  an  adequate  supply  of  such  stu- 
dents gets  into  the  academic  pipeline, 
today's  shortages  will  only  grow  worse. 


AUGUST  1985       IX 


Before  cars,  the  stan- 
dard American  house  (1) 
had  a  formal  entrance — 
and  no  garage.  Early 
cars  were  messy,  smelly, 
and  topless— so 
garages,  like  the  porta- 
ble model  from  1911 
(center),  were  necessary 
but  not  pretty. 

Soon,  detached 
garages  became  more 
elaborate:  a  catalog  (2) 
from  the  1920s  features 
half-timbered,  three-car. 
and  brick  versions. 
Estate  garages  (3)  were 
as  large  as  some  homes. 
Whether  simple  or  luxu- 
rious, styles  did  not 
reflect  the  new  machine. 

But  some  architects 
began  to  think  of 
houses,  like  cars,  as 
machines  for  living  and 
to  integrate  the  two. 
Architects  like  Le  Corbu- 
sier  put  the  garage  up 
front  (6).  in  streamlined, 
seemingly  machine- 
made  houses.  In  the 
U.S.,  the  Prairie  School 
followed  suit  (7). 

Conservative  archi- 
tects were  shocked,  but 
entering  from  the  garage 
was  so  practical  that  the 
style  caught  on.  Such 
houses  (5)  often  added 
traditional  devices — a 
peaked  roof  and  an 
ornate,  if  seldom  used, 
front  door. 

Today,  such  homes 
symbolize  suburbia;  in 
fact,  when  BEST  Prod- 
ucts held  a  design  com- 
petition for  its  retail 
stores,  the  Chicago 
architects  Tigerman 
Fugman  McCurry  pro- 
posed a  larger-than-life 
house  (8).  Customers 
would  enter  through  the 
garage.  The  ultimate 
integration  may  have 
been  proposed  by  Dan 
Scully  (4).  In  "  '55— Stay- 
ing Alive,'"  a  '55  Chevy 
pickup  backs  into  the 
garage:  there  it  serves 
as  a  double  bed  and  its 
radio  as  a  stereo. 


X       ALUMNI  MAGAZINE  CONSORTIUM 


. 


Garage  War 

First  came  cars,  then  came  garages. 

But  what  kind?  In  the  1920s  architects  debated  the  issue 

furiously.  Their  battle,  says  art  historian 

Folke  T.  Kihlstedt,  is  only  one  example  of  the 

automobile's  influence  on  modern  architecture. 


By  Robert  Kanigel 

Step  inside  the  tradi- 
tional suburban 
house.  There's  the 
formal  living  room, 
and  beside  it  the  for- 
mal dining  room,  and  together 
they  make  up  about  40  percent 
of  the  first  floor.  And  nobody 
ever  uses  them.  "Oh.  maybe  to 
entertain  the  boss's  wife"  once 
in  a  while,  says  architectural 
historian  Folke  Tyko  Kihlstedt, 
but  that's  all.  For  the  most  part, 
those  formal  spaces  are  vestig- 
ial organs,  holdovers  from  an 
earlier  age  when  houses  were 
designed  for  an  orderly  and 


regular  progression  of  use  from 
the  outside  in— from  a  semi- 
public  porch  out  front,  to  a  for- 
mal front  parlor,  back  to  the 
inner,  private  recesses  of  the 
house,  where  the  family  really 
lived. 

But  then  the  automobile 
came  along  and  changed  the 
American  house  forever. 

So  says  Kihlstedt,  professor 
of  art  at  Franklin  and  Marshall 
College  and  a  student  of 
world's  fair  architecture  now  at 
work  on  a  scholarly  treatise. 


The  Wheels  of  Modernism, 
about  the  automobile's  influ- 
ence on  modern  architecture. 
It's  his  contention,  he  writes  in 
a  precis  of  the  book,  "that  the 
response  of  architects  to  the 
automobile  age  gave  direction 
to  the  development  of  Modern- 
ism and  subsequent  architec- 
tural tendencies  in  America." 

Kihlstedt  came  to  his  interest 
in  the  automobile  circuitously. 
While  struggling  to  find  a  dis- 
sertation topic  at  Northwestern 
University— he'd  previously 
considered,  and  discarded, 
such  topics  as  the  influence  of 
Art  Nouveau  on  Swedish  archi- 
tecture—he was  captivated  by 
the  daring  architecture  of  the 
Century  of  Progress  Exhibition 
at  Chicago  in  1933.  "This  was 
architecture,  yet  it  transcended 
i   architecture,"  he  says  today. 
"These  buildings  reflected 
issues  and  ideas  as  well  as 
forms."  He  had  found  his  doc- 
toral topic— "Formal  and 
Structural  Innovations  in 
American  Exposition  Architec- 
ture: 1901-1939." 

While  researching  his  thesis, 
he  was  struck  by  the  pavilions 
erected  by  the  big  automobile 
companies.  Why.  he  won- 
dered, was  all  the  best  architec- 
ture coming  from  them?  The 
curved  walls,  the  sweeping 
lines,  the  sense  of  movement 
and  power,  of  the  Chrysler 
pavilion  in  Chicago.  The  elab- 
orate dioramas  of  the  General 
Motors  pavilion  at  the  New 
York  World's  Fair  in  1939.  a 
pavilion  which  took  streams  of 
visitors  and  funneled  them  for- 
ward 30  years  into  a  world  of 
great  highways,  modernistic 
bridges,  and  sleek  skyscrapers, 
then  deposited  them  into  a  full- 
sized  Intersection  of  the  Future 
like  the  one  they'd  just  seen  in 
miniature  .  .  . 

Innovative  stuff.  Bold. 
Futuristic.  "They  were  fabu- 
lous buildings."  says  Kihlstedt. 
"They  prophesied  new  direc- 
tions." Nor  was  it  just  big 
bucks  chasing  top  architects  so 
that  of  course  the  buildings 
would  be  the  best.  Other  exhib- 
itors had  as  much  money,  hired 
equally,  if  not  more,  presti- 


AUGUST  1985       XI 


gious  architects.  Yet  beside  the 
General  Motors  and  Chrysler 
pavilions,  their  work  looked 
more  fussy,  less  powerful. 

He  concluded  that  the  auto- 
motive pavilions  were  as  dis- 
tinctive as  they  were  because 
they'd  been  designed  not  by 
architects,  with  all  their  old 
aesthetic  baggage,  but  by 
industrial  designers.  Beginning 
in  the  1920s,  this  new  breed  of 
commercial  artist  had  begun 
taking  refrigerators,  gas  sta- 
tions, cars,  and  making  them, 
well  .  .  .  seductively  beauti- 
ful: Raymond  Loewy's  treat- 
ment of  the  Coldspot  refrigera- 
tor for  Sears.  Roebuck  and  Co. 
was  said  to  have  boosted  its 
sales  ten-fold.  The  industrial 
designers,  says  Kihlstedt.  were 
the  advance  guard  for  Modern- 
ism. And  the  big  auto  compa- 
nies were  some  of  their  biggest 
customers. 

Soon  Kihlstedt  was  looking 
not  only  at  auto  company 
pavilions,  but  at  the  automo- 
bile's impact  on  modern  archi- 
tecture generally.  The  technol-    I 
ogy-mad  Italian  futurist  critics 
in  the  pre-World  War  I  period, 
he  learned,  had  seen  the  auto- 
mobile, in  his  words,  as  "the 
paradigmatic  object  of  modern    i 
technology."  its  beauty  rivaling 
that  of  the  Venus  de  Milo.  It 
was,  says  Kihlstedt.  "a  whole 
new  beauty  of  speed  and  dyna- 
mism" — an  aesthetic  to  shape 
the  20th  century. 

The  automobile's 
proliferation  in 
the  1920s 
changed  the  face 
of  the  American 
road,  littering  it  w  ith  gasoline 
stations,  diners,  motels,  drive- 
in  establishments  of  all  kinds. 
Even  early  during  this  period, 
you  could  stop  at  a  roadside 
barbecue  stand  and  get  served  a 
meal  w  ithout  ever  stepping 
from  your  car.  Shopping  cen- 
ters got  their  start  in  Los 
Angeles  in  the  late  1920s.  The 
first  drive-in  movie  theater 
appeared  in  Camden.  New  Jer- 
sey, during  the  Depression. 
Motels  first  appeared  around 
1925— evolved  in  part,  says 


Kihlstedt.  to  serve  dusty,  tired 
travelers  intimidated  by  formal 
hotels  where  the  help  were  bet- 
ter dressed  than  they  were. 
Motels  became  common  in  the 
1930s  (which  is  when  the  word 
itself  caught  on)  and  only  later, 
in  the  1950s,  did  they  become 
dominated  by  national  chains. 

For  at  first,  the  roadside  cul- 
ture amounted  to  little  more 
than  widenings  in  the  road,  dis- 
tinctly local  in  look  and  feel. 
But  by  the  1930s  a  change 
could  be  discerned— the  first 
hints  of  nationw  ide  standard- 
ization. 

The  railroad,  that  earlier 
destroyer  of  barriers  of  dis- 
tance, had  failed  to  produce 
standardization.  Through  the 
great  portals  that  were  the  vast 
central  stations,  trains  depos- 
ited travelers  into  the  city  cen- 
ter, smack  up  against  the  exist- 
ing urban  fabric.  Automobiles, 
on  the  other  hand,  left  travelers 
out  in  the  countryside— to 
many  city  slickers'  sensibili- 
ties, at  least,  in  foreign  terri- 
tory— craving  all  that  was 
clean,  efficient,  safe,  and 
familiar.  By  the  mid- 1930s,  as 
Kihlstedt  has  written,  they 
began  to  be  served,  architectur- 
ally, through  buildings  that 
functioned  "as  nationally  rec- 
ognized emblems  of  a  corpora- 
tion or  its  product  ....  early 
examples  of  the  antiregional 
and  nonindigenous  architec- 
tural forms  that  we  take  for 
granted  today." 

The  homogenization  of  the 
American  landscape  brought 
w  ith  it  a  new  aesthetic.  Back  in 
the  mid- 1920s,  the  elaborate, 
mausoleum-like  gas  stations 
erected  by  Atlantic  Refining 
Company  and  others  were 
throwbacks  to  the  Beaux  Arts 


training  of  conventional  archi- 
tects. But  as  automobile-driven 
modernism  took  hold  across 
the  country,  that  traditional, 
ornamental  look  w  as  sw  ept 
away  by  the  rounded  curves 
and  streamlining  of  industrial 
designers— their  enameled  steel 
surfaces.  Kihlstedt  suspects  his 
research  will  show,  influenced 
by  automobile  door  paneling, 
fenders,  and  hoods. 

Roadside  strips,  and  fast- 
food  establishments,  and  gas 
stations,  and  parking  garages, 
and  mobile  homes  and  motels 


and  shopping  malls— the  auto- 
mobile, of  course,  had  a  hand 
in  shaping  all  of  them.  Even  as 
established  a  form  as  the  tradi- 
tional American  house  did  not 
come  away  untouched. 

In  "The  Automobile  and 
the  Transformation  of 
the  American  House. 
19 10- 1935  ."an  essay 
which  appeared  in 
Michigan  Quarterly  Review, 
and  which  forms  the  basis  for  a 
chapter  in  his  book,  Kihlstedt 
elaborates  on  his  findings. 
Before  the  automobile,  he 
writes,  "the  front  porch  still 
functioned  as  the  buffer  zone 
between  the  privacy  of  the 
house  and  the  communality  of 
the  neighborhood.  It  was  the 
place  where  family,  friends, 
and  neighbors  communicated 
in  an  easy  and  informal  way. 
Likewise,  the  parlor  was 
always  the  front  room  of  the 
house— the  next  important  zone 
between  the  public  and  the  pri- 
vate worlds.  It  was  in  this  for- 
mal living  room  where  mem- 
bers of  the  family  met  and 
entertained  visitors  who  were 


FirfkeT  Kihl>wdi 


XII       ALUMNI  MAGAZINE  CONSORTIUM 


not  close  or  accepted  inti- 
mates." 

The  automobile  overturned 
this  neat  and  formal  sociologi- 
cal order.  Picnics  by  the  side  of 
the  road  began  to  replace  for- 
mal Sunday  afternoon  dinners. 
Aimless  weekend  drives  and 
unannounced  visits  made  for  a 
more  spontaneous  way  of  life, 
breaking  down  the  stiffness  of 
city  ways  and  replacing  it  with 
easygoing  suburban  informal- 
ity. The  very  sense  and  logic  of 
the  traditional  house  was  called 


into  question.  What  use  a 
porch?  Why  a  parlor?  And 
where  was  the  new  family  car 
to  go? 

In  the  garage,  certainly.  But 
where  should  the  garage  go? 
For  a  quarter  century,  ending 
only  in  about  1935,  architects 
debated  the  question,  the  pages 
of  the  nation's  architecture 
journals  soon  becoming  piled 
high  with  polemical  debris. 
Should  garages  be  kept  pris- 
tinely  distant  from  the  main 
house,  as  the  conservatives 


insisted?  Or  integrated  into  it, 
as  the  radicals  demanded? 

At  first,  the  garage  was  just  a 
stable  for  cars.  After  all.  your 
Model  T  was  smelly,  noisy, 
and  dirty — just  like  a  horse:  so 
keep  it  as  far  from  the  house  as 
possible,  preferably  at  the  rear 
of  the  property.  Some  early 
garages,  in  fact,  stashed  cars 
and  horses  in  adjacent  stalls. 
Garages  for  the  new  car-own- 
ing middle  class  were  often 
primitive,  prefabricated  affairs 
lacking  all  aesthetic  pretense 
and  requiring  trellises  and  veg- 
etation to  make  them  look 
respectable.  The  better-off. 
meanwhile,  could  open  up  a 
home  builders'  catalog  of  stan- 
dard plans  and  find  garages  of 
half-timbered  stucco  Tudor 
design,  tiled  roofs,  handsome 
window  treatments  .  .  .  any- 
thing they  wanted. 

However  elegant,  the  garage 
was  still  invariably  off  by 
itself.  Gradually,  though,  some 
architects  began  trying  to  inte- 
grate it  with  the  house:  Frank 
Lloyd  Wright  was  one  of  the 
first,  designing  a  house  with 
basement  garage  as  early  as 
1904.  Conservative  architects, 
however,  pointed  out  inherent 
aesthetic  problems:  How. 

onto  a  house  of  modest 

scale,   do  you  stick  a 

400- square -foot,  two-car 
structure  and  have  it  come 
out  looking  decent? 
"The  aesthetic  shock 


Sleek,  curvaceous, 
gleaming— the  automo- 
bile became  for  many 
20th-century  designers 
the  paradigm  of  beauty, 
the  Venus  de  Milo  of  its 
age.  Its  metallic  curves, 
like  those  photographed 
by  Hein  Gorny  (1), 
inspired  both  architects 
and  the  new  wave  of 
industrial  designers. 

Striking  examples  of 
automobile-influenced 
buildings  appeared  in 
world's  fair  architecture. 
For  Chicago's  Century  of 
Progress  exhibition  in 
1933,  Holabird  and  Root 
designed  a  pavilion  (cen- 
ter) whose  entrance 
lines  resembled  a  car's 
hood.  As  a  side  view  (3) 
shows,  the  towering 
walls  were  not  so  much 
structural  as  symbolic. 

At  the  1939  New  York 
World's  Fair,  the  Gene- 
ral Motors  pavilion  (4), 
coated  with  silver  auto- 
mobile paint,  had 
rounded  curves  and  a 
sense  of  motion.  The 
Chrysler  pavilion  (2)  at 
that  exhibition  had  fins 
to  suggest  motion  and 
modernism. 

A  few  private  resi- 
dences (5)  also  borrowed 
curves  and  materials 
(in  this  case,  20-gauge 
rolled  steel)  from  the  car. 


AUGUST  1985       XIII 


Early  gas  stations,  like 
this  one  in  New  England 
(1),  borrowed  local 
styles  and  materials. 
But,  by  their  nature,  gas 
stations  wanted  to  catch 
the  motorist's  eye.  One 
way  was  to  borrow  from 
history:  an  "English 
country  cottage"  (2)  in 
Waupun,  Wise,  and  a 
monumental  station 
(center),  part  of  a  series 
Atlantic  Refining  Co. 
commissioned. 

Another  way  to  get 
attention  was  to  empha- 
size the  logo.  Shell  built 
shell-shaped  stations 
(3)  and  commissioned  a 
building  (5  and  6)  that 
was  illuminated  at  night. 
For  Texaco's  building  at 
the  1937  Dallas  Exposi- 
tion, W.D.  Teague  made 
the  logo  a  focal  point  (7); 
the  same  star  graced 
Texaco  stations  (8). 

Today  the  building  is 
less  important  than  the 
sign,  a  move  presaged 
by  Bertrand  Goldberg's 
1938  station  (4)  in  Chi- 
cago. 


of  large,  blank  doors,"  as 
Kihlstedt  writes,  was  the  stick- 
ing point.  One  architect,  Hed- 
ley  V.  Sevaldsen,  pronounced 
the  integrated  garage,  with  its 
massive  doors  squarely  facing 
the  street,  an  aesthetic  abomi- 
nation on  a  par  with  that  "other 
pestilence,  jazz-music,"  and  he 
bemoaned  its  enthronement  as 
"modern". 

Modernism,  as  a  movement, 
had  come  in  with  the  influential 
Swiss  architect  Le  Corbusier. 
In  his  1923  treatise,  Towards  a 
New  Architecture,  Le  Corbu- 
sier proclaimed  that  a  house  is 
"a  machine  for  living  in,"  and 
that  the  machine  age  justified 
rejection  of  past  aesthetic 
dogma.  The  theoretical  basis 
for  integration  of  the  garage 
and  the  house  was  thus  laid.  Le 
Corbusier's  own  Villa  Stein 
was,  as  Kihlstedt  writes,  "a 


perfect  model."  Built  in  1927, 
its  garage-dominated  facade  is 
virtually  indistinguishable  from 
designs  of  half  a  century  later. 
"By  mid- 1930,"  writes 
Kihlstedt,  concluding  his 
account  of  the  Great  Garage 
War,  "progressive-minded 
architects  were  designing 
houses  for  clients  of  all  social 
levels  with  integrated  garages, 
which  they  made  no  attempt  to 
conceal.  Conservative  archi- 
tects such  as  Sevaldsen  had  lost 
their  battle."  And  today's  sub- 
urban house  had  gained  a  key 
marker  of  its  identity.  "For 
better  or  worse,  an  old  way  of 
life,  represented  by  the  deep 
front  porch  and  the  parlor,  had 
succumbed"  to  the  implacable 
forces  of  the  motor  age. 

For  better  or  worse: 
Kihlstedt  doesn't  indicate 
which  he  thinks  it  is.  "I  have 


trouble  making  value  judg- 
ments about  historical  develop- 
ments," he  says.  The  cultural 
setting  from  which  the  automo- 
bile sprang  so  differs  from 
today  that  it  is  hard  to  balance 
losses  versus  gains.  He  will 
say,  though,  that  "I  don't  think 
we  can  try  to  nostalgically 
recover  the  visual  appeal  of  the 
past.  I  don't  want  to  make  Wil- 
liamsburgs  all  over  America. 
One  is  enough." 

And  yet,  he  notes,  traces  of 
that  pre-automobile  past  still 
linger  in  American  housing. 
For  example,  people  today 
don't  much  use  the  front  door, 
preferring  to  enter  instead 
through  the  garage.  Still,  a  for- 
mal Front  Door,  complete  with 
heavy,  brass  knocker  and  over- 
the-transom  eagle,  graces 


Hcdnch  BIcsMnp 


XIV       ALUMNI  MAGAZINE  CONSORTIUM 


many  a  suburban  house.  Why, 
he's  asked,  does  it  linger?  An 
atavistic  impulse,  perhaps,  the 
rock  at  the  mouth  of  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Neanderthal's  cave? 

No,  Kihlstedt  replies,  he 
doesn't  think  so.  "People  gen- 
erally have  little  architectural 
thoughtfulness,"  he  says. 
"They  don't  feel  much  about 
their  architectural  spaces.  .  .  ." 
He  does,  however,  find  a  paral 


lei  for  suburbia's  eagle— in 
19th-century  England. 

The  Industrial  Revolution 
thrust  the  English  countryside 
into  turmoil.  Giant  mills 
replaced  cottage  industries. 
The  iron  regimen  of  the  factory 
left  workers  with  diminished 
control  over  their  lives.  It  was 
this  setting,  says  Kihlstedt,  that 
nurtured  the  Gothic  Revival, 
that  flowering  of  interest  in  the 
medieval  past  championed  by 
critic  John  Ruskin.  To  Ruskin, 
says  Kihlstedt,  the  Industrial 
Revolution  meant  "social  dis- 
ruption on  a  mass  scale  that  led 
to  degradation  of  taste  and  ulti- 
mately to  moral  decline."  The 
Gothic  Revival  expressed  a 
yearning  for  a  vanished,  more 
holistic  past. 

Kihlstedt  sees  similar  forces 
at  work  in  vestigial  forms  still 
seen  in  suburban  tract  housing. 
"Maybe  society  wants  the 
house  to  be  a  refuge  from  the 


fast-paced,  busy  world  out- 
side," with  moldings  and  shut- 
ters and  eagles  and  the  rest  pre- 
sumably recreating  the  past. 

"Of  course,"  says  the  profes- 
sor, "I  don't  think  it  really 
works." 

Kihlstedt,  while 
eclectic  in  his 
stylistic  orienta- 
tion, admits  to 
being  heavily 
influenced  by  Robert  Venturi, 
the  maverick  architectural  the- 
orist of  distinctly  post-modern- 
ist bent.  (Like  Venturi 's,  his 
research  has  been  supported  by 
a  grant  from  the  Graham  Foun- 
dation for  Advanced  Study  of 
the  Visual  Arts.)  Venturi,  best 
known  for  his  book  Learning 
from  Las  Vegas,  argues  that 
architects  have  much  to  learn 
from  vernacular  forms  that 
may  seem  superficially 
"ugly"— such  as,  for  example, 
Las  Vegas  strip  development. 
The  strip  has  become  part  of 
the  architectural  vocabulary, 
Kihlstedt  sees  Venturi  as  say- 
ing. You  can't  get  away  from 
it.  It's  there,  everywhere.  So 
learn  from  it.  Respond  to  your 
culture's  vernacular  forms. 

For  Kihlstedt,  one  such  ver- 
nacular form,  truly  indigenous 
to  America,  is  the  mobile 


Visitors  to  the  1 939  New 
York  World's  Fair  loved 
the  General  Motors  pa- 
vilion and  its  Intersec- 
tion of  the  Future  (1), 
designed  by  Norman  Bel 
Geddes. 

In  those  days  before 
traffic  jams  and  exhaust 
fumes,  architects  proph- 
esied structures  to  mesh 
roads  and  buildings: 
Raymond  Hood  hypothe- 
sized a  Manhattan  bridge 
with  apartments  (cen- 
ter), Charles  Morgan  a 
skyscraper  bridge  for 
Chicago  (2).  For  Algiers, 
Le  Corbusier  proposed  a 
horizontal  skyscraper 
(3).  It  had  a  high-speed 
road  on  top,  homes  and 
shopping  below. 

Integration  of  roads 
and  building  became 
reality  in  the  Connecti- 
cut headquarters  of 
Union  Carbide  (4), 
designed  by  Kevin 
Roche  John  Dinkeloo 
and  Associates.  A 
worker  drives  into  the 
building  (parking  is  in  its 
center)  and  gets  out  on 
the  level  nearest  his 
office. 

home.  Back  in  the  1930s, 
futurists  had  embraced  the 
notion  of  prefabricated  hous- 
ing. Low-cost,  factory-made 
homes  were  "just  around  the 
corner,"  one  of  their  champions 
predicted  in  1936.  "It  won't  be 
long  now  before  houses  will  be 
punched,  pounded  and  pressed 
out  at  factories  precisely  as 
Henry  Ford  ground  out  the 
Model  T— millions  of  'em." 


AUGUST  1985       XV 


While  machine-made  prefab 
homes  didn't  immediately 
catch  the  American  imagina- 
tion, mobile  homes  did.  Over 
the  years,  they  were  developed 
and  expanded,  influencing 
today's  prefab  housing. 

Kihlstedt  sees  in  the  mobile 
home  much  more  than  its 
superficial  charmlessness.  For 
him,  it  is  the  first  example  of 
plug-in  architecture:  the 
mobile-home  owner  need  only 
drive  in  to  the  trailer  park  and 
plug  it  in  for  access  to  water 
and  utilities.  In  this  respect,  the 
mobile  home  presages  such 
bold  projects  as  Moshe  Safdie's 
Habitat,  designed  for  Expo  67 
i  in  Montreal,  and  built  up  from 


Almost  from  the  begin- 
ning, attachments 
turned  cars  into  beds  (1). 
In  the  1920s,  an  Omaha 
lumber  merchant  adver- 
tised with  a  "house  on 
wheels"  (2). 

Today  Skyline  Homes 
(center)  is  the  leading 
U.S.  seller  of  homes, 
and  mobile  homes  are 
harder  to  distinguish  from 
conventional  housing  (4). 

Architects  quickly 
adapted  the  concepts 
behind  mobile  or  modu- 
lar housing— machine 
production,  take-apart 
assembly.  Frank  Lloyd 
Wright  designed  a 
mobile  home  (5)  far 
removed  from  the  stere- 
otype. Paul  Rudolph 
used  it  as  the  basis  for 
the  Masonic  Oriental 
Gardens  (3),  low-cost 
housing  in  Connecticut, 
and  for  his  proposed 
Graphic  Arts  Center  (6). 

For  Montreal's  Habitat 
'67,  Moshe  Safdie  re- 
placed the  mobile  home 
with  concrete  blocks  (7). 


70-ton  reinforced  concrete 
modules,  each  with  its  own 
garden,  each  with  substantial 
air.  light,  and  privacy.  Indeed, 
in  how  it  serves,  at  least  con- 
ceptually, as  building  block  for 
larger  structures,  architect  Paul 
Rudolph  has  dubbed  the  mobile 
home  "the  twentieth  century 
brick." 

Rudolph's  proposed  Graphic 
Arts  Center  for  lower  Manhat- 
tan, Kihlstedt  writes,  grows 
"like  a  coral  reef."  The 
project,  comprising  more  than 
4,000  dwelling  units  along 
with  industrial,  commercial, 
and  office  space,  appears 
"composed  through  a  process 
of  accretion  .  .  .  infinitely 
extensible  by  merely  'plugging 
in'  more  units."  Yet  being 
asymmetrical  anyway,  it 
remains  always  a  visual  whole. 

Such  a  structure  possesses 
a  different  kind  of  beauty, 
Kihlstedt  warns,  one  far 
distant  indeed  from  the  Renais- 
sance ideal  of  a  harmony  of 
design  so  perfect  that  nothing 
can  be  taken  from  or  added  to 
it  without  destroying  it.  He 
calls  the  aesthetic  embodied  in 
Rudolph's  project  an  "aesthetic 
of  indeterminacy." 

In  such  an  aesthetic,  no 
longer  is  the  individual  dwell- 
ing unit  the  object  of  the  archi- 
tect's creativity  and  loving 
attention,  but  rather  the  larger, 
organic  whole,  built  up  from 
an  endless,  indeterminate  num- 
ber of  modules— the  trailer 
park  splayed  out  in  three- 
dimensional  space.  No  more 
the  set  proportions  of  a  Greek 
temple,  or  the  cool,  controlled 
elegance  of  a  Mies  van  der 
Rohe  high  rise.  No,  this  new 
architecture,  Kihlstedt  writes, 
"embodies  concepts  of  growth 
and  change,"  functioning 
almost  organically,  as  a  repeti- 
tion of  fixed  units,  piling  atop 
one  another,  growing,  with  no 
end  point,  multiplying,  like 
cells  in  a  culture  dish— 

Or  like  automobiles  across 
America. 

Robert  Kanigel  lives  in  a 
Baltimore  rowhouse  with  a 
front  porch  and  no  garage. 


XVI       ALUMNI  MAGAZINE  CONSORTIUM 


The  Major  Qualifying  Project  (MQP) 
and  the  Interactive  Qualifying  Project 
(IQP),  two  of  four  degree  requirements 
at  the  Institute,  are  for  undergraduates 
often  the  most  distinctive,  the  most 
demanding  and  the  most  rewarding  ele- 
ments of  their  WPI  experience.  They 


challenge  students  to  use  what  they 
learn  to  solve  real  problems  with  the 
kinds  of  real  deadlines,  budgets  and 
accountability  they  will  face  in  the  pro- 
fessional world.  Projects  address  prob- 
lems in  students'  major  fields— the 
MQP— and  in  areas  that  define  the 


interaction  between  science/technology 
and  societal  needs— the  IQP. 

Dan  Laprade's  following  accounts  of 
student  projects  appeared  earlier  this 
year  in  Xewspeak,  the  student  newspa- 
per of  WPI.  A  civil  engineering  major 
at  WPI.  Dan  is  from  Holyoke,  MA. 


PROJECT  UPDATE 


SECOND  IN  A  SERES 

By  Daniel  Laprade  '85 


Studying  Storm 

Runoff  Settling 

Basins 


Whenever  land  is  to  be  developed,  the 
environmental  impact  of  the  proposed 
project  must  be  addressed.  In  Worcester. 
for  example,  the  Massachusetts  Biomedi- 
cal Research  Park,  to  be  built  on  the 
western  shore  of  Lake  Quinsigamond.  is 
gaining  the  attention  of  engineers,  envi- 
ronmentalists and  the  public  alike.  One  of 
the  most  interested  parties  in  these  pro- 
ceedings has  been  civil  engineering  senior 
Virginia  Roach,  of  Worcester. 

Stirred  by  public  concern  as  well  as  her 
own  career  interests,  the  WPI  student 
approached  the  planners  of  the  Biotechnol- 
ogy Park.  Sasaki  Associates  of  Water- 
town,  MA. 

Sasaki  Associates  felt  they  could  use 
Roach's  background  in  environmental 
engineering  to  study  a  vital  aspect  of  pol- 
lution—site runoff.  So  she  designed  her 


Major  Qualifying  Project  (MQP)  around 
four  preliminary  tasks:  assessing  site-run- 
off characteristics,  analyzing  site  soils, 
studying  the  literature  on  runoff  settling 
basins,  and  suggesting  design  consider- 
ations for  settling  basins  on  site. 

Roach,  with  CE  Professor  Fred  L.  Han 
as  her  project  advisor,  started  collecting 
runoff  samples  from  the  site  in  the  spring 
of  1984.  Although  her  sponsors  required 
data  after  only  one  heavy  rainfall,  testing 
the  runoff  required  that  she  be  at  the  site 
within  ten  minutes  of  substantial  rainfall. 
Once  there  she  had  to  gather  the  samples 
from  three  different  points.  After  securing 
the  samples  she  was  faced  with  days  of 
tedious  lab  work. 

Each  sample  was  to  be  tested  for  pH. 
turbidity,  bacteria.  BOD-COD.  nitrogen, 
oil,  grease,  phosphates,  sulphates,  sus- 
pended solids,  and  total  solids.  It  was  not 
until  after  the  third  rainfall  that  her  persis- 
tence was  rewarded  with  promising  data. 

Next,  after  analyzing  soil  samples  for 
erosion  characteristics,  she  examined  the 
possible  use  of  sedimentation  pools  at  the 
site.  These  devices,  as  Roach  explains,  are 
used  to  settle  out  particulate  matter — and 


the  phosphorous,  heavy  metals  and  hydro- 
carbons attached  to  it— in  the  runoff  before 
it  is  discharged  into  a  receiving  water 
body.  Aside  from  their  settling  applica- 
tions, pools  aid  in  flood  control  by  retain- 
ing initially  heavy  storm  runoff  and  allow- 
ing it  to  flow  more  slowly  into  a  river  or 
lake. 

Examples  of  such  basins  can  be  seen 
along  Route  1-190  north  of  Worcester. 
These  settling  basins  are  intended  to  cut 
down  on  road-salt  runoff,  but.  says  Roach, 
maintenance  has  been  neglected,  and  the 
basins  no  longer  operate  efficiently. 

As  she  points  out.  "Pollution  is  nor- 
mally greatest  in  small,  frequent  floods, 
and  that  is  what  the  basin  designers  usually 
have  in  mind.  However,  when  a  big  flood 
comes  along  these  small  basins  don't  do  a 
good  job  in  flood  or  pollution  control 
because  water  just  flushes  through  them." 
In  her  report,  she  will  suggest  a  design  that 
serves  a  dual  purpose  by  having  large  set- 
tling pools  with  varying  outlets  so  both 
conditions  can  be  met. 

Much  of  Roach's  laboratory  data  is 
being  included  in  the  environmental- 
impact  statement  prepared  by  Sasaki  Asso- 


AUGUST  1985       39 


ciates.  Her  findings  will  help  the  company 
provide  for  a  design  safety  factor  in  one  of 
Worcester's  most  talked-about  develop- 
ments. 


Robotics: 
Friend  or  Foe? 


People  sometimes  find  that  buried  beneath 
the  excitement  of  technological  progress 
are  anxieties  and  fears  over  the  advancing 
wizardry  of  science.  Many  shudder  as  we 
approach  a  "Star  Wars"  era,  while  others 
fear  losing  their  jobs  to  the  rapidly  expand- 
ing use  and  sophistication  of  robotics  and 
flexible  automation. 

Industrial  robots  tend  to  be  a  great  deal 
more  efficient  and  reliable  than  people  in 
some  jobs,  say  many  experts.  It's  the 
intrigue  of  the  issues  surrounding  robotics 
that  has  gotten  Susanne  Firla  ('86, 
Needham,  MA)  and  Cheryl  Ann  Fay  ('86, 
Framingham,  MA)  to  select  robots  as 
the  topic  of  their  Interactive  Qualifying 
Project  (IQP). 

For  the  most  part,  says  Fay,  America's 
blue-collar  workers  in,  for  example, 
assembly  or  inspection,  fear  robotics 
most.  But  if  you're  a  manager,  Firla  con- 
tinues, you  are  also  interested  in  produc- 
tivity and  economies  of  scale— just  the 
kinds  of  things  robots  are  very  good  at 
improving.  "There's  no  doubt  that 
robotics  brings  with  it  lots  of  trade-offs," 
she  says.  "What's  got  to  be  done  is  to 
maximize  the  benefits  and  minimize  the 
drawbacks." 

Firla  and  Fay  have  sorted  through  stacks 
of  literature  on  the  topic,  everything  from 
sensationalized  magazine  stories  to  the 
reams  of  data  generated  by  the  U.S. 
Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics.  What  they 
have  found  is  that  no  one  source  has  been 
able  to  juxtapose  both  sides  of  the  issue  for 
rational  analysis.  Some  studies  are  done 
by  interviewing  people  whose  jobs  are  at 
stake,  while  others  simply  reinforce  the 
benefits  of  robotics.  The  task  of  the  two 
women  has  been  to  try  to  read  through  the 
bias  and  to  draw  a  clearer  picture. 

While  the  fate  of  robotics  in  the  United 
States  remains  uncertain,  the  situation 
abroad— particularly  in  Japan— is  often 
altogether  different.  In  that  country,  robots 
are  being  used  on  a  much  larger  scale. 
Several  factors  contribute  to  the  Japanese 
dominance,  says  Fay:  less  unemployment 
than  in  the  U.S.,  strong  financial  backing 
by  the  government  to  help  implement 
robotics  technologies,  and  the  fact  that 


Japanese  workers  are  trained  in  several 
different  skill  areas,  letting  them  move 
into  new  positions  much  more  easily. 

"Today,"  says  Fay,  "there  are  only 
about  5,000  robots  in  use  in  the  U.S.  Nor- 
mally, they  are  extremely  expensive,  and 
often  the  time  and  money  spent  buying 
them,  installing  them,  and  programming 
them  simply  isn't  worth  the  change." 

One  aspect  of  the  robotics  evolution, 


rather  than  revolution,  has  become  clearer 
to  the  two  women.  "A  slower,  more  delib- 
erate increase  in  the  use  of  robotics,  which 
won't  displace  hundreds  of  thousands  of 
workers,  as  so  many  had  feared,  is  more 
likely  to  occur,"  Firla  contends.  "There  is 
evidence  that  the  new  jobs  for  technicians 
and  servicers  will  mean  that  all  but  10  per- 
cent of  affected  workers  will  be  retained 
and  relocated." 


Hands  in  Space  (Almost) 

Nine  WPI  students  traveled  to  Washington,  DC,  in  May  to  present  their  design  for  a  new 
space  glove  and  almost  came  home  with  the  brass  ring.  Armed  with  videotapes  and  an 
actual  prototype  of  the  glove,  the  students  defended  their  design  before  a  crowd  of  about 
70  NASA  officials,  contractors,  scientists  and  engineers.  And  while  they  didn  't  win 
(Kansas  State  University  did),  by  all  accounts  they  finished  a  close  second. 

"The  presentation  was  just  superb,"  said  ME  Professor  William  R.  Durgin,  who  over- 
saw the  project.  "The  contractors  who  are  developing  gloves  for  NASA  spent  a  lot  of 
time  examining  our  design. " 

In  fact,  the  quality  of  the  presentations  was  such  that  the  grand  prize — a  VIP  trip  to 
Cape  Kennedy  to  witness  a  shuttle  launch— was  awarded  to  students  from  all  four 
schools  (the  other  two  being  MIT  and  Oklahoma  State  University). 

The  intent  of  the  national  competition,  sponsored  by  NASA  and  administered  by  the 
American  Association  for  Engineering  Education,  was  to  provide  NASA  with  fresh 
ideas.  Students  were  asked  to  design  a  glove  that  could  withstand  a  pressure  load  of  8 
pounds  per  square  inch  (psi) ,  yet  still  be  flexible  enough  to  allow  astronauts  to  perform 
complex  tasks.  The  current  glove  works  only  at  4  psi,  and  while  that 's  fine  for  now, 
NASA  will  need  the  sturdier  model  when  it  starts  constructing  space  stations  in  the  early 
1990s. 

Although  the  competition  is  over,  WPI's  ties  with  NASA  remain  strong.  Durgin,  who 
heads  the  aeronautical  engineering  section  of  the  ME  Department,  is  in  close  touch  with 
officials  at  the  Johnson  Space  Center  in  Houston,  where  research  on  new  space  suit 
design  continues. 

Meanwhile,  the  first  canister  of  WPI /MITRE  Corporation  space  shuttle  projects  has 
been  shipped  to  Cape  Kennedy,  where  the  projects  are  currently  undergoing  safety  test- 
ing by  NASA  in  preparation  for  a  1986  shuttle  flight.  A  second  group  of  projects  is  now 
being  sketched  out. 

Above,  Edward  L.  Ryan,  '85,  Alexandria,  VA,  looks  on  as  Michael  A.  Mongilio,  '85, 
Oxford,  MA,  runs  the  WPI-designed  space  glove  through  a  battery  of  flexibility  tests. 
The  special  chamber,  which  simulates  a  high-pressure  atmosphere,  was  constructed  as 
part  of  the  project.  —Michael  Shanley 


40       WPI  JOURNAL 


Blowin' 
in  the  Wind 


Recently,  three  senior  civil  engineering 
students,  Gary  Smith  (Natick,  MA), 
David  LaBranche  (Newmarket,  NH)  and 
Jonathan  Kaplan  (Charlotte,  VT),  each 
with  a  great  interest  in  architecture, 
embarked  on  a  project  to  better  understand 
the  nature  of  wind  and  its  effect  on  build- 
ing design. 

"Many  investigators,"  says  Smith,  "are 
looking  at  how  buildings  bend  and  deform 
in  the  wind  and  the  effects  of  eddies  on  the 
backside  of  buildings.  What  our  MQP 
does  is  to  see  what  happens  at  the  base  of 
the  structure  when  wind  works  on  the 
upper  stories." 

The  team  was  faced  with  trying  to  simu- 
late real  wind  situations  in  a  long  but  nar- 
row three-foot-square  wind  tunnel  at 
WPI's  Alden  Research  Laboratory. 

Dave  LaBranche  explains:  "You  can't 
just  stick  a  scaled-down  building  in  the 
tunnel  and  flip  on  the  fan  and  measure 
what  happens,  because  that's  not  how  it 
works  in  the  real  world.  In  an  actual  set- 
ting, the  turbulent  characteristics  of  the 
wind  are  important,  and  big  gusts  create 
very  interesting  effects." 

"We  were  at  Alden  at  least  10  hours  a 
week,"  says  Kaplan,  "and  it  wasn't 
research  you  can  work  on  for  just  a  couple 
of  hours  at  a  time.  Once  you  start,  you 
stay." 

After  a  thorough  literature  search,  the 
group  was  able  to  use  well-known  physical 
laws  to  establish  the  best  possible  velocity 
profile.  Next,  they  created  the  base  struc- 


ture that  measures  the  forces  caused  by  the 
simulated  wind.  The  team  decided  to  con- 
struct two  of  the  base  units,  known  as  the 
"force  balances,"  because  they  wanted  to 
measure  torsion  as  well  as  forces  in  the  x 
and  y  directions,  a  task  which  they  felt 
would  be  too  complicated  for  one  force 
balance  alone  to  do. 

Once  they  had  attained  the  proper  wind 
simulations,  scale  models  were  placed  on 
the  force  balance.  Strain  measuring 
devices  were  attached  to  the  base  to  mea- 
sure the  effect  of  the  wind.  Unfortunately, 
the  metal  force  balance  was  too  thick,  and 
the  minute  deformations  could  not  be  mea- 
sured accurately  by  the  gauges.  They 
chose  to  cut  pieces  off  their  force  balance 
to  stimulate  gaugeable  strain  data. 

The  group  emphasizes  that  the  real 
value  of  their  work  was  not  really  the  mea- 
sured strain  values  they  obtained  but  rather 
the  analyzing  techniques  they  have  estab- 
lished during  their  project.  A  great  deal  of 
work  went  into  getting  the  whole  appa- 
ratus set  up  correctly  and  functioning. 

Says  LaBranche:  "The  tunnel  is  pretty 
complicated.  Now  we  realize  it's  going  to 
take  another  project  team  to  actually  col- 
lect the  data  needed  to  complete  this 
research." 


Music  by  the 
Numbers 


On  almost  any  day  last  spring  you  could 
walk  by  the  windows  of  Room  109  in 
Atwater  Kent  and  see  computer  science 
student  Richard  Caloggero  of  Medford, 


At  Alden  Research  Laboratory,  seniors  Gary  Smith  (left)  and  David  LaBranch  prepare  a 
wind  tunnel  as  part  of  their  MQP  on  the  effects  of  wind  on  buildings. 


MA,  hard  at  work  on  his  MQR  He  insists 
that  he's  behind  schedule,  but  it's  hard  to 
believe,  watching  him  crouched  intently 
over  his  computer  terminal.  Caloggero 's 
project  is  fascinating  in  its  own  right,  but 
this  MQP  has  a  unique  feature:  Caloggero 
is  blind. 

Professor  Mark  Ohlson  (CS)  is  the  advi- 
sor of  the  project,  entitled  "Digital  Sound 
Recording  and  Synthesis."  As  Caloggero 
explains,  his  work  is  centered  on  under- 
standing and  experimenting  with  the  soft- 
ware realm  of  digital  sound. 

He  confesses  that  much  of  his  work  is 
not  theoretically  very  innovative.  Digital 
recording  systems  were  introduced  to  the 
commercial  market  some  time  ago,  and 
their  use  is  spreading  rapidly.  Perhaps  the 
best  known  applications  are  digitally 
recorded  discs  and  disc  players. 

Caloggero  envisions  possibilities 
beyond  the  recording  uses  of  digital 
sound.  "Right  now,"  he  explains,  "what 
my  work  has  accomplished  has  been  syn- 
onymous with  having  a  singer  sing  into  a 
microphone,  recording  the  sound  digitally 
and  then  being  able  to  reproduce  the  sound 
exactly— even  on  an  instrument.  In  the 
future  I'd  like  to  be  able  to  create  the 
waveforms  without  use  of  a  microphone. 
That's  where  the  challenge  lies." 

But  how  does  the  computer  fit  into  the 
scheme?  Caloggero  clarifies  it  this  way: 
"All  the  electronic  pieces  are  in  the 
machinery:  the  resistors,  capacitors, 
chips,  wires,  etc.  They  are  collecting, 
converting  and  transporting  the  sound,  but 
there's  got  to  be  a  brain  telling  the  compo- 
nents how  and  when  to  work.  The  pro- 
gramming becomes  the  intelligence  sys- 
tem. The  computer  tells  all  the  circuitry 
when  to  work  and  what  to  do  with  the  data 
it  works  on.  Changing  the  commands  in 
the  program  has  the  power  to  alter  the  per- 
formance." 

Because  of  his  blindness,  Caloggero  has 
a  unique  computer  terminal  on  loan  from 
the  Massachusetts  Commission  for  the 
Blind.  When  asked  how  he  managed  to 
keep  track  of  everything  he  has  pro- 
grammed, he  shrugs  off  the  apparent  diffi- 
culties by  revealing  that  he  has  a  firm 
knowledge  of  where  everything  is  entered 
in  the  computer. 

Although  the  project  hasn't  carried 
Caloggero  into  unexplored  regions  of  digi- 
tal recording,  he  concedes  that  it  has  been 
a  tremendous  learning  experience.  He  has 
been  able  to  grasp  many  aspects  of  this  up- 
and-coming  technology  and,  as  he  points 
out,  "I've  always  been  excited  about  this 
kind  of  work;  so  for  me,  it's  been  a  great 
project." 


AUGUST  1985       41 


New  Answers 
to  an 

Old  Puzzle 


By  Kenneth  McDonnell 


42       WPI  JOURNAL 


The  research  of 
Physics  Professor 
Michael  Klein  is 
shedding  a  clearer 
light  on  old  friends 
glass  and  ceramics. 


Wrhat  are  glasses,  or  ceramics— or 
more  formally,  amorphous  materi- 
als—doing for  us  these  days? 

They  are  being  used,  according  to  Phys- 
ics Professor  Michael  W.  Klein,  for  rotat- 
ing parts,  such  as  turbochargers,  in  auto- 
mobile engines  to  help  withstand  higher 
temperatures  than  ever  before.  Their  den- 
sities, he  notes,  are  much  lower  than  steel, 
the  conventional  material  for  these  compo- 
nents, resulting  in  less  tension  in  the  rotat- 
ing parts. 

Elsewhere,  other  glasses  play  a  vital 
role  in  making  the  best  integrated  circuits. 
They  are  used  to  generate  electricity  for 
calculators  using  solar  energy.  They  can 
increase  the  hardness  of  grinding  wheels 
by  an  appreciable  factor.  And  researchers 
believe  that,  compared  with  crystalline 
solids,  glasses  are  much  better  suited  for 
use  in  space  when  a  spacecraft  is  exposed 
to  large  amounts  of  radiation. 

The  list  of  current  and  potential  applica- 
tions for  amorphous  materials  goes  on  and 
on.  As  it  grows  longer,  more  and  more 
physicists  are  turning  their  attention  to 
these  exotic  materials  in  order  to  under- 
stand their  fundamental  properties,  thus 
leading,  it  is  hoped,  to  an  ever  widening 
range  of  uses. 

Klein  is  an  expert  on  amorphous  materi- 
als. The  research  he  has  been  conducting 
for  the  past  five  years  is  making  a  real 
contribution  to  understanding  these  fields. 

Klein  is  a  theoretical— as  compared  with 
an  experimental— physicist.  He  has  no 
laboratory,  save  for  a  blackboard  in  his 
office,  a  computer  and  the  laboratory  of 
his  mind.  He  says  that  the  understanding 
of  amorphous  materials  is  today  on  about 
the  same  level  as  the  understanding  of 
non-amorphous,  or  crystalline,  solids  was 
50  to  60  years  ago.  It  was  the  fundamental 
research  on  these  crystalline  solids  (also 
called  ordered  solids)  that  has  resulted  in 
many  of  the  great  technological  advances 
we  are  experiencing  now. 

The  American  Nobel  Laureate  John 
Bardeen,  for  example,  is  one  of  the  best- 
known  solids  researchers.  Bardeen  worked 


for  many  many  years  on  understanding 
semiconducting  solids— with  no  guarantee 
of  a  payoff.  But  it  was  this  work  that  cul- 
minated in  the  invention  of  the  transistor, 
without  which  the  great  advances  in  mod- 
em computers,  in  communications  and  in 
scientific  instrumentation  would  have  been 
impossible. 

In  order  to  understand  what  amorphous 
materials  are,  a  brief  review  of  non-amor- 
phous, ordered  solids  may  help. 

Today,  the  study  of  ordered  materials  is 
well  understood  by  physicists  and  occu- 
pies entire  chapters  in  textbooks  on  solid 
state  physics,  the  branch  of  physics  con- 
cerned with  the  study  of  solids.  But  60 
years  ago,  very  little  was  known  about 
ordered  materials.  Then,  in  the  1930s 
Felix  Bloch,  Frederick  Seitz  and  others 
introduced  remarkably  simple  principles 
for  solving  problems  involving  a  very 
large  number  of  atoms  which  have  peri- 
odic, or  repetitive,  structures.  It  is  this 
repetitive  nature  which  helped  the  physi- 
cists reach  a  fundamental  understanding  of 
these  materials  and  unlocked  their  techno- 
logical potential.  As  we'll  see  later,  it  is 
the  absence  of  periodicity  which  makes  the 
study  of  amorphous  materials  so  very  dif- 
ficult. 

But  first,  it  will  be  useful  to  understand 
better  what  periodic  structures  are.  Con- 
sider an  array  of  points,  or  atoms,  placed 
on  an  infinite  plane.  Each  point  is  exactly 
equidistant  from  the  other,  as  shown  in 
Figure  1.  Now,  place  yourself  on  one  of 
these  atoms.  In  whichever  direction  you 
look,  you  will  see  an  endless  row  of 
atoms.  Now  move  yourself  over,  or  dis- 
place yourself,  by  an  atomic  distance  d  in 
the  x  or  y  direction.  You  are  now  at 
another  atomic  site;  but  again  if  you  look 
around  yourself,  the  array  of  atoms  looks 
exactly  the  same  as  it  did  before.  Conse- 
quently, in  the  language  of  physics,  you 
displace  yourself  by  a  fixed  distance  and 
your  new  view  of  things  is  exactly  as  it 
was  before.  The  structure  is  said  to  be 
periodic,  or  ordered,  or  repetitive.  This  is 
a  convenient  designation,  because  every 
time  you  displace  yourself  by  an  integer 
multiple  of  d,  you  again  land  on  an  atom 
from  which  you'll  see  the  structure,  or 
environment,  precisely  as  you  did  before. 
"It  is  this  periodic  nature  of  the  crystals 
which  makes  the  mathematical  solutions 
for  ordered  solids  easy,"  says  Klein. 

How,  then,  do  amorphous,  or  non- 
ordered,  solids,  differ  from  ordered 
solids?  Consider  Figure  2.  The  atoms  in 
an  amorphous  solid  are  positioned  ran- 
domly, and  no  fixed  distance  exists 
between  the  atoms.   This  characteristic 


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Figure  1.  Periodic,  or  ordered,  structure. 
The  atoms,  shown  as  circles,  are  placed  at 
a  distance  dfrom  each  other.  Every  time 
we  move  up  or  to  the  right  by  a  distance  d, 
we  see  exactly  the  same  surrounding  or 
environment  as  before. 

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Figure  2.  Nonperiodic,  or  amorphous, 
structure.  The  atoms  are  placed  in  ran- 
dom positions  and  the  distance  between 
them  is  no  longer  d. 

alone,  says  Klein,  prevents  use  of  the 
powerful  mathematical  techniques  scien- 
tists can  employ  to  solve  problems  of  peri- 
odic structures.  And  rightly  so,  he  adds, 
because  nonperiodicity  brings  new  physi- 
cal phenomena  into  the  picture.  In  short, 
amorphous  materials  have  completely  dif- 
ferent physical  characteristics  from  their 
ordered  counterparts. 

For  physicists  to  study  non-ordered 
materials,  Klein  explains,  they  must  "ide- 
alize" the  problem.  "In  this  case,"  he 
says,  "one  would  ideally  like  to  separate 
out  the  effects  which  arise  because  of  the 
unordered  nature  of  the  glassy  solid  from 
all  other  effects  which  are  occurring."  One 
way  to  accomplish  this  is  to  cool  the  solid 
sufficiently  so  as  to  freeze  out  the  usual 
temperature-dependent  properties  of  crys- 
talline solids.  This  technique  was  first 
developed  in  experiments  of  the  early 
1970s,  which  uncovered  the  special  prop- 
erties of  amorphous  materials. 

It  has  been  a  real  surprise  to  physicists 
that,   at  these   very   low  temperatures, 


AUGUST  1985       43 


amorphous  materials  exhibit  a  large  low- 
temperature  specific  heat  which  is  propor- 
tional to  the  temperature,  and  a  thermal 
conductivity  proportional  to  the  square  of 
the  temperature.  In  addition,  anomalous 
results  show  up  in  the  way  amorphous 
materials  absorb  sound  waves  and  how 
they  respond  to  an  electric  field,  a  property 
known  as  the  dielectric  constant. 

What  is  even  more  surprising,  says 
Klein,  is  that  these  characteristics  are  com- 
mon to  most  amorphous  materials. 

"Clearly,"  he  adds,  "these  universal 
characteristics,  which  show  up  regardless 
of  the  substances  used  in  the  material, 
arise  from  the  amorphous  nature  of  the 
solid,  for  when  the  solid  is  made  to 
undergo  crystallization,  thereby  turning 
the  amorphous  material  into  an  ordered 
one,  the  unusual  properties  disappear." 

Based  on  experimental  observations  of 
the  properties  of  amorphous  materials, 
physicists  long  ago  suggested  that  the  curi- 
ous properties  of  amorphous  materials  are 
caused  by  what  scientists  call  "tunneling 
states."  The  concept  of  a  tunneling  state  is 
involved  in  quantum  mechanical  theory, 
and  probably  requires  further  explanation. 

First,  consider  a  "potential  well."  Think 
of  this  well  as  a  depression  in  the  ground. 
This  idea  is  illustrated  in  Figure  3,  which 
shows  two  depressions,  or  wells,  in  the 
ground.  Now  if  you  were  to  place  a  ball  in 
the  depression  to  the  right,  it  would  remain 
there  forever,  unless  someone  or  some- 
thing gives  the  ball  enough  kinetic 
energy— i.e.,  energy  of  motion— to  move 
it  out  of  the  depression,  or  well,  across  the 
barrier. 

Notice  that,  since  the  depths  of  the  two 
wells  are  equal,  once  the  ball  is  somehow 
moved  into  the  left-hand  well,  the  ball's 
energy  will  be  exactly  the  same  as  when  it 
rested  in  the  right-hand  well.  However, 
since  nothing  and  no  one  has  moved  the 
ball  to  the  left  well,  the  only  way  for  it  to 
get  there  is  for  it  to  obtain  enough  energy 
to  actually  pass  through  the  barrier. 

Now  let's  replace  the  ball  with  a  mole- 
cule—the smallest  particle  of  a  compound 
that  has  all  the  chemical  properties  of  that 
compound.  A  molecule,  compared  with  a 
ball,  has  a  very  small  mass.  The  theory  of 
quantum  mechanics  tells  us  there  is  some 
small  probability  that,  though  this  mole- 
cule does  not  contain  enough  energy  to 
climb  over  the  barrier,  it  may  still  pene- 
trate the  barrier  and  get  to  the  other  well. 
Physicists,  then,  refer  to  this  activity  as 
tunneling  across  a  barrier  to  get  to  the 
other  well.  The  particle  combined  with  the 
well  is  thus  called  a  "tunneling  state." 

At  first,   if  you  consider  Figure  3  a 


Well 

Depth 

/t\ 

/    Barrier    \ 

/       Height       \ 

Particle 

^/^/ 

\ 

Vc^ 

Left  Well  Right  Well 

Figure  3.     The  particle  can  be  in  either  the  left  or  right  well.  Either  way,  it  can 
"tunnel "  through  the  barrier  rather  than  moving  over  the  top  of  the  barrier. 


model,  tunneling  may  appear  improbable. 
But,  says  Klein,  it  becomes  less  so  when 
you  realize  that  the  distance  between  the 
atoms  in  a  solid  are  of  the  size  of  the  mole- 
cule doing  the  tunneling.  All  the  atoms 
move  as  the  temperature  increases,  giving 
the  molecules  a  fair  chance  of  actually  get- 
ting beyond  the  barrier. 

Not  only  are  there  such  tunneling  states, 
but  the  energies  of  the  tunneling  states  are 
random.  The  puzzle  Klein  has  been  work- 
ing to  solve  concerns  what  actually  is 
doing  the  tunneling.  This  puzzle  aside, 
physicists  have  found  that  tunneling  can 
explain  the  experimental  observations— 
"provided,"  Klein  adds,  "that  you  assume 
that  the  number  of  tunneling  units  which 
have  a  certain  energy  is  the  same  as  the 
number  having  any  other  energy." 

In  other  words,  the  density  of  states,  or 
number  of  tunneling  units  per  unit  energy, 
is  a  constant.  This  assumption  is  necessary 
to  explain  the  experimental  results,  and 
without  it,  there  is  no  plausible  interpreta- 
tion of  what  happens  in  amorphous  materi- 
als. Yet  for  15  years,  research  that  strug- 
gled with  this  riddle  was  unable  to  unravel 
the  reason  for  a  constant  density  of  states 
at  low  energies. 

Klein  has  been  working  on  this  puzzle 
for  about  five  years.  He  first  examined  the 
nature  of  the  best  understood  tunneling 
states,  cases  in  which  scientists  knew  the 
exact  nature  of  tunneling  states.  How,  he 
wondered,  do  these  well-known  tunneling 
states  interact,  or  see,  or  feel,  each  other 
when  placed  into  a  crystalline  solid?  Using 
fundamental  principles  of  physics,  Klein 
identified  the  interaction  between  pairs  of 
the  well-known  tunneling  states.  That  is, 
he  determined  how  they  "feel"  each  other 
at  a  distance  r  apart.  What  he  found  was 
that,  for  the  tunneling  units  he  considered, 
this  interaction  was  proportional  to  the 
inverse  cube  of  the  distance. 

He  next  worked  out  the  thermodynamic 
properties  of  such   interacting  tunneling 


states  and  found  that  the  density  of  excita- 
tion energies  is  in  fact,  at  low  energies,  a 
constant  for  each  energy. 

Klein  has  also  been  able  to  show  that  the 
constant  energy  density  arises  from  the 
strain  interactions  in  the  solid,  a  property 
which  is  expected  to  exist  for  all  amor- 
phous materials. 

Michael  Klein's  research  has  shed  new 
and  revealing  light  on  a  problem  that  has 
puzzled  scientist  for  15  years.  He  has 
found  that  tunneling  units  which  interact 
via  a  strain  interaction  give  a  constant  den- 
sity of  states. 

Contributing  to  the  understanding  of 
many  amorphous  materials,  Klein's 
work  may  help  predict  how  amor- 
phous materials  will  change  their  proper- 
ties when  various  tunneling  states  are 
mixed  with  them.  It's  not  that  he  couldn't 
care  less  about  whether  his  theories  con- 
tribute to  applied  uses  of  amorphous  mate- 
rials. "That's  not  the  primary  concern  of 
theoretical  physicists,"  he  contends.  Still, 
if  Michael  Klein's  ideas  continue  to  be 
verified  experimentally  as  well  as  they 
have  been  so  far,  his  work  may  well  con- 
tribute to  a  more  fundamental  understand- 
ing of  amorphous  materials. 

The  scientific  world  is  fascinated  by  his 
theories.  In  fact,  much  of  the  next  year's 
sabbatical  for  Klein  will  take  him  to  labo- 
ratories at  the  University  of  Illinois  and  to 
Kammerlingh  Onnef  Laboratories  in 
Leiden,  Holland,  where  scientists  will  try 
to  verify  his  solution  to  a  physics  puzzle 
that  has  been  baffling  scientists  for  a  long 
time. 

Editor's  Note:  Born  in  Hungary,  Michael 
Klein  emigrated  to  the  United  States 
shortly  after  World  War  II.  A  survivor  of 
the  Holocaust,  at  the  age  of  13  he  was 
taken  with  his  parents  to  Auschwitz,  where 
his  mother,  father,  and  most  of  his  family 
perished.  Recently,  he  began  giving  lec- 
tures on  the  history  of  the  Holocaust. 


44       WPI  JOURNAL 


It  was  a  weekend  made  for  photogra- 
phy. Except  for  a  brief  spat  with  a 
passing  shower  on  Saturday  morn- 
ing, the  warm,  sunny  days  and  pleas- 
ant evenings  brought  a  sigh  of  relief 
from  past  years'  drenching  weather. 

So  have  a  look,  won't  you,  at  some 
highlights  of  Reunion— on  these  pages  and 
through  the  Class  Notes  section  that  fol- 
lows. 

We  kept  our  photographer  busy  that 
weekend— so  busy,  in  fact,  that  he 
couldn't  capture  everything  on  film- 
events  like  fraternity  get-togethers,  the 
Boston  Pops  concert,  campus  and  city 
tours,  Institute  Day,  brunches,  departmen- 
tal open  houses.  So  .  .  .  what  you  see 
here  is  not  quite  everything  alumni  got  at 
Reunion. 
At  Reunion  Luncheon  on   Saturday, 


besides  the  traditional  presentation  of 
Goddard,  Taylor  and  WPI  Awards  to  out- 
standing alumni,  anniversary  class  gifts 
were  presented  to  Dr.  Edmund  T.  C  ranch 
representing  the  college.  Totaling  more 
than  a  half  million  dollars,  these  three  gifts 
have  been  designated  largely  to  supporting 
the  renovation  of  WPI's  outdoor  athletic 
facilities,  which  is  now  nearing  comple- 
tion. 

Class  totals  were:  1960  25th  Reunion: 
$263,485.35— a  record  for  all  anniversary 
class  gifts;  1945  40th  Reunion: 
$103,661.14;  and  1935  50th  Reunion: 
$176,635.89— the  largest  50th  Reunion 
class  gift  ever.  WPI  is  grateful  for  these 
most  generous  investments  in  the  future  of 
Institute  students. 

In  addition,  at  the  Luncheon  Harry  W. 
Tenney,  Jr.  '56  passed  the  gavel  represent- 


ing Alumni  Association  leadership  to  Paul 
W.  Bayliss  '60,  who  will  serve  as  Associa- 
tion president  for  a  two-year  term. 

And  finally,  Dr.  Edmund  T.  Cranch's 
annual  message  to  the  Luncheon  assem- 
blage, his  last  as  president  of  WPI,  was 
greeted  with  a  standing  ovation.  It  was  a 
moment  neither  alumni — nor,  we  guess, 
Ed  and  Virginia  Cranch— will  not  soon 
forget,  filled  with  the  emotions  of  goodbye 
at  a  time  in  his  distinguished  career  that 
marks  both  a  conclusion  and  a  new  begin- 
ning. It  was  an  exchange  between  a  group 
and  a  man  who  have  come  to  know  and 
respect  each  other  well  indeed  in  the  last 
seven  years— a  period  of  unprecedented 
development  for  WPI  alumni  relations  and 
for  the  college  itself. 

Reunion  photos  by  Michael  Carroll 
unless  otherwise  indicated. 


REUNION  '85 

A  weekend  for  pictures. 


*0TH 

Goddard  Award  winner  Paul  N.  Kokulis  '45  is  con- 
gratulated by  outgoing  Alumni  Association  president 
Harry  W.  Tenney,  Jr.  '56  (above).  Gordon  Crowther 
'37 and  Richard  Connell  '50  (right). 


AUGUST  1985       45 


Calligrapher  Peggy  Isaac- 
son (right)  discusses  a  ques 
lion  with  student  Edwin 
Tucker  '32. 


This  year 's  outstanding 
alumni  are  Alumni  Associa- 
tion past  president  Harry  W. 
Tenney,  Jr.  '56;  WP I  Award 
winner  David  F.  Ploss  III 
'70;  Herbert  F.  Taylor 
Award  recipient  Richard  B. 
Kennedy  '65;  Robert  God- 
dard  Award  winner  Paul  A. 
Allaire  '60;  Taylor  Award 
winner  Donald  E.  Ross  '54; 
Goddard  Award  recipient 
Paul  N.  Kokulis  '45;  with 
Dr.  Edmund  T  Cranch 
(right). 


46       WPI  JOURNAL 


At  a  packed  Reunion  Lunch- 
eon (center),  Dr.  Edmund 
T.  Cranch  receives  a  stand- 
ing ovation.  The  Class  of 
1965  on  parade  (above). 
Clark  Goodchild  '40  in  his 
1931  Ford  Model  A  leads 
the  Reunion  Parade  (left). 


*tP\    Ml  I  \io-s 

I9S.-) 


AUGUST  1985       47 


WPI  CLASS  NOTES 


WPI  Alumni  Association 

President,  Paul  W.  Bayliss  '60 
Senior  Vice  President, 

Richard  B.  Kennedy  '65 
Vice  President,  Alex  C.  Papianou  '57 
Past  President,  Harry  W.  Tenney,  Jr.  '56 
Executive  Committee 
Members-at-Large 
Henry  P.  Allessio  '61 
Walter  J.  Bank '46 
William  J.  Firla,  Jr.  '60 
Patricia  A.  Graham  Flaherty  '75 
Alumni  Fund  Board 
Allen  H.  Levesque  '59,  Chairman 
Edwin  B.  Coghlin,  Jr.  '56 
David  B.  Denniston  '58 
Michael  A.  DiPierro  '68 
William  A.  Kerr  '60 
Bruce  A.  MacPhetres  '60 
Francis  W.  Madigan,  Jr.  '53 
Stanley  P.  Negus,  Jr.  '54 


1908 


Sumner  Davis's  sense  of  humor  hasn't  dulled 
in  a  century.  When  he  recently  passed  his  100th 
birthday  he  wrote,  "I  was  born  over  100  years 
ago.  There  isn't  a  place  on  earth  I  do  not  know. 
I  played  'ring  around  the  roses'  with  Peter,  Paul 
and  Moses.  And  I'll  lick  the  guy  who  says  this 
isn't  so!" 


1930 


The  recent  killer  tornado  which  ripped  through 
Venice,  FL,  missed  Roscoe  Bowers'  home  by 
650  feet.  "There  was  a  double  funnel  that 
struck  almost  at  the  same  time.  Winds  reached 
200  m.p.h.  About  340  houses  were  severely 
damaged."  A  woman  died  when  she  was  blown 
300  feet  away  from  her  trailer.  On  a  happier 
note,  the  Bowerses  recently  returned  from  a 
memorable  trip  to  Las  Vegas. 

Carl  Backstrom ,  Class  Secretary 


1933 


Ken  Gleason  reports  that  he  is  in  good  health 
except  for  an  accident  which  took  place  in 
church,  where  he  serves  on  the  building  com- 


REUNION  '85:  The  Class  of  1925  gathers 
for  a  group  portrait  (left);  members  of  the 
Class  of  1930  (below). 


^  % 


. •"•oilifli*.!**** 

■P"  «-  K  .1.  ^   s 

REUNION  '85:  Class  of  1940  golfers  Ken  Blaisdell,  Fritz  Johanson ,  Dick  Messinger 
and  Ray  Forkey. 

mittee.  While  supervising  renovations,  a  ladder 
fell,  hitting  his  head  and  elbow.  He  says 
stitches  took  care  of  his  head,  but  the  bone 
chips  in  his  elbow  still  leave  him  somewhat 
incapacitated. 

After  many  years  in  Brigham  City,  UT, 
where  he  worked  forThiokol  Corporation,  Don 
Haskins  and  his  wife.  El,  sold  their  home  in 
May  and  moved  near  their  daughter  Diana  and 
family  on  the  outskirts  of  Flagstaff,  AZ.  Don  is 
an  accomplished  skier  and  expects  to  ski  Utah's 
lofty  mountains  again. 

In  February,  Madeline  and  Tony  Kapinos 
moved  from  their  house  in  Chicopee,  MA, 
("We'd  lived  there  all  our  married  life.")  to  a 


garden  apartment  in  South  Hadley,  MA,  the 
home  of  Madeline's  alma  mater,  Mt.  Holyoke 
College.  They  have  not  done  much  traveling 
lately,  but  the  world  seems  to  have  come  to 
their  door  in  the  form  of  two  houseguests.  One, 
a  young  woman  from  Poland,  is  an  outstanding 
university  student  majoring  in  chemistry.  The 
other  is  an  electrical  engineer,  Gaosh  Yang,  the 
son  of  a  college  classmate  of  Madeline  whom 
she  has  not  seen  since  1939. 

Al  Laliberte  and  his  wife,  Marian,  aren't 
traveling  much  these  days  due  to  his  visual 
impairment,  but  Marian  did  go  to  Albuquerque, 
NM,  last  fall  to  see  their  granddaughter,  Ken- 
dra,  represent  the  state  of  Wisconsin  in  the 


48       WPI  JOURNAL 


Crawford  Named 
Senior  Citizen  of  the 
Month 


Dr.  Raymond  Crawford  '33CH  can 
certainly  spell  "r-e-t-i-r-e-m-e-n-t." 
But  you'd  have  a  hard  time  believing 
that  he  knows  the  meaning  of  the  word. 
And  that's  precisely  why  he  was 
recently  named  "Senior  Citizen  of  the 
Month"  by  the  Barre  (MA)  Gazette. 

Although  Ray  is  most  noted  locally 
for  his  weekly  gardening  column, 
"One  Man's  Garden  by  A.  Gardener," 
which  appears  along  with  his  corres- 
pondent's column  in  the  Gazette,  he 
writes  a  gardening  column  called  "Gar- 
den Gab"  for  the  Hamburg  (NY)  Sun, 
as  well. 

On  the  side,  he  operates  a  21 -by -48 
ft.  greenhouse  specializing  in  potted 
and  bedding  plants,  grows  an  enviable 
garden,  chairs  the  Oakham  (MA)  board 
of  selectmen,  serves  as  president  of  the 
local  historical  society,  belongs  to  the 
North  American  Lily  Society  and  the 
American  Begonia  Society,  and  edits 
the  New  England  Regional  Lily  Group 
bulletin.  Until  its  recent  demise,  he  was 
lecturer  for  the  Oakham  Grange.  He 
continues  on  the  executive  committee 
of  the  Rutland  (MA)  Grange,  and  is 
chairman  of  the  flower  committee  of 
the  Oakham  Congregational  Church. 


Monitoring  the  greenhouse 

"Up  until  last  year  I  taught  as  a  sub- 
stitute and  part-time  teacher  at  Wachu- 
sett  High  School,  Quabbin  High  and 
North  Brookfield  High,"  he  says.  His 
subjects  included  math,  biology,  agri- 
culture, English  and  French.  "I  felt  I'd 
really  'arrived'  when  I  substituted  in 
the  girl's  gym  class,"  he  quips. 

During  his  career  Ray  was  a  research 
chemist  for  Allied  Chemical  in  Buf- 
falo, NY,  where  he  also  served  as  a 
group  leader  and  senior  scientist.  He 
holds  a  master's  degree  from  WPI  and  a 
PhD  in  organic  chemistry  from  New 
York  University.   He  and  his  wife, 


Emily,  have  a  daughter,  Janet,  and 
three  granddaughters. 

Gardening  is  currently  his  chief  joy. 
He  likes  to  hybridize  lilies.  "To  see 
something  come  into  bloom  for  the  first 
time  that  has  never  been  seen  before — 
that's  special,"  he  comments. 

If  Ray  ever  does  slow  down,  he 
figures  he  won't  get  bored.  "I'm  a  nut 
for  buying  books,"  he  confides.  "Have 
got  enough  books  upstairs  to  keep  me 
reading  for  another  30  years.  At  least!" 
With  Ray's  schedule  ("I  don't  even 
have  time  to  watch  TV!"),  the  books 
may  have  to  wait. 


national  "Miss  Teen"  contest.  He  sends  this 
problem  along  to  his  classmates:  Three  boys, 
A,  B,  and  C  went  to  sell  their  eggs.  A  had  10 
eggs,  B  had  30  eggs,  and  C  had  50  eggs.  They 
each  sold  their  eggs  at  the  same  rate  and 
received  the  same  amount  of  money.  How 
much  did  they  sell  their  eggs  for?  (Al  and  his 
neighbor  Wes  Reed  know  the  answer  but  your 
secretary  is  still  working  on  it!) 

Weldon  McFarlane  and  his  wife,  Jean,  own 
a  Lincoln-Mercury  dealership,  a  Ford  truck 
agency,  and  a  lease  fleet  of  1,200  vehicles  in 
Vancouver,  BC,  Canada.  During  the  depres- 
sion, Weldon  worked  in  a  Chrysler  dealership 
in  Nova  Scotia.  In  1937,  he  joined  Ford  Canada 
and  after  20  years  and  four  transfers  he  found 
himself  in  Vancouver,  where  he  and  Jean 
decided  to  start  a  family  dealership. 

Instead  of  golfing  on  a  recent  trip  to  Mont- 
gomery, AL,  with  his  wife,  Elizabeth,  Al 
Parker  caught  up  on  some  computer  magazine 
articles  and  tried  to  find  some  "hackers"  in  the 
area  to  visit  with.  For  two  years  he's  owned  an 
IBM-PC  and  enjoys  the  challenge  of  writing 
programs  for  it.  Al  and  Elizabeth  each  have 
three  children  and  a  total  of  ten  grandchildren, 
which  provides  a  real  incentive  to  visit  them  in 
five  states  in  the  North,  South,  and  Midwest. 
Every  two  years,  they  take  a  trip  to  Portugal. 

Wesley  Reed  highlighted  the  Ladies  Day 
meeting  of  the  Tech  Old-Timers  in  May.  His 
main  hobby  is  collecting  and  repairing  antique 
musical  instruments.  His  presentation,  "Music 


from  the  Attic,"  proved  popular.  He  displayed 
and  played  several  of  the  250  instruments  in  his 
possession. 

Franklin  Roberts  reports  a  visit  with  Harry 
Clarke  and  his  wife,  Helen,  who  live  in 
Deltona,  FL,  in  a  lovely  home  on  a  lake. 
Besides  a  screened-in  pool,  there  is  a  lawn 
which  is  well  kept  "thanks  to  Harry's  ride-on 
mower."  Before  retiring,  Harry  worked  for 
Raytheon  and  Hughes  and  had  some  of  the 
computer  responsibilities  for  the  Apollo  lunar 
project  at  Cape  Canaveral. 

Last  November,  Jack  Shabeck  and  his  wife, 
Elaine,  left  Florida  for  a  70-trailer  caravan,  six- 
week,  9,000-mile  trip  through  Mexico  and 
return.  They  visited,  among  other  places,  Mex- 
ico City,  Guadaljara,  Puerto  Vallaarta,  and  San 
Carlos,  exiting  in  Douglas,  AZ.  The  Shabecks 
said  the  scenery  was  spectacular  and  the  people 
friendly,  but  the  roads  were  "absolutely  terri- 
ble, narrow,  with  large  potholes  and  no  shoul- 
ders." Their  summer  address  is  Wayland,  MA, 
but  winters  they  are  at  Travelers  Rest,  John- 
stone Rd.,  Dade  City,  FL  33325.  Jack  says 
they  would  welcome  classmates,  trailers  and 
all! 

Carl  Silverberg  and  wife  Mabel  recently 
returned  from  a  ten-week  trailer  holiday  from 
their  home  in  Sturbridge,  MA,  to  San  Diego, 
Los  Angeles  and  San  Francisco,  CA,  and  other 
points  west.  Carl  wasn't  able  to  attend  our  50th 
reunion,  as  he  was  recovering  from  surgery,  but 
we  expect  he'll  be  at  our  next  one  after  hearing 


good  reports  from  Al  Laliberte  and  Bud  Jack- 
son. 

Bertha  and  Charlie  Smith  spend  their  win- 
ters at  Deerfield  Beach,  FL,  but  return  to 
Westbrook,  CT,  summers  where  they  are  closer 
to  their  children  and  their  families.  They 
recently  went  on  a  trip  to  Alaska  with  a  Shriners 
group. 

Al  Brownlee,  Class  Secretary 


1935 


Robert  Cape,  formerly  on  the  "lost  classmate" 
list,  is  temporarily  residing  in  Vista,  CA. 

Maurie  Day,  a  longtime  employee  of  the 
Bureau  of  Reclamation,  whose  civil  engineer- 
ing career  took  him  around  the  world  (Panama, 
Hawaii,  Saigon)  retired  and  worked  as  a  con- 
sultant starting  in  1970.  In  1974  he  consulted  in 
Lebanon  just  before  civil  war  broke  out.  From 
1962  to  1981,  he  taught  piano,  organ  and  flute. 
He  enjoys  language  as  a  hobby  and  has  trans- 
lated many  technical  articles  in  Russian,  French 
and  Spanish.  He  also  has  studied  Japanese. 

Sam  Ehrlich  is  no  longer  in  the  furniture 
manufacturing  business  with  his  son,  Richard. 
In  1979  a  fire  destroyed  their  firm,  Metro  Man- 
ufacturing Corporation.  They  tried  starting  up 
again,  but  the  1981  recession  caused  them  to 
close.  When  Richard  recently  tried  once  more, 
Sam  decided  to  "take  a  back  seat  so  I  can  allow 


AUGUST  1985       49 


enough  time  for  18  holes  of  golf  daily."  He's 
taking  dancing  lessons. 

From  Sam  Hakam  comes  a  44-page  "Saga" 
starting  with  the  war  years.  A  merchant  sea- 
man, his  ship  was  torpedoed  enroute  with  cargo 
for  Africa  and  had  to  be  abandoned.  Later  he 
was  on  a  ship  taking  high  explosives  to  Mur- 
mansk. Prior  to  active  duty  with  the  Army,  he 
went  on  one  more  voyage,  this  time  to  Iceland. 
He  liked  the  Army,  but  was  enticed  back  into 
the  Merchant  Marine,  where  he  technically 
became  a  war  correspondent. 

Herb  Hoffman  retired  from  General  Electric 
in  1978  following  42  years  of  service.  Early  on 
he  became  a  gear  design  specialist  at  GE's  Lynn 
(MA)  plant.  His  most  novel  gear  unit  was  a 
step-up  model  for  the  30,000  HP- 12.000  RPM 
top  speed  test  stand  at  Wright  Field  used  for 
testing  propellors.  In  the  1950s,  he  was  in 
charge  of  the  advance  design  section  for  turbine 
generator  sets  for  Navy  and  Marine  service  at 
GE"s  Fitchburg  (MA)  plant.  During  his  career 
GE  took  out  patents  on  20  of  his  designs. 

George  Mitchell  has  been  living  in  Fort 
Myers.  FL.  for  ten  years.  Another  "lost  class- 
mate" heard  from. 

Roland  Nims,  a  member  of  the  Steering 
Committee,  was  sufficiently  recovered  from  his 
operation  (ruptured  aortal  aneurysm)  to  attend 
the  committee  meeting  at  WPI  in  September. 

Homer  Morrison,  Class  Secretary 


1937 


Bob  Powers,  former  secretary  of  the  New  York 
Board  of  Fire  Underwriters  and  charter  member 
of  the  New  York  Chapter  of  the  Society  of  Fire 
Protection  Engineers,  received  the  Manhattan 
College  Fire  Engineering  Institute  Award  for 
Outstanding  Contribution  to  Fire  Engineering 
at  the  Second  Annual  Fire  Engineering  Confer- 
ence held  at  the  college  last  year. 


1940 


Noel  Maleady  writes  that  he's  been  "essen- 
tially retired  since  1973."  He  has  traveled 
widely  throughout  the  U.S.  and  has  been  on 
Caribbean  cruises  eight  times  and  to  Europe  six 
times.  His  favorite  city  is  Vienna.  He  and  his 
wife,  now  deceased,  were  in  Rome  in  the 
Pope's  audience  in  1981  when  the  assassination 
attempt  was  made.  "A  startling  experience." 
Noel,  who  has  four  surviving  children  and 
seven  grandchildren,  has  served  as  his  church 
organist  and  choir  director  for  more  than  30 
years. 


1941 


Sidney  Clark  has  attained  life  membership  in 
the  ASCE  and  AWS. 

Dr.  Charles  Smith,  professor  of  mechanical 
engineering  at  Rose-Hulman  Institute  of  Tech- 
nology. Terre  Haute.  IN.  has  been  named  to  a 
six-year  term  as  a  member  of  the  Accreditation 
Board  for  Engineering  and  Technology,  which 
evaluates  the  quality  of  engineering  programs  at 
colleges  and  universities  nationwide.  Recom- 
mended for  the  post  by  the  Design  Education 


Committee  of  the  Design  Engineering  Division 
of  the  ASME.  Smith  was  one  of  20  engineering 
faculty  selected  from  more  than  100  nominated. 
He  has  been  honored  nationally  for  his  contri- 
butions during  a  39-year  career  in  the  field  of 
engineering  education  and  is  a  frequent  lecturer 
at  conferences  in  the  U.S.  and  Europe. 


1942 


Boyd  Abbott,  Jr.,  has  retired  as  manager  of 
plant  engineering  for  Armstrong  World  Indus- 
tries' research  and  development  organization. 
He  had  been  with  Armstrong  more  than  39 
years,  having  spent  his  entire  career  in  R&D.  In 
1946  he  joined  the  firm  as  a  physicist.  In  1950 
he  became  chief  of  the  engineering  section,  and 
in  1951  he  was  named  plant  engineer.  He  has 
managed  plant  engineering  facilities  for  R&D 
for  34  years. 


1946 


Albert  Rawdon,  Jr.,  formerly  vice  president 
of  engineering  for  Leighton  Industries. 
Phoenixville,  PA,  is  now  a  staff  consultant  for 
Riley  Stoker  in  Worcester. 

Manuel  Renasco  writes  that  he  is  fully 
retired  and  annually  spending  five  months  in 
Little  Compton,  RI,  and  seven  months  in  Jupi- 
ter, FL.  He  had  been  a  partner  in  the  consulting 
engineering  firm  of  Renasco  Associates  in  Lit- 
tle Compton. 


1949 


Henry  Ezen  has  retired  from  Polaroid  after  16 
years  as  a  principal  engineer.  Besides  doing 
home  maintenance,  he  skiis  in  the  Alps,  bikes 
and  hikes. 
Prof.   Mack  Prince  retired  in  June  after 


teaching  electrical  engineering  at  the  University 
of  Rhode  Island  for  30  years. 

John  Walsh,  commander  of  the  police  juve- 
nile division  (Worcester),  was  recently  pro- 
moted to  deputy  police  chief  for  the  city.  After 
studying  at  WPI,  he  enlisted  in  the  U.S.  Navy. 
He  was  appointed  to  the  Worcester  police  force 
in  1953  and  became  a  sergeant  in  1963,  a  lieu- 
tenant in  1967  and  a  captain  in  1975. 


1950 


Philip  Nyquist  is  now  a  consultant  on  indus- 
trial safety  with  the  Ministry  of  Interior  at 
Riyadh,  Saudi  Arabia.  Recendy,  he  presented  a 
paper  on  Industrial  Safety  Training  at  a  sympo- 
sium on  safety  held  at  King  Saud  University  in 
Riyadh. 


1951 


G.  Albert  Anderson,  former  vice  president  of 
Collier-Key  worth  Company,  Gardner,  MA,  has 
been  named  a  consultant  to  the  firm  and  will  be 
self-employed.  He  was  one  of  the  mainstays  of 
Collier-Keyworth  during  the  formative  and 
growth  years  of  its  office  chair  mechanism  and 
base  business.  His  efforts  spanned  a  wide  spec- 
trum of  activities  including  management 
affairs,  manufacturing,  product  development 
and  customer  relations.  He  is  a  former  chair- 
man of  the  WPI  Alumni  Fund  Board.  In  1982 
he  received  the  Herbert  F.  Taylor  Award  in  rec- 
ognition of  his  outstanding  service  to  WPI. 

In  September.  Richard  Brow  will  retire  from 
Westinghouse  Defense  Center  in  Baltimore, 
MD. 


1952 


Raymond  Bartlett,  Jr.,  serves  as  manager  of 
quality  and  process  control  at  Sandvik  Inc., 
Scranton.  PA. 
Dick  Bennett  has  been  named  manager  of 


REUNION  '85:  The  Class  of  1930  (left) 
poses  for  their  Reunion  portrait;  families 

i  from  the  Class  of  1935,  attending  their  50- 

1,    vear  reunion. 


50       WPI  JOURNAL 


the  Richardson-Greenshields  Securities  office 
in  Florida.  He  writes,  "It's  great  here  on  the 
banks  of  the  Loxahatchee  River  and  the  Jupiter 
Inlet." 

Charles  Thrower  is  western  regional  sales 
manager  for  Ingersoll-Rand  in  Walnut  Creek, 
CA. 


1953 


Raymond  Peterson  holds  the  position  of  tech- 
nical director  at  American  Shoe  Machinery 
Corporation,  Woburn,  MA. 

George  Saltus  is  now  vice  president  and 
treasurer  of  C/S  Consultants  in  Boulder,  CO. 


1954 


David  Gilbert  serves  as  plant  manager  in  the 
chemicals  and  pigments  department  of  Du  Pont 
in  Edge  Moor,  DE. 

Gordon  Walters  is  now  associated  with 
A.D.  Tech,  Advanced  Dielectric  Technologies 
Inc.,  Middleboro,  MA. 


1956 


Ray  Lussier  was  first  in  the  senior  division  of 
the  Worcester  Telegram  &  Gazette  10-mile  road 
race  held  in  Worcester  on  Mother's  Day.  Nearly 
1 ,000  runners  participated.  Ray  is  a  manager  of 
the  Boston  office  of  Sprague  Electric. 

John  Taylor  applies  artificial  intelligence  to 
flight  deck  design  evaluation  at  Boeing  Air- 
plane Co.,  Seattle,  WA. 

John  Wake  is  now  general  manager  of 
Warner  &  Swasey,  Worcester. 


1958 


Donald  Hayward  has  been  named  manager  of 
West  Penn  Power  Company's  Loyalhanna  Divi- 


REUNION'85:  At  the  Center  for  Holo- 
graphic Studies,  ME  Professor  Ryszard 
Pryputniewics  (kneeling)  explains 
research;  at  right,  Ron  Pokraka  and  Zim 
Zimmie,  both  '60. 


sion  in  Latrobe,  PA.  He  is  responsible  for  com- 
pany operations  in  Latrobe,  Ligonier,  Deny 
and  surrounding  areas.  He  joined  West  Penn  in 
1958,  then  had  two  years  of  military  service. 
Later,  he  held  planning  posts  for  the  firm  and 
was  promoted  to  supervisor  of  engineering  in 
the  Lincoln  Division  in  1971.  An  elder  of  the 
local  United  Church  of  Christ,  Hayward  also 
serves  as  treasurer  of  the  Kiwanis  Club  and  the 
Boy  Scout  troop. 

James  Johnson  has  been  advanced  to  assis- 
tant comptroller  of  New  Jersey  Bell.  Previ- 
ously, he  served  as  division  manager  of  secu- 
rity. In  1958  he  started  with  the  company  as  an 
assistant  engineer  and  has  since  held  various 
posts,  including  district  plant  manager,  general 
personnel  supervisor  and  division  manager  of 
buildings  and  motor  vehicles. 

Raymond  Johnson  was  recently  appointed 
to  sales  manager  of  the  Killeen  Machine  Tool 
Company  of  Worcester.  His  background 
includes  posts  as  vice  president  of  sales  and 
president  of  the  former  Johnson-Claflin  Corp., 
Marlboro,  MA,  a  metal-stamping  company 
founded  by  his  grandfather  and  father. 


1959 


Joe  Bronzino,  professor  of  applied  science  at 
Trinity  College,  Hartford,  CT,  has  been  elected 
president  of  the  Engineers  in  Medicine  and 
Biology  Society.  The  10,000-member  society  is 
a  national  organization  of  engineers  who  apply 
technology  to  biology  and  medicine  in  such 
ways  as  developing  new  instrumentation  and 
finding  clinical  applications  for  new  technol- 
ogy. Since  1969,  Joe  has  been  director  of  a 
graduate  program  in  biomedical  engineering 
jointly  sponsored  by  Trinity  and  the  Hartford 
Graduate  Center. 


1960 


In  January,  Jay  Alpern  retired  from  the  Central 
Intelligence  Agency  after  24  years  of  service. 
During  his  career,  he  received  a  number  of 


awards  (some  with  stipends),  including  the  Cer- 
tificate of  Distinction  for  Courageous  Perfor- 
mance, the  Intelligence  Medal  of  Merit,  an 
Exceptional  Accomplishment  Award  and  Meri- 
torious Officer  Award.  This  year  he  received 
the  Distinguished  Intelligence  Medal,  the  high- 
est honor  of  the  U.S.  intelligence  community. 
Upon  retirement,  he  became  a  co-founder  and 
vice  president  of  Zeta  Associates  Inc.,  an  engi- 
neering consulting  firm. 

Douglas  Bryant  has  been  named  president  of 
Foseco  Inc.,  a  Cleveland-based  manufacturer 
of  chemicals  for  the  steel  and  foundry  indus- 
tries. He  has  also  been  named  a  regional  chair- 
man of  Foseco  International  Limited,  with 
responsibility  for  Foseco  companies  operating 
in  the  U.S.,  Canada  and  Mexico.  He  joined  the 
firm  in  1971  as  sales  director  of  the  foundry 
division.  Since  then,  he  has  headed  the  foundry 
division  and  has  served  as  resident  director  of 
company  operations  in  Mexico  and  Canada. 
Before  joining  Foseco,  Bryant  managed  the  cat- 
alyst/absorbent division  of  Norton  Co.  He  has  a 
bachelor's  degree  and  a  PhD  from  WPI. 


1961 


Thomas  Heefner  has  been  promoted  from 
assistant  manager  of  Norelco  Service  Inc.,  in 
Washington,  DC,  to  manager  of  the  branch  in 
Houston,  TX. 


1962 


David  Cohen  has  been  promoted  to  professor 
in  the  mathematics  department  at  Smith  Col- 
lege, Northampton,  MA.  With  the  Smith  fac- 
ulty since  1974,  he  received  his  MS  and  PhD 
from  the  University  of  New  Hampshire,  where 
he  had  served  as  an  instructor. 

Bernard  Dowd  has  been  appointed  director 
of  plant  operations  and  services  at  Western 
Massachusetts  Hospital,  Westfield,  MA.  With 
20  years  of  experience  in  plant  operations  of 
hospitals,  previously  he  was  an  administrative 
engineer  and  risk  manager  at  Worcester's 
Hahnemann  Hospital.  Earlier,  for  ten  years  he 
was  with  Lawrence  Memorial  Hospital.  Med- 
ford,  MA. 

Dr.  H.  V.  S.  Rao,  principal  of  the  National 
Institute  of  Engineering  in  Mysore,  India,  was 
awarded  an  honorary  doctor  of  engineering 
degree  by  the  City  University  of  Los  Angeles  in 
December.  While  in  the  U.S.  for  the  conferral 
ceremony,  he  visited  Worcester  and  took  a  tour 
of  the  WPI  campus. 

Stephen  Winer  has  been  appointed  business 
director  of  the  Performance  Chemicals  Prod- 
ucts Group  of  J.  T  Baker  Chemical,  Phillips- 
burg,  NJ.  Since  joining  the  firm  in  1977,  he  has 
served  as  product  manager  of  fine  and  industrial 
chemicals,  marketing  manager  of  process 
chemicals  and  market  development  manager. 
He  has  an  SM  in  industrial  management  from 
MIT's  Sloan  School. 


1963 


Charles  Beck  is  now  an  analytical  chemist  at 
GTE  Laboratories  Inc.,  Waltham,  MA. 


AUGUST  1985       51 


Ed  Kalinowski  has  been  elected  president  of 
the  Roanoke  i\"A>  Valley  Science  Museum 
Board  of  Trustees.  He  has  served  on  the  board 
since  1978  as  chairman  of  the  long-range  plan- 
ning committee  and  administrate  e  guidelines 
committee,  as  well  as  a  member  of  the  execu- 
tive committee  and  finance  and  audit  commit- 
tee. Still  director  of  industrial  relations  and 
engineering  at  Eli  Lilh  's  Roanoke  plant.  Ed 
also  continues  to  serve  as  a  member  of  the 
board  of  trustees  of  the  local  Mill  Mountain 
Zoo. 


1964 


Dr.  Mason  Somerville.  dean  of  the  College  of 
Engineering  at  Texas  Tech  University,  spoke  on 
the  topic  of  SMART-Lab.  a  research  and  devel- 
opment project  related  to  the  high  tech  industry, 
at  the  1985  Venture  Capital  Seminar  held  in 
March  in  Lubbock.  TX.  The  seminar  dealt  with 
ideas  for  economic  development  of  the  Lub- 
bock area.  Dr.  Somerville  went  to  Texas  Tech 
last  summer  after  having  served  as  chairman  of 
the  department  of  mechanical  engineering  at  the 
University  of  Arkansas. 


1965 


James  Hammett.  Jr..  writes.  "Having  a  great 
time  running  the  Entre  Computer  Center  in 
Timonium.  MD." 

Robert  Stow  was  recently  named  director  of 
C3I  s>  stems  at  Kearfott  Division  of  the  Singer 
Co.  In  1967  he  started  with  the  firm  as  a  project 
engineer.  Prior  to  his  promotion  he  was  man- 
ager of  C3I  systems.  A  member  of  the  AIAA 
and  the  National  Security  Association,  he  holds 
a  master's  degree  from  MIT. 


1966 


facility  to  accommodate  the  process.  A  profes- 
sional engineer,  he  was  cited  for  being  respon- 
sible for  "significant  improvements  in  schedule 
adherence  of  nuclear  submarine  overhauls." 

Rosborg  Incorporated  of  Newtown.  CT.  has 
promoted  Earle  "Skip"  Sims  to  vice  president 
of  operations.  He  joined  the  firm  in  1983  as 
vice  president  of  marketing.  Previously,  he  had 
been  employed  by  the  Farrel  Company  off 
Ansonia.  CT.  as  manager  of  roll  grinder  sales. 

Malcolm  White,  no  longer  at  Polaroid,  is 
now  director  of  manufacturing  at  IMI.  Inc.. 
Andover.  MA.  a  fast-turnaround  manufacturer 
of  prototype  printed  circuit  boards. 


Philip  Hopkinson  has  been  promoted  to  man- 
ager of  large  transformer  engineering  for  GE's 
large  transformer  operation  in  Pittsfield.  MA. 
He  had  been  manager  of  engineering  for  the 
specialty  transformer  business  department  since 
1978.  In  his  new  post  he  will  be  responsible  for 
large  transformer  product  design  and  develop- 
ment engineering,  engineering  documentation 
activities  and  the  materials  and  high-voltage 
laboratories.  Originally  he  was  with  GE's  small 
motor  and  generator  department  in  Schenectady 
where  he  was  an  engineering  trainee.  Later  he 
served  in  Pittsfield  and  in  the  distribution  trans- 
former plant  in  Hickory.  NC.  He  holds  a  mas- 
ter's in  system  science  from  the  Polytechinic 
Institute  of  Brookh  n . 

Albert  LaPrade  received  the  Portsmouth 
iNHi  Na\al  Shipyard  Engineer  of  the  Year 
Award  during  observance  of  National  Engi- 
neers' Week  A  mechanical  engineer  in  the 
waterfront  facilities  design  section  of  the  Pro- 
duction Engineering  Department.  LaPrade  was 
selected  by  a  pane)  of  fellow  engineers  based  on 
his  "professional  achievement  in  design  and 
development  of  unique  facilities'"  During  the 
past  year  he  designed  facilities  for  the  applica- 
tion of  special  hull  treatment  for  the  upcoming 
overhaul.  He  also  designed  an  in-dock  steaming 


1967 


BORN:  to  Dr.  and  Mrs.  Steve  Luber  twin 
daughters.  Sarah  Nichole  and  Kristin  Elizabeth, 
on  October  27.  1984.  Steve  continues  practic- 


ing pediatrics  at  the  Mollie  Scon  Clinic  in  Sun 
Valley.  ID.  where  he  is  a  city  councilman. 

Linda  and  James  Shea,  proprietors  of  Rotary 
Antiques  in  Hudson.  MA.  spoke  on  the  topic. 
'"Antiques— Fun  or  Profit?"  at  the  February 
meeting  of  the  Hudson  Historical  Society. 
Shea,  who  holds  an  MBA  from  Clark  and  who 
until  a  few  years  ago  pursued  an  electrical  engi- 
neering career  with  Raytheon  in  Burlington. 
MA.  now  devotes  full  time,  along  with  his 
wife,  to  their  special  interest  in  antiques. 


1968 


BORN:  to  Ellen  and  George  Landauer  their 
third  son.  Glenn  Harris,  on  August  8,  1984. 
Last  February.  George's  company.  GDC  Medi- 
cal Electronics,  was  acquired  by  TRW  Inc.. 
becoming  part  of  TRW's  Customer  Service 
Division.  GDC  is  a  New  York-based  firm  that 


The  "Seattle Foot" 


A  Big  Step 
Forward 
in  Feet 

In  the  near  future 
someone  wearing  a 
prosthetic  foot  may 
well  win  a  marathon, 
that  is  if  he  or  she  is 
wearing  the  "Seattle 
Foot,"  which  recently 
won  a  National 
Endowment  for  the 
Arts  Presidential  Design  Award. 

Don  Poggi  ME  '51  and  his  team  of 
designers,  engineers  and  craftsman  at 
Model  &  Instrument  Works  Inc. 
(MIWI).  Seattle,  WA,  came  up  with 
the  final  design  of  the  foot,  which  a 
skeptical  bilateral  amputee  tested,  then 
testified  for  it  at  Congressional  hear- 
ings for  the  Veteran's  Administration. 

Poggi  reports,  "The  fellow  even 
challenged  members  of  Congress  to 
race  him  around  the  block  while  wear- 
ing the  foot!" 

The  Seattle  Foot  is  not  only  some- 
thing different,  it  is  literally  something 
else.  First  off.  there's  nothing  mechani- 
cal about  it.  Inside  the  foot  is  a  spe- 
cially designed  keel  that  works  like  a 
cantilever  spring.  When  the  foot  is  flat, 
the  keel  compresses,  bending  up  at  the 
toe.  As  the  foot  continues  moving,  the 
keel  extends,  releasing  energy.  Such  a 
forward  and  upward  thrusting  move- 
ment is  critical  in  walking  or  running. 

Made  of  microcellular  polyurethane 
foam,  similar  to  a  dashboard  or  run- 
ning-shoe soles,  the  interior  keel  is 
made  of  thermo-plastic.  The  load  is 
distributed  by  a  toe  pad. 

"The  whole  thing  works  like  a  leaf 
spring  in  a  car."  explains  Poggi. 


Not  only  does  the  Seattle  Foot  work 
well,  it  looks  terrific— almost  like  a  real 
one.  A  woman  patient  was  delighted 
that  she  could  at  last  wear  sandals,  and 
a  veteran  patient  told  Poggi.  "My  wife 
thinks  my  feet  look  great!" 

When  approached  by  Dr.  Ernest  Bur- 
gess (M.D.)  and  his  Prosthetics 
Research  Study  (PRS)  with  a  request 
for  a  prosthetic  foot  for  sports-minded 
amputees.  Don  Poggi  and  his  wife, 
Shirley,  president  of  MIWI,  and  their 
engineers  found  themselves  "in  the 
right  place  at  the  right  time."  The  Boe- 
ing Co.  (Poggi 's  full-time  employer), 
with  VA  rehabilitation  research-and- 
development  funding  from  PRS  had 
done  some  work  on  a  more  flexible 
foot,  but  there  were  problems.  PRS  and 
MIWI  found  each  other  and  the  first 
artificial  foot  to  make  use  of  kinetic 
energy  was  born. 

Last  January  during  ceremonies  at  the 
White  House,  President  Reagan 
handed  Don  Poggi  '51  and  Dr.  Marga- 
ret Giannini.  director  of  R&D  for  the 
Veterans  Administration,  one  of  the 
first  of  thirteen  Presidential  Awards  for 
Design  Excellence.  The  "'Seattle  Foot" 
was  cited  as  a  prosthetic  that  rivals  the 
original. 


52       WPI  JOURNAL 


provides  maintenance  and  repair  services  to 
users  of  biomedical  technology.  George  con- 
tinues as  an  officer  of  the  company.  .  .  .  Mr. 
and  Mrs.  Scott  Wilson  their  second  child, 
Thomas  Scott,  on  March  1 1 .  1984.  Scott  is  now 
chief  of  the  technical  design  section  at  McGuire 
AFB,  NJ.  "I'm  replacing  Ed  Dion  '49,  who's 
retiring." 

David  Gumbley  serves  as  supervisor  of 
maintenance  for  Texaco  Refining  &  Marketing 
in  Bellaire.  TX. 

Joseph  Hilyard  has  been  promoted  to  man- 
ager of  planning  and  evaluation  at  the  Gas 
Research  Institute  in  Chicago. 

Jack  McCabe  was  recently  appointed  chief 
financial  officer  of  Automated  Assemblies 
Corp.,  Clinton,  MA.  Prior  to  his  appointment, 
he  had  been  executive  vice  president  and  trea- 
surer of  Carl  Gordon  Industries,  Worcester.  A 
member  of  the  Worcester  Industrial  Develop- 
ment Finance  Authority.  Jack  holds  an  MBA 
from  Clark  University.  He  is  a  former  president 
of  the  WPI  Alumni  Association. 

Dr.  Michael  Paige  has  assumed  the  post  of 
vice  president  for  engineering  at  the  Gerber  Sci- 
entific Instrument  Co.,  South  Windsor,  CT.  a 
major  producer  of  CAD-CAM  systems. 
Michael  and  his  family  reside  in  Glastonbury. 
CT. 


1969 


Anthony  Bergantino  is  now  sales  manager  at 
Bedford  Real  Estate.  Bedford.  MA.  He  writes. 
"I've  just  made  a  major  career  change  by  tak- 
ing over  a  real  estate  firm  which  specializes  in 
property  in  the  Bedford,  Lexington  and  Con- 
cord, MA,  area." 

Joel  Cehn,  radiation  protection  advisor  for 
the  Pacific  Gas  &  Electric  Company  (PG&E)  in 
San  Francisco,  was  the  author  of  "Temporary 
Radiation  Workers:  Who,  Where.  What,  and 
How?,"  which  appeared  in  the  January  issue  of 
Radiation  Protection  Management.  He  joined 
PG&E  in  1980  after  having  been  employed  at 
Pilgrim  Nuclear  Power  Station  in  Plymouth, 
MA,  and  at  Teknekron  Research  Inc.,  in  Wash- 
ington, DC.  In  1982,  he  suggested  a  study  of 
temporary  radiation  workers  to  the  National 
Environmental  Studies  Project  and  later  chaired 
the  industry  task  force  that  managed  the  study. 
The  holder  of  an  MS  in  nuclear  engineering 
from  North  Carolina  State  University,  he  is  cer- 
tified by  the  American  Board  of  Health  Physi- 
cists, is  active  in  the  Health  Physics  Society, 
and  serves  as  a  director  of  the  California  Radio- 
active Materials  Management  Forum. 

Peter  Nott  continues  as  a  clinical  engineer 
for  Hospital  Services  Inc.,  Concord,  NH. 

Kimball  Watson  works  as  an  advisory  engi- 
neer for  IBM  in  Burlington,  VT. 


1970. 

Reunion 


September  28,  1985 


Herbert  Coulter  has  been  named  general  man- 
ager of  the  silicone  manufacturing  department 
at  GE's  silicone  products  division  in  Waterford, 
NY.  In  1976,  he  joined  GE  as  a  project  engi- 
neer, progressing  through  a  series  of  manufac- 
turing and  engineering  management  posts. 
Most  recently,  he  was  manager  of  manufactur- 


REUNION  '85;  The  35th 
Reunion  class  on  their  way  to 
lunch  (left);  Evelyn  and  Warren 
Fitzer  '45  (below  left);  Clark 
Goodchild  '40  with  Manage- 
ment Professor  Helen  Vassallo 
'82  MBS,  a  featured  speaker  at 
the  first  annual  Institute  Day 
(below  right). 


ing  for  the  room  temperature  vulcanizing  prod- 
ucts department. 

Jim  Cronin  was  recently  named  the  consor- 
tium project  engineer  for  B&W  International  in 
Jakarta.  Indonesia.  He  and  his  wife.  Kathy. 
have  three  children:  Kristen,  9,  Paul,  2.  and 
Scon.  1. 

Paul  Himottu,  who  was  married  last  year  to 
Carolyn  Blinn  of  Holden.  MA.  is  a  production 
planner  for  hybrid  systems.  Currently,  he  works 
for  Telex  in  the  product  support  department. 


1971 


MARRIED:  Robert  Mills,  Jr.,  and  Angela 
Leary  in  Framingham.  MA.  on  December  29. 
1984.  A  graduate  of  Clinton  High  School,  she 
is  a  legal  assistant  at  State  Mutual  in  Worcester, 
where  Mills  is  an  actuary.  He  has  a  master's 
degree  from  Northeastern.  .  .  .  Robert  Wright 
to  Marie  LaFrancis  in  Agawam.  MA.  She  grad- 
uated from  Becker  and  Westfield  State  College 
and  plans  to  attend  graduate  school.  He  has  an 
MSEE  from  RPI  and  is  employed  at  Narragan- 
sett  Electric  Co..  Providence.  RI. 

BORN:  to  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Francis  Scricco 
their  first  child,  Alexandra  Marie,  on  February 
28,  1985.  Scricco  writes  that  he  is  continually 
challenged  as  general  manager  of  GE's  Com- 
mercial Electronics  Products  Department  in 
Portsmouth.  VA. 


Bruce  Bosserman  serves  as  operations  engi- 
neer at  Yemen  Hunt  Oil  Co..  Dallas.  TX. 

Norman  Johnson  serves  as  program  man- 
ager for  GE  in  Pittsfield,  MA. 

Michael  Latka  has  been  named  deputy 
director  of  the  Worcester  city  manager's  Office 
of  Planning  and  Community  Development 
(OPCD).  Since  1981.  he  has  served  as  OPCD 
contract  and  financial  management  coordinator. 
Previously,  he  was  contract  management  coor- 
dinator. In  1975  he  joined  the  office  as  financial 
management  staff  assistant.  He  holds  an  MBA 
from  Western  New  England  College. 

Gerald  Parrott  continues  with  Rock  of  Ages 
Corp.  in  Barre.  VT. 


1972 


Pat  Lafayette  serves  as  vice  president  and  trea- 
surer of  Cummings  &  Lafayette,  an  engineer- 
ing consulting  firm  he  co-founded  in  Norwich. 
CT.  in  June  1984.  The  company  is  concerned 
with  road,  drainage  and  utilities  design,  as  well 
as  site  development,  water  and  wastewater, 
structural  analysis  and  construction  manage- 
ment. 

David  LeBlanc  was  recently  promoted  to 
distributor  sales  manager  for  Phalo  Corpora- 
tion's telecommunication  cable  division  in 
Westboro.  MA.  He  is  now  responsible  for 
nationwide  sales  of  the  firm's  line  of  telephone 
and  high-temperature  data  cables  through  distri- 


AUGUST  1985       53 


Hallock  (center)  receives  Rockwell's  "Engineer  of  the  Year"  award 


David  B.  Hallock: 
'^Engineer  of  the  Year" 

David  Hallock  '53EE  has  been  named 
""Engineer  of  the  Year."*  the  highest 
honor  for  engineering  achievement 
awarded  by  Rockwell  International 
Corporation.  A  design  engineer  for 
Rockwell's  Collins  Defense  Communi- 
cation organization  in  Cedar  Rapids. 
IA.  Hallock  was  one  of  14  selected  for 
the  award  among  the  company's 
17.000  engineers  and  scientists. 

At  ceremonies  held  in  Los  Angeles  in 
February,  in  conjunction  with  National 
Engineers'  Week.  Hallock  was  cited 
for  distinguished  and  sustained  contri- 
butions toward  the  design  of  state-of- 
the-art  military  communications  re- 
ceivers in  the  HF  through  UHF  fre- 
quency bands. 

Bom  in  Chicago  and  the  holder  of 
four  patents.  Hallock  earned  his  B.S. 
and  M.S.  from  WPI  in  1953  and  1954 
respectively.  He  joined  Collins  Radio 
Company  in  1954.  taking  time  out  for  a 


bution.    Previously,    he    served    as    eastern 
regional  sales  manager. 

Jack  Zorabedian.  formerly  with  Digital 
Equipment  Corp..  has  joined  ATEX  Inc.. 
Bedford.  MA 


terns  consultant  for  customer  services  in  the 
sales  division.  She  holds  an  MS  from  WPI  and 
a  BS  from  the  Universitv  of  Rhode  Island. 


1973 


BORN:  to  Pat  and  John  Barry  their  first  son. 
Matthew  Thomas,  on  November  11.  1984.  .  .  . 
Bonnie  and  Chris  Broders  a  son.  Adam  Chris- 
topher, on  June  5.  1984.  .  .  Rhonda  and  Ray 
Cberenzia  a  son.  Damon  Louis,  on  April  26. 


stint  with  the  U.S.  Navy  in  1955.  Ear- 
lier he  had  been  a  graduate  assistant  at 
WPI  and  a  transmitter  engineer  at 
WAAB  Inc..  Worcester.  He  has  served 
as  a  class  agent  for  the  WPI  Alumni 
Fund. 

Currently  a  ham  radio  hobbyist  and  a 
member  of  the  American  Radio  Relay 
League.  Hallock  is  also  active  in 
church  work  and  Boy  Scouting.  He 
enjoys  gardening  at  his  five-acre  home- 
site  and  taking  occasional  family  camp- 
ing trips  to  the  Rockies.  He  and  his 
wife.  Karen,  who  celebrated  their  25th 
anniversary  with  a  trip  to  Hawaii,  are 
the  parents  of  two  daughters.  Susan  and 
Gail,  and  two  sons.  Alan  and  Eric. 

Before  becoming  associated  with 
Rockwell  International.  Hallock  had 
been  a  group  head  and  design  engineer 
for  Collins  Radio  Co.  Cedar  Rapids, 
prior  to  its  merger  with  Rockwell. 
Rockwell  is  a  multi-industry  company 
applying  advanced  technology  to  a 
wide  range  of  products  in  its  aerospace 
electronics,  automotive  and  general 
industries  businesses. 


1985.  .  .  .  Arlene  and  Gene  Franke  their  sec- 
ond child.  Ryan  Scon,  on  March  26.  1985.  .  .  . 
Cheryl  and  Steve  Martin,  a  son.  Enc  Michael, 
on  March  1.  1985.  Eric  joins  his  brother  Ben- 
jamin, who  is  now  21 :.  Steve,  who  has  just 
completed  his  ophthalmology  residency  at  the 
University  of  Rochester  Strong  Memorial  Hos- 
pital, began  a  retina-vitreous  fellowship  in 
Atlanta.  GA.  in  July. 

Marsha  Maxwell  has  been  appointed  man- 
ager in  charge  of  business  information  services 
for  the  Foxboro  (MA)  Company.  She  will 
administer  ongoing  support  for  computer  ser- 
vices required  throughout  the  company.  With 
Foxboro  since  1971.  previously  she  was  sys- 


1974 


BORN:  to  Karen  and  Bill  McBride  a  daughter. 
Megan  Kathleen,  on  September  16.  1984.  Bill 
is  now  the  electrical  engineering  manager  for 
PRICE  CIRI  in  Alaska.  Besides  being  a  profes- 
sional electrical  engineer.  Bill  is  also  an  electri- 
cal administrator  for  inside  wiring  and  commu- 
nications in  Alaska  (contractor's  license).  He 
continues  to  consult  for  Northern  Energy 
Research  and  Development. 

Gerald  Buzanoski  has  been  named  as  a 
senior  project  manager  for  the  engineering  and 
land  surveying  firm  of  Schofield  Brothers  Inc.. 
Framingham.  MA.  He  is  responsible  for  the 
design  and  management  of  environmental  engi- 
neering, commercial  and  residential  develop- 
ment projects.  Formerly  assistant  director  of 
public  works  in  Framingham.  Buzanoski  has  an 
MSCE  from  the  University  of  Connecticut. 

George  Cho  is  now  manager  of  clinical 
research  for  Kontron  Inc..  Everett.  MA.  For- 
merly, he  was  a  senior  technical  specialist  at  the 
University  of  Massachusetts  Medical  School. 
Worcester. 

Jay  Thayer  continues  as  an  assistant  project 
manager  with  Yankee  Atomic  Electric  Co.  of 
Framingham.  MA.  He  is  a  former  president  of 
the  Westboro  (MA)  Jaycees.  The  Thayers  have 
two  sons.  Benjamin  and  Andrew. 

Travenol  Laboratories  Inc..  of  Deerfield.  IL. 
has  appointed  Lee  Turner  as  director  of  techni- 
cal resource  planning.  With  the  firm  for  more 
than  two  years,  previously  he  was  manager  of 
cost  planning  and  development.  He  has  an 
MBA  from  Amos  Tuck  School.  Dartmouth 
College . 


1975. 

Reunion 


September  28,  1985 


Bruce  Altobelli  and  his  wife.  Jean,  are  the  par- 
ents of  a  son.  three-year-old  Jason.  Bruce  is 
production  engineering  manager  for  Nashua 
Corporation,  which  makes  memory  disks  for 
computers.  He  enjoys  working  on  his  house  and 
playing  softball  and  racquetball. 

Joel  Angelico.  who  works  for  Polaroid, 
holds  an  additional  job  collecting  tickets  at  Sul- 
livan Stadium  for  Patriots  games  and  special 
events.  The  Angelicos  have  a  two-year-old 
daughter.  Laura  Frances. 

Cliff  Ashton  serves  as  a  senior  engineer  for 
Northeast  Utilities.  He  owns  a  three-family 
house  in  New  Britain.  CT.  During  the  summer, 
he  races  his  sailboat  on  Long  Island  Sound.  He 
also  likes  to  ski  and  play  tennis  and  softball. 

Bob  Bradley,  a  senior  product  manager  w  ith 
DEC.  has  been  with  the  firm  for  seven  years. 
He  and  his  wife.  Cherie.  enjoy  camping  in 
Maine.  Bob  is  working  for  his  MS  in  computer 
science  at  WPI. 

Mark  Candello  works  for  Frederick  A.  Far- 
rar  Inc..  an  electrical  engineering  consulting 
firm  in  Keene.  NH.  The  Candellos  have  a  four- 
year-old  son.  Nick. 

Anne  McPartland  Dodd  and  her  husband. 
Charlie  Dodd  '74,  moved  to  Maine  last  Sep- 


54       WPI  JOURNAL 


REUNION  '85:  Class  of  1940 families  (above);  "How 
have  you  been  ?  ";  tennis  players  Pete  Horstmann  '55 
and  Bill  Firla  '60. 


tember.  They  have  two  daughters,  Emily,  3, 
and  Laura,  1. 

Michael  Dudas  holds  the  post  of  vice  presi- 
dent of  Electrodes  Inc.  He  also  serves  as  bulle- 
tin editor  and  treasurer  of  the  New  Haven  (CT) 
Society  of  Manufacturing  Engineers.  Michael 
and  his  wife  have  two  sons. 

Randy  Haagens  is  currently  an  engineering 
project  manager  at  the  Roseville  (CA)  Net- 
works Division  of  Hewlett-Packard  Co.  (HP) 
near  Sacramento.  He  joined  HP  in  Cupertino, 
CA,  in  1978  after  receiving  his  MSEE  from 
MIT.  The  Haagens  have  two  daughters,  Re- 
becca, 3,  and  Dara,  2. 

Bruce  Hutton,  who  has  been  with  Data  Gen- 
eral since  1976,  is  now  senior  manufacturing 
engineer.  The  Huttons  have  two  children.  For 
the  past  three  years,  Bruce  has  been  working  on 
their  house  in  Hudson,  MA. 

Fran  Kiernan  has  completed  his  training  as 
a  cardiologist  and  is  now  at  Hartford  Hospital 
working  on  the  special  procedures  of  cardiac 
catheterization  and  angiography. 

Gary  Kiontke,  who  has  completed  two  mar- 
athons, is  active  with  the  Southern  Congrega- 
tional Church  in  Springfield,  MA.  He  is  a  vol- 
unteer on  the  WPI  Admissions  Committee. 

Bob  Martin  is  director  of  customer  market- 
ing for  a  new  company,  Banyan  Systems, 
which  makes  communications  products  for  con- 
necting personal  computers,  work  stations  and 
mainframe  computers.  The  Martins  are  the  par- 
ents of  two  daughters. 

Tom  McGowan,  who  has  been  with  DEC  for 
three  years,  is  taking  a  graduate  course  at  WPI. 

Beth  Pennington,  a  self-employed  manage- 
ment consultant  (computer  installations), 
received  her  MBA  from  Emory  University  in 
Atlanta  last  year.  Beth  recently  soloed  for  her 
private  pilot's  license.  She  is  married  to  Birge 
Sigety. 

Dick  Perreault  continues  in  sales  for 
Hewlett-Packard.  He  plays  softball  and  tennis. 
The  Perreaults  have  two  daughters,  Maressa 
Anne,  and  Jenna  Marie. 

Ed  Pietraszkiewicz  has  recently  been  on 
assignment  for  Pratt-Whitney  as  a  job  shopper. 
He  and  his  wife,  Anna,  reside  in  Palm  Beach 
Gardens,  FL,  and  "just  stay  out  in  the  sun." 

Jean  Reny  Runge  works  for  Upjohn  Phar- 
maceuticals in  Kalamazoo,  MI.  Last  fall,  she 
and  her  husband  vacationed  in  Southern  Ger- 
many, Switzerland  and  France. 

Capt.  Douglas  Sargent  has  completed  a  year 
at  Thule  AFB,  Greenland,  and  is  presently 
assigned  to  headquarters,   U.S.    Air  Forces, 


Europe,  where  he  is  responsible  for  the  design 
and  construction  management  of  operations  and 
maintenance  projects  throughout  Europe. 

Bob  Simon,  with  Allied  Chemical  Corpora- 
tion for  seven  years,  now  serves  as  market 
development  manager.  He  works  on  the  devel- 
opment of  new  products  from  research  com- 
mercialization. He  and  his  wife,  Debbie,  have 
two  children. 

Walter  Skiba  is  now  plant  metallurgist  for 
United  Tech  Diesel  Systems,  Springfield,  MA. 

Jim  Sweeney  continues  with  the  family  busi- 
ness, Playland  Arcade,  in  Buzzards  Bay.  He 
and  his  wife  have  purchased  a  150-year-old 
house  in  Rochester,  MA.  Jim  likes  to  play  soft- 
ball,  golf,  hockey  and  volleyball. 

Paul  Varadian  and  his  wife,  Vartus,  are 
Bostonians.  Paul  holds  the  post  of  president  of 
Trans-Continental  Development  Corporation, 
which  deals  in  real  estate  development  in  the 
U.S.  Also,  he  owns  Chiaro  Trading  Company 
Ltd.,  which  acts  as  broker  and  matches  Ameri- 
can and  foreign  companies  for  business  ven- 
tures. 

John  Watkins  has  been  flying  an  experimen- 
tal airplane  which  he  built. 

Last  year,  Dave  White  was  named  a  vice 
president  of  R.  H.  White  Construction  Co., 
which  is  constructing  a  $20  million  condomin- 
ium project  in  Northbridge,  MA.  His  responsi- 
bilities include  marketing,  new  ventures,  engi- 
neering and  estimating.  The  Whites  have  two 
daughters. 

Recently,  Jeff  Wnek  was  promoted  to  plant 
manager  of  Lilly  Industrial  Coatings  in  Temple- 
ton,  MA.  He  has  been  working  on  his  MBA  at 
WPI. 

Pat  Flaherty,  Class  President 


1976 


MARRIED:  Lance  Sunderlin  and  Melinda 
Ashley  on  March  10,  1985,  in  Tarboro,  NC. 
She  graduated  from  Kansas  State  University 
and  is  with  Hardee's  Food  Systems.  He  serves 
as  a  technical-quality  assurance  manager  for 
Ericsson  Inc.  Tarboro. 

BORN:  to  Susan  and  John  Fairbanks  a  son, 
James  Earl,  last  May. 

Catherine  Hogsett  holds  the  post  of  Navy 
contract  administrator  at  GE  in  Fitchburg,  MA. 

Thomas  McAloon,  who  was  married  to 
Beverly  Slater  last  year,  is  now  chief  engineer 
at  Pennichuck  Water  Works  in  Nashua,  NH. 


1977 


MARRIED:  Edward  Acciardi  to  Jayne  Thy- 
den  in  Worcester  on  March  9,  1985.  She 
attended  Becker  and  is  a  legal  secretary  at 
Fletcher,  Tilton  and  Whipple.  He  serves  as  a 
senior  design  engineer  at  Data  General  Corp., 
Westboro,  MA.  .  .  .  Adolfo  Chandeck  and 
Luz  Gomez  of  West  Lawn,  PA,  on  January  24, 
1985.  Luz  holds  a  BS  in  elementary  education 
from  Penn  State  University.  Adolfo,  who  is 
with  IBM  UK  Ltd.,  is  currently  working  on  the 
design  and  implementation  of  a  national  elec- 
tronic funds  transfer  network  for  the  United 
Kingdom.  He  is  located  in  Portsmouth, 
England. 

BORN:  to  Brian  and  Tina  Perry  Buckley 
their  second  daughter,  Meghan  Chase,  on  Feb- 
ruary 10,  1985.  Brian  is  the  chief  test  engineer 
of  the  U.  S.  S.  Simon  Bolivar  currently  undergo- 
ing overhaul  at  the  Portsmouth  (NH)  Naval 
Shipyard.  Tina  was  formerly  employed  by  the 
Kimball  Chase  Company  in  Portsmouth. 

Steven  Fine  has  a  new  post  as  a  research 
scientist  with  Poly  Solar  Inc.,  a  small  semicon- 
ductor solar  cell  research  company  in  Garland, 
TX. 

Robert  Hurd  has  received  his  professional 
engineer  license  for  the  State  of  Virginia. 

John  Osowski  recently  took  and  passed  the 
"Principles  and  Practice  of  Engineering"  exam 
in  Illinois  and  says  he  is  "finally  a  professional 
engineer." 


1978 


MARRIED:     Richard    Egerton,    Jr.,     to 

Deborah  Cota  in  Warwick,  RI,  on  February  9, 
1985.  A  teacher  at  Bradley  Hospital,  Deborah 
has  a  BS  from  Rhode  Island  College  and 
received  a  master's  degree  in  special  education 
from  RIC  in  June.  Richard  is  studying  for  his 
master's  at  URL  He  is  a  product  manager  at 
Taco  Inc.,  Cranston,  RI.  .  .  .  Walter  Teal,  Jr., 
and  Shelley  Grenier  recently  in  Leominster, 
MA.  A  rental  manager  for  Glick  Management 
Corp.  in  Virginia  Beach,  VA,  Shelley  gradu- 
ated from  Assumption  College.  Teal,  who 
attended  the  College  of  William  and  Mary  prior 
to  graduating  from  WPI,  serves  as  a  chemical 
engineer  for  the  U.S.  Navy  Department  at 
Yorktown,  VA. 
BORN:  to  Leonard  and  Liz  Papandrea 


AUGUST  1985       55 


Competing  at  the  Edge 

They  don't  care  much  for  cameras  in 
Silicon  Valley. 

Security  is  tight  at  the  dozens  of 
high-tech  companies  that  line  the  free- 
ways near  Santa  Clara,  CA..  Silicon 


Lariviere,  '76.  a  son.  Alexander  James,  on 
February  20.  1985.  Alexander  joins  sisters 
Christine.  51:.  and  Rebecca.  3.  Leonard  is  a 
planning  engineer  in  microwave  radio  path 
engineering  for  AT&T  Technologies.  North 
Andover.  MA  Liz  writes  that  she's  a  full-time 
mother.  .  .  .  William  and  Patricia  Tracy 
Walton  a  daughter.  Meredith  Tracy,  on  Decem- 
ber 16.  1984.  Meredith  has  a  brother.  William, 
who  is  2  years  old. 

Stephan  Mezak  is  now  a  field  applications 
engineer  for  CAE  Systems.  Sunnyvale.  CA 

Patrick  Nicholson  continues  as  a  fire  protec- 
tion engineer  with  EPM  Inc..  Framingham. 
MA. 

Andrew  Tannenbaum  serves  as  a  software 
engineer  for  Masscomp  in  Westford.  MA. 


1979 


\L\RRIED:  Brian  Trudel  to  Nan  Towle  on 
January  26.  1985.  Nan.  who  graduated  from 
Becker,  is  a  physical  therapist.  The  Trudels 
reside  in  Louisville. 

John  Arnold  is  now  with  the  Artifical  Intelli- 
gence Technology  Group  at  DEC  in  Hudson. 
MA 

Mary  Farren  McDonald  was  recently  pro- 
moted to  staff  product  assurance  engineer  at 
IBM  in  Poughkeepsie.  NY.  "M>  job  involves  a 
lot  of  travel,  which  I  love.  I  go  to  Europe  every 
other  month!"  She  has  completed  degree 
requirements  for  an  MS  in  industrial  adminis- 
tration at  Union  College. 


Valley's  ground  zero.  Visitors  don't  get 
far  w  ithout  an  escort  and  a  special  pass. 
Signs  warn  of  dire  penalties  for  tres- 
passers, especially  those  with  cameras. 
"Each  company  is  only  as  good  as 
the  edge  it  has  over  the  competition," 
explains  Robert  M.  Malbon  '63.  head 


Dave  Szkutak  is  currendy  manager  of  the 
assembly  department  of  the  Massive  Optics 
Division  of  U.S.  Precision  Lens  Inc..  Cincin- 
nati. OH.  The  firm  manufactures  plastic  optics 
for  projection  televisions,  as  well  as  a  variety  of 
small  optical  products,  including  fiberoptic 
connectors. 

Johann  Thalheim  of  Old  Greenwich.  CT. 
writes.  "Am  making  money  buying  and  selling 
cars  and  boats." 


1980. 

Reunion 


September  28. 1985 


MARRIED:  William  Jones  and  Karen 
McGann  on  April  13.  1985.  in  Agawam.  MA. 
Karen,  a  graduate  of  Central  Connecticut  State 
College  and  AIC.  teaches  in  Somers.  CT. 
Jones,  who  graduated  from  AIC.  as  well  as 
WPI.  teaches  in  Springfield.  MA.  .  .  .  Theo- 
dore Linn  and  Katheryn  Helms  on  February 
23.  1985.  in  Old  Lyme.  CT.  She  is  an  econom- 
ics student  at  Connecticut  College  in  New  Lon- 
don. CT.  He  is  a  senior  engineer  at  Electric 
Boat.  In  June  he  received  his  MSME  from  the 
Hartford  Graduate  Center. 

BORN:  to  Eve  and  Robert  Berlo  their  first 
child.  Jacqueline,  on  March  26.  1985.  .  .  . 
Michael  and  Elaine  O'Neill  Yarnall  their  first 
child.  Matthew  Scott,  on  March  3.  1985. 

Robert  Cummings  was  recently  promoted  to 
associate  at  FIREPRO  Incorporated.  Wellesley 
Hills.  MA.  He  will  be  concerned  with  building 


of  semiconductor  research  and  devel- 
opment for  Avantek,  a  microwave  tele- 
communications company. 

A  physics  major  at  WPI,  after  gradu- 
ation Malbon  headed  west  to  Stanford 
University.  He  earned  a  master's  in 
physics  and  a  Ph.D.  in  electrical  engi- 
neering, then  went  to  work  for  Hughes 
Aircraft  in  Los  Angeles. 

In  1971.  he  and  his  wife.  Virginia, 
joined  the  Peace  Corps  and  went  to 
Chile  for  two  years.  While  Malbon  was 
teaching  electrical  engineering  at  the 
University  of  Valparaiso.  Chilean  pres- 
ident Salvador  Allende  was  being  over- 
thrown in  a  bloody  coup  that  many 
believe  was  led  by  the  CIA. 

"The  media  really  misrepresented 
what  life  was  like  there  at  that  time." 
says  Malbon.  referring  to  news  reports 
and  movies  such  as  Missing.  "There 
was  a  curfew,  but  no  real  danger.  Miss- 
ing the  curfew  just  meant  spending  the 
night  in  jail.  We  never  feared  for  our 
lives." 

After  returning  from  Chile.  Malbon 
worked  for  Hughes  for  another  three 
years.  In  1977  he  joined  Avantek,  first 
as  manager  of  the  materials  division, 
then  as  head  of  research  and  develop- 
ment in  the  microwave  semiconductor 
group. 

— Michael  Shanley 


design,  construction  projects  and  the  recon- 
struction of  major  fire  incidents.  Prior  to  join- 
ing the  company  in  1982.  Cummings  was  a 
systems  engineer  for  Fenwal  in  Ashland.  MA. 
An  associate  member  of  the  Society  of  Fire 
Protection  Engineers,  he  is  studying  for  his  MS 
in  fire  protection  engineering  at  the  Center  for 
Firesafety  Studies  at  WPI. 

Michael  Gardella  is  a  senior  engineer  in  the 
strategic  weapon  support  systems  area  at  Gen- 
eral Dy  namics  Electric  Boat  Division.  The  Gar- 
dellas  and  their  two  children  reside  in  Jewen 
City.  CT 

Joseph  LeBlanc  serves  as  a  research  scientist 
for  Union  Camp  Corp.  in  Princeton.  NJ 

John  Manning,  who  holds  a  PhD  in  environ- 
mental engineering  from  Notre  Dame,  is  cur- 
rendy a  postdoctoral  fellow  at  Harvard. 

Maryellen  McLaughlin  is  a  senior  design 
engineer  in  the  Microwave  Systems  Division  at 
Aiken  Advanced  Systems. 


1981 


\L\RRIED:  Cynthia  Atkins  and  Toby  Palmer 
on  June  9.  1984.  Cynthia  is  studying  for  her 
PhD  in  inorganic  photochemistry  at  Purdue 
University.  Toby  is  a  chemistry  postdoc 
....  Joseph  Gionfriddo  and  Mary  Fox  of 
Cincinnati.  OH.  on  September  1.  1984.  Joe 
continues  as  a  manager  for  Procter  &  Gamble 
in  Mehoopany.  PA.  .  .  Peter  Hinckley  and 
Barbara  Duszak  on  April  20.  1985.  in  Thom- 
aston.  CT.  Barbara  graduated  from  Thomaston 


56       WPI  JOURNAL 


REUNION  '85:  The  Class  of  1955  gathers  for  the  traditional  photograph. 


High  School  and  Central  Connecticut  State 
University.  She  is  a  department  manager  for  G. 
Fox  &  Co..  Waterbury.  Peter  is  a  product  engi- 
neer for  the  Torrington  (CT)  Co.  .  .  .  Jeffrey 
Smith  and  Catherine  Culnane  '84  on  April 
14.  1985.  Catherine  is  a  systems  analyst  for 
American  Management  Systems.  Jeff  is  an 
MIS-microcomputer  manager  for  Dresser 
Atlas,  Houston,  TX.  .  .  .  Robert  Wright  and 
Marie  Lafrancis  on  February  16.  1985,  in  Aga- 
wam,  MA.  She  graduated  from  Becker  and 
Westfield  State  College  and  plans  to  attend 
graduate  school  in  Rhode  Island.  He  works  for 
Narragansett  Electric  in  Providence. 

John  Brady  III  serves  as  an  electronic 
design  engineer  at  Texas  Instruments  in  Dallas. 

John  Preli,  who  completed  his  MBA  degree 
at  Cornell  in  June,  plans  to  return  to  IBM  in 
Poughkeepsie.  NY,  as  a  financial  analyst. 

Geoff  Wadge  serves  as  applications  engineer 
in  Union  Carbide's  Coatings  Service  Division. 
North  Haven.  CT. 


1982 


MARRIED:  J.  Victor  Benson  and  Sharon 
Kane  recently  in  Bethel.  CT.  She  attends  West- 
ern Connecticut  State  University  in  Danbury 
and  is  a  millwright  apprentice  at  General 
Motors  in  North  Tarry  town.  NY.  He  works  for 
Mitchell  Oil  Co..  Danbury.  .  .  .  Jeffrey  Gross 
to  Debra  Schultz  in  Ft.  Lauderdale.  FL.  on 
December  21.  1984.  A  systems  engineer  at 
Intel  Inc..  Ft.  Lauderdale.  FL.  Debra  is  a  grad- 
uate of  Bloomsburg  State  College  in  Pennsylva- 
nia. Jeffrey  is  a  design  engineer  at  Racal- 
Milgo.  Ft.  Lauderdale.  .  .  .  Maureen  Seils  and 
Kyle  Brown  in  Upper  Red  Hook.  NY.  Maureen 
is  an  associate  programmer  at  IBM  in  Endicott. 
NY.  Kyle  attended  MIT  and  received  a  BA  in 
journalism  from  the  University  of  Georgia.  He 
serves  as  an  associate  communications  special- 
ist at  IBM  in  Endicott. 
Dan  Frey  serves  as  a  senior  development 


engineer  at  Honeywell  Electro-optics  Division 
in  Wilmington.  MA. 

John  Kemp  has  been  promoted  to  senior 
foreman  of  assembly  and  package  at  Miniature 
Precision  Bearings  Division  of  MPB  Corp.  in 
Keene.  NH.  He  joined  MPB  in  1983  as  an  engi- 
neering-management trainee  and  most  recently 
was  foreman  of  standard  bearing  assembly  and 
package. 

Carl  Lindegren  III  is  a  sales  engineer  at 
Lindco  Incorporated.  Worcester. 

Peter  Milieu  has  been  promoted  to  associate 
engineer  at  Northeast  Utilities  (NU).  He  started 
at  the  company  in  1984  as  an  assistant  engineer. 
Currently,  he  is  studying  for  his  master's  degree 
in  chemical  engineering  at  UConn. 

Robert  Mitchell  has  been  named  an  associ- 
ate of  the  Society  of  Actuaries  (ASA).  He  is  a 
group  dental  actuary  with  Union  Mutual  Life 
Insurance  Company.  Portland.  ME. 

Timothy  Stone  was  recently  promoted  to 
senior  systems  analyst  at  State  Mutual  in  Wor- 
cester. 

Joel  Swan  works  on  automated  test  systems 
at  RCA  Government  Systems  Division  in 
Burlington.  MA. 

Lisa  Katz  Wadge  is  employed  as  a  consult- 
ing engineer  with  TRC  Environmental  Consul- 
tants. East  Hartford.  CT. 


1983 


MARRIED:  Timothy  Horan  and  Michele 
Raia  on  January  5.  1985.  in  Bristol.  CT. 
Michele.  an  executive  secretary,  graduated 
from  Becker.  Tim.  an  industrial  engineer,  is  a 
lieutenant  with  the  U.S.  Army  in  West 
Germany  .  .  .  Mark  Millay  and  Karen  Landry 
in  Athol,  MA.  on  January  19.  1985.  An 
accountant.  Karen  graduated  from  Nichols  Col- 
lege. Dudley.  MA.  Mark  is  a  mechanical  engi- 
neer at  GTE  Products  Corp..  Westboro.  MA.  . 
.  .  Mark  Rossmeisl  and  Laurie  Farrell  on  Sep- 


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AUGUST  1985       57 


DeMeo  Captures 
Presidential  Award 


When  John  DeMeo  '68MA  made  a 
career  change  back  in  1972,  he  never 
dreamed  it  would  lead  him  to  the  steps 
of  the  White  House.  But  last  fall,  dur- 
ing White  House  ceremonies,  he 
received  the  1984  Presidential  Award 
for  Excellence  in  Science  and  Mathe- 
matics Teaching— after  first  having 
been  named  the  top  math  teacher  in 
Connecticut. 

A  faculty  member  at  Coginchaug 
Regional  High  in  Durham,  CT,  DeMeo 
joined  with  master  teachers  from  other 
states  during  four  days  of  ceremonies  in 
Washington,  DC. 

DeMeo 's  unplanned  trek  to  the  White 
House  began  in  1972.  "I  was  an  analyt- 
ical engineer  at  Pratt  &  Whitney  at  the 
time,"  he  says.  "After  working  as  an 
engineer  for  four  years,  I  decided  what 
I  really  wanted  to  do  was  to  teach." 

To  further  his  goal,  he  earned  his 
MSMA  from  RPI,  took  education 
courses  at  Central  Connecticut  College 
and  completed  his  certification  in  edu- 
cational administration  at  Southern 
Connecticut  State  College. 

Besides  teaching  calculus  and  com- 
puter programming,  DeMeo  is  in 
charge  of  developing  the  computer  cur- 
riculum in  District  13.  Active  in 
numerous  local,  state  and  national  pro- 
fessional societies,  he  requires  that  stu- 
dents make  commitments  at  the  begin- 
ning of  each  new  course  regarding 
homework,  attendance  and  responsibil- 


tember  30,  1984,  in  Winchester,  MA.  Laurie 
graduated  from  Becker  with  an  associate  degree 
in  retail  management  and  is  manager  of  the 
Carriage  Square  Specialty  Shop  in  Burlington, 
MA.  Mark  serves  as  a  robotics  design  engineer 
in  R&D  at  Dyna/Pert,  a  subsidiary  of  Emhart 
Corp.,  Beverly,  MA. 

Ray  Haarstick  is  a  communications  consul- 
tant for  Network  Strategies,  Burke,  VA. 

Thomas  Hoblitzell  works  as  a  terminal  ser- 
vice support  analyst  for  United  States  Lines  in 
Cranford,  NJ.  He  has  been  studying  for  his 
MBA  in  finance  at  Rutgers. 

Maura  Mastrogiovanni  is  employed  as  a 
thermal  engineer  with  DEC  in  Maynard,  MA. 

Bill  McMullan  serves  as  an  electric  power 
instrument  engineer  with  EXXON  in  Baton 
Rouge,  LA. 

Scott  Menard  is  now  a  project  engineer  with 
C.L.  Peck,  Contractor,  Los  Angeles,  CA. 

John  Moore  received  his  MSME  from  RPI 
in  December.  Currently,  he  is  with  IBM  Gener- 
al Products  Division  in  Tucson,  AZ. 

Mary  White  is  an  urban  planner  with  the 
Peace  Corps  in  Yemen  Arab  Republic,  where 
she  will  be  situated  for  two  years.  She  was 
awarded  a  scholarship  in  urban  planning  and 
international  development  by  Clark  University. 


DeMeo  (right)  receiving  Presidential 
Award  from  Dr.  George  Key  worth, 
science  advisor  to  President  Reagan. 

ity  for  their  own  education. 

"Students  put  demands  on  me,"  he 
says.  "Some  require  me  to  be  an  enter- 
tainer, some  need  individual  help,  and 
others  work  best  by  themselves.  I'm 
challenged  and  find  excitement  in  try- 
ing to  meet  their  needs."  As  a  top  math 
teacher  in  Connecticut  and  as  the  recip- 
ient of  a  presidential  teaching  award, 
John  DeMeo  has  ample  proof  that  he 
has  met  those  needs  in  superb  fashion! 


Her  address  is:  American  Peace  Corps,  c/o 
Yemen  Desk,  806  Connecticut  Ave.,  NW, 
Washington,  DC,  20526. 


1984 


Paul  Ahlijanian  works  as  a  consulting  engi- 
neer at  Environmental  Resource  Assoc,  in 
Warwick,  RI. 

William  Alcusky,  who  holds  an  MS  from 
WPI,  is  a  senior  engineer  at  Yankee  Atomic 
Electric,  Framingham,  MA. 

Deborah  Allen  is  studying  for  her  MS  in 
chemical  engineering  at  WPI. 

Kimberly  Allen  is  a  process  engineer  II  at 
DEC,  Hudson,  MA. 

Jeffrey  Andrews  is  a  senior  sanitary  engi- 
neer for  the  State  of  Massachusetts  Department 
of  Environmental  Quality  Engineering  in  Wor- 
cester. He  has  his  MS  from  WPI. 

Jacob  Arends  is  a  sales  representative  for 
Dictograph  Security  Systems  in  Aruba,  Nether- 
lands Antilles. 

Stephen  Buckley  is  a  project  engineer  for  the 
Maryland  Department  of  Transportation  in  Bal- 
timore. 


Michelle  Bugbee  works  as  chemical  engi- 
neer at  Monsanto  Polymers  &  Plastics  in  Indian 
Orchard,  MA. 

Steve  Burgarella  works  for  General  Scan- 
ning Inc.,  Watertown,  MA. 

Arthur  Butler  is  a  graduate  student  and 
research  assistant  in  the  department  of  electrical 
and  computer  engineering  at  Carnegie-Mellon 
University,  Pittsburgh. 

David  Capotosto  holds  the  post  of  process 
engineer  at  Shape  Inc.,  Biddeford,  ME. 

William  Carnes,  who  has  his  MS  from  WPI, 
works  for  Raytheon,  Sudbury,  MA. 

Thomas  Casale  is  a  microwave  design  engi- 
neer for  Varian  Associates  in  Beverly,  MA. 

Louis  Castriotta  is  currently  an  industrial 
engineer-in-training  at  Miniature  Precision 
Bearings,  Keene,  NH.  He  is  a  local  Junior 
Midget  Pop  Warner  football  coach. 

Jacqueline  Courtney  currently  works  as  an 
industrial  engineer  at  Pitney  Bowes  in  Stam- 
ford, CT. 

J.  Steven  Curran  works  as  a  service  engi- 
neer for  Combustion  Engineering,  Windsor, 
CT. 

Greg  Danti  holds  the  post  of  design  engineer 
at  Harris  Graphics,  Dover,  NH. 

Sheldon  Dean  is  a  grad  student  in  the  depart- 
ment of  chemical  engineering  at  WPI. 

Edward  DeMattia  is  now  a  research  engi- 
neer in  gallium  arsenide  semiconductor  devel- 
opment for  Raytheon  Company  in  Northboro, 
MA. 

George  Duane  works  for  Grumman  Aero- 
space in  Bethpage,  NY. 

Marilyn  Duncan,  who  has  received  her  PhD 
in  endocrinology  from  WPI,  is  now  a  research 
fellow  studying  biological  rhythms  at  Massa- 
chusetts General  Hospital,  Boston.  She 
attended  the  University  of  Delaware  and 
received  an  MS  from  UConn. 

Monica  Ferullo  holds  the  post  of  quality 
engineer  at  Northern  Telecom  in  Concord,  NH. 

Katrina  Fontes  is  a  programmer  for  IBM  in 
Endicott,  NY. 

John  Franzini  continues  with  the  Naval 
Underwater  Systems  Center,  New  London,  CT. 
He  and  his  wife,  Kate,  reside  in  Norwich,  CT. 

Jon  Freeman  serves  as  a  senior  hardware 
engineer  at  Prime  Computer,  Framingham, 
MA.  He  has  an  MS  from  WPI. 

Paul  Goodrich  is  a  test  engineer  with  Tele- 
dyne  Philbrick,  Dedham,  MA. 

Dave  Grace  works  as  an  R&D  engineer  at 
Varian 's  Extrion  Division  in  Gloucester,  MA. 

Ira  Gregerman  holds  the  post  of  productiv- 
ity management  officer  at  State  Street  Bank  & 
Trust,  Boston. 

Zahi  Haddad,  who  has  an  MSEE  from  WPI, 
is  an  assistant  professor  at  Springfield  (MA) 
Technical  Community  College. 

Charles  Hickey  serves  as  a  process  engineer 
forGE  in  Cleveland,  OH. 

Michael  Hobson  has  been  commissioned  a 
second  lieutenant  in  the  U.S.  Air  Force  follow- 
ing graduation  from  OTS  Lackland  AFB,  TX. 
He  is  assigned  to  Edwards  AFB,  CA. 

Amine  Khechfe  is  now  a  graduate  student  in 
mechanical  engineering  in  the  energy  division 
at  the  University  of  Wisconsin,  Madison.  Pre- 
viously, he  was  with  the  Trane  Co.,  La  Crosse, 
WI. 

Margaret  Raymond,  who  holds  an  MBA 
from  WPI,  is  employed  as  a  marketing  special- 
ist at  Data  General,  Westboro,  MA.  Her  hus- 
band, Richard  Raymond,  also  has  an  MBA 


58       WPI  JOURNAL 


and  serves  as  a  senior  consultant  at  DEC  in 
Boylston,  MA. 

Josh  Reed  has  accepted  the  post  of  associate 
physicist  with  the  Johns  Hopkins  University 
Applied  Physics  Laboratory,  Laurel,  MD. 

Frank  Reeves  has  been  employed  by  Con 
Diesel  Mobile  Equipment  Co. 

Judith  Rezendes  is  a  reliability  engineer  at 
Polaroid  Corporation,  Cambridge,  MA. 

Douglas  Rich  holds  the  post  of  plant  engi- 
neer at  Axton  Cross  Industrial  Chemicals,  Hol- 
liston,  MA. 

John  Riley  works  in  technical  field  sales  for 
Fluid  Conditioning  Equipment  Inc.,  East 
Aurora,  NY.  He  is  located  in  Clifton  Park,  NY. 

Marie  Ellen  Ristuccia  works  as  a  staff  engi- 
neer for  Hewlett-Packard  in  Andover,  MA. 

Elizabeth  Roughan  has  joined  Unitrode 
Corporation,  Watertown,  MA,  where  she 
serves  as  a  process  development  engineer. 

John  Ruggles  is  a  research  assistant  and 
graduate  student  at  Clarkson  University,  Pots- 
dam, NY. 

Gregory  Ryan  has  joined  GTE  Sylvania 
Products,  Westboro,  MA. 

Jean  Salek  is  employed  as  a  process  engineer 
by  Chevron  Research  Co.,  Richmond,  CA. 

Ronald  Salig,  who  has  an  MS  in  fire  protec- 
tion engineering  from  WPI,  holds  the  post  of 
vice  president  of  engineering  at  MBS  Fire 
Technology  Inc.,  Grafton,  MA. 

Frank  Sansevero  works  for  Hamilton  Stan- 
dard, Windsor  Locks,  CT,  as  a  mechanical 
design  engineer. 

Kevin  Santry  serves  as  a  software  engineer 
for  Atex  Inc.,  Bedford,  MA. 

Joseph  Scafidi  works  for  New  England 
Wheels,  Waltham,  MA. 

Leonard  Schiavone  is  on  the  staff  at  Mitre 
Corporation,  Bedford,  MA. 

Bill  Simmons  holds  the  post  of  associate 
engineer  at  General  Dynamics-Electric  Boat, 
Groton,  CT. 

Williams  Simpson  is  with  General 
Dynamics  Electric  Boat  Division. 

Andrew  Smith  works  as  a  design  engineer  at 
DEC  in  Tewskbury,  MA. 

Gail  Smith  has  joined  Hamilton  Standard, 
Windsor  Locks,  CT.  She  is  an  associate  engi- 
neer. 

Nancy  Smith  has  accepted  the  position  of 
design  engineer  at  Harris  Graphics  Corpora- 
tion, Dover,  NH. 

LCDR  Thomas  Smith,  USN,  who  has  an 
MSME  from  WPI,  is  currently  at  the  Naval 
Submarine  School  in  Groton,  CT. 

Sanggono  Soebroto  has  been  named  a  field 
engineer  at  Schlumberger  Well  Services  in 
Indonesia. 

Dean  Sorensen  has  joined  Eastern  Utilities 
Associates. 

Paul  Sorrento  is  working  for  Raytheon 
Company. 

Dan  Soulia  is  now  a  design  engineer  with 
Harris  Graphics  in  Dover,  NH. 

Mark  Souter  has  joined  the  Air  Force. 

Gregg  Speer  is  a  technical  associate  at 
Emhart  Corporation,  Beverly,  MA. 

Richard  Walker  has  been  employed  by  Faf- 
nir  Bearing  Division  of  Textron  Inc. 

Mary  Ann  Wall,  who  has  her  MS  in  com- 
puter science  from  WPI,  holds  the  post  of  chief, 
systems  and  programs,  U.S.  Army  Natick 
(MA)  R&D  Center. 

Steven  Wallet  is  a  design  engineer  with  Tor- 
rington  Co.  in  Connecticut. 


Mark  Walz  holds  the  post  of  project  man- 
ager/engineer at  Nuclear  Metals  Inc.,  Concord, 
MA. 

Daniel  Ward  works  for  Eastman  Kodak, 
Rochester,  NY. 

Mark  Warren  is  employed  at  Raytheon, 
Sudbury,  MA. 

Brian  Wasko  has  joined  Merrill  Lynch  Inter- 
national Bank.  He  has  an  MS  in  chemical  engi- 
neering from  WPI. 

Lester  Waters  is  a  software  engineer  work- 
ing in  computer  development  for  DEC  (Rain- 
bow Group)  in  Littleton,  MA. 

Timothy  Watkins  is  at  Lehigh  University. 

Brian  Wetzel  has  joined  Barnhart,  Johnson, 
Francis  &  Wild  Co.  Inc. 

Chiara  Whalen  works  for  Newport  News 
Shipbuilding. 

Bryan  White  has  been  employed  by  Hughes 
Aircraft  Co. 

Barry  Whitehouse,  who  has  a  master's 
degree  in  mathematics  from  WPI,  has  joined 
Pratt  &  Whitney. 

John  Whittaker  serves  as  a  test  engineer  at 
LTX  Corp.,  Westwood,  MA. 

Oren  Wiesler  is  a  computer  design  engineer 
for  DEC  in  Littleton,  MA. 

Paul  Williams  has  joined  Harris  R.  F.  Com- 
munications in  Rochester,  NY. 

Tom  Wilsack  is  employed  at  Polaroid,  Wal- 
tham, MA,  as  a  process  engineer. 

Angela  Winter  is  currenty  employed  by 
Hewlett-Packard,  Andover,  MA,  as  an  applica- 
tions engineer. 

Lt.  Brian  Witkowski  recently  completed 
Officer  Training  School  in  Engineering  at  Fort 
Belvoir,  VA,  and  is  currently  an  executive  offi- 


cer with  the  U.S.  Army  at  Ft.  Leonard  Wood, 
MO. 

James  Witt  is  a  systems  engineer  at  Intellu- 
tion Inc.,  Westwood,  MA. 

Carlos  Zuccolillo  is  a  technical  advisor  for 
La  Perseverancia  S.A.  in  Asuncion,  Paraguay. 


School  of 

Industrial  Management 


Joseph  Federici  '72  has  been  elected  to  the 
1985  DPMA  Executive  Council.  He  serves  as 
vice  president  of  Region  14  for  the  Data  Proc- 
essing Management  Association  (DPMA).  The 
customer  service  manager  at  Bay  State  Abra- 
sives Division  of  Dresser  Industries  in  West- 
boro, MA,  Federici  also  holds  the  posts  of  data 
processing  manager,  telecommunications  man- 
ager and  security  officer.  He  has  been  with  the 
firm  for  30  years.  He  was  a  charter  member  of 
the  Worcester  chapter  of  DPMA  and  was  presi- 
dent for  two  terms.  A  member  of  the  Westboro 
(MA)  Chamber  of  Commerce  and  treasurer  for 
the  Westboro  Athletic  Boosters  Association,  he 
was  selected  the  1983  "Booster  of  the  Year." 

Roy  Moffa  '77  has  been  named  director  of 
program  management,  a  new  post  at  Apollo 
Computer  Inc.,  Chelmsford,  MA.  Previously, 
he  was  chief  executive  officer  of  Pixel  Com- 
puter in  Wilmington.  From  1969  to  1983  he 
worked  in  engineering  and  marketing  for  DEC. 
He  has  a  BSEE  from  Spring  Garden  College  in 
Philadelphia. 


COMPLETED  CAREERS 


Arthur  B.  Bronwell,  WPI's  ninth  president, 
died  May  10,  1985,  in  Willimantic,  CT,  at  the 
age  of  75.  He  had  served  at  WPI  from  1955  to 
1962. 

During  his  tenure  as  president  at  WPI,  enroll- 
ment grew  from  about  800  to  well  over  1,200 
students  and  the  graduate  and  evening  program 
expanded  substantially.  Also,  a  development 
program  was  instituted  in  which  $5  million  was 
raised  in  a  five-year  period. 

When  he  resigned  in  1962,  the  Alumni  Gym- 


nasium addition  was  in  progress.  Completed 
projects  included  Morgan  Hall,  Olin  Hall, 
graduate  study  program,  Atwater  Kent  Labora- 
tories renovation,  Salisbury  Laboratories  reno- 
vation and  increased  endowment.  One  of  the 
first  training  nuclear  reactors  ever  placed  on  a 
college  campus  was  installed  at  WPI  in  1959. 

Don  Berth  '57,  vice  president  of  university 
relations  at  WPI,  recalls  that  Bronwell  had  a 
zest  for  new  ideas.  "He  brought  some  much 
needed  non-New  England  perspectives  to  WPI, 
and  a  number  of  faculty  from  other  major  col- 
leges and  universities.  His  forte  was  engineer- 
ing education  and  he  had  wide  recognition  on 
the  national  scene  when  he  arrived  at  WPI." 
Berth  continues,  "His  wife,  Virginia,  was  an 
especially  great  asset  to  Art  and  to  WPI.  She 
was  a  gracious  lady,  and  I  can  recall  being 
entertained  with  my  fellow  classmates  at  the 
President's  home.  Her  enthusiasm  was  conta- 
gious. A  visit  to  the  Bronwell  home  was  espe- 
cially memorable  for  a  then  young  college  stu- 
dent such  as  I  was  in  1956  and  1957." 

Prof.  Donald  Zwiep,  head  of  the  department 
of  mechanical  engineering  at  WPI  says  of 
Bronwell,  "He  was  very  interested  in  expand- 
ing the  recognition  of  WPI  beyond  the  immedi- 
ate area.  He  also  helped  young  faculty  progress 
with  various  incentives,  including  tuition  assis- 
tance for  their  children,  and  the  establishment 
of  the  former  Young  Faculty  Organization." 

"Art  Bronwell  brought  to  the  campus  an 
extremely  broad  background  and  interest  in 
engineering    education,"     says    Prof.     Wil 


AUGUST  1985       59 


Kranich,  who  has  just  retired  as  dean  of  gradu- 
ate studies  at  WPI.  "Through  his  familiarity 
with  the  interactions  and  processes  of  aca- 
demia,  he  was  able  to  accomplish  smoothly 
many  of  the  changes  which  had  brought  opposi- 
tion in  the  previous  administration." 

Prof.  Emeritus  Elliott  Buell,  a  longtime  per- 
sonal friend  of  Arthur  Bronwell,  remembers 
him  when  he  was  at  Northwestern  during  World 
War  II.  "Arthur  was  then  professor  of  electrical 
engineering  and  I  was  an  instructor  in  the  math 
department.  As  a  Signal  Corps  training-pro- 
gram administrator,  Arthur  engaged  me  to  teach 
a  refresher  course  in  math  to  military  students — 
four  hours  a  day,  Monday  through  Friday,  for 
ten  weeks  at  a  time.  Quite  an  assignment!" 

Following  Mr.  Bronwell's  move  to  WPI,  he 
invited  Prof.  Buell  to  join  the  math  department: 
"A  decision  I  never  regretted.  Under  Arthur's 
direction,  one  of  my  initial  duties  at  WPI  was  to 
promote  the  use  of  digital  computers,  then 
newly  emerging  on  the  national  scene  as  an 
important  tool  in  science  and  engineering." 

After  leaving  WPI,  President  Bronwell  was 
named  dean  of  engineering  at  the  University  of 
Connecticut,  Storrs,  retiring  as  dean  emeritus  in 
1977.  At  UConn  he  introduced  graduate  pro- 
grams in  aerospace  and  in  biological  and  envi- 
ronmental engineering  and  initiated  plans  for  a 
new  electrical  engineering  building  and  com- 
puter center. 

President  Bronwell,  a  native  of  Chicago, 
graduated  from  Illinois  Institute  of  Technology 
in  1933  and  took  his  master's  degree  there  in 
1936.  (The  Institute  awarded  him  its  Distin- 
guished Alumni  Citation.)  He  joined  North- 
western's  faculty  the  next  year  and  became  pro- 
fessor of  electrical  engineering  in  1947.  The 
following  year  he  received  his  MBA  from 
Northwestern.  He  held  honorary  doctorates 
from  Northeastern  University  and  Wayne  State 
University. 

During  World  War  II,  while  at  Northwestern, 
he  was  executive  director  of  the  American  Soci- 
ety for  Engineering  Education  and  managed  a 
program  for  the  Army  Signal  Corps  which 
trained  300  officers.  After  the  war,  he  served  on 
a  joint  Army  and  State  Department  mission  to 
Japan  on  technological  recovery  at  the  request 
of  the  occupation  government  under  Gen. 
Douglas  MacArthur. 

As  a  consultant,  he  assisted  Motorola  Co.  in 
designing  the  radar  system  for  the  B-29  bomber 
and  helped  design  telephone  equipment  for  Bell 
Telephone  Laboratories. 

While  in  Worcester,  Mr.  Bronwell  was  a 
director  of  Jamesbury  Corporation  and  the  Wor- 
cester Five  Cents  Savings  Bank.  He  was  vice 
president  of  the  advisory  panel  on  engineering 
science  to  the  National  Science  Foundation. 
Also,  he  was  a  trustee  of  Worcester  Academy,  a 
vice  president  of  the  Chamber  of  Commerce,  a 
corporation  member  of  the  Worcester  Boys 
Club,  a  trustee  of  Bancroft  School  and  president 
of  the  Worcester  Economic  Club.  He  was  a 
director  for  the  Salem  Square  Development 
Board,  Worcester  Free  Public  Library,  the  Wor- 
cester Council  of  Churches  and  the  Worcester 
Orchestral  Society. 

Mr.  Bronwell,  who  was  listed  in  Who's  Who 
in  the  World  and  Who 's  Who  in  America,  served 
on  a  state  citizen's  committee  which  tried  to 
bring  a  federal  space-flight  laboratory  to  Mas- 
sachusetts in  1961.  He  was  listed  in  Men  of 
Achievement,  Men  of  Distinction,  and  Engi- 
neers of  Distinction.  He  was  a  member  of  the 


Council  on  Foreign  Relations  in  New  York  City 
and  a  fellow  of  the  IEEE.  Other  organizations 
included  IRE,  ASME,  American  Economic 
Society,  Newcomen  Society,  Sigma  Xi,  Tau 
Beta  Pi  and  Eta  Kappa  Nu . 

For  eight  years  he  edited  the  Journal  of  Engi- 
neering Education  and  he  wrote  for  popular 
magazines  and  technical  journals,  including  the 
Saturday  Review.  He  was  the  author  of  a  book. 
Advanced  Mathematics  in  Physics  and  Engi- 
neering, and  co-authored  Theory  and  Applica- 
tion of  Microwaves.  His  Science  and  Technol- 
ogy in  the  World  of  the  Future  was  rated  one  of 
the  100  best  books  of  1970  by  the  Library  Jour- 
nal. 

Arthur  E.  Gorman  '17  of  Ormond  Beach, 
FL,  a  former  chief  sanitary  engineer  for  the 
U.S.  Atomic  Energy  Commission,  died  Febru- 
ary 12,  1985.  He  was  born  on  Dec.  18,  1892, 
in  Haverhill,  MA,  and  later  received  his  BSCE 
from  WPI. 

Mr.  Gorman  had  been  associated  with  the 
City  of  Worcester,  the  U.S.  Public  Health  Ser- 
vice, the  Chicago  Department  of  Health  and 
Sanitary  District,  Wallace  &  Tiernam  Inc.  and 
Pardee  Engineering.  He  had  served  as  engineer 
of  water  purification  for  the  City  of  Chicago,  as 
well  as  assistant  city  engineer.  During  World 
War  II,  he  served  on  the  U.S.  War  Production 
Board.  He  was  a  consultant  to  the  U.S.  Public 
Health  Service  and  a  director  of  the  land  and 
public  services  branch  of  the  U.S.  National 
Housing  Agency. 

For  ten  years,  he  was  chief  sanitary  engineer 
for  the  U.S.  Atomic  Energy  Commission. 
From  1957  to  1969,  when  he  retired,  he  was  a 
consultant  to  the  reactor  development  division 
of  the  Commission. 

His  memberships  included  the  ASCE,  Theta 
Chi,  Skull,  the  American  Water  Works  Associ- 
ation, the  American  Public  Health  Association, 
the  Illinois  and  Washington,  DC,  Societies  of 
Engineers  and  the  American  Academy  of  Envi- 
ronmental Engineering. 

Nelson  P.  Ingalls  '17  of  Hancock,  NH,  passed 
away  on  October  6,  1984.  He  was  born  June 
24,  1895,  in  Newburyport,  MA,  and  later  stud- 
ied electrical  engineering  at  WPI. 

During  his  career,  he  was  with  Heald 
Machine,  A  &  P  Tea  Co.,  and  Norton  Co., 
Worcester,  from  which  he  retired  in  1960  fol- 
lowing 23  years  of  service.  While  with  Norton, 
he  served  as  assistant  foreman,  assistant  super- 
intendent and  safety  engineer. 

Mr.  Ingalls  had  been  vice  president  of  the 
Worcester  County  Safety  Council  and  belonged 
to  the  National  Safety  Council,  the  American 
Society  of  Safety  Engineers,  the  Worcester 
Economic  Club  and  the  Masons.  He  was  chair- 
man of  the  town  finance  committee  in  Sterling, 
MA. 

Charles  L.  Waddell  '18  died  July  16,  1984,  in 
Margate,  FL.  A  native  of  Buffalo,  NY,  he  was 
born  on  July  1,  1896. 

After  receiving  his  BSEE,  he  was  employed 
by  Worthington  Corporation  until  1959. 
Among  his  positions  were  draftsman,  assistant 
chief  engineer  of  the  condenser  and  heater  divi- 
sion, production  manager  and  manager  of  the 
contract  engineering  division.  After  retiring 
from  Worthington,  he  joined  Lawrence  J. 
Schilling  as  a  real  estate  salesman. 

Mr.  Waddell  was  a  professional  engineer,  the 


former  vice  president  of  the  local  board  of  edu- 
cation and  a  Mason.  He  belonged  to  Phi 
Gamma  Delta. 

Carl  F.  Meyer  '22,  a  WPI  professor  emeritus, 
died  February  27,  1985,  in  Winter  Park,  FL,  at 
the  age  of  84.  He  was  born  in  Lawrence,  MA. 

After  receiving  his  BSCE,  Prof.  Meyer  was 
awarded  his  professional  CE  degree  from  WPI 
in  1929.  In  1938,  he  obtained  his  MSCE  from 
Cornell.  For  two  years  before  joining  the  WPI 
faculty  in  1924,  he  was  with  the  U.S.  Coast  and 
Geodetic  Survey.  He  was  an  exchange  profes- 
sor at  the  University  of  Hawaii  in  1936-37. 

In  World  War  II,  Prof.  Meyer  was  a  civilian 
sanitary  engineer  with  the  Navy  in  Norfolk, 
VA,  and  also  set  up  war-training  courses  at  the 
University  of  Redlands  in  California. 

During  his  41  years  in  the  civil  engineering 
department  at  WPI,  Prof.  Meyer  served  as  a 
consultant  on  numerous  civil  engineering  and 
public  works  projects.  His  textbook,  Route  Sur- 
veying, a  widely  used  text  in  civil  engineering, 
went  through  three  editions. 

Always  a  favorite  with  students,  he  was 
tapped  by  them  for  Skull.  The  faculty  selected 
him  to  receive  the  Trustees'  Award  for  Distin- 
guished Teaching  in  1964.  In  1965,  he  was 
awarded  an  honorary  doctorate  in  engineering 
by  WPI.  He  belonged  to  Tau  Beta  Pi,  Sigma 
Xi,  Chi  Epsilon  and  Theta  Chi. 

Prof.  Meyer  was  a  past  president  of  the  Wor- 
cester Engineering  Society,  the  Worcester  sec- 
tion of  the  ASCE  (life  member)  and  the  WPI 
chapter  of  Sigma  Xi.  A  registered,  professional 
engineer,  he  was  active  with  the  American 
Society  for  Engineering  Education  and  the 
American  Congress  of  Surveying  and  Mapping. 

In  retirement,  Prof.  Meyer  wrote  The  Fiddle 
Maker,  about  his  father,  whose  handmade  vio- 
lins were  compared  in  quality  to  those  of  Stra- 
divari. He  played  the  cello  in  the  Florida  Sym- 
phony Orchestra.  Earlier,  while  in  Worcester, 
he  played  first  cello  for  the  Little  Symphony 
Orchestra  and  became  a  life  member  of  Local 
143,  American  Federation  of  Musicians. 

Lincoln  A.  Cundall  '23,  of  Rochester,  NY,  a 
former  member  of  the  President's  Advisory 
Council  at  WPI,  died  suddenly  on  February  23, 
1985.  A  Worcester  native,  he  was  born  on  June 
13,  1899. 

He  received  two  degrees  from  WPI,  his 
BSEE  in  1923  and  his  professional  EE  in  1932. 
Over  the  years  he  was  associated  with  Bethle- 
hem Steel  Co.,  Harding  Engineering  Co.,  Con- 
solidated Packaging  Co.  (designer  of  automatic 
packaging  machinery)  and  Eastman  Kodak 
(supervisor  of  automatic  machinery  design).  He 
was  a  professional  engineer  in  New  York  State. 

For  32  years  he  was  a  volunteer  manager  of 
radio  communications  in  times  of  disaster  with 
the  Red  Cross.  Since  his  retirement  in  1965,  he 
had  done  volunteer  work  with  the  Rochester 
Science  Museum. 

A  founder  and  officer  of  the  Antique  Wire- 
less Association,  an  organization  dedicated  to 
the  preservation  and  documentation  of  radio 
from  its  infancy,  he  compiled  a  slide  show  doc- 
umentary on  Marconi,  a  copy  of  which  is  in  the 
Science  Museum  in  London.  The  Antique 
Wireless  Museum  in  East  Bloomfield,  NY,  has 
hundreds  of  artifacts  which  he  personally 
restored. 

Mr.  Cundall,  a  Mason,  was  the  son  of  R.  N. 
Cundall  '97.  He  was  a  former  vice  president  of 


60       WPI  JOURNAL 


the  Rochester  chapter  of  the  Alumni  Associa- 
tion, as  well  as  a  council  representative.  In 
1973-74,  he  served  on  the  President's  Advisory 
Council. 

Paul  H.  Norgren  '27,  a  research  associate  at 
Columbia  University  and  former  assistant  pro- 
fessor of  economics  at  WPI,  died  February  16, 
1985,  in  Stamford,  CT.  A  native  of  Worcester, 
he  was  8 1 . 

Following  graduation  as  an  electrical  engi- 
neer, Dr.  Norgren  received  his  master's  (1937) 
and  PhD  degrees  (1940)  in  economics  from 
Harvard.  He  had  been  a  research  associate  at 
Columbia  since  1963,  working  on  problems  of 
scientific  and  engineering  manpower. 

During  his  career,  he  was  a  professor  of  eco- 
nomics and  a  research  associate  in  industrial 
relations  at  Stanford  University  and  Brooklyn 
College,  as  well  as  a  professor  of  management 
at  Rutgers.  He  had  been  a  research  associate  at 
Princeton  and  a  senior  staff  associate  for  Indus- 
trial Relations  Counselors  Inc.,  of  New  York. 
In  1929  he  started  work  as  a  design  and  stan- 
dards engineer  for  Sylvania  Electric  Products. 

In  1939-40,  Dr.  Norgren  worked  with  social 
scientist  Dr.  Gunnar  Myrdal  of  the  University 
of  Stockholm,  Sweden,  in  a  study  of  racial 
problems  in  America  for  the  Carnegie  Corp.  in 
New  York.  From  1941  to  1947,  he  was  a  labor 
attache  at  the  American  Embassy  in  Ottawa, 
Canada. 

Dr.  Norgren  served  with  the  labor  division  of 
the  Office  of  Production  Management  in  Wash- 
ington, DC,  in  World  War  II.  He  was  also  vice 
chairman  of  the  National  War  Labor  Board. 

The  co-author  of  ten  books,  Dr.  Norgren 
belonged  to  numerous  research  and  profes- 
sional societies,  including  the  American  Eco- 
nomic Association,  the  Industrial  Relations 
Research  Association,  Sigma  Xi  and  Tau  Beta 
Pi. 

Daniel  F.  O'Grady  '30,  class  president  and  a 
WPI  trustees  emeritus,  died  May  18,  1985,  in 
Falmouth,  MA,  following  a  long  illness.  A 
graduate  civil  engineer,  he  was  born  in  Clinton, 
MA,  on  July  5,  1908. 

Retiring  WPI  president  Edmund  T.  Cranch 
remembers  Dan  O'Grady  as  a  warm,  loyal 
friend  and  advisor.  Stephen  Hebert  '66,  director 
of  development  and  alumni  relations,  said  of 
him,  "Dan  served  WPI  with  a  style,  finesse  and 
flair  that  was  very  special  and  very  successful. 
We  are  indeed  fortunate  that  he  was  a  member 
of  the  WPI  family  and  that  he  chose  to  be  so 
deeply  involved  with  his  alma  mater." 

Following  graduation,  Mr.  O'Grady  began 
his  43-year  career  with  New  England  Tele- 
phone Co.,  starting  in  the  sales  department  in 
Burlington,  VT.  Later  he  was  general  commer- 
cial manager  of  the  utility's  Bay  State  opera- 
tions, Boston,  and  general  services  manager 
statewide.  In  1970  he  was  named  executive 
assistant  to  the  president.  He  retired  in  1973. 

During  World  War  II  he  was  a  captain  in  the 
U.S.  Army  in  Europe  and  saw  service  in  the 
occupation  government  of  Bremen,  West  Ger- 
many. 

He  was  past  president  of  the  WPI  Alumni 
Association  (1960-1962),  and  of  the  Big 
Brother  Association  of  Boston,  the  Massachu- 
setts Tuberculosis  League  and  the  Catholic 
Alumni  Sodality  of  Boston.  Also,  he  was  a 
former  chairman  of  the  Massachusetts  Chapter 
of  the  National  Multiple  Sclerosis  Society,  as 


well  as  a  former  member  of  the  board  of  direc- 
tors of  the  American  Lung  Association.  He  was 
a  past  president  of  the  Woods  Hole  Golf  Club 
and  belonged  to  St.  Joseph's  Church  in  Woods 
Hole,  MA,  and  to  the  Cape  Cod  Curling  Club 
in  Falmouth. 

Mr.  O'Grady  was  a  member  of  ATO,  Tau 
Beta  Pi,  Skull,  the  Tech  Old-Timers  and  the 
Poly  Club.  For  many  years  he  was  an  active 
member  of  the  executive  committee  of  the 
Alumni  Association.  He  served  on  the  WPI 
Board  of  Trustees  between  1965  and  1975.  In 
1969  he  received  the  Herbert  F.  Taylor  Award 
from  the  Alumni  Association  for  distinguished 
service  to  his  alma  mater. 

Dr.  Philip  M.  Seal  '30  died  at  his  home  in 
Prospect  Harbor,  ME,  on  December  9,  1984, 
following  a  long  illness.  He  was  born  in 
Springfield,  MA,  on  Sept.  3,  1907,  and 
received  his  BSEE  and  MSEE  from  WPI  and 
his  doctorate  from  Purdue  University. 

He  was  with  Westinghouse  for  several  years, 
then  taught  at  the  University  of  Maine  and  Pur- 
due. From  1956  until  his  retirement  in  1973,  he 
was  a  professor  of  electrical  engineering  at  Nor- 
wich University,  Northfield,  VT.  He  was  also 
chairman  of  the  department  of  electrical  engi- 
neering at  Norwich. 

Dr.  Seal  was  a  member  of  Tau  Beta  Pi,  Sigma 
Xi,  IEEE,  ASEE  and  the  Memorial  Society  of 
Maine,  and  he  was  an  active  member  of  the 
Unitarian  Universalist  Church.  He  served  three 
years  as  tax  assessor  in  Gouldsboro,  ME. 

Harry  G.  Merrill  '32  of  West  Boylston,  MA, 
passed  away  on  September  23,  1984.  He  was 
born  in  West  Boylston  on  August  18,  1910,  and 
later  received  his  BSEE  from  WPI. 

He  was  with  Norton  Co.,  Worcester,  for  25 
years,  serving  as  an  inspector  and  control  engi- 
neer. A  former  town  auditor  in  West  Boylston, 
he  was  also  a  member  of  the  local  Congrega- 
tional Church  and  the  Tech  Old-Timers. 

William  H.  Clancey,  Jr.,  '33,  of  Paxton,  MA, 
passed  away  on  July  4,  1984.  A  mechanical 
engineer,  he  was  born  in  Worcester  on  May  2, 
1911. 

For  many  years  prior  to  his  retirement,  he 
was  with  American  Steel  &  Wire  division  of 
U.S.  Steel  in  Worcester,  where  he  served  as 
division  superintendent  of  the  steel  works. 
Starting  with  the  firm  in  1937,  he  had  been  a 
tester,  division  fuel  engineer,  foreman  in  the 
bloom  and  billet  mill,  and  general  foreman  of 
rod  mills,  as  well  as  assistant  division  superin- 
tendent of  steel  works.  He  belonged  to  the  Tech 
Old-Timers. 

James  V.  Rowley  '34  passed  away  on  January 
18,  1985,  in  Portland,  ME.  He  was  born  in 
Springfield,  MA,  on  Sept.  18,  191 1,  and  gradu- 
ated as  a  civil  engineer. 

For  a  number  of  years  he  was  employed  by 
the  federal  government  as  chief  of  quality  as- 
surance in  the  Springfield  (MA)  Armory.  He 
retired  in  1965.  He  belonged  to  Theta  Chi  Fra- 
ternity. 

Kenneth  A.  Linell  '35  died  January  22,  1985, 
at  his  home  in  Hanover,  NH.  He  was  71  and  a 
Worcester  native.  A  civil  engineer,  he  did  grad- 
uate work  at  MIT  and  Harvard. 

For  many  years  he  was  with  the  Army  Corps 
of  Engineers  in  Boston  and  Waltham,   MA, 


Providence,  RI,  and  Hanover,  NH.  He  retired 
in  1974.  Following  his  retirement,  he  was  an 
engineering  consultant  on  major  projects  world- 
wide, including  the  Alaska  pipeline. 

Mr.  Linell  was  co-author  of  a  graduate-level 
college  textbook,  Soil  and  Permafrost  Surveys 
in  the  Arctic,  plus  papers  and  articles  in  the 
field  of  soil  mechanics,  especially  the  effects  on 
major  construction  in  cold  climates.  In  1974,  he 
was  awarded  a  Meritorious  Civilian  Service 
Medal  from  the  Army  Corps  of  Engineers. 

A  life  member  of  the  ASCE  and  the  Appala- 
chian Mountain  Club,  he  also  belonged  to  sev- 
eral engineering  societies.  He  was  the  father  of 
Kenneth  F.  Linell  '66. 

Thomas  S.  Wingardner  '40  died  November  4, 
1984,  at  his  home  in  West  Yarmouth,  MA.  He 
was  born  July  16,  1918,  in  New  York  City,  and 
later  studied  at  WPI.  He  graduated  with  a  BS 
from  Newark  College  of  Engineering  in  New 
Jersey. 

For  more  than  30  years,  he  was  a  radio  navi- 
gation systems  program  manager  for  Interna- 
tional Telephone  and  Telegraph  Corp.,  Clifton, 
NJ.  He  retired  nine  years  ago.  He  belonged  to 
the  Poly  Club,  Phi  Sigma  Kappa  and  Tau  Beta 
Pi. 

Arakel  M.  Shooshan  '44,  a  project  engineer 
for  Badger  America,  Cambridge,  MA,  passed 
away  recently.  A  native  of  Worcester,  he  was 
born  on  April  13,  1921. 

After  graduating  with  his  BSME,  he  was  with 
ESSO  Standard  Oil  Co.  in  Everett,  MA,  until 
1962,  when  he  joined  the  Badger  Co.  (senior 
piping  engineer).  A  professional  engineer  in 
Massachusetts,  he  was  a  Navy  veteran  of  World 
War  II,  and  was  commissioned  an  engineering 
officer  following  a  course  in  marine  engineer- 
ing at  Annapolis.  He  was  active  with  church 
work,  Junior  Achievement  and  the  Masons. 

Peter  J.  Vozzola  '46  of  Windsor  Locks,  CT, 
died  of  a  heart  attack  on  December  4,  1984.  He 
was  born  in  Hartford,  CT,  on  May  2,  1921,  and 
graduated  as  a  mechanical  engineer.  He  had  an 
MBA  from  Western  New  England  College. 

For  three  years  he  was  assistant  plant  engi- 
neer for  Hartford  Rayon  Corp.  In  1949,  he 
joined  Hamilton  Standard,  Windsor  Locks,  CT, 
where  he  served  as  a  test  and  development  engi- 
neer. He  was  a  veteran  of  the  U.S.  Navy.  The 
father  of  Robert  Vozzola  '80,  he  belonged  to 
Skull  and  Phi  Gamma  Delta. 

Caleb  H.  Thomas,  Jr.,  '71  died  unexpectedly 
of  a  heart  attack  in  Merchantville,  NJ,  on 
December  12,  1984.  A  native  of  Middleboro, 
MA,  he  was  born  on  Oct.  13,  1944.  He  was  a 
graduate  electrical  engineer. 

During  his  career,  he  was  with  Mohawk  Data 
Sciences,  East  Herkimer,  NY,  and  Formation 
Inc.,  in  Cherry  Hill,  NJ.  At  the  time  of  his 
death,  he  was  a  unit  manager  of  Recording  Sys- 
tems for  RCA  in  Camden,  NJ.  He  belonged  to 
Sigma  Xi  and  Eta  Kappa  Nu,  and  the  IEEE. 

Lt.  Kenneth  J.  Kubilins  '83,  a  class  agent, 
was  killed  in  a  training  accident  at  Vance  Air 
Force  Base,  OK,  on  October  7,  1984.  He  was 
born  on  January  5,  1961 ,  in  Muskegon,  MI. 

He  received  his  BSME  and  then  went  into 
undergraduate  pilot  training  with  the  USAE  A 
member  of  PTS,  he  also  belonged  to  Tau  Beta 
Pi. 


HOMECOMING 

1985 


September  27-29 


Departmental  Continental  Breakfasts 

Mechanical  Engineering 

Electrical  Engineering 

Chemical  Engineering 

Civil  Engineering 
Alumni  Crew  Race 

Eighth  Annual  Frank  Sanella  Memorial  Road  Race 
Campus  Tours 
Tailgating  on  the  Quad 
Parade  of  Floats 

"WPI  Traditions" 


Soccer— WPI  vs  Trinity 

Football— WPI  vs  Tufts 

Class  Barbecues 

Alumni  Brunch— London  Exchange  Program 

Annual  Rope  Pull 

Fraternity  Receptions,  Dinners.  Parties 

Resident  Advisor/Student  Hall  Director  Reunion 

Nightclub 

Coffeehouse 


PLUS  .  .  .  The  Third  Annual  Athletic  Hall  of  Fame  Dinner  and  Induction  Ceremony 
This  year  we  honor  the  six  newest  members  of  the  Hall: 
Elmer  Scott  '41  Fred  DiPippo  '60 

Charles  Schmitt  '45        John  Korzick  '68 
Richard  Ferrari  '51         Percy  Carpenter,  WPI's  first  athletic  director 


And  MORE! 
But  .  .  .  no  Paddle  Rush. 


WPI  Journal 

VORCFSTFR  POLYTECHNIC  fcrrvcTTTT  TF 


MimcM 


;rrp 


lit 


NOVEMBER  1985 


Mm 


>cience"2tttr  lechnology 
Meet  Society 

Archives: 
Opening  up  the  Past 

The  Entrepreneurial  Spirit 
at  the  Sidewalk  Cafe 


i 


V 


A  Message  from 
Paul  W.  Bayliss  '60 
President,  WPI 
Alumni  Association 


Q 

o 


1h 


mooth  transi- 
tion of  leader- 
ship can  be  dif- 
ficult, but  it  is  vital  to 
the  continuing  suc- 
cess of  every  organi- 
zation. I  am  honored 
to  succeed  Harry 
Tenny  '56  as  Association  president  at  a 
time  when  alumni  participation  in  every 
facet  of  WPI  affairs  is  riding  the  crest.  Yet 
my  post  pales  next  to  the  importance  of 
Dr.  Jon  C.  Strauss'  role  as  president  of 
WPI  in  the  pivotal  decade  for  all  of  higher 
education. 

If  you  are  at  all  familiar  with  happenings 
on  The  Hill,  you  know  that  there  is  much 
to  demand  the  astute  attention  of  not  only 
the  president,  but  also  of  the  entire  WPI 
community.  For  one  thing,  student  life  at 
WPI  is  today  a  little  different  than  when 
most  of  us  were  on  campus.  Fraternities 
continue  to  play  a  major  role  in  residential 
and  social  life.  But  today  the  social  scene 
is  shifting  back  to  campus  activities  and 
programs,  and  with  completion  of  Found- 
ers Hall,  a  225-bed  residence  complex,  the 
college  is  offering  students  broader  choice 
in  their  selection  of  living  arrangements. 
Moreover,  there  is  concern  over  the  con- 
duct of  a  number  of  fraternities.  One 
house— Sigma  Phi  Epsilon  (mine,  in 
fact)— has  been  shut  down. 

In  the  past  ten  years,  the  Institute  has 
made  a  special  effort  to  bring  more  women 
into  the  undergraduate  program.  Today, 
women  account  for  about  20  percent  of  the 
enrollment  of  2,600  students.  Women's 
varsity  and  club  sports  now  number  almost 
20.  This  highly  successful  program,  cou- 
pled with  an  equally  prosperous  men's  ath- 
letics program  and  wider  interest  in  intra- 


murals  and  recreation  of  all  kinds,  have 
prompted  a  need  for  greater  use  of  our 
land-locked  athletic  fields. 

In  response,  WPI  has  undertaken  a  com- 
plete renovation  of  its  outdoor  athletic 
facilities,  including  installation  of  all- 
weather  track  and  field  surfaces  on  Alumni 
Field  and  reseeding  of  the  Class  of  '93 
Field.  Ray  Forkey  '40  is  leading  this  effort 
on  behalf  of  the  college. 

The  WPI  Plan  will  soon  be  20  years  old. 
Yet  for  all  its  prophetic  success  in  keeping 
WPI  at  the  cutting  edge  of  higher  educa- 
tion, this  bold  experiment  continues  to 
undergo  careful  scrutiny  on  and  off  cam- 
pus. Last  spring,  for  example,  the  faculty 
voted  for  a  more  traditional  grading  sys- 
tem and  somewhat  altered  the  mix  of  engi- 
neering degree  requirements,  the  latter  in 
response  to  a  national  accreditation  board 
review. 

All  this  comes  at  a  time  when  college- 
age  populations  are  declining  across  the 
nation— and  especially  in  the  Northeast— 
and  changing  enrollment  mixes  in  favor  of 
electrical  engineering  and  computer  sci- 
ence are  straining  nearly  all  colleges' 
physical  facilities  and  faculty  needs. 

As  alumni,  how  can  we  help?  First  we 
can  keep  informed.  If  you  are  not  aware 
of  some  of  the  developments  I've  de- 
scribed—and there  are  many  more — you 
might  want  to  subscribe  to  Newspeak  (the 
successor  to  Tech  News).  You  can  do  so 
by  writing  to  the  editorial  office  at  the 
college. 

On  a  more  personal  level,  there  are 
many  opportunities  for  your  involvement 
both  within  and  outside  the  activities  of  the 
Alumni  Association.  Many  fraternities 
have  alumni  advisory  boards,  and  these 
groups  have  recently  established  the 
Alumni  Interfraternity  Council  to  provide 
greater  graduate  involvement  in  Greek 
activities.  Simply  contact  the  president  of 
your  fraternity  to  learn  more  about  this 
program. 

The  President's  Advisory  Council  (com- 
prising individuals  contributing  over 
$1,500  annually  to  the  Alumni  Fund) 
serves  as  a  valuable  resource  to  the  presi- 


dent of  WPI  on  policy  and  other  matters. 
And  the  heads  of  various  academic  depart- 
ments are  establishing  alumni  advisory 
committees  to  help  set  the  course  of  the 
college  for  the  years  ahead. 

The  Alumni  Admissions  program  has 
been  busy  reorienting  its  activities  this  fall 
to  better  focus  on  the  admissions  needs  of 
the  "Tute."  Activities  of  our  regional 
alumni  clubs  and  the  Corporate  Contacts 
Program  are  well  underway  for  the  year, 
bringing  together  graduates  from  across 
the  country  to  kindle  friendships  and  to 
hear  from  college  VIPs  on  the  news  from 
The  Hill.  Watch  for  these  events  and  do 
attend  them. 

Finally,  support  your  alma  mater,  not 
only  with  your  financial  contributions  but 
in  your  demeanor  as  well.  Most  of  us  are 
proud  of  WPI— and  with  good  reason. 
Pass  it  on.  Acknowledge  your  affiliation, 
seek  out  other  alumni,  develop  networks 
with  them  through  both  Alumni  Associa- 
tion activities  and  your  business  relation- 
ships. And  why  not  pass  on  this  and  every 
issue  of  the  award-winning  WPI  Journal  to 
friends  and  colleagues  alike?  You'll  bene- 
fit—and so  will  WPI! 

Finally,  we  welcome  Jon  and  Jean 
Strauss  to  the  WPI  community.  And  we 
hope  they  will  feel  confident  in  calling 
upon  alumni  in  the  years  ahead  to  foster 
and  support  the  mission  of  WPI  in  the 
same  untiring  manner  that  has  come  to  be 
the  mark  of  WPI  graduates  everywhere. 


Salti/fisusfa 


Paul  W/Bayliss  '60 


WPI  Journal 

WORCESTER  POLYTECHNIC^INSTITUTE 


VOLUME  89,  NUMBER  2 


Staff  of  The  WPI  JOURNAL 

Editor,  Kenneth  L.  McDonnell 

Alumni  Information  Editor,  Ruth  S.  Trask 

Sports  Editor,  Roger  Crimmins 

Alumni  Publications  Committee:  William  J. 
Firla,  Jr.  '60,  chairman;  Judith  Nitsch,  '75, 
vice  chairman;  Paul  J.  Geary  '71;  Carl  A. 
Keyser  '39;  Robert  C  Labonte  '54;  Samuel 
Mencow  '37;  Maureen  Sexton  '83. 

The  WPI  Journal  (ISSN  0148-6128)  is  pub- 
lished quarterly  for  the  WPI  Alumni  Associa- 
tion by  Worcester  Polytechnic  Institute  in  coop- 
eration with  the  Alumni  Magazine  Consortium, 
with  editorial  offices  at  the  Johns  Hopkins  Uni- 
versity, Baltimore,  MD  21218.  Pages  I-XVI  are 
published  for  the  Alumni  Magazine  Consor- 
tium (Franklin  and  Marshall  College,  Hartwick 
College,  Johns  Hopkins  University,  Rensselaer 
Polytechnic  Institute,  Villanova  University, 
Western  Maryland  College,  Worcester  Poly- 
technic Institute)  and  appear  in  the  respective 
alumni  magazines  of  those  institutions.  Second 
class  postage  paid  at  Worcester,  MA,  and  addi- 
tional mailing  offices.  Pages  1-20,  37-56  ® 
1985,  Worcester  Polytechnic  Institute.  Pages  I- 
XVI  ®  1985,  Johns  Hopkins  University. 

Staff  of  the  Alumni  Magazine  Consortium: 

Editor,  Mary  Ruth  Yoe;  Design  and  Production 
Coordinator,  Amy  Doudiken;  Assistant  Editor, 
Leslie  Brunetta;  Designer,  Allen  Carroll. 

Advisory  Board  of  the  Alumni  Magazine 
Consortium:  Franklin  and  Marshall  College, 
Bruce  Holran  and  Linda  Whipple;  Hartwick 
College,  Merrilee  Gomillion;  Johns  Hopkins 
University,  B.J.  Norris  and  Elise  Hancock; 
Rensselaer  Polytechnic  Institute,  Robert  M. 
Whitaker;  Villanova  University,  Eugene  J. 
Ruane  and  Joan  DelCollo;  Western  Maryland 
College,  Joyce  Muller  and  Pat  Donohoe;  Wor- 
cester Polytechnic  Institute,  Donald  F.  Berth 
and  Kenneth  L.  McDonnell. 

Acknowledgments: 

Typesetting,  BG  Composition,  Inc.;  Printing, 
American  Press,  Inc. 


Diverse  views  on  subjects  of  public  interest  are 
presented  in  the  magazine.  These  views  do  not 
necessarily  reflect  the  opinions  of  the  editors  or 
official  policies  of  WPI.  Address  correspon- 
dence to  the  Editor,  The  WPI  Journal,  Worces- 
ter Polytechnic  Institute,  Worcester,  MA 
01609.  Telephone  (617)  793-5609.  Postmaster: 
If  undeliverable  please  send  form  3579  to  the 
address  above.  Do  not  return  publication. 


NOVEMBER  1985 


CONTENTS 


6  The  Entrepreneurial  Spirit: 
Greetings  from  the  Sidewalk  Cafe 

The  journey  that  put  Bob  Goodfader 
'60  where  he  is  today— rolling  high. 
Michael  Shanley 

10  The  Society-Technology  Question: 
New  Directions  at  WPI 
WPI's  social  scientists  are  making  a  major 
impact  on  tomorrow's  scientists  and  engineers. 
Prof.  John  M.  Wilkes 

14  Science  in  the  Mountains 

And  why  Thomas  Ford's  ('68  MS)  high  school 
students  call  him  "The  Brain." 
David  Brooks 

16  No  Soul  of  Faint  Heart 

Jim  Demetry  '58,  '60  MS  is  back  teaching  full 
time  in  EE,  after  a  decade  of  nurturing  the 
demanding  1QP  program. 
Kenneth  McDonnell 

20  The  Times  They  Were  A-Changin' 

Alan  S.  Foss  '52  recalls  the  place  where  the 
turbulent  Sixties  began. 
Michael  Shanley 

I  Opening  up  the  Past 

College  archives  have  shed  their  dusty  image. 
Leslie  Brunetta 

IX  Unwanted  Sound 

Noise  is  in  the  ear  of  the  beholder. 
Mary  Ruth  Yoe 

Departments 

News  from  the  Hill        2 
Class  Notes        37 
Completed  Careers        52 


£> 


Page  6 


Page  10 


[-   *■*•   Xmgi] 


Page  16 


y» 


Page  I 


Cover:  Dr.  and  Mrs.  Jon  C.  Strauss  in  the  presidential  residence 
at  One  Drury  Lane.  Photo  by  Robert  S.  Arnold. 


NOVEMBER  1985        1 


NEWS  FROM  THE  HILL 


Kudos  for  Another 
Million-Dollar  Fund  Year 

For  the  second  consecutive  year,  the 
Alumni  Fund  topped  the  $1  million  mark. 
More  than  5,900  donors,  or  40  percent  of 
the  alumni  body,  contributed  a  total  of 
$1,063,017,  a  5  percent  increase  over  last 
year's  record  amount.  The  average  gift 
was  $181. 

Including  corporate  matching  gifts,  the 
Alumni  Fund  generated  $1.4  million  dur- 
ing the  1984-85  fiscal  year.  Matching  gifts 
increased  more  than  37  percent,  from  over 
$258, (XX)  to  nearly  $354,000. 

"WPI  alumni  continue  to  give  far  above 
the  national  average,"  according  to 
Alumni  Fund  Board  Chairman  Allen  H. 
Levesque  '59  of  Chelmsford,  MA,  "and 
that  generosity  has  been  reflected  in  the 
quality  of  the  college's  physical  plant  and 
academic  programs." 

For  the  tenth  consecutive  year,  a  new 
record  was  reached.  For  the  sixth  time  in 
seven  years,  WPI  won  a  prestigious  CASE 
(Council  for  Advancement  and  Support  of 


Education)  Award  for  sustained  excellence 
in  alumni  giving.  Just  one  college  in  the 
nation  holds  a  better  record. 

"As  always,  this  year's  accomplishment 
was  a  team  effort.  Credit  must  go  to  the 
nearly  1,500  alumni  and  student  volun- 
teers who  helped  with  solicitations, 
phonathons  and  other  programs,"  Lev- 
esque notes. 

Adds  WPI  president  Dr.  Jon  C.  Strauss, 
"It's  a  pleasure  to  begin  my  tenure  as 
WPI's  thirteenth  president  just  as  the 
1984-85  Alumni  Fund  closes  its  books  on 
its  most  successful  year  ever.  My  decision 
to  come  to  WPI  was  influenced  by  the 
presence  of  a  talented  faculty  and  an  out- 
standing student  body,  and  I'm  happy  to 
include  supportive  alumni  as  another  indi- 
cation of  WPI's  excellence." 


Welcome,  Alumni 
Director  Bob  Dietrich 

Effective  September  4,  1985,  Robert  G. 
Dietrich  joined  WPI  as  Director  of  Alumni 


haul  director  Craig  EspositO  (left)  and  Fund  Hoard  chairman  Allen  //.  Levesque  '59 
with  CASi  awards. 


J&  i      M)*W^ 

^H 

3K  *j^^  s*^5 

m 

Hk*3* 

F"  J 

m.  IP '2M 

L  ^^^ 

WPI 's  new  Director  of  Alumni  Programs, 
Robert  G.  Dietrich 

Programs.  He  succeeds  Anne  Marie 
Angelico,  who  had  served  in  the  position 
since  August  1984. 

Dietrich  is  a  1980  graduate  of  West  Vir- 
ginia Wesleyan  College,  Buckhannon, 
WV.  He  comes  to  WPI  from  Stewart 
Howe  Alumni  Service  of  New  England, 
Cambridge,  MA,  where  he  served  as 
director.  The  firm  develops  alumni  rela- 
tions and  annual  giving  programs  for  more 
than  35  college  and  university  alumni 
organizations. 

Commenting  on  the  appointment, 
Stephen  J.  Hebert  '66,  Director  of  Devel- 
opment/Alumni Relations,  said,  "We're 
thrilled  that  Bob  has  joined  WPI,  for  sev- 
eral other  prestigious  institutions  were 
very  much  interested  in  attracting  him  to 
their  campuses.  I'm  sure  he'll  bring  a 
dynamic  approach  to  our  alumni  programs 
and  will  help  further  the  traditions  so  well 
known  of  our  alumni  body." 


Freshmen  Stats 
Continue  Strong 

Anyone  involved  in  making  projections  of 
any  type  can  appreciate  the  difficulty  of 
hitting  a  numerical  goal  right  on  the  head. 
But  if  figures  assembled  at  press  time  hold 
up,  that's  just  what  the  Admissions  Office 
has  done. 

Given  a  targeted  number  of  656  new 
freshmen  and  transfers  for  fall  1985  entry, 
current  figures  indicate  that  61 1  freshmen 
and  45  transfers  have  registered,  for  a  total 
of  exactly  656.  "Still,"  says  Director  of 
Admissions  Robert  G.  Voss,  "I've  never 


WPI  JOURNAL 


seen  a  goal  hit  exactly  in  15  years  in 
admissions  work,  and  I  probably  won't  for 
another  15  years." 

Reaching  the  targeted  goal,  says  Voss, 
was  made  easier  by  an  application  pool 
that  was  not  only  10  percent  larger  than 
last  year's,  but  was  slightly  stronger  aca- 
demically as  well.  "Because  of  their 
strength,"  he  adds,  "we  knew  we'd  be 
competing  even  more  than  usual  for 
accepted  students.  We  adjusted  for  that  by 
admitting  a  few  more  applicants  this  year." 
Overall,  WPI  admitted  approximately  60 
percent  of  its  applicants. 

The  make-up  and  quality  of  the  Class  of 
1989  is  not  substantially  different  from 
that  of  the  past  five  freshmen  classes. 
Sixty  percent  of  entering  freshmen  were 
ranked  in  the  top  10  percent  and  85  percent 
ranked  in  the  top  20  percent  of  their  high 
school  classes.  Scholastic  Aptitude  Test 
Scores  averaged  540  (up  from  530)  on  the 
verbal  section  (the  81st  percentile  nation- 
ally) and  650  (identical  to  last  year)  on  the 
mathematics  section  (the  91st  percentile 
nationally). 

Electrical  engineering  was  again  the 
most  popular  choice  of  major,  with  25  per- 
cent choosing  that  major.  Twelve  percent 
each  chose  mechanical  engineering  or 
computer  science  or  entered  as  undecided 
engineers.  Overall,  81  percent  choose  one 
of  WPI's  engineering  areas  as  a  major. 

Since  the  number  of  Massachusetts  high 
school  graduates  declined  by  3  percent 
from  1984  to  1985,  Voss  notes,  and  55 


percent  of  WPI's  freshmen  hail  from  Mas- 
sachusetts, the  increase  in  applications  and 
quality  of  the  entering  class  is  particularly 
heartening. 

Still,  he  cautions  that  the  continuing 
decline  in  high  school  graduates  (projected 
to  be  34  percent  in  Massachusetts  between 
1984  and  1994)  will  have  to  affect  WPI  in 
time.  "We  are  going  to  have  to  strengthen 
our  reputation  both  regionally  and  nation- 
ally to  overcome  declining  high  school 
enrollments.  Our  alumni  will  play  an 
important  role  in  that  effort.  This  past  year 
was  successful,  but  we've  got  to  work 
hard  to  maintain  that  success." 

If  history  is  any  guide,  WPI  will  be  up 
to  the  task. 


Men's  Chorus  Among 
Nation's  Top  Singers 

The  American  Choral  Directors  Associa- 
tion, Eastern  Division,  recently  ranked 
WPI's  Men's  Chorus  second  in  a  field 
of  120  professional,  semi-professional, 
community,  college  and  conservatory 
choruses.  As  a  result,  the  WPI  singers  will 
perform  at  the  Association's  1986  conven- 
tion in  Boston. 

In  making  its  choice,  the  selection  com- 
mittee listened  to  54  tapes  of  semifinalist 
groups  in  a  blind  judging  process.  Twenty- 
seven  tapes  came  from  Massachusetts- 
based  groups  alone. 


According  to  Professor  of  Music  Louis 
Curran,  Director  of  the  WPI  Men's 
Chorus,  the  tape  submitted  by  the  group 
contained  several  compositions  performed 
during  WPI's  March  1985  tour  of  Great 
Britain. 

That  tour,  which  allowed  both  the 
Chorus  and  the  Brass  Choir  to  perform  and 
travel  in  England,  included  performances 
in  Pusey  House  Chapel  before  His  Grace, 
the  Bishop  of  Leicester,  and  at  Westmin- 
ster Abbey,  Canterbury  Cathedral  and  St. 
Edmundsbury  Cathedral.  In  addition, 
tours  of,  for  example,  Cambridge,  Wind- 
sor Castle,  Center  Court  at  Wimbledon, 
Piccadilly  Circus  and  Oxford  Street,  and, 
of  course,  Worcester,  complemented  the 
groups'  exhausting  but  exhilarating  visit. 

"It  was  with  mixed  emotions,"  recalls 
Curran,  "and  with  new  suits,  sweaters, 
coats,  china,  rugs  and  other  loot,  that  we 
returned  to  the  States— wealthier  in  many 
ways  than  when  we  had  left." 


Fields  Taking  Shape  as 
Fall  Arrives 

Besides  completion  of  WPI's  sixth  resi- 
dence complex.  Founders  Hall,  much  of 
the  summer's  activity  on  campus  focused 
on  the  yet  to  be  finished  renovation  of 
Alumni  Field  and  the  baseball  and  soccer 
fields. 
At  press  time,  installation  of  the  Omni- 


Some  225  upperclass  students  are  the  first  to  live  in  spatlking-new  Founders  Hull,  at  the  corner  of  Institute  Road  and  Boxnton  Street. 
The  complex,  based  on  the  classic  architecture  of  WPI 's  first  residence  hall,  Sanford  Riley,  built  in  1926,  features  residence  suites  of 
two  to  three  rooms;  a  dining  room  with  cathedral  ceiling  and  kitchen  facilities;  meeting,  study  and  common  rooms;  and  even  a 
weight  room  in  the  basement.  Dedication  of  Founders  Hall  was  planned  for  Parents '  Day,  November  2. 


NOVEMBER  1985       3 


Down  goes  the  sand— on  Alumni  Field,  as  installation  ofOnmituifnears  completion.  Unlike  any  other  synthetic  surface.  Omniturf 
incorporates  a  three-quarter-inch  layer  of  sand  spread  among  the  millions  of  one-inch  tufts  of  polypropylene  "grass,"  producing  a 
more  natural  look  and  feel  to  the  multipurpose  facility. 


turf  surface  on  Alumni  Field  had  been 
completed,  and  the  soccer,  field  hockey 
and  football  teams  had  played  their  open- 
ing games  on  the  new  artificial  turf. 

In  addition,  an  all-weather  surface  for 
the  running  track  had  been  prepared.  And 
although  the  rains  of  early  September 
slowed  progress  on  the  reseeding  of  the 
baseball  fields,  workers  were  doing  what 
they  could  to  prepare  the  surface  for  use 
next  spring. 

Raymond  J.  Forkey  '40  is  chairman  of 
the  committee  charged  with  raising  the 
nearly  S2  million  needed  for  the  project. 
According  to  Forkey.  the  facilities  that  are 
being  refurbished  in  the  3R  project  (for 
Recreational  Resources  Renovations)  will 


meet  a  need  which  has  existed  on  campus 
for  many  years.  When  completed,  the 
fields  will  provide  first-rate  recreational 
and  athletic  space  consistent  with  the  in- 
door facilities  of  Harrington  Auditorium. 

"The  synthetic  surface  we're  install- 
ing—Omniturf— is  ideal  for  the  landlocked 
situation  facing  WPI.  We  are  projecting  an 
increase  of  more  than  80  percent  in  field 
availability  for  everything  from  varsity 
sports,  to  intramural  team  use.  to  general 
recreational  use." 

Working  on  the  3R  project  with  Forkey 
are  George  T.  Abdow  '53.  Donald  F. 
Berth  '57.  Gerald  Finkle  '57.  Patricia  Gra- 
ham Flaherty  '75.  August  C.  Kellermann 
'46,    Paul   J.    Kerrigan    '57,    John    H. 


Sound  synthesis:  Megan  Woolhouse  (left).  Lisa  Conhoy  and  Maryann  Donahue  look  on 
as  WPI  professor  Peter  R.  Christopher  demonstrates  equipment  that  synthesizes  sound 
and  generates  visible  sound  waves  on  the  oscilloscope. 


McCabe  '68.  Robert  C.  Stempel  '55.  and 
Thomas  Sullivan.  The  committee  is  work- 
ing primarily  with  alumni,  as  well  as  trust- 
ees and  parents,  to  generate  the  funds  nec- 
essary for  the  project.  According  to  the 
committee's  most  recent  report,  excellent 
progress  toward  that  goal  is  being  made. 

Since  the  3R  project  will  not  be  com- 
pleted until  spring  of  1986,  dedication  of 
the  new  fields  is  planned  for  Reunion 
Weekend.  June  7. 

"I  am  fully  optimistic  that  we  will  be 
able  to  generate  the  funds  needed,"  adds 
Forkey.  "When  the  fields  were  built  in 
1915,  dedicated  alumni  provided  all  the 
necessary  funds.  I  am  certain  that  very 
soon  we  will  be  able  to  report  to  our 
alumni,  friends  and  students  that  once 
again  the  WPI  community  has  backed 
another  major  effort  to  improve  the  quality 
of  life  for  generations  of  students  tocome." 

To  the  Frontiers  of  Science 

For  the  past  three  summers,  more  than  50 
high  school  students  have  come  to  WPI  for 
two  weeks  to  explore  current  unsolved 
problems  in  chemistry,  physics,  biology 
and  mathematics.  For  most  of  them.  Fron- 
tiers in  Science  is  a  far  cry  from  their  nor- 
mally academics-free  summer  hiatus. 

"We  want  the  Frontiers  program  to  be 
different."  says  Mathematical  Sciences 
Prof.  Peter  R.  Christopher,  who  heads  the 
event,  "and  we  believe  it  is.  The  approach 
is  project-oriented,  and  the  emphasis  is  on 
material  not  usually  offered  to  high  school 
students."  The  goal,  says  Christopher,  is 
to  promote  an  interest  in  science  and  math- 
ematics by  providing  students  an  intellec- 
tually stimulating  learning  and  research 
experience. 


4       WPI  JOURNAL 


Besides  lectures,  work  sessions,  labs 
and  group  projects,  the  program  features 
guest  speakers,  field  trips  and  athletics. 
Each  participant  also  has  access  to  WPI's 
computer  facilities. 

Students  in  the  physics  section,  for 
example,  had  the  opportunity  for  hands-on 
use  of  lasers  and  computers,  as  well  as 
instruction  in  cryogenics  and  electronics. 
The  mathematics  section  examined  a  wide 
range  of  topics  including  logic,  statistics, 
algebraic  systems,  combinatorics  and 
graph  history.  Chemistry  topics  included 
the  synthesis,  characterization  and  spec- 
troscopy of  interesting  compounds. 

Among  this  year's  extra-curricular  activ- 
ities were  trips  to  the  Worcester  Science 
Center,  Worcester  Foundation  for  Ex- 
perimental Biology,  Higgins  Armory 
Museum,  Digital  Equipment  Corporation 
and  Worcester  Art  Museum. 

Frontiers  is  funded  in  part  through  cor- 
porate sponsorship,  normally  by  firms 
located  near  the  hometowns  of  students 
selected  for  the  program.  In  the  past,  stu- 
dents from  Connecticut,  Massachusetts, 
New  Hampshire,  New  York  and  Rhode 
Island  have  participated. 


In  the  Heat  of  Henley 

Great  expectations  can  lead  to  great  disap- 
pointments, but  in  the  case  of  the  WPI 
men's  crew  team's  trip  to  England  last 
summer,  a  lack  of  competitive  success  did 
not  spoil  the  team's  three-week  adventure. 
In  fact,  it  just  added  fuel  to  the  team's 
desire  to  return  soon  to  give  a  stronger 
showing  of  its  abilities. 

WPI  competed  in  three  regattas  while  in 
England,  beginning  with  the  Marlow 
Regatta  on  June  22,  the  Reading  Regatta 
on  June  29,  and  ending  with  the  presti- 
gious Henley  Royal  Regatta,  July  4-7. 

"Our  eight-man  boat  finished  second  in 
both  the  Marlow  and  Reading  Regattas," 
says  coach  Dave  Ploss.  "And  our  four- 
man  finished  third  in  the  Marlow  and 
fourth  in  the  Reading  Regatta.  At  Henley, 
the  fours  boat  drew  a  British  light-weight 
team  in  the  first  round— a  team  that  even- 
tually made  the  semifinals.  In  the  eights, 
we  drew  the  Palm  Beach  Rowing  Associa- 
tion entry  and  had  a  good  shot  at  beating 
them,  but  we  didn't  come  through  in  that 
race  when  we  should  have  and  lost  by  a 
length." 


WPI  made  it  to  the  semifinals  in  the 
elite-four  race  but  was  beaten  by  three 
lengths  by  the  boat  that  eventually  won  the 
Regatta  and  ended  up  on  the  British 
National  Team.  "Competing  at  Henley  is 
second  only  to  the  Olympics."  adds  Ploss. 

The  WPI  crew  was  composed  mostly  of 
sophomores  and  seniors  with  one  fresh- 
man in  the  group.  Team  captain  Joe  Fern 
'87,  of  East  Greenwich.  RI,  says,  "Our 
racing  experience  helped  us  develop  com- 
posure and  poise  for  our  head-to-head 
races  this  fall.  We  didn't  really  have  much 
time  for  anything  else  but  rowing  while  we 
were  there,  though  we  did  take  a  couple 
days  to  do  some  sight-seeing." 

The  trip  was  the  third  for  a  WP!  crew 
team,  but  the  first  in  three  years.  Accom- 
panying the  team  to  London  were  families 
of  some  team  members  as  well  as  Donald 
Berth  '57,  vice  president  for  University 
Relations,  and  Mrs.  Miriam  Rutman,  wife 
of  the  late  Walter  Rutman  '30.  In  addition, 
Jay  Feenan  '82  managed  to  time  a  London 
business  trip  to  coincide  with  his  alma 
mater's  Henley  competition. 

Roger  Crimmins 
Sports  Information  Director 


WPI's  four-man  boat  in  the  heat  of  Henley  competition. 


NOVEMBER  1985 


SECOND  IN  A  SERIES 


THE  ENTREPRENEURIAL  SPIRIT 

Greetings 
from  the 

Sidewalk  Cafe 


There's  an  unmistakable 

aura  of  wildness 

in  the  air  in  Venice, 

California,  but  then 

Bob  Goodfader  W  EE 

wouldn't  have  it 

any  other  way. 


By  Michael  Shanley 


There's  a  pigeon  in  the  ladies  room!"  comes  the 
scream  from  upstairs. 
Bob  Goodfader  laughs.  He  loves  it. 
The  pigeon  isn't  the  first  problem  of  the  morn- 
ing. Nor  will  it  be  the  last  in  this  remarkable 
Venice,  CA,  spot  called  the  Sidewalk  Cafe. 
Bob,  who  owns  the  Cafe,  is  lounging  behind  a 
desk  in  his  pleasantly  ramshackle,  windowless 
office  beneath  the  restaurant.  At  46,  he's  a  lean,  bearded  man 
with  curly  hair  and  a  prominent  twinkle  in  his  eye. 

Just  a  few  minutes  earlier,  he  had  had  to  deal  with  Saul,  who 
manages  Bob's  vending  lots,  located  next  to  the  Cafe.  Here  on 
Ocean  Front  Walk,  vending  lots  (nothing  more  than  a  slab  of 
pavement)  are  big  bucks.  Space  is  rented  out  to  people  who 
hawk  everything  from  hot  dogs  and  candy  to  sneakers  and 
watches. 

Saul,  a  tall  black  man,  is  dressed  to  kill  in  a  dark-blue  suit 
and  hat,  electric  pea  green  sweater,  white  shirt  and  tie.  A 
Hollywood  film  company,  he  explains,  was  supposed  to  be 
using  one  of  the  lots  to  shoot  location  footage  today,  but  they're 
nowhere  to  be  seen.  Saul  is  upset;  if  they  don't  show  up,  he 
doesn't  get  his  cut  of  the  action. 

Sucking  on  a  cigarette,  he  waves  a  piece  of  paper.  Bob 
glances  at  the  paper  and  shrugs.  "Who  knows?"  says  Bob, 
handing  it  back.  "I've  never  heard  of  this  outfit.  If  they  show 
up,  they'll  pay." 
Saul  is  not  happy,  but  he  wanders  off  in  a  cloud  of  smoke. 
Before  Saul,  it  had  been  one  of  the  carpenters  renovating  part 
of  the  building. 
"I'm  putting  a  big  dumpster  outside  the  back  door,"  the 


6       WPI  JOURNAL 


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carpenter  stops  in  to  say.  "Do  we  need  a  permit  or  anything?" 

Bob  thinks  for  a  moment,  "I  think  I've  got  a  permit  some- 
where," he  says.  Then  a  pause.  "But  it's  probably  expired." 

"Will  they  hassle  us?"  asks  the  carpenter. 

"Probably,"  says  Bob.  "They  love  to  hassle  us." 

"I  know  a  couple  of  cops,"  offers  the  carpenter. 

"You  know  cops?  Oh,  good.  Then  we're  all  set." 

The  carpenters  are  redoing  the  part  of  Bob's  building  that 
once  held  a  clothing  store.  The  clothing  store  was  flooded,  you 
see,  after  rain  poured  through  a  gaping  hole  in  the  roof.  All  the 
stock  was  destroyed.  The  roof  was  being  torn  apart  to  satisfy 
the  local  authorities,  who  demanded  that  Bob  comply  with  the 
earthquake  ordinance. 

After  a  while,  here  at  the  Sidewalk  Cafe,  you  stop  asking 
questions. 

Shortly  after  the  carpenter  leaves,  in  wander  two  men  in 
painter's  bibs  and  caps. 

"I  need  two  hundred,"  says  one  to  Bob.  "I'm  going  to 
Vegas." 

Bob  gives  him  the  two  hundred  out  of  his  pocket  and  yells 
over  to  his  aide,  who  sits,  seemingly  oblivious,  at  a  desk 
beyond  a  partition.  The  aide  is  evidently  keeping  a  running  tab 
on  the  painters'  draws.  The  painter  is  also  interested  in  making 
golfing  arrangements. 

Just  what  is  it  they're  painting,  Bob  is  asked  after  they  leave. 
He  looks  puzzled.  "Painting?  No,  they're  not  painters." 

Somewhere  amidst  all  this,  after  Saul  and  the  pigeon,  but 
before  the  non-painters,  Bob's  wife,  Mary,  enters.  She  has 
come  to  express  her  displeasure  with  the  broken  awning  in 
front  of  her  bookstore,  which  adjoins  the  Cafe.  It's  also  possi- 


ble that  she  was  the  faceless  voice  who  found  the  pigeon,  but 
that  seems  so  long  ago  now  that  everybody's  forgotten  about  it. 

Welcome  to  the  Sidewalk  Cafe,  where  a  real-life  situa- 
tion comedy  is  forever  unfolding  on  the  shores  of  the 
Pacific  Ocean,  just  down  from  Muscle  Beach,  not  far 
from  the  Gaslight  Cafe,  where  Allen  Ginsberg  and  the  early 
Beats  once  hung  out. 

It's  here  that  roller  skates  and  headsets  were  made  famous, 
where  weirdness  is  a  way  of  life. 

Meet  Bob  Goodfader,  former  professional  gambler,  onetime 
atomic  bombsite  radiation  tester,  former  cable  TV  pioneer, 
near-scratch  golfer,  health  food  caterer,  restaurant  owner. 

"This  is  fun.  Are  you  having  fun?"  Bob  asks  a  visitor.  For 
him,  it's  just  another  day.  Everything  is  amusing,  and  no  prob- 
lem is  worth  getting  upset  about. 

"I'm  a  street  person,"  says  Bob,  a  native  of  Winthrop,  MA. 
"Always  have  been.  That's  why  I  like  it  here." 

This  street  person,  however,  is  also  a  crafty,  albeit  offbeat, 
entrepreneur  who  has  run  some  42  businesses  over  the  years. 
"Some  do  well,"  he  shrugs,  "some  go  bust." 

It's  in  the  same  offhand  manner  that  he  describes  his  1960-62 
Army  stint,  which  included  time  at  the  Dugway,  UT,  Proving 
Grounds,  where  chemical  and  bacterial  warfare  tests  were  con- 
ducted. He  was  also  part  of  the  nuclear-disaster  team  for  the 
Christmas  Island  bomb  tests,  1 ,000  miles  south  of  Hawaii. 

"We  did  26  nuclear  bombs,"  says  Bob.  "I  was  in  charge  of 
the  instruments  that  measured  radiation,  like  the  badges  people 
wore." 

He  also  trained  those  who  watched  the  tests,  including  then 


NOVEMBER  1985       7 


Secretin,   of  State  Robert  S. 
nara. 

Throughout  much  of  his 
Army  career.  Bob  had  been  a 
gambler,  a  poker  player,  often 
sneaking  oft"  to  Nevada  for  a 
long  weekend  of  gambling.  So 
after  his  discharge.  Bob  and  a 
pal  set  out  for  the  high-stakes 
poker  tables  of  Nevada.  Utah 
and  Texas,  where  you  could 
make  S25.000  or  more  a  night. 

That  is.  if  you  have  what  it  takes.  You  don't  last  long  in  that 
rarified  atmosphere,  where  thousands  of  dollars  hinge  on  the 
flip  of  a  card,  without  nerves  of  steel  and  a  healthy  disregard 
for  the  value  of  a  buck.  But  a  pro  can  pull  in  a  yearly  six -figure 
income.  Easy. 

"We  played  with  some  famous  people."  says  Bob.  Among 
them  was  Dean  Martin,  whom  Bob  calls  a  "great  gambler." 

"Basically,   we  were  kids  they'd  fill  the  game  up  with 
because  they  knew  we  didn't  cheat.  Whenever  a  house  in 
-ia  needed  an  extra  person  or  two  to  fill  a  game.  the>  "d 
callus. 

"We'd  gamble  pretty  much  non-stop  from  Frida\  to  Mon- 
day, staying  up  36  or  48  hours  at  a  time.  We  almost  won  a 
casino  one  night." 

All  the  tables  weren't  of  the  glitzy  movie  star  variety,  how- 
ever. Some  were  in  one-horse  towns,  where  local  sheriffs  and 
mobsters  called  the  shots.  Bobs  partner  got  his  arms  broken  a 
couple  of  rimes — for  the  crime  of  winning. 

"You  don't  know  who  you're  playing  with.  Sometimes  after 
you  got  through  with  a  game,  you  ran — and  you  left  your 
mone> .  Sometimes  you  got  run  out  of  town — stuff  right  out  of 
Easy  Rider. " 

All  in  all.  says  Bob.  it's  not  as  glamorous  as  it  seems.  "It's 
not  a  real  good  life.  It's  hard  work.  It's  relentless.  And  you  can 
get  killed  at  it.  So  I  banked  enough  money  to  quit,  and  I  quit." 

a  those  wild  years.  Bob  longed  for  something  a  little 
more  mainstream,  so  he  went  home  to  Massachusetts  to  work 
ales  engineer  for  S\lvania  Electric.  "T  was  ready  for  a 
rest.  Something  where  you  went  home  every  night  and  slept  in 
a  good  bed  and  got  up  in  the  morning  and  met  normal  women 
instead  of  hookers." 

After  a  couple  of  years,  he  was  sent  out  to  Los  Angeles  as 
Toast  sales  manager. 

Bob  would  stay  with  Sylvania  until  1970.  but  that  was  only  a 
part  of  what  he  had  going.  Throughout  the  Sixties  and  Seven- 
ties, he  started,  bought  or  saved  a  number  of  small  businesses: 
an  offset  printing  business,  a  ski  and  dive  store,  an  accounting 
firm,  a  bookstore,  a  metals  fabrication  plant,  the  first  Los 


Bob  had  been  a  gambler,  a 
poker  player,  often  sneaking  off  to 

Nevada  for  a  long  weekend  of 

gambling:  "We  were  kids  they'd  fill 

the  game  up  with,  because  thev 

knew  we  didn't  cheat." 


Angeles  business  to  make  psy- 
chedelic lights,  a  stationer, 
store,  and  a  cable  television 
company,  to  name  a  few. 

"I  formed  an  outfit  called  the 
Good  Management  Corpora- 
tion. People  came  to  me  when 
they  were  in  trouble,   and  I 
raised  money,  or  helped  them 
reorganize,  or  whatever  was 
necessary.   It  was  vers   lucra- 
tive." 
When  Good  Management  and  cable  TV  got  too  big.  Bob  left 
Sylvania.  Unfortunately,  he  had  to  drop  the  cable  TV  business 
before  too  long.  "You  need  huge  sums  of  money  to  really  get 
cable  going."  he  sa\s.  "But  when  I  wanted  to  expand,  which 
you  have  to  do  in  that  business.  Bank  of  America  told  me  cable 
was  just  a  passing  fad.  that  it  wouldn't  last  ten  years.  They 
wouldn't  lend  me  as  much  as  I  needed.  So  when  King  Broad- 
casting hit  southern  California.  I  sold  them  my  system." 

Not  long  afterward,  of  course,  cable  TV  exploded,  and  Los 
Angeles  franchises  such  as  Bob  had  were  worth  millions.  Not 
one  to  play  "what  might  have  been."  this  merely  amuses  Bob. 

Throughout  it  all.  he  gambled  for  extra  money.  (It's  legal  in 
many  Los  Angeles  communities.)  But  the  California  games, 
which  Bob  calls  "the  toughest  in  the  world."  are  a  different 
kind  of  gambling. 

"That's  a  grind-out  kind  of  thing.  The  stakes  weren't  as  high. 
You  were  just  a  little  better  than  everyone  else  and  you  made 
that  much  more.  I  used  to  figure  it  out  by  the  hour.  I'd  make 
about  25  or  30  dollars  an  hour,  and  that  was  about  the  best  I 
could  ever  do.  It's  like  making  a  living,  it's  not  really  even 
gambling — unless  some  big  fish  came  into  the  game,  and  then 
you  could  catch  three  or  four  hundred  quick.  I'd  work  during 
the  day  and  then  play  all  night." 

In  1976.  Bob  bought  an  old  abandoned  building  in  what  was 
then  more  or  less  an  old  abandoned  town,  and  built  the  Side- 
walk Cafe.  In  doing  so.  he  would  become  partly  responsible 
for  changing  the  face  of  Venice. 

"When  I  started,  it  was  a  drug  area."  says  Bob.  "minorities 
and  drugs.  Middle-class  whites  never  came  here,  especially  at 
night.  Even  now.  people  sweat  it  some  at  night,  but  it's  nothing 
like  it  used  to  be." 

Venice  has  always  been  a  bit  odd.  ever  since  Abbott  Kinne\ . 
a  manufacturer  from  the  Midwest,  decided  to  recreate  Venice. 
Italy,  on  the  coast  of  California.  In  the  early  1900s.  he  built 
miles  of  canals,  stocked  them  with  gondolas  and  even  built  a 
few  houses. 

The  dream  soured  almost  immediately  when  no  one  else 
seemed  to  share  his  fascination  with  the  project.  The  Depres- 


8     wti  jol: 


sion  didn't  help  things  any.  and 
the  discover)  of  oil  pretty  much 
finished  the  place  off. 

'After  they  put  in  the  oil 
wells."  says  Bob.  "the  place 
stunk  so  badly  that  nobody 
wanted  to  live  there.  It  went 
into  total  disrepair. 

"But  Santa  Monica,  which  is 
the  next  town  over,  has  always 
been  nice.  And  once  they 
started   building   the   marina 

[Manna  del  Rev.  perhaps  the  largest  in  the  world]  on  the  other 
side,  the  property  values  went  up.  and  many  of  the  bad  areas 
were  squeezed  out. 

"Venice  has  always  had  a  reputation  for  being  a  free  area,  a 
place  you  could  do  anything.  In  the  Fifties  Allen  Ginsberg  and 
the  Beatniks  started  here,  and  the  place  was  hipsville.  with 
coffeehouses  and  whatnot.  Then  in  the  Sixties  the  hippies  were 
here  before  they  moved  to  San  Francisco.  When  the>  left,  the 
area  went  down  again,  until  the  marina  picked  up  in  the  Seven- 
ties." 

This  is  not  to  suggest,  however,  that  Venice  has  lost  any  of 
its.  shall  we  say.  special  flavor.  As  Bob  puts  it.  "Everyone 
comes  here  from  wherever  they  live,  doing  whatever  it  is  they 
do  that's  a  little  strange.  Then  all  the  tourists  come  to  watch  the 
show." 

We're  up  on  the  roof  now.  up  on  top  of  the  Sidewalk 
Cafe.  From  here  you  get  a  panoramic  view  of  the 
shoreline  leading  up  to  Santa  Monica.  The  beach  is 
nothing  special,  really,  with  its  drab  concession  stands  and  oil 
drills.  Neither  is  the  strip,  where  the  Sidewalk  Cafe  stands 
alongside  dozens  of  well-worn  retail  shops.  Yet  this  real  estate 
is  the  equivalent  of  a  mini  Las  Vegas—  pure  gold. 

"This  is  where  L.A.  comes  to  the  beach."  says  Bob.  amazed 
that  he  must  keep  explaining  something  so  obvious.  "L.A.  is 
right  next  door,  and  it's  landlocked— they've  got  nowhere  else 
to  go. 

"On  a  hot  day,  there's  a  million  people  from  here  to  Santa 
Monica."  he  says,  pointing  up  the  coast.  "You  can't  walk." 

"Besides."  he  expounds,  "this  is  California,  this  is  surfing. 
this  is  muscle  beach.  We've  got  fire-eaters,  escape  artists.  >ou 
name  it.  Anything  goes." 

Down  at  the  other  end  of  Ocean  Front  Walk  is  the  original 
Muscle  Beach,  with  its  outdoor  weightlifting  equipment.  Made 
famous  in  the  beach  parry  movies  of  the  1960s.  Muscle  Beach 
was  once  home  base  for  body-builder  Arnold  Schwartzenegger. 

Next  to  Muscle  Beach  are  the  asphalt  basketball  courts  that 
attract  L.A's  best  young  hoop  players. 


The  strip  where  the  Sidewalk  Cafe 
stands  is  nothing  special,  vet:  "This 
is  where  L.A.  comes  to  the  beach. 
This  is  California,  surfing,  muscle 
beach.  Anything  goes— fire-eaters, 
escape  artists— you  name  it." 


Bob  is  pointing  in  the  other 
direction  now.  in  back  of  the 
Cafe.  "That's  the  artists"  sec- 
tion. In  the  summer  the  limos 
line  up  to  drop  off  the  stars. 
What's  that  little  actor's  name? 
Not  Dustin  Hoffman,  but  .  .  . 
yeah.  Dudle>  Moore.  He  owns 
a  place  over  there.  Pla>s  the 
piano  once  in  a  while." 

Back  down  at  ground  level, 
on  the  vending  lots  next  to  the 
Cafe.  Bob  is  pointing  down  at  an  8 x  10-foot  slab  of  dirty. 
sticky  pavement,  one  of  many  laid  out  parking-space  style. 

"How  much  do  you  think  I  rent  this  out  for?"  He's  laughing 
now  because  he  knows  this  is  going  to  be  funn>.  "Six  hundred 
bucks  a  month  in  the  winter,  a  grand  in  the  summer." 

Sometimes  the  lots  are  taken  up  by  film  crews.  "They  come 
here  to  film  all  kinds  of  movies  and  TV  series."  says  Bob. 
"And  they  usually  come  to  the  Cafe  because  they  need  lots 
of  room  for  their  trucks  and  equipment,  and  I've  got  it." 

TV  series  like  The  Rockford  Files.  Starsky  and  Hutch, 
Knight  Rider,  and  even  My  Mother,  the  Car  have  all  filmed 
segments  at  the  Cafe.  As  have  a  number  of  movies.  The  film 
Breathless,  starring  Richard  Gere,  contains  the  immortal  line 
"Meet  me  at  the  Sidewalk  Cafe." 

"I  charge  them  S8.000  a  day  to  film  in  the  restaurant."  says 
Bob.  "Because,  mostly,  they  cause  problems." 

Even  without  the  film  companies,  though,  business  is  great. 
In  the  summer,  crowds  are  lined  up  across  the  street  waiting  to 
get  into  the  Cafe.  Seating  is  European  style— there  are  no  reser- 
vations, and  you  may  have  to  share  your  table  with  strangers. 

Bob's  other  current  businesses  include  Bite  of  Health,  a 
wholesale  health-food  catering  sen  ice.  and  Green  Bean,  a  nat- 
ural-style restaurant,  both  located  in  West  Los  Angeles: 
Piazza,  which  buys  and  leases  land,  including  the  vending  lots 
next  to  the  Cafe:  Ocean  Walk  Properties,  a  limited  partnership 
that  also  buys  properties,  and  Small  World  Books,  which  owns 
and  runs  the  bookstore. 

Enough  to  keep  a  fella  busy,  though  Bob  doesn't  appear 
harried  and  finds  time  to  keep  his  mid-70s  golf  game  sharp. 

He's  already  plotting  his  next  move,  which  is  west  from 
California.  "I  have  some  land  in  Hawaii,  and  I  want  to  build  a 
little  restaurant.  Just  a  little  one.  one  for  me.  I'm  going  to  live 
there  three  months  a  year,  here  in  Venice  three  months  a  year. 
New  York  three  months  a  year  and  Paris  three  months  a  year." 
Not  a  bad  plan. 

Michael  Shanley.  former  director  of  the  HP/  News  Bureau,  is 
director  of  Public  Relations  at  Fitchburg  (MA)  State  College. 


NOVEMBER  1985 


The  saga  of  a  group  of  social  scientists  awash  in  a  sea  of  engineers 
and  scientists— and  how  they  have  stayed  afloat— to  say  the  least! 

The  Society-Technology  Question: 
New  Directions  at  WPI 


by  John  M.  Wilkes 

Associate  Professor  of  Social 

Science  and  Policy  Studies 


Oh,  I  didn't  know  they  did  that 
sort  of  thing  at  WPI." 
This  is  the  kind  of  response 
I'm  used  to  getting  from  off- 
campus  people  I  speak  to  about  the  social 
sciences  at  WPI.  It's  amusing  to  hear.  But 
it's  frustrating,  too. 

On  such  occasions  it's  hard  to  resist  the 
temptation  to  add  an  additional  shock,  tell- 
ing my  listeners  that  WPI  offers  a  major  in 
the  study  of  society-technology  (ST)*  and 
is  deeply  immersed  in  Interactive  Qualify- 
ing Project  (IQP)  work. 

Even  today,  looking  back,  I  guess  I 
underestimated  the  number  of  high-caliber 
students  willing  to  enter  into  the  thicket 
with  me.  By  "thicket,"  I  mean  the  social 
research  I  was  pursuing  when  I  joined  the 
WPI  faculty  in  1976— the  social  psychol- 
ogy of  science. 

Now,  however,  I  find  myself  nearly 
oiwstimulated  by  at  least  10  different  stu- 
dent project  groups  who  have  helped  me 
expand  my  research  on  cognitive  styles 
into  issues  such  as  right  brain-left  brain 
distinctions,  the  experiences  of  women  in 
the  sciences,  the  Hacker  debate  in  com- 
puter science,  and  the  process  by  which 
people  clue  each  other  about  their  cogni- 
tive orientations. 

It's  gotten  to  the  point  where  many  of 
these  students  have  met  the  challenge  of 
serious  social  research  so  well  that  they've 
accompanied  me  to  professional  meetings 
and  conferences  to  discuss  their  work  with 

*The  society-technology  major  has  two 
tracks — one  emphasizing  policy  analysis 
and  the  other  emphasizing  social  impact 
analysis  and  technology  assessment. 


respected  scholars  in  the  field. 

Meanwhile,  students  have  dragged  me 
into  some  thorny  thickets  of  their  own, 
particularly  the  nuclear  power  debate,  the 
role  of  computers  in  the  space  program, 
studies  of  what  might  be  called  the  techno- 
logical mentality,  and  an  examination  of 
how  people  become  effective  computer 
scientists. 

The  Department  of  Social  Science 
and  Policy  Studies  (SSPS)  is  a 
product  of  the  WPI  Plan.  It  was 
established  about  10  years  ago  to 
nurture  that  sector  of  the  IQP  that  would 
consist  of  classic  studies  of  society  and 
technology  or  science. 

It  was  tacitly  understood  that  in  practice 
many  IQP  projects  would  have  fairly  mod- 
est goals  or  limited  scope  and  that  many 
projects  would  essentially  be  community 
service  efforts  or  lean  rather  heavily 
toward  the  technical  side.  The  idea  was  to 
give  strong  support  to  projects  that  would 
truly  require  a  serious  understanding  of  the 
society  side  of  the  equation  and,  therefore, 
that  should  be  grounded  in  the  social  sci- 
ences. We've  also  tried  to  serve  as  a  tech- 
nical resource  for  those  engineering  and 
science  faculty  members  doing  ST  studies. 
Certainly,  however,  our  small  group  of 
social  scientists— four  economists,  a  social 
psychologist,  a  political  scientist  and 
myself,  the  sociologist — have  run  into 
roadblocks  at  WPI.  Few  science  and  engi- 
neering faculty  members,  for  example, 
knew  early  on  how  to  tap  the  resources  of 
SSPS.  Too  often,  we  feel,  we  got  called  in 
on  projects  too  little  or  too  late. 
There  was  a  sense  that  we  represented  a 


small  beachhead  in  a  rather  large  system 
and  that  perhaps  we  should  take  a  lesson 
from  the  Marines,  who  are  said  not  to  be 
concerned  very  much  about  numbers  but 
rather  attempt  to  recruit  just  a  few  good 
men  and  women.  Over  the  ensuing  dec- 
ade, this  has  proved  to  be  good  advice. 

It  was  our  ability  to  integrate  a  few 
really  good  student  projects  with  our  own 
research,  and  thereby  help  demonstrate  the 
enormous  potential  in  the  IQP,  that  has 
made  the  difference  for  SSPS.  We  are 
now,  in  many  cases,  the  envy  of  our  social 
science  colleagues  elsewhere,  particularly 
those  who  are  interested  in  ST  studies  but 
are  not  based  in  centers  devoted  to  such 
activities. 

Still,  a  question  plaguing  most  of  us  is 
how  to  get  students  who  will  become  engi- 
neers or  scientists  to  take  the  time  to  revise 
and  enrich  for  publication  project  reports 
which  would  be  a  contribution  to  the  social 
science  literature.  When  the  work  is 
indeed  publishable  and  is  not  really  the 
work  of  the  advisor,  who  should  be 
responsible  for  making  sure  it  reaches  its 
audience? 

For  example,  currently  I  have  an  embar- 
rassment of  riches— unpublished  work  best 
viewed  as  collaborations  between  myself 
and  dozens  of  students.  I  certainly  don't 
want  to  publish  this  work  under  my  own 
name.  Besides,  I  have  plenty  of  my  own 
research  awaiting  my  attention. 

On  the  other  hand,  when  I  present  a 
paper  that  includes  six  or  eight  unpub- 
lished project  reports  in  the  bibliography,  a 
colleague  can  fairly  ask  why  this  crucial 
material  was  not  made  accessible  to  the 
field  in  some  form.  The  question  is:  what 


10       WPI  JOURNAL 


form  is  appropriate?  For  in  truth,  few 
project  reports  are  ready  for  publication  as 
they  stand.  Typically,  however,  they  do 
include  a  few  choice  nuggets  worth  pre- 
serving. Over  time  a  series  of  such 
projects  can  reveal  an  interesting  pattern 
of  results  to  someone  who  is  scanning  the 
whole.  I'll  illustrate. 

As  I've  already  mentioned,  I've  always 
been  interested  in  the  social  psychology  of 
science.  My  dissertation  was  based  on  a 
comparative  study  of  275  academic  physi- 
cists, chemists,  economists  and  sociolo- 
gists. I  demonstrated  how  the  most  suc- 
cessful body  of  researchers  in  each  area 
differed  from  the  elite  in  other  fields  along 
the  lines  of  cognitive  style. 

But  I  really  had  little  hope  of  pursuing 
this  research  area  at  WPI  with  engineering 
students.  It  involves  delving  rather  deeply 
into  the  debate  about  creativity  and  the 
nature  of  science  itself.  I  did,  however, 
devise  two  undergraduate  courses  that 
drew  on  this  background. 

Largely  because  of  student  initiative 
sparked  by  these  presentations,  the 
projects  I've  advised  at  WPI  have  included 
a  dozen  topics  building  on  my  background 
in  cognitive  styles  and  the  creativity 
debate.  While  some  students  have  taken 
these  ideas  and  run  with  them,  others  have 
involved  me  in  studies  growing  out  of  their 
own  interests.  These  range  from  examina- 
tion of  public  interest  in  astrology,  laetril 
and  antivivisectionism,  to  analyzing  the 
problems  of  the  elderly  and  the  commer- 


cial failure  of  the  video  phone,  which  was 
produced  by  Bell  Labs  in  the  1970s. 

Over  time  the  line  between  my  research 
and  student  projects  has  become  rather 
blurred.  For  example,  at  least  five  project 
teams  have  worked  on  topics  derived  from 
a  National  Science  Foundation  study  I 
conducted  on  women  in  science.  This 
work  involved  1,200  students  at  major 
universities.  Here  at  WPI,  three  project 
groups  teamed  up  to  revise  and  reissue  the 
questionnaire  to  120  WPI  students.  Two 
more  project  groups  joined  in  to  do  paral- 
lel analyses  of  the  original  project  on  the 
women's  issues  once  the  data  were  gath- 
ered and  organized.  The  research  of  these 
last  two  teams  has  proven  to  be  so  fruitful 
that  it  will  probably  be  the  basis  for  a  new 
proposal  to  extend  the  original  NSF  study 
into  a  sample  of  women's,  liberal  arts  and 
engineering  colleges. 

The  stimuli  for  projects  don't 
always  come  from  faculty,  how- 
ever. Sometimes,  for  instance,  I 
find  myself  drawn  into  research 
activities  that  come  directly  out  of  student 
research.  Two  good  examples  of  this  are 
my  research  on  the  nuclear  power  debate 
and  my  growing  interest  in  the  social 
implications  of  fire  protection  engineer- 
ing. 

To  illustrate  using  the  nuclear  power 
example — it  all  started  so  modestly.  Four 
able  students  needed  an  advisor  on  a 
project  involving  sea-bed  disposal  of 


nuclear  waste  and  came  to  me.  I  had  no 
research  interest  in  this  particular  topic, 
but  recognizing  in  the  nuclear  debate  a  rich 
society/technology  issue.  I  agreed  to  dis- 
cuss the  possibilities. 

As  we  sat  around  the  office,  the  discus- 
sion rapidly  turned  to  speculation  about 
what  leads  people  to  be  anti-nuclear.  The 
students  had  no  trouble  spinning  off 
diverse  theories  that  they  had  heard  circu- 
lating on  campus.  Before  long  I  became 
intrigued  and  started  taking  notes.  I  had 
soon  re-fashioned  these  general  ideas  into 
four  researchable  hypotheses  focusing  on 
knowledge,  anti-technological  attitudes, 
personal  optimism  or  pessimism,  and  con- 
fidence in  institutions. 

On  hearing  that,  at  least  in  principle, 
these  theories  represented  empirical  issues 
that  could  be  tested  (i.e.,  were  not  simply 
matters  of  opinion),  the  students  got 
excited  and  soon  found  themselves  critiqu- 
ing the  1975-76  national  Harris  Poll  on 
nuclear  power  as  a  springboard  toward 
devising  their  own  survey  instrument. 

But  that's  not  all  they  did.  They  began 
reading  about  the  society/technology 
debate  in  general  so  that  they  could  fairly 
represent  pessimistic  or  anti-technological 
positions  in  the  survey.  They  also 
reviewed  several  existing  measures  of 
institutional  confidence  and  devised, 
almost  from  scratch,  a  nuclear  knowledge 
scale.  What's  more,  the  nuclear  knowl- 
edge issue  led  to  our  attending  an  evening 
course  at  Clark  University  together. 


"Some  students  have  dragged  me 

into  some  thorny  thickets  of  their 

own— social  research  in 

areas  like  technological 

mentality,  the  nuclear  power  debate, 

and  how  people  become  effective 

computer  scientists." 


Prof.  John  M.  Wilkes 


NOVEMBER  1985        11 


All  in  all.  the  paiject  became  a  major 
undertaking  and  sened  as  the  capstone  of 
a  significant  intellectual  experience  for  the 
students*  careers  at  W  PI. 

The  result  of  the  initial  effort  was  a 
modest  stud\  of  100  WPI  and  Clark  stu- 
dents No  one  was  more  surprised  than  I  to 
see  what  a  devastating  effect  this  carefully 
constructed  study  had  on  the  conventional 
wisdom  in  nuclear  circles  about  the  nature 
and  sources  of  nuclear  opposition.  None 
of  the  explanations  that  we  began  with  was 
adequate.  Yet  the  students'  work  proved  to 
be  quite  a  contribution  to  the  debate  at  the 
time.  To  give  you  some  idea  of  the  w  ider 
impact  of  the  study,  it  was  ultimately 
reported  at  the  meetings  of  both  the  Amer- 
ican Nuclear  Society  and  the  Society  for 
the  Social  Study  of  Science  (4S)  in  1978. 
An  abstract  of  the  4S  presentation  came  to 
the  attention  of  the  head  lobbyist  of  the 
American  Nuclear  Society  in  Washington, 
who  later  visited  me  at  WPI. 

But.  oddly  enough,  the  most  important 
audience  turned  out  to  be  right  next  door. 
The  Public  Affairs  Research  Center  at 
Clark  University  invited  me  to  devise  part 
of  their  statewide  survey  of  1.000  Massa- 
chusetts residents  on  the  subjects  of  public 
confidence  and  nuclear  opinion.  Then,  the 
utilities  covering  the  state  and  the  Edison 
Electric  Institute  combined  to  provide  the 
small  amount  of  funding  necessary  to 
include  a  revised  knowledge  scale  in  the 
stud> . 

As  the  scope  of  the  project  increased.  I 


"No  one  was  more  sur- 
prised than  I  to  see  the 
devastating  effect  this 
student  project  had  on 
the  conventional  wis- 
dom about  the  nature  of 
opposition  to  nuclear 
energv." 


Able-bodied  adults  stay  on  welfare  not  out  of  choice  but  out  of  necessity:  they  can  7  find 
jobs,  according  to  Prof.  Leonard  Goodwin  (above),  in  his  1983  book.  Causes  and  Cures 
of  Welfare.  Based  on  considerable  research  on  the  welfare  "dilemma"  in  the  U.S..  the 
landmark  volume  concludes  that  the  current  welfare  system  is  "bankrupt "  and  in  need 
of  drastic  overhaul.  "Tliere  is  virtually  no  evidence,"  Goodwin  adds,  "that  welfare 
dependency  is  caused  by  preference  for  welfare. " 


called  on  a  colleague  at  Bates  College  for 
support  and  assistance,  and  he  took  time  to 
administer  a  student  survey  on  the  Bates 
campus,  thereby  increasing  our  compara- 
tive body  of  information  substantially. 

Then,  in  March  1979.  we  discovered 
that  our  Massachusetts  state  study  w  as  the 
last  good  body  of  evidence  on  public  opin- 
ion and  technical  optimism  prior  to  the 
Three  Mile  Island  (TMI)  incident,  which 
followed  data  collection  by  three  weeks.  A 
followup  was  done  one  year  later,  and  we 
were  therefore  in  a  position  to  do  a  classic 
social-impact  analysis  focusing  on  the 
events  of  TMI. 

These  data  spawned  several  new  student 
projects  and  became  a  strand  in  my  own 
continuing  research.  They  also  found  their 
way  into  my  course  introducing  social 
concepts.  Hence,  many  WPI  students  have 
had  the  opportunity  to  theorize  about  the 
likely  impact  of  TMI  on  these  variables  of 
knowledge  and  opinion  and  to  test  them- 
selves against  often  counter-intuitive  out- 
comes. 

The  ingenuity  of  the  student  spin- 
off projects  in  the  nuclear  series 
still  brings  a  smile  to  my  face.  In 
addition  to  the  original  study 
examining  the  climates  of  opinion  on  the 
different  college  campuses,  we've  had 
groups  look  into  the  structure  of  the  Clam- 
shell Alliance,  re-analyze  existing  national 
survey  data  in  search  of  trends  more 
apparent  in  light  of  later  developments, 
and  study  the  relationship  between  public 


opinion  and  media  coverage  by  news 
region  in  both  Massachusetts  and  Con- 
necticut. 

We've  also  re-examined  media  coverage 
at  the  time  of  the  national  surveys  that  fig- 
ured in  other  projects.  Clark  and  WPI 
were  re-studied  after  TMI  to  assess  the 
effect  on  those  different  climates  of  opin- 
ion. And  another  study  was  mounted  at 
WPI  and  Mt.  Holyoke  College  to  examine 
sex  difference  in  nuclear  attitudes. 

In  addition,  studies  have  been  mounted 
in  which  the  key  decision  makers  (now 
retired)  at  Yankee  Atomic  and  Northeast 
Utilities— the  companies  that  brought 
nuclear  energy  to  New  England— were 
interviewed  at  length  about  the  decision 
process  that  convinced  them  that  nuclear 
power  would  be  the  wave  of  the  future.  All 
this  activity  is  in  addition  to  the  studies  of 
pro-  and  anti-nuclear  logic,  and  a  retro- 
spective look  at  the  impact  of  the  nuclear 
power  plant  in  Plymouth,  MA. 

Currently  a  group  of  students  is  going 
into  the  field  with  follow-up  studies  of  all 
four  colleges  in  the  original  data 
archives— Bates,  Clark.  Mt.  Holyoke  and 
WPI.  Coming  as  it  does  five  years  after 
TMI  and  during  a  period  of  lower  interest 
in  the  subject  as  well  as  a  more  negative 
climate  of  opinion  at  the  national  level, 
this  study  promises  to  round  out  our 
knowledge  of  the  process  whereby  tech- 
nologies become  defined  as  social  prob- 
lems and  redefined  as  non-issues. 

In  short,  you  might  correctly  conclude 
that  this  series  of  projects  seems  to  have  a 


12       WPI  JOURNAL 


life  of  its  own.  Personally  I  find  that  I 
can't  get  away  from  the  subject  despite  my 
heavy  involvement  in  other  things.  I 
recently  met  a  sociologist  at  a  professional 
meeting  who  plans  to  write  a  book  on  this 
subject  and  makes  no  bones  about  the  fact 
that  he  will  be  building  on  our  work  and 
wants  a  full  record  of  everything  we've 
written. 

There  seems  no  end  to  the  off-campus 
connections  emerging  from  these  projects. 

The  temptation  to  continue  the  nuclear 
projects  series  now  that  there  are  1 1  exist- 
ing student  campus  surveys  may  simply  be 
too  great  to  resist.  After  all,  some  40  stu- 
dents in  15  project  groups  have  already 
had  a  great  deal  of  fun  with  this  subject, 
and  there  doesn't  seem  to  be  any  compel- 
ling reason  to  stop  now. 

Of  course,  every  run  has  its  price,  and  if 
we  keep  going  like  this,  someday  I  may 
have  to  stop  and  write  a  book  just  to  tell 
what  has  happened  in  this  one  sub-area  of 
cumulative  WPI  project  activity  on  the 
nuclear  issue.  I  am  currently  toying  with 
the  idea  of  trying  to  recruit  a  student  group 
that  would  do  no  new  studies  but  would 
simply  review  all  the  work  done  by  the 
prior  groups  and  bring  it  out  in  some 
coherent  and  integrated  form. 

I  hope  that  this  brief  and  personal 
review  will  give  you  some  idea 
about  what  we're  trying  to  do  in  the 
social  sciences  at  WPI.  Our  dreams 
for  the  future  are  fairly  simple  to  state. 


although  they  will  certainly  be  harder  to 
achieve. 

We  are  pleased  that  virtually  every  WPI 
student  now  takes  social  science  courses 
before  undertaking  the  IQP  At  the  very 
least  we  want  them  to  know  what  types  of 
data  and  facilities  are  readily  available, 
just  for  the  asking,  and  what  kinds  of 
projects  will  require  them  to  go  out  and 
break  new  ground.  We  want  to  encourage 
initiatives  by  prepared  students  with  a 
clear  sense  of  purpose— not  simply  let  peo- 
ple stumble  into  a  morass  out  of  ignorance 
about  what  has  gone  before. 

As  faculty,  we  foresee  the  Department 
of  SSPS  spawning  a  research  center  in  due 
course,  one  that  fosters  professional 
research  that  grows  out  of,  and  feeds  back 
into,  project  work.  Current  candidates  for 
department-wide  research  topics— which 
would  encourage  interdisciplinary  cooper- 
ation across  the  campus — include  science 
education,  the  social  impact  of  computers, 
and  the  social  implications  of  fire  protec- 
tion engineering  (FPE). 

Besides  these,  the  specializations  of  my 
colleagues  Douglas  Woods  and  John 
O'Connor  in  the  areas  of  economics 
involving  energy,  resources  and  health 
care,  as  well  as  Leonard  Goodwin's  exper- 
tise in  the  area  of  welfare  policy,  will 
undoubtedly  continue  to  be  among  the 
major  streams  of  research  activity  shaping 
SSPS  at  WPI. 

The  trend  will  probably  be  toward  a 
department  that  specializes  increasingly  in 


"There  was  a  sense  that 

social  science 

represented  a  small 

beachhead  in  a  large 

system— that  we  should, 

like  the  Marines, 

recruit  just  a  few 

good  men  and  women." 


SSPS  department  head  Dr.  Douglas  W.  Woods 


science/technology/society  projects  with 
certain  common  foci  particularly  evident 
among  those  of  us  who  are  not  econo- 
mists. For  example,  Len  Goodwin,  Ken- 
neth Ruscio— our  newly  recruited  political 
scientist— and  I  have  overlapping  interests 
in  education,  learning  styles  and  education 
policy  regarding  computers  and  the  teach- 
ing of  computer  science. 

Further,  we  envision  a  core  group  of 
some  10  percent  of  the  student  body  who 
really  get  serious  about  this  side  of  their 
studies  and  go  well  beyond  the  minimum 
of  doing  an  IQP.  This  is  the  rationale  for 
proposing  what  we  call  the  dual  major— a 
social  science  and  engineering  degree,  in 
which  the  IQP  is  waived  in  favor  of  a  sec- 
ond MQP  with  society-technology  issues 
as  its  focus. 

This  second  MQP  would  involve  the 
same  resources,  background  course  work 
and  professional  attention  devoted  to  the 
technical  MQPs  at  WPI.  The  result  of  this 
type  of  academic  program  would  be  a  spe- 
cial degree — one  which  we  suspect  will  be 
highly  prized  by  both  the  recipients  and 
their  potential  employers.  It  will  be  espe- 
cially prized  by  graduate  programs  focus- 
ing on  technologically  based  policy  areas. 
Their  view  of  the  ideal  candidate  would  be 
an  engineer  who  had  done  some  serious 
study  in  the  social  sciences. 

We  suspect  you'll  be  hearing  more  about 
those  subjects  based  on  work  under  way  at 
WPI.  But  for  the  present,  you  now  have 
some  idea  that,  yes  indeed,  we  do  do  that 
sort  of  thing  at  WPI. 


NOVEMBER  1985        13 


THOMAS  J.  FORD  '68  MS,: 

Science  in  the  Mountains 


By  David  Brooks 


Traveling  northward  in  New  Hamp- 
shire, you  can  lose  all  sense  of  civi- 
lization as  you  approach  Franconia 
Notch  with  the  White  Mountains  towering 
above  on  all  sides.  Still  further  north  lies 
Canada,  and  it's  barren  country  you'll  find 
from  Franconia  to  the  border. 

But  the  road  out  of  the  wild  mountains 
of  Franconia  Notch  yields  unexpected  sur- 
prises. Quiet  towns  with  pleasant  homes 
are  scattered  about,  and  as  the  highway 
swings  through  a  thick  forest,  a  large  sign 
by  a  lonely  side  road  announces:  "White 
Mountains  Regional  High  School." 

This  full-fledged  yet  completely  isolated 
school  of  500  students  offers  all  the  bene- 
fits of  a  large  urban  high  school.  And  on 
the  staff  is  Tom  Ford,  who  earned  an  M.S. 
in  General  Science  from  WPI  in  1968. 

Ford  is  known  around  town  as  "The 
Brain."  It's  a  distinction  earned  through  a 
career  spanning  22  years  as  a  physics 
teacher  and  chairman  of  the  science 
department.  For  the  traveler  recently  over- 
whelmed by  a  passage  through  the  White 
Mountains,  the  discovery  of  Tom  Ford's 
physics  lab  45  minutes  to  the  north  of 
Franconia  Notch  is  a  revelation. 

There  Ford  has  labored  to  clarify  the 
subject  of  physics  and  other  sciences  to  his 
students,  who  are  about  evenly  divided 
between  the  college  prep  and  vocational 
curricula.  They  have  all  benefitted  from 
his  help.  To  advanced  students  he  gives 
the  full  impact  of  his  knowledge.  "We 
believe  that  our  students  are  as  well  trained 
here  as  they  would  be  if  they  attended  the 
most  sophisticated  urban  high  school," 
says  Ford. 

Similarly,  vocational  students  studying 
agricultural  and  industrial  arts  benefit  from 
a  science  education  attuned  to  their  inter- 
ests and  abilities.  Tom  Ford  adjusts  his 
teaching  methods  to  his  audience  in  order 
to  fulfill  what  he  describes  as  his  life's 
ambition,  to  impart  what  he  knows  of  sci- 
ence and  of  life.  "Communicating  is  his 
big  thing,"  says  one  senior. 


Tom  Ford  has  lived  most  of  his  years 
deep  in  New  England,  although  he  could 
have  chosen  the  faster  pace  of  an  urban 
environment.  But  his  choice  has  been 
motivated  simply  by  his  preference  to 
make  his  home  in  the  mountains. 

In  the  early  1960s  when  White  Moun- 
tains Regional  High  School  was  first  being 
planned,  Ford  was  teaching  physics  in 
Lancaster  (NH)  High  School.  Lancaster  is 
one  of  the  five  towns  that  banded  together 
to  form  a  regional  high  school  in  the  town- 
ship of  Whitefield.  He  was  given  the 
opportunity  to  plan  his  own  teaching  and 
laboratory  space,  and  he  worked  closely 
with  the  architects  from  start  to  finish  of 
the  construction. 

It  was  his  participation  in  the  formation 
of  the  new  high  school  that  initially  per- 
suaded Ford  to  remain  in  his  home  land. 
The  school  opened  its  doors  in  1967,  and 
since  then  Tom  has  been  commuting  22 
miles  from  the  town  of  Franconia,  where 
he  and  his  wife,  Wendy,  have  been  raising 
Mark,  17;  Megan,  16;  and  Amy,  13. 
Wendy  teaches  kindergarten  in  Groveton, 
a  commute  twice  as  great  as  Tom  endures 
every  day. 

At  the  age  often  Ford  arrived  in  Franco- 
nia with  his  family  from  St.  Paul,  Minne- 
sota. His  father  started  Franconia  Hard- 
ware, at  first  in  the  family  home. 
Everyone  pitched  in  to  help.  "I  can  still 
remember  my  dad's  admonition  that  help- 
ing with  the  business  put  food  on  the 
table,"  Tom  says  today. 

Later,  as  the  hardware  business  pros- 
pered, Tom  enrolled  in  the  Venard  School 
in  Clark's  Summit,  PA,  where  he  received 
a  prep  school  degree  in  1953.  He  also  took 
the  equivalency  test  that  earned  him  the 
secondary  degree  of  the  Catholic  Univer- 
sity of  America. 

Making  quite  a  singular  choice  for  col- 
lege, he  traveled  to  Canada,  where  he 
acquired  in  1957  a  B.S.  in  Science  at  St. 
Dunstan's  University  on  Prince  Edward 
Island.  Then,  three  years  in  the  Navy 
earned  him  a  commission  as  a  Lieutenant 
J.G.I. 

WPI  came  later,  while  he  was  teaching. 


Speaking  of  a  long  commute,  in  order  to 
attend  WPI,  Ford  drove  the  400-mile 
round  trip  from  Franconia  to  Worcester  for 
two  long  years  to  spend  one  day  a  week  on 
campus.  In  addition,  he  spent  two  sum- 
mers living  in  Worcester  and  attending 
WPI  full  time. 

For  some,  technology  can  be  so  com- 
pletely absorbing  that  it  squeezes  out 
interests  in  the  humanities.  Tom  has 
avoided  this  pitfall.  He  earned  an  under- 
graduate Literary  Letter  and  participated 
as  an  actor  and  stagehand  in  school  and 
college  dramatics.  Today  he  enjoys  listen- 
ing to  his  classical  music  discs  and  has  a 
preference  for  Gregorian  music. 

Other  interests  earned  him  a  pilot's 
license  and  a  master  electrician's  license. 
For  a  while  he  even  managed  the  family 
hardware  business  in  Franconia. 

It  was  his  early  experience  in  his  father's 
hardware  store,  says  Ford,  that  charted  the 
course  of  his  life.  "Getting  to  know  all  the 
tools  and  supplies  and  their  functions 
awakened  me  to  the  world  of  science,"  he 
says.  It's  this  outlook  that  has  fueled  his 
commitment  to  using  straightforward 
teaching  methods  and  apparatus— in  com- 
bination with  microcomputers — to  sim- 
plify the  learning  of  complex  ideas. 

One  of  Tom  Ford's  top  priorities  has 
been  staying  at  the  forefront  of  the  com- 
puter movement,  seeing  that  White  Moun- 
tains High  is  supplied  with  effective  com- 
puter equipment,  and  developing  courses. 
Reader's  Digest  picked  him  out  of  the 
New  Hampshire  wilderness  and  featured 
him  in  an  article  when  computers  were 
becoming  important  in  the  schools.  Ford 
has  had  more  than  14  computer  programs 
accepted  for  publication  by  the  Digital 
Equipment  Corporation  Users'  Society.  In 
addition,  he  was  a  Bell  System  Represen- 
tative for  Aids-to-High  School  Science  at 
state  meetings  and  has  made  an  address  at 
Olivetti's  Tarrytown,  N.Y.,  Educational 
Center. 

Ford's  fondness  for  science  and  educa- 
tion culminated  with  his  1971  selection  as 
New  Hampshire  Teacher  of  the  Year.  Yet 


14       WPI  JOURNAL 


he's  not  locked  himself  in  his  lab  for  all 
these  years.  His  resume  lists  68  achieve- 
ments that  indicate  prolific  activity  both  in 
educational  and  community  affairs. 

Early  last  summer  Ford  was  chosen  to 
go  west  to  Flagstaff,  AZ,  for  a  two- week 
seminar  for  specially  selected  high  school 


physics  teachers.  Later  in  the  summer  he 
was  one  of  40  physics  teachers  selected 
nationally  for  a  two-week  physics  honors 
workshop  on  the  campus  of  Virginia  Mili- 
tary Institute. 

Etched  vividly  in  Ford's  mind  is  one 
non-occupational   accomplishment:    After 


20  years  of  cigarette  smoking,  he  quit  sev- 
eral years  ago  and  hasn't  touched  tobacco 
since.  His  profession,  he  says,  clarified 
the  physiological  dangers  of  using 
tobacco.  Today,  he  has  scored  a  special 
sort  of  triumph  over  what  he  believes  was 
an  addiction. 

Ford  and  his  family  conduct  charitable 
programs  for  disadvantaged  children. 
Their  efforts  have  resulted  in  community- 
wide  participation  in  the  non-profit  Copper 
Cannon  Corporation.  The  Ford  family 
also  belongs  to  St.  Catherine's  Parish,  of 
which  Tom  has  served  as  president. 

This  fall  Tom  Ford  and  his  family  are 
breaking  with  tradition.  Although 
happy  where  he  is  now,  he  has 
accepted  an  opportunity  in  Bethel,  ME,  60 
miles  to  the  east,  to  teach  physics  at  Gould 
Academy,  a  prep  school . 

"I'm  enjoying  this  new  educational 
challenge,"  he  reports.  So  is  the  entire 
family.  His  three  children  will  be  able  to 
attend  the  academy  tuition  free,  and 
Wendy  Ford  has  been  enthusiastically 
hired  by  the  Bethel  school  system,  elimi- 
nating at  last  her  long  commute. 

The  family  tradition  of  being  up  on  the 
top  of  the  White  Mountains,  however,  has 
not  changed.  Bethel  is  a  quiet  little  town  in 
the  north  country,  not  unlike  the  pristine 
surroundings  Tom  Ford  has  enjoyed  all  his 
life.  "I  suppose  my  pursuit  of  science  in 
such  a  place  is  rare  among  scientists,  who, 
I  understand,  usually  find  their  most  lucra- 
tive opportunities  in  more  urban,  industrial 
areas." 

So  be  it.  Tom  Ford  has  been  strapping 
on  his  cross-country  skis  right  outside  his 
back  door  since  he  was  a  boy  in  Minnesota 
and  New  Hampshire.  Today  he  is  going 
through  changes,  for  sure,  but  he's  still 
managing  to  keep  his  beloved  physics  lab 
deep  in  the  heart  of  New  England. 

David  Brooks  is  a  freelance  writer  living 
in  Mt.  Carmel,  CT.  His  son,  Roland, 
earned  his  B.S.  (1979)  and  M.S.  (1984) 
degrees  at  WPI  in  mechanical  engineer- 
ing. 


NOVEMBER  1985        15 


No  Soul  of  Faint  Heart 


Dr.  James  S.  Demetry's  ten  years 

in  administration  are  history  now. 

But  his  was  a  decade  of  growth 

for  one  of  WPI's  most 

innovative  programs— 

the  Interactive  Qualifying  Project. 


By  Kenneth  McDonnell 


Jim  Demetry  returned  to 
WPI  on  that  tragic  day  in 
May  1970  when  five  stu- 
dents died  in  a  hail  of  bul- 
lets on  the  campus  of  Ohio's 
Kent  State  University. 

Demetry  "58  EE,  '60  MSEE 
was  back  just  for  a  visit,  at  the 
urging  of  William  R.  Grogan 
'46  EE,  '49  MSEE,  Dean  of 
Undergraduate  Studies. 

"Bill  called  me  in  Monterey 
[CA],  where  I'd  been  teaching 
at  the  Naval  Postgraduate 
School,"  Demetry  recalled 
recently.  "A  lot  was  changing 
at  WPI,  Bill  was  saying  then.  I 
was  a  little  skeptical,  in  light  of 
what  I  was  hearing  about  the 


changes  sweeping  much  of 
higher  education.  So  I  came 
back  to  see  for  myself  what  was 
happening  here.  Something 
about  the  WPI  Plan  and  those 
times  told  me  that  WPI  would 
be  an  exciting  place  to  be." 

It's  now  a  year  later — 1971  — 
and  Jim  Demetry  has  returned 
to  his  alma  mater  for  more  than 
just  another  visit.  Pulling  up 
roots  he  and  his  wife,  Sally, 
had  put  down  in  Monterey, 
where  Jim  had  earned  his 
Ph.D.,  and  gathering  up 
daughters  Sara,  Chrysanthe 
(currently  a  sophomore  ME 
student  at  WPI)  and  Athena, 
the  Demetrys  settled  back  East 
in  nearby  Holden,  Jim  to  join 
the  Electrical  Engineering 
Department,  he  and  Sally  to 
raise  the  girls,  and  she  later  to 
teach  pre-school  children  at  the 
Congregational  Church  nursery 
school  in  Holden. 

Meanwhile,  the  WPI  Plan  is 
being  implemented  and  many 
of  the  "bugs"  worked  out.  As 
it  gains  momentum  in  the  early 
1970s,  the  Plan  wins  the 
respect  of  educators  for  its  phi- 
losophy, focus  and  quality  in  an 
era  of  kneejerk  responses  to 
changing  attitudes  in  higher 
education. 

Demetry  has  become  an 
influential  voice  on  campus,  a 
strong  advocate  of  the  Plan,  a 
personality  with  clear  leader- 
ship qualities. 

In  1975,  he  would  be 
appointed  chairman  of  the 
Division  of  Interdisciplinary 
Affairs  (DIA),  there  to  ride 
herd  over  the  enormously 
demanding  Interactive  Qualify- 
ing Project  (IQP)  program,  a 
degree  requirement  that  calls 
upon  students  to  examine  in 
depth  a  specific  relationship 
between  science  or  technology 
and  societal  and  human  needs. 

Today,  nearly  ten  years  later, 
Jim  Demetry  is  hanging  up  his 
administrator's  hat  to  return  to 
full-time  teaching  and  research. 
In  one  sense,  his  move  is  a 
return  to  the  nest.  In  another, 
with  his  establishment  of  a 
solid  foundation  for  the  IQP. 
his  shift  is  an  opportunity  to 
infuse  the  DIA  and  the  IQP 


16       WPI  JOURNAL 


with  new  blood,  a  development 
he  says  is  natural  for  such  a 
dynamic  program.  Prof.  Lance 
Schachterle  (HU)  has  taken 
over  for  Demetry  on  an  interim 
basis,  while  a  nationwide 
search  for  a  permanent  DIA 
chairman  takes  place. 

Jim  Demetry 's  involvement 
has  made  him  the  person  most 
familiar  with  the  IQP,  perhaps 
the  most  innovative  and  dis- 
tinctive element  of  the  WPI 
Plan.  And  it's  not  likely  that 
we've  seen  or  heard  the  last  of 
Jim  Demetry. 

In  these  ten  years,  Jim 
Demetry  has  seen  and 
heard  it  all  about  the  IQP: 
the  praise  of  students,  par- 
ents and  the  media  for  the 
actions  of  the  Plan's  founding 
fathers;  the  comments  of  count- 
less faculty  about  the  superior 
work  done  by  many  students; 
the  dedication  of  a  core  of 
deeply  involved  professors;  the 
avoidance  of  IQP  advising  by 
some  faculty  as  a  means  of  eas- 
ing their  workloads;  the  thanks 
of  project  sponsors  who  over 
the  years  have  benefitted  from 
the  interaction  they  experience 
through  the  IQP  with  both  WPI 
students  and  faculty. 

"The  IQP,"  he  says. 
"remains  the  one  part  of  the 
Plan  that  sets  WPI  apart  from 
our  peers.  No  other  college  I 
know  of  has  an  IQP-type  activ- 
ity as  one  of  its  degree  require- 
ments." 

Often,  says  Demetry,  the 
IQP  requires  preparation  study 
in  the  social  sciences  to  help 
make  students  more  aware  of 
general  social  problems;  better 
able  to  question,  criticize  or 
reinforce  prevailing  ethics  and 
values;  and  capable  of  making 
better  judgments  and  policy 
recommendations  on  issues  that 
affect  society. 

As  might  be  imagined,  the 
range  of  IQP  topics  is  broad. 
Each  year,  some  200  projects 
are  completed,  involving  teams 
of  one  to  four  students.  And 
each  year,  the  cream  of  the  crop 
are  recognized  through  the 
President's  IQP  Competition. 
In    1984-85,   for  example. 


three  senior  IQP  teams  were 
singled  out  for  superior  concep- 
tion, performance  and  presen- 
tation of  their  IQPs:  Kurt  Bahn- 
sen  (EE),  Kenneth  Chenis  (EE) 
and  Virginia  Noddin  (CE)  for 
their  analysis  of  priority  issues 
in  the  National  Society  of  Pro- 
fessional Engineers  Constitu- 
ency Survey;  Stephanie  Ford 
(ME),  Patricia  McSherry 
(MGE)  and  Michael  O'Dono- 
ghue  (MGE)  for  their  assess- 
ment of  improvements  in  the 
housekeeping  department  of 
San  Francisco  General  Hospi- 
tal; and  JoAnne  Shatkin  (BB) 
for  her  study  of  the  quality  of 
bottled  water  in  Worcester. 

Final  reports  of  IQP  teams 
often  run  beyond  a  hundred 
pages,  accumulating  to  fill 
shelf  after  shelf  in  Gordon 
Library.  One  student,  Gary 
Shephard  ('86  CE).  has  been 
studying  the  evolution  of  the 
Plan  itself,  in  part  to  assess 
how  growth  at  WPI  since  the 
Plan's  inception  in  the  early 
1970s  has  influenced  the  need 
for  change  in  the  program  in 
order  to  maintain  control  of 
what  is  an  essentially  experi- 
mental system.  His  findings 
should  make  good  food  for 
students  and  faculty  thought,  at 
the  very  least. 

For  all  its  attributes,  says 
Demetry,  the  IQP  remains 
something  of  an  orphan.  "It 
exists  on  the  volunteerism  of 
the  faculty,  and  it  has  no 
'home'  academic  department 
or  discipline  to  help  secure  its 
focus.  When  professors  start 
feeling  the  crunch  of  their 
teaching  and  research  sched- 
ules," he  says,  "some  may 
have  a  tendency  to  voice  con- 
cern over  the  IQP  simply  as  a 
relief  valve." 

Demetry  concedes  that,  for  a 
fair  number  of  faculty  mem- 
bers, IQP  advising  is  difficult 
to  execute  well,  but  not  just 
because  of  their  workloads. 

"Some  faculty  members,"  he 
contends,  "are  hung  up  on  the 
notion  that  if  they  are  to  advise 
IQPs,  it  should  be  done  in  the 
more  traditional  manner  of  the 
expert  dispensing  wisdom  and 
knowledge    to    eager   young 


minds,  as  is  often  the  case  with 
the  MQP  [Major  Qualifying 
Project]."  If  WPI  stuck  to  this 
tradition,  he  acknowledges,  the 
college  would  have  precious 
few  engineering  and  science 
faculty  members  advising 
IQPs,  simply  because  their 
expertise  tends  to  be  mono-dis- 
ciplinary. 

"We're  doing  our  best  to 
educate  for  breadth,  awareness 
and  involvement,  and  we  need 
faculty  role  models  to  accom- 
plish this.  It's  not  something  for 
which  we  can  rely  solely  on  the 
social  sciences  and  humanities 
facilities.  To  do  so  would  be 
hypocritical,  in  my  judgment." 


This  student's  IQP  involved 
design  and  construction  of  a 
remote-controlled  sailboat 
exhibit  that  visitors  to  the  Pea- 
body  Museum  in  Salem,  MA, 
can  "sail." 


NOVEMBER  1985        17 


Using  knowledge  of  computer 
engineering  gained  in  his  course 
work,  a  student  instructs  toddlers 
in  the  use  of  a  computer  terminal 
which  he  modified  to  accommo- 
date their  motor  skills  while 
introducing  them  to  the 
computer  age. 


What  is  needed,  he  believes, 
is  an  institutional  viewpoint 
that  says,  within  a  faculty-stu- 
dent IQP  advising  relationship, 
that  the  professor  need  not  be 
embarrassed  by  the  fact  that  he 
or  she  may  not  know  every- 
thing there  is  to  know  about  a 
complex  aspect  of  some  socio- 
technical  problem.  "The  really 
important  thing  is  that  our  fac- 
ulty have  and  convey  genuine 
concern  about  the  problem, 
that  they  be  willing  to  be  co- 
learners  with  the  students,  and 
that  they  be  adept  at  sharing 
their  well-developed  skills  of 
research  and  inquiry  with  stu- 
dents less  experienced  in  these 
important  processes." 

To  encourage  this  attitude, 
Demetry  has  tried  to  foster 
among  faculty  what  he  likes  to 
call  a  "perimeter  searching." 
"We  must  continue  to  build  in 
our  faculty  the  desire  to  nibble 
at  the  intersections  of  their 
knowledge  and  the  realm  of 
social  concern— to  try  to  inter- 
est, say,  chemical  engineers  to 
investigate  environmental  tox- 


icity as  it  relates  to  their  pri- 
mary expertise." 

IQP  advising,  he  says,  is  an 
ideal  vehicle  for  enabling  this 
kind  of  educational  outreach- 
ing— for  both  the  advisor  and 
the  student.  "It  can  lead  to  a 
sharing  of  new  knowledge 
between  the  student  and  your- 
self that  should  be  the  essence 
of  education— at  any  age. 

"The  basis  for  continued  ex- 
cellence in  the  IQP  is  well 
established  and  widely  ac- 
cepted," says  Demetry.  "But 
we've  got  to  build  further  on 
that  base.  The  right  signals  to 
our  faculty  will  enhance  the 
quality  of  the  program,  en- 
abling both  faculty  and  students 
to  benefit  even  more  than  they 
already  have." 

From  time  to  time,  he  says, 
the  IQP  has  been  a  sacrificial 
lamb  on  campus.  "Projects 
require  a  great  deal  of  faculty 
involvement  to  help  plan,  mon- 
itor and  evaluate  students' 
efforts.  So,  when  push  comes 
to  shove,  some  faculty  may 
raise  questions  over  the  role  of 


the  IQP  in  an  already  strenuous 
academic  program,  and  its 
necessity  in  the  training  of  sci- 
entists, engineers  and  man- 
agers. These  days,  nothing 
could  be  more  vital  to  educat- 
ing tomorrow's  leaders." 

There's  nothing  unusual  or 
unhealthy  about  honest  debate 
in  higher  education,  Demetry 
acknowledges.  "It's  part  of 
academic  tradition."  But,  he 
adds:  "tunnel  vision  never 
made  a  leader  of  any  organiza- 
tion." 

It's  a  miracle,  this  IQP," 
says  Frank  Lutz,  Associate 
Dean  for  Projects.  Tradi- 
tionally, he  says,  engineer- 
ing schools  are  not  known  for 
their  liberal  perspectives  on 
preparation  for  a  profession  and 
for  life.  "At  one  time,  WPI 
was  this  way.  But  in  large  part 
the  IQP  has  changed  that  here. 
Where  else  can  students  spend 
a  good  part  of  a  year  working 
with  organizations  across  the 
state  and  the  nation — some- 
times even  working  in  Wash- 


18       WPI  JOURNAL 


ington,  DC— working  on  real 
problems  that  daily  affect  peo- 
ple everywhere?" 

It's  probably  safe  to  say  that 
to  most  undergraduates— and 
Plan  graduates,  too— the  IQP  is 
as  vital  an  element  of  their  col- 
lege experience  as  any  other 
part  of  their  education:  "It's  no 
less  valuable  than  coursework, 
the  MQP  Humanities  Suffi- 
ciency or  Competency  Exam," 
according  to  Prof.  John  van 
Alstyne,  Dean  of  Academic 
Advising. 

Most  incoming  freshmen, 
too,  as  well  as  their  parents, 
look  at  the  IQP  experience  as 
one  of  the  key  factors  that 
stirred  their  interest  in  WPI  in 
the  first  place.  Says  Admis- 
sions Director  Robert  Voss, 
"The  IQP  is  the  one  aspect  of 
the  Plan  that  students  and  par- 
ents believe  is  special.  I  know 
it's  faculty  intensive,  but  from 
an  admissions  point  of  view, 
it's  more  than  worth  the  time." 

Each  year,  about  30  percent 
of  all  IQPs  address  problems 
facing  off-campus  organiza- 
tions. Because  of  their  origin 
and  focus,  these  projects  are 
often  the  most  interesting  and 
challenging  for  students.  It's 
been  Demetry's  job,  in  part,  to 
gather  and  coordinate  project 
ideas  from  both  off-campus 
sponsors  and  the  faculty. 

In  Holden,  for  example, 
Demetry  and  others,  such  as 
former  town  manager  William 
Kennedy,  who  is  also  an 
adjunct  faculty  member  at 
WPI,  advise  IQPs  that  deal 
with  such  issues  as  hazardous 
waste,  traffic  control  and  the 
effects  of  Massachusetts'  con- 
troversial Proposition  2'/2  on 
the  financial  viability  of  the 
town.  Other  Worcester  area 
communities  also  serve  as 
active  project  sites. 

Demetry  is  coordinator  of  an 
IQP  division  focusing  on 
energy,  resources  and  the  envi- 
ronment. This  is  one  of  six 
divisions  ranging  from  issues  in 
economics  and  social  develop- 
ment, to  planning  in  urban  and 
rural  environments.  His  back- 
ground in  systems  engineering 
serves  well  his  interests  in  the 


environment.  In  fact,  his  nine 
years  on  the  Holden  Planning 
Board  included  the  posts  of 
chairman  and  vice  chairman. 
Since  1981  he  has  served  on  the 
Board  of  Selectmen  and  as  its 
chairman  for  a  year. 

Yet  the  IQP  was  by  no  means 
Demetry's  only  responsibility 
as  chairman  of  the  Division  of 
Interdisciplinary  Affairs.  Each 
year,  he  says,  about  a  half 
dozen  students  come  to  DIA 
for  guidance  on  constructing 
major  fields  of  study  that  fall 
into  no  particular  academic 


keeps  not  only  Demetry,  but 
also  DIA  teaching  assistants 
Jerry  Kulhowvick  and  Michael 
O'Donoghue  busy  much  of  the 
year.  And  once  each  term,  the 
DIA  sponsors  the  Technology 
and  Society  Conference  (TSC), 
giving  IQP  teams  the  opportu- 
nity to  present  progress  reports 
on  their  projects  to  their  peers. 

"Many  projects  are  on-going 
from  year  to  year,"  says 
Kulhowvick,  "like  the  NASA- 
MITRE-WPI  Space  Shuttle 
experiment  program,  and  stu- 
dents yet  to  begin  their  IQPs 


"The  IQP  sets  WPI  apart  from  its 

peers.  No  other  college  I  know  of 

has  an  IQP-type  activity  as  a 

degree  requirement.  Yet  it's  an 

orphan  of  sorts,  with  no  academic 

discipline  to  call  home." 


department.  Jody  Bobbitt,  for 
example,  a  senior  from  Lin- 
coln, MA,  and  formerly  an 
electrical  engineering  major,  is 
now  studying  technical  writing 
as  an  interdisciplinary  major. 
WPI's  membership  in  the  Wor- 
cester Consortium  for  Higher 
Education  enables  her  and 
other  DIA  students  to  take 
courses  not  offered  by  WPI  at 
colleges  such  as  Clark  Univer- 
sity and  Holy  Cross. 

A  popular  area  of  study  for 
DIA  students,  Demetry  adds,  is 
biochemistry,  a  major  for 
which  there  is  no  established 
department  at  WPI.  "The 
holistic  approaches  to  educa- 
tion built  into  the  Plan  and  the 
Consortium  enable  less  con- 
ventional study  where  the  col- 
lege has  not  assembled  the  crit- 
ical mass  necessary  to  support 
a  major  in  these  fields." 

Another  of  the  DIA's  respon- 
sibilities involves  counseling 
students  to  overcome  decision 
blocks  that  may  seem  to  limit 
their  academic  and  project 
opportunities.    This    activity 


often  learn  about  project  open- 
ings through  TSC  sessions  and 
other  formal  and  word-of- 
mouth  channels." 

Demetry  has  been  deeply 
involved  in  the  Washington, 
DC,  Project  Center  since  its 
inception  in  1974.  Together 
with  Frank  Lutz,  the  Center's 
director,  Demetry  has  played  a 
major  role  in  shaping  and  guid- 
ing this,  one  of  WPI's  most 
prestigious  programs. 

Each  fall,  36  students,  cho- 
sen by  a  competitive  selection 
process,  live  in  Washington 
and  work  on  their  IQPs  at  agen- 
cies such  as  the  National  Acad- 
emy of  Science,  National  Asso- 
ciation of  Manufacturers, 
Patent  and  Trademark  Office, 
and  in  the  offices  of  Congres- 
sional representatives. 

"The  Washington  Center  is 
one  of  WPI's  showcase  pro- 
grams," Demetry  says,  "but 
more  important,  it  gives  some 
of  our  finest  students  first-hand 
opportunities  in  the  pressure- 
cooker  atmosphere  of  the 
nation's  capital."   (See   "Mr. 


Boynton  Goes  to  Washington," 
forthcoming  in  the  February 
1986  WPI  Journal.) 

Since  taking  over  as  DIA 
chief  in  1975,  Demetry 
has  managed  to  spend 
one-fourth  of  his  time 
teaching  in  electrical  engineer- 
ing. And  while  the  action  for 
him  may  have  centered  more 
on  the  side  of  his  DIA  activi- 
ties, he  has  always  felt  a  strong 
identity  with  his  EE  col- 
leagues. 

"It's  been  a  great  ten  years  at 
DIA,  but  in  truth  I'll  be  happy 
to  return  to  full-time  teaching 
and  research." 

Still,  a  decade  in  academic 
management  may  have  left 
more  of  a  mark  on  him  than  he 
realizes.  "Much  of  my  research 
will  focus  on  investigating  the 
capabilities  of  WPI's  network 
of  AT&T  personal  computers 
and  helping  students  get  the 
most  out  of  the  system." 

He  says  he'll  also  continue 
consulting  as  an  expert  witness 
in  litigation  involving  electrical 
systems  and  devices  and  work- 
ing as  an  advocate  in  environ- 
mental and  community  issues, 
an  interest  he  fostered  while  a 
member  of  the  Sierra  Club  in 
California. 

But  the  odds  are  that  Jim 
Demetry  will  remain  one  of  the 
best  friends  of  the  IQP,  that 
wandering  prodigy  of  the  WPI 
Plan,  that  precocious  offspring 
that  needs  constant  guidance, 
encouragement  and  perhaps 
even  TLC. 

"WPI  has  made  a  commit- 
ment to  the  IQP.  We  ought  to 
continue  to  demand  of  our  fac- 
ulty high  quality  in  their  project 
activities.  But  without  the 
appropriate  rewards  system, 
this  goal  may  never  become 
completely  realized." 

He  adds:  "By  its  very  nature 
the  IQP  will  continue  to  be 
WPI's  most  challenging  and 
most  rewarding  educational 
experience.  But  because  it  is  so 
unusual,  it  may  also  continue  in 
a  state  of  unstable  equilibrium, 
ready  to  tumble  if  the  system 
that  established  it  isn't  in 
proper  balance." 


NOVEMBER  1985        19 


I 1    I 


\ 


> 


Berkeley  in  the  1960s, 

through  the 

eyes  of  Dr.  Alan  Foss 

'52  CHE 


By  Michael  Shanley 


Campus  unrest  at  the  University  of  Cali- 
fornia at  Berkeley  may  have  ended  with 
the  Vietnam  War,  but  the  effects  of  the 
turmoil,  like  battle  wounds  themselves, 
lingered  for  years. 

"It  hurt  us,"  says  Alan  Foss  '52,  Profes- 
sor of  Chemical  Engineering  at  Berkeley. 
"The  legislature  and  the  people  of  Califor- 
nia lost  confidence  in  the  university.  Our 
budgets  were  cut  way  back.  Research  was 
interrupted  and  the  campus  itself  didn't  get 
the  attention  it  needed.  We're  just  now 
starting  to  see  the  upswing." 

The  social  and  anti-war  protests  of  the 
Sixties  and  early  Seventies  had  their  seeds 
in  Berkeley's  legendary  Free  Speech 
movement,  led  by  Mario  Savio. 

"The  movement  was  used  by  some  as  an 
excuse  to  destroy  property  and  stage  con- 
frontations," says  Foss,  a  thoughtful,  soft- 
spoken  man  with  longish  silver  hair  and 
sideburns.  He  arrived  in  Berkeley  in  1961 , 
just  before  the  turmoil  began.  "It  was  very 
upsetting.  It  made  my  stomach  churn." 

Academically,  too,  there  were  some 
problems.  "Some  of  the  faculty  members 
who  sympathized  with  the  students  bent 


The  Times  They 
Were  A-Changin' 


the  rules,"  says  Foss.  "The  social  sciences 
and  the  humanities  were  in  worse  shape 
than  the  physical  sciences,  but,  in  general, 
there  was  a  widespread  sense  of  chaos. 
Students  looked  at  all  of  us  as  part  of  a 
monolithic  ogre.  They  treated  everyone  on 
the  same  basis." 

While  a  stroll  across  the  Berkeley  cam- 
pus today  shows  the  30,000-student  uni- 
versity to  be  anything  but  staid— Sproul 
Plaza,  for  instance,  is  still  home  to  mimes, 
protesters,  musicians  and  an  assortment  of 
street  people— Foss  sees  a  marked  change 
in  attitude. 

"Students  are  more  conservative  now," 
he  says,  "more  focused.  They  want  to 
establish  themselves  in  a  profession.  In 
many  ways,  they've  rejected  the  ideals  of 
the  earlier  students." 

As  for  the  faculty,  Foss  says,  "We  may 
not  move  as  quickly  as  we  once  did,  but 
we  look  at  issues  more  carefully  now.  We 
think  things  out." 

A  Connecticut  native,  Foss  came  to 
WPI  from  Mt.  Herman  prep  school  near 
Northfield,  MA.  Looking  back  at  his  col- 
lege days,  it's  a  handful  of  chemical  engi- 
neering professors  that  he  remembers. 

"[Recently  retired  Dean  of  Graduate 
Studies  and  Professor  Wilmer  L.] 
Kranich,  [retired  Professor  John  M.] 
Petrie  and  [Professor  Robert  E.]  Wagner— 
they  were  really  dedicated  teachers,  full  of 
energy  and  enthusiasm.  They  did  yeo- 
man's service." 

Foss  first  visited  Berkeley  in  the  Fifties, 
while  vacationing  in  the  California  moun- 
tains. "I  was  working  as  a  research  engi- 
neer for  Du  Pont  in  Delaware.  I  always 
had  a  teaching  career  in  the  back  of  my 
mind,  and  when  the  time  came  to  finally 
decide,  I  had  some  contacts  at  Berkeley." 

The  early  Sixties,  Foss  says,  were  a 
good  time  to  be  a  teacher,  especially  at 
Berkeley. 

"It  was  a  great  growth  period,"  he 
recalls.    "The  chemical  engineering  de- 


partment was  half  the  size  it  is  now  and 
just  beginning  to  take  off.  The  National 
Science  Foundation  was  bursting  with 
money.  The  intellectual  climate  out  here 
was  tremendous.  It's  a  hell  of  a  lot  harder 
to  get  started  in  teaching  now." 

A  specialist  in  process  control  who 
teaches  on  both  the  graduate  and  under- 
graduate levels,  Foss  has  seen  a  good  deal 
of  fluctuation  in  the  appeal  of  chemical 
engineering  over  the  years. 

"Ten  years  ago,  we  were  graduating 
only  40  or  so  students  a  year.  Then  in  the 
late  Seventies,  things  picked  up  as  the 
energy  crisis  developed.  By  1980,  our  stu- 
dents were  getting  three  or  four  job  offers 
each.  When  the  bottom  fell  out  of  the  syn- 
thetic fuel  products  market  in  1981  and 
1982,  the  job  offers  dropped.  By  1983, 
only  20  percent  of  our  students  had  jobs 
when  they  graduated. 

"Things  picked  up  again  last  year,  when 
about  half  of  our  graduates  had  jobs,  many 
in  the  semiconductor  industry.  Employers 
found  that  chemical  engineers  can  do  a  lot 
for  them." 

As  Foss  looks  back  on  the  turmoil  that 
disrupted  the  halcyon  days  of  the  early 
Sixties,  it  is  the  time  frame  he  finds  most 
surprising. 

"I  didn't  expect  it  would  last  nearly  that 
long,"  he  says  of  the  unrest.  "I  also  didn't 
expect  the  financial  effects  to  be  so 
severe — our  budgets  were  affected  for 
almost  20  years. 

"We  came  through  it  fairly  well, 
though.  Except  for  some  lost  opportuni- 
ties, I  think  we're  stronger  for  it." 

Three  of  Foss's  four  children  attend 
Berkeley— a  son  in  chemical  engineering 
and  two  daughters  in  architecture.  (A  third 
daughter  is  at  San  Jose  State.)  Unfortu- 
nately, in  California  there  is  no  tuition 
remission  for  children  of  faculty  members. 

"It's  seen  as  being  non-egalitarian," 
sighs  Foss. 


20       WPI  JOURNAL 


Openin; 


up  the  past 


Shedding  their  dusty,  Old  Curiosity  Shop  images,  college 

archives  are  coping  with  an  information  explosion,  the 

computer  revolution — and  the  legacy  of  Watergate.  Behind  the 

new  archives  is  a  new  breed  of  archivists,  ordering  the  past 

and  looking  to  the  future. 


Twenty  years  ago,  the  rule  was 
that  things  were  just  put  in  boxes 
and  stuffed  in  closets,"  says 
Shelley  Wallace,  archivist  of 
Hartwick  College.  Indeed,  in  the  late 
1960s,  when  David  McCullough,  author 
of  The  Great  Bridge,  went  to  Rensselaer 
Polytechnic  Institute  to  research  the  his- 
tory of  the  Brooklyn  Bridge,  he  was  led  to 
a  large,  locked  storage  closet.  Inside  that 
closet  were  the  papers  of  John  and  Wash- 
ington Roebling,  chief  engineers  of  the 
bridge.  McCullough  was  amazed:  "There 
were  boxes  of  papers  that  probably  hadn't 
been  opened  since  the  family  had  given 
them.  In  many  cases  the  papers  were  tied 
up  with  the  original  shoelaces  and  strings." 
Such  stories  are  legion  among  college 
archivists  and  archives  users,  and  they  are 
not  surprising.  College  archives  were 
often  placed  in  the  care  of  already  over- 


worked librarians  who  did  not  have  the 
time  either  to  fully  explore  the  holdings  or 
to  deal  with  the  special  problems  of  cata- 
loging and  preserving  them. 

That  situation  began  to  change  during 
the  1970s.  In  the  40  years  since  the  found- 
ing of  the  U.S.  National  Archives  in  1934, 
standards  of  appraisal,  preservation  and 
cataloging  of  archival  materials  had  been 
established  and  new  generations  of  archi- 
vists had  been  trained.  More  money  had 
become  available.  Books  such  as  Roots 
interested  people  in  social  history  and 
genealogy.  Academic  historians  began  to 
explore  the  well-organized  major  ar- 
chives— and  missed  that  organization  at 
colleges. 

Other,  more  subtle,  forces  were  at  work. 
"Major  anniversaries  usually  trigger  a  lot 
of  interest  in  what's  in  the  archives,"  says 
Charlotte  Brown,  who  became  the  archi- 


vist of  Franklin  &  Marshall  when  the  col- 
lege created  the  position  in  anticipation  of 
its  1987  bicentennial.  And  the  scrutiny 
placed  on  written  documents  and  tapes 
during  the  Watergate  trials  made  heads  of 
corporations  and  academic  institutions 
alike  aware  of  the  importance  of  maintain- 
ing complete  records. 

I  don't  think  the  original  idea  was  to 
house  dance  programs  from  military 
balls  and  ground-breaking  shovels," 
says  Winifred  Spencer  Dulany,  archi- 
vist of  Western  Maryland  College,  "but  I 
get  my  fair  share  of  both."  Nevertheless, 
college  archives  hold  more  than  cherished 
memorabilia.  Properly  speaking,  they  are 
made  up  of  any  papers  or  artifacts  perti- 
nent to  the  ongoing  history  of  an  institu- 
tion: Board  meeting  minutes,  presidents' 
papers,  commission  reports  and  grade 


By  Leslie  Brunetta 


NOVEMBER  1985       I 


B 


oxes  such  as  the  one  labeled 
"F&M,  Old  Papers,"  previous 
page,  may  hold  gold  or  straw. 
The  lock  and  key  (left)  of 
Rudolph  House,  where  Villanova's  first 
students  and  teachers  lived  and  studied. 
Villanova's  "other"  Liberty  Bell  (right) 
was  to  replace  the  cracked  Liberty  Bell 
but  instead  rang  with  it  on  July  4,  1776. 
RP1  has  the  telegram  (below)  telling  Wash- 
ington Roebling  that  the  first  cable  had 
connected  his  Brooklyn  Bridge  towers. 


records.  Student  publications,  sports  pro- 
grams, scrapbooks  and  photographs.  As  a 
collection,  they  are  meant  to  compose  a 
portrait  of  an  institution's  past.  And  when 
used  wisely,  they  can  help  to  determine 
the  institution's  future. 

The  primary  purpose  of  college  archives 
is  to  support  legal  and  other  decision  mak- 
ing, says  archivist  Helen  Samuels  of  MIT, 
whose  archives  are  frequently  cited  as 
among  the  best  in  the  nation.  But  archives 
also  serve  as  a  body  of  information  made 
available  to  researchers.  "The  second  is 
only  possible  if  you're  doing  the  first 
right,"  Samuels  says.  "At  first,  I  think  a 
lot  of  administrators  thought  we  were 
establishing  the  archives  for  'the  greater 
glory  of  MIT.' "  But,  in  fact,  administra- 
tors have  found  day-to-day  uses  for  the 
archives  as  a  resource  for  committees  on 
topics  from  reaccreditation  to  curriculum. 

Legally,  the  archives  can  be  one  of  a 
college's  best  forms  of  defense.  If,  for 
example,  a  college  is  sued  for  discriminat- 
ing against  women  in  the  hiring  of  faculty, 
the  archives  might  yield  records  showing 
the  sex  ratio  of  the  position  applicant  pool, 
staff  evaluations  giving  fair  reasons  for  not 
hiring  particular  applicants,  and  records 
showing  the  hiring  of  women  in  the  past. 
If  a  memo  has  been  written  by  a  past  presi- 
dent asking  that  ways  be  found  to  increase 
the  number  of  female  applicants  for  posts, 
it  would  be  in  the  archives,  ready  to  be 
introduced  as  evidence. 

On  the  other  hand,  if  the  college  has 
indeed  discriminated  against  women, 
archival  records  might  also  be  used  against 
the  college  on  trial.  Thus,  the  idea  of  leav- 
ing a  paper-trail  may  go  a  long  way  toward 
promoting  increased  corporate  responsibil- 
ity. 

Having  good  archives  can  also  be  cost 
effective,  says  Elizabeth  (Cam)  Stewart, 
archivist  at  RPI:  "Unless  an  administrator 
has  been  at  an  institution  for  more  than  10 
years,  he  or  she  may  not  know  that  a  com- 
mittee was  convened  in  the  past  to  deal 
with  exactly  the  same  topic  arising  now.  I 


wish  we  had  a  record  of  time  and  money 
saved  by  not  having  to  repeat  committees 
over  and  over  again,  thanks  to  having 
records  of  previous  committees  close  to 
hand." 

When  archives  are  kept  with  the  goal  of 
maintaining  complete  information  rather 
than  of  glory-mongering,  it  benefits  the 
researcher  as  well.  John  Thelin,  director 
of  the  Higher  Education  Doctoral  Program 
at  the  College  of  William  and  Mary, 
researches  the  history  of  the  American  uni- 
versity and  the  changing  experience  of  get- 
ting a  college  education:  "The  archives 
are  the  institutional  memory.  The  codicil 
to  that  is  that  a  person's  memory  may  have 
amnesia  or  total  recall,  be  ordered  or 
bogged  down  in  trivia.  You  really  want  to 
get  away  from  these  horrible  house  histo- 
ries that  just  glorify  the  past.  The  secret  is 
to  be  more  universal." 

Universality  can  seem  a  pretty 
tall  order.  Every  day,  campus 
word  processors  spew  out  both 
papers  and  diskettes.  Copying 
machines  duplicate  the  most  insignificant 
memos.  Students  and  administrators  fill 
out  form  after  form  on  rooming  and  dining 
preferences,  insurance  coverage,  taxable 
income,  academic  interests  and  perfor- 
mances, ethnic  and  religious  affiliations. 
"One  of  the  most  important  qualities  an 
archivist  can  have,"  observes  Winifred 
Dulany,  "is  to  be  a  good  weeder."  Lora 
Brueck,  archivist  at  Worcester  Polytechnic 
Institute,  agrees:  "I  don't  think  anyone 
else  at  the  school  has  the  knowledge,  time 
or  space  to  decide  what  to  keep  or  not  to 
keep." 

Most  archivists  come  into  the  profession 
with  a  degree  in  either  history  or  library 
science,  and  often  with  one  of  each.  A 
background  in  history  helps  to  predict 
what  might  be  useful  to  future  researchers, 
while  library  science  teaches  methods  of 
classification.  But  for  this  training  to  be 
truly  effective,  there  must  also  be  that 
essential  element  of  obsession  lurking  near 


II       ALUMNI  MAGAZINE  CONSORTIUM 


„„     llHM„     VM.  I'V.IM.     XM.  HUNK.  IN    H.H.KVnMOX.'vM.v 

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the  surface  of  the  archivist's  personality 
—the  desire  to  organize.  "You  need  to 
have  a  desire  for  order."  explains  Jane 
desGrange.  Hartwick's  museum  director, 
who  oversees  the  archives.  "I  don't  know 
how  to  train  it  unless  you  have  a  mother 
who  makes  you  put  all  your  socks  in  one 
drawer." 

Through  the  years,  materials  have  made 
their  way  into  the  archives  "over  the 
transom  and  under  the  door."  says  Jane 
desGrange.  If  anything,  the  flood  hasn't 
yet  reached  its  crest.  Besides  obtaining 
documents  and  artifacts  through  donations 
and  purchases,  archivists  now  find  them- 
selves seeking  out.  and  combing  through, 
the  inactive  files  of  campus  offices. 

Surprisingly,  a  pivotal  figure  in  this  shift 
in  archival  policy  has  been  Richard  Nixon. 
In  September  1974.  after  resigning  from 
the  presidency.  Nixon  made  an  agreement 
with  General  Services  Administrator 
Arthur  F.  Sampson:  42  million  pages  of 
documents  and  880  tapes— the  very  coals 
burning  at  the  center  of  the  Watergate 
inferno — would  be  moved  from  Washing- 
ton to  California  and  stored  near  San  Cle- 
mente  at  government  expense.  No  one 
could  have  access  to  them  without  Nixon's 
permission.  He  could  hold  the  tapes  and 
papers  until  September  1 .  1979.  when  they 
would  be  donated  to  the  United  States — 
with  the  provision  that  Nixon  could  order 
any  of  the  tapes  destroyed.  The  agreement 
also  stated  that  all  the  tapes  would  "be 
destroyed  at  the  time  of  his  death,  or  on 
September  1.  1984.  whichever  event  shall 
first  occur."  The  full  truth  about  the 
Watergate  affair  would  never  be  known. 

The  assumption  made  was  that  the  docu- 

-iits  were  Nixon's  personal  property, 
even  though  they  had  been  made  at  tax- 
payers' expense.  Outraged,  Senators  Sam 
Ervin.  Gaylord  Nelson  and  Jacob  Javits 
introduced  a  bill  which  passed  by  a  vote  of 
56  to  7  to  become  the  Presidential  Record- 
ings and  Materials  Preservation  Act.  It 
directed  that  the  papers  generated  in  Nix- 
on's presidential  office  belonged  not  to 


IV       ALUMNI  MAGAZINE  CONSORTIUM 


\ 


Getting  the  goat  at  WPI  meant 
capturing  this  statue  (left) 
from  another  class.  The 
small  Chinese  masks  (right) 
and  bronze  seated  Isis  with  suckling 
Horus  (below  right)  are  in  the  Western 
Maryland  archives.  A  1761  letter  patent 
(below  left)  allowed  John  Hartwick  to 
settle  on  land  bought  from  the 
Mohawks.  With  it  are  a  deed  for 
Hartwick  Seminary's  land  and  a 
deerhide  trunk  brought  there  in  1830. 


him,  but  to  the  nation.  In  1978,  the  Presi- 
dential Records  Act  applied  the  principle 
to  all  presidents,  effective  from  January 
1981. 

Parallel  policies  have  been  put  into  prac- 
tice on  campuses  and  in  corporations 
across  the  country.  If  the  records  of  a  uni- 
versity president,  say.  are  perceived  as 
university  rather  than  personal  property, 
they  are  not  so  likely  to  be  lost  when  the 
president  changes  jobs  or  cleans  out  his 
files.  "It  was  a  major  step  when  the  board 


of  trustees  in  May  of  '82  set  the  policy  that 
documents  were  the  property  of  RPI  and 
not  of  employees,"  says  Cam  Stewart. 
"This  gave  us  the  right  to  collect  and  pre- 
serve them.  It  really  helps  our  chances  of 
getting  them." 

Not  that  college  employees  are  as  pos- 
sessive of  their  documents  as  Nixon  was. 
But  having  worked  with  issues  on  a  daily 
basis,  they  may  underestimate  records' 
value  to  some  future  historian.  And  before 
they  understand  why  the  records  are  kept 
and  that  any  sensitive  records  can  be  clas- 
sified, they  may  be  suspicious:  "Just  as  I 
get  very  possessive  of  the  archives,  people 
get  possessive  of  their  records,"  says  Shel- 
ley Wallace.  "I  don't  think  people  want 
someone  coming  in  and  telling  them  what 
to  keep  and  what  to  throw  away.  You  need 
to  be  tactful." 

That's  where  a  process  known  as  records 
scheduling  comes  in.  The  archivist  exam- 
ines the  types  of  records  generated  by  an 
office  and  determines  which  should  be 
automatically  sent  on  to  the  archives  and 
which  can  be  thrown  away  once  they 
become  inactive:  the  progress  of  the 
records  from  creation  to  redemption  or 
damnation  is  "scheduled."  From  then  on 
it's  up  to  the  office  staff.  This  separation  of 
powers  makes  the  appraisal  system  more 
efficient  and  can  keep  sensitive  documents 
confidential.  Not  even  the  archivist  needs 
|  to  see  them:  the  staff  can  be  taught  to  orga- 
c  nize  and  pack  documents  before  sending 
|  them  on.  And  there  is  an  added  benefit  for 
administrators  sensitive  about  confiden- 
tiality, Charlotte  Brown  says:  "If  you  have 
good  control  over  your  records  through  the 
records  management  system,  the  chances 
of  documents  being  leaked  or  misrepre- 
sented are  minimal."  The  process  is  new  at 
most  universities,  but  the  response  has 
been  overwhelmingly  positive.  The  Rev. 
Dennis  Gallagher,  O.S.A..  the  new  archi- 
vist at  Villanova  University,  reports,  "I've 
been  very  pleased  with  the  enthusiasm  of 
the  people  I've  been  approaching." 
Knowing  that  a  decision   made  today 


may  either  greatly  help  or  hinder  the  work 
of  the  historian  of  tomorrow  can  make 
appraisal  a  nerve-jangling  experience. 
Helen  Samuels  notes  that  it's  really  a  mat- 
ter of  risk  assessment:  when  the  federal 
government  is  saving  only  about  one  or 
two  percent  of  its  documents  and  college 
archives  an  average  of  5  to  10  percent,  it's 
not  surprising  that  archivists  worry  about 
missing  something.  "I  know  what  histo- 
rians' current  needs  are,  but  what  about 
their  future  needs?"  Charlotte  Brown  asks. 
"You  know  you're  going  to  make  mis- 
takes." 

"If  we  keep  the  number  of  records  that 
we  are  producing  now,  research  becomes 
impossible,"  observes  Shelley  Wallace. 
"There's  a  trade-off— the  more  records  are 
kept,  the  less  significant  each  of  them 
becomes."  David  McCullough's  research 
has  confirmed  this  view:  "To  me  the  irony 
is  that  we  not  only  have  more  documents 
than  ever,  but  we  also  have  fewer  docu- 
ments of  any  value.  No  one  writes  letters 
anymore.  We're  going  to  have  official 
memoranda  documenting  our  age— people 
in  the  future  will  think  we  spoke  in 
memorandese." 

Having  selected  the  documents 
worthy  of  storage,  the  archi- 
vist has  to  use  a  method  of 
storage  worthy  of  the  docu- 
ments. Temperature  and  humidity  have  to 
be  controlled.  Staples  and  paper-clips, 
which  can  rust,  have  to  be  removed  before 
paper-based  records  can  be  stored  in  acid- 
free  containers.  This  is  essential:  the  acid 
in  the  wood  pulp  base  of  most  paper  pro- 
duced after  the  1880s  causes  relatively 
rapid  deterioration.  By  separating  this 
paper  from  the  air,  which  also  contains 
acid,  deterioration  can  be  slowed. 

But  contemporary  documents  are  not 
just  made  of  paper.  The  words  and  images 
of  the  20th  century  are  also  carried  on 
film,  photographic  prints,  video  tape, 
audio  tape,  phonographic  disks,  computer 
disks  both  hard  and  soft,  computer  tape, 


NOVEMBER  1985       V 


Two  masks  (left)  for  Franklin  J. 
Schaffner  '42's  movie, 
"Planet  of  the  Apes,"  are  in 
F&M's  collection.  In  1824, 
the  Rensselaer  School  was  founded  and 
the  first  hook  of  RPI  Board  of  Trustees 
minutes  fright)  begun.  The  diary  of  WPI 
graduate  and  John  Deere  designer  Theo 

-  Brown  (below)  documents  world  events, 
!    family  outings  and  his  more  than  160 

-  agricultural  patents  in  66  volumes  of 
2    words,  watercolors  and  photographs. 


computer  cards   and   paper  tape.    Each 
presents  its  own  problems. 

Movie  Film,  especially  that  in  color, 
begins  to  decompose  after  about  20  years. 
and  rehabilitating  it  is  a  complicated  and 
expensive  process.  (John  Thelin  has 
known  Films  to  explode  when  First  exposed 
to  the  air  after  many  years.)  Photographic- 
negatives,  plates  and  color  prints  are  prone 
to  chemical  processes  that  cause  fading 
and  discoloration.  Video  and  audio  tapes 
need  to  be  "exercised"  annually  by 
rewinding.  Phonographic  disks  warp  and 
can  be  scratched,  and  may  in  any  case 
become  nothing  more  than  substandard 
Frisbees  when  record  players  give  way  to 
the  compact  disk  revolution. 

Imagine  the  problem  that  storing  all 
these  materials— all  of  which  will  be 
imperative  for  an  understanding  of  our 
time— poses  for  the  archives.  Even  if  it  has 
the  wherewithal  for  the  staff  and  the  mate- 
rials needed  to  preserve  them,  it  would 
also  have  to  physically  segregate  them  by 
their  temperature  and  humidity  require- 
ments. 

And  then  there's  the  computer.  Com- 
puters may  make  life  easier  for  the  ofFice 
worker  and  the  researcher,  but  they  con- 
jure up  nightmares  for  the  archivist.  Tech- 
nology constantly  advances.  The  Commit- 
tee on  the  Records  of  Government  (created 
by  a  consortium  of  organizations  to  advise 
federal,  state  and  local  governments  on  the 
challenges  of  record  keeping)  cites  a  dra- 
matic example  of  the  havoc  such  advances 
can  cause.  In  the  mid-1970s,  archivists 
discovered  that,  less  than  15  years  after  the 
results  of  the  1960  census  had  been  stored 
on  computer  tapes,  only  two  machines 
capable  of  reading  the  tapes  still  existed— 
one  was  in  Japan  and  the  other  had  already 
become  a  museum  piece  in  the  Smithso- 
nian. 

Even  if  computer  technology  were  to 
stop  developing  (a  highly  unlikely  if),  the  ? 
variety   of  computers   causes   immense  a 
retrieval  problems  for  the  holder  of  today's  >- 
documents.  Anybody  who  has  tried  to  read  i 


VI       ALUMNI  MAGAZINE  CONSORTIUM 


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a  DECmate  II  disk  on  an  IBM  PC  will 
quickly  realize  the  problem— to  read  all 
the  disks  they  have,  archives  would  need 
to  keep  a  representative  from  each  com- 
patible group  of  machines.  "It  seems  as 
though  with  every  advance  you  make  with 
computers."  comments  Villanova's  Father 
Gallagher,  "you  have  to  worry  about  how 
to  retrieve  material." 

It  was  once  thought  that  computers' 
ability  to  store  hundreds  of  pages  of  infor- 
mation on  something  as  small  as  a  5  1/4" 
square  diskette  would  be  a  boon  to 
archives.  Written  documents  whose  actual 
physical  existence  was  of  no  intrinsic 
worth  would  be  transcribed  onto  diskettes. 
Archivists  could  imagine  scaling  down 
their  storage  measurements  from  cubic 
yards  to  cubic  feet.  But  aside  from  the 
incompatibility  problem,  "storing  on  com- 
puters is  still  controversial,"  according  to 
Shelley  Wallace.  "How  long  will  floppy 
disks  last?  When  you're  talking  about 
archival  material  you're  talking  about 
things  that  should  last  for  a  thousand 
years." 

Floppy  disks  don't  last  a  thousand 
years.  In  fact,  some  archivists  believe  that 
even  under  optimal  conditions,  floppy 
disks  begin  to  lose  data  after  five  years. 
Magnetic  tapes  last  about  20  years  and  the 
specifications  for  their  ideal  storage  fill  six 
pages  in  a  National  Bureau  of  Standards 
handbook.  The  irony  is  that  in  many 
cases,  rather  than  having  tapes  and  disks 
take  the  place  of  paper  in  the  archives, 
archives  are  having  to  make  space  for 
both— a  hard  copy  of  the  material  stored 
on  the  tape  often  seems  the  best  insurance 
that  it  will  not  be  lost.  An  added  safety 
measure  is  to  keep  a  hard-copy  log  of  the 
program  governing  the  tape's  storage  sys- 
tem. 

Computers  can  also  eliminate 
large  amounts  of  documenta- 
tion. "I'm  concerned  about 
electronic  mail  networks,"  ex- 
plains Helen  Samuels.  "When  they  were 


NOVEMBER  1985       VII 


first  designed,  they  acted  as  a  substitute 
for  the  telephone.  But  now  they're  being 
used  as  a  substitute  for  letters  and  docu- 
ments. A  lot  of  communication  and  deci- 
sion making  is  going  unrecorded." 

The  Committee  on  the  Records  of  Gov- 
ernment points  out  that  the  kinds  of 
records  that  have  traditionally  formed  the 
bulk  of  archives  holdings— memoranda, 
letters  and  minutes  that  show  how  deci- 
sions are  made  and  that  are  used  in  litiga- 
tion to  determine  accountability— are  the 
same  records  made  most  vulnerable  by  the 
advent  of  administrative  computers.  Mem- 
oranda and  letters  are  replaced  by  elec- 
tronic mail.  Drafts  of  reports,  which  often 
reflect  changes  of  ideas,  are  eliminated 
when  one  draft  is  recorded  over  another  on 
disk. 

Archives  users  interested  in  literature 
should  also  sit  up  and  take  note  of  this 
phenomenon.  As  contemporary  writers 
stop  processing  their  words  with  No.  2 
pencils  and  switch  to  128K  personal  com- 
puters, the  study  of  changes  made  in  the 
course  of  composition  may  become  a  thing 
of  the  past.  Manuscripts  will  be  replaced 
by  print-outs:  the  struggles  of  deciphering 
a  scrawl  cramped  by  the  rush  of  inspiration 
will  be  gone,  but  so  will  the  satisfaction. 
To  get  an  idea  of  the  impact  of  this  change 
on  the  study  of  literature,  ask  any  T.S. 
Eliot  scholar  what  would  have  been  lost  if 
Ezra  Pound's  emendations  to  "The  Waste- 
land" had  been  made  not  in  pencil  on 
Eliot's  manuscript  but  right  on  the  com- 
puter keyboard. 

Another  computer-caused  problem 
exists.  The  same  mechanism  that  makes 
filing  documents  easier  for  a  secretary  can 
make  retrieving  those  documents  that 
remain  almost  impossible  for  the  archi- 
vist—files often  have  whimsical  names 
that  are  meaningless  to  the  uninitiated.  On 
top  of  that,  they  are  listed  chronologically 
or  alphanumerically  rather  than  by  subject. 
Trying  to  reassemble  the  paper-trail  of  a 
decision  is  like  being  unable  to  see  the 
forest  for  the  trees— and  not  even  getting 
the  satisfaction  of  knowing  the  difference 
between  a  sycamore  and  an  elm. 

The  only  way  out  of  this  mess,  believes 
Helen  Samuels,  is  for  software  writers  to 
begin  to  understand  the  implications  of 
their  programs,  and  to  rewrite  them  so 
that,  for  instance,  drafts  with  changes 
other  than  spelling  corrections  are  saved. 
Software  writers  have  done  a  fantastic  job 
for  the  primary  users  of  computers, 
Samuels  says,  but  have  unwittingly  given 
the  cold  shoulder  to  future  users:  "We've 
got  to  raise  the  consciousnesses  of  those 
who  are  designing  the  systems,  make  them 


think  about  the  future  uses  and  reuses  of 
information.  The  guys  designing  are  too 
current  minded." 

The  computer  is  not  completely 
vicious,  however.  It  can  also  be 
the  saviour  of  the  archives.  With 
the  vast  bulk  of  materials  being 
produced,  an  easy  and  efficient  way  to  cat- 
alog and  retrieve  them  is  essential.  And 
that's  where  the  computer's  ability  to  store 
huge  amounts  of  information  and  to 
quickly  match  up  bits  over  here  with 
bits  over  there  comes  in.  Many  college 
libraries'  catalogs  are.  or  will  soon  be, 
stored  on  a  computer.  The  natural  next 
step  is  to  include  the  archives'  collections. 
And  while  this  makes  the  job  of  both 
archivist  and  researcher  easier,  the  real 
advantage  will  be  to  expand  the  horizons 
of  both  by  linking  up  the  catalogs  of  many 
archives. 

On  a  single  campus,  this  might  mean 
erasing  artificial  barriers,  as  Lora  Brueck 
intends  to  do:  "I'm  hoping  to  index  the 
archives  photo  collection  with  the  Institute 
computer  to  try  to  tie  up  the  different 
photo  collections  around  campus."  On  a 
national— or  even,  eventually,  interna- 
tional—scale, such  link-ups  will  mean  that 
a  researcher  working  in  one  archives  will 
be  able  to  find  out  what's  in  another  with- 
out having  to  travel  there.  It  may  even  be 
possible  that  something  like  the  inter- 
library  loan  system  will  be  feasible  with 
facsimiles  of  documents  that  are  not  too 
fragile  to  be  photocopied  being  sent  from 
archives  to  archives. 

Computer  links  are  already  in  place  in 
some  of  the  archives  connected  to  major, 
well-endowed  libraries.  The  libraries  be- 
longing to  the  Research  Libraries  Group 
(RLG) — Johns  Hopkins,  many  of  the  Ivy 
League  schools,  and  large  public  universi- 
ties such  as  the  University  of  Iowa — share 
an  on-line  data  base  that  effectively  makes 
a  user  of  one  library  a  user  of  all.  A  system 
called  the  Online  Computer  Library  Cen- 
ter has  a  similar  service  for  smaller 
libraries  that  can't  afford  the  RLG  service. 
With  this  kind  of  program,  use  of 
archives  could  increase  dramatically. 
Remember,  archives  materials  don't  circu- 
late as  library  books  do.  "A  great  problem 
is  that  you  have  to  be  at  the  archives  to  do 
research."  John  Thelin  says.  "So  you  need 
some  kind  of  a  grant  and  time  off  to  be 
there.  It  often  means  that  you're  limited  by 
time  as  to  what  you  can  do.  And  what's 
available  to  you  through  institutional  pecu- 
liarities tends  to  drive  what's  written.  You 
can  become  landlocked."  Link-ups  could 
greatly  ease  such  problems. 


If  you  don't  know  where  you've 
been,"  says  Jane  desGrange,  "you 
don't  know  where  you're  going." 
More  and  more  people  are  subscrib- 
ing to  that  philosophy.  "I  think  it's  proba- 
bly just  the  process  of  a  society  maturing," 
David  McCullough  says.  "We  are  such  a 
throw-away  society,  but  we  know  that 
there  are  things  that  we  absolutely  must 
not  throw  away.  We  are  thankful  for  past 
generations  for  saving  things." 

As  more  people  recognize  the  value  of 
history,  history  is  forced  to  recognize  the 
lives  of  more  people.  "In  the  past, 
archives  haw  .illy  documented  the 
male  elite,  but  they  are  really  beginning  to 
document  the  average  person  now,"  says 
Charlotte  Brown.  "I  think  the  whole  aura 
of  the  archives  will  change.  We  all  have 
the  right  to  know  that  our  history  is  being 
kept,  and  to  know  that  we  can  get  to  it." 

Increased  use  of  the  archives  will  inevi- 
tably cause  a  shift  away  from  the  casual 
practices  of  the  past.  "There's  nothing  like 
finding  the  trunk  in  the  attic,"  says  McCul- 
lough, "but  it's  been  getting  less  and  less 
like  that.  And  rightly  so."  The  ambiva- 
lence evident  in  McCullough 's  statement 
is  shared  by  many,  including  the  archi- 
vists, as  the  archives  are  more  profession- 
ally managed.  For  the  archives  to  be  put  to 
the  best  use,  systematic  cataloging  of 
materials  is  essential.  And,  if  the  preserva- 
tion of  many  documents  is  to  be  assured, 
more  care  must  be  taken  of  their  handling. 
But  will  it  become  too  orderly,  too  tame? 

"Archives  need  to  give  people  who  visit 
them  some  time  and  space  to  roam,"  says 
John  Thelin.  "We  need  that  element  of 
discovery  rather  than  just  finding  what's 
ordered."  McCullough  agrees:  "Some- 
thing really  does  happen  when  you're 
working  with  original  documents— a 
reaching  of  the  past  that  comes  about  only 
in  this  way.  Research  has  to  be  an  adven- 
ture. You  get  your  energy  from  that." 

McCullough  has  noticed  that  access  to 
certain  materials— old  newspapers,  for 
instance— isn't  as  broad  as  it  used  to  be. 
He  says  that  archivists  are  continually 
forced  to  flip  a  coin  whose  tail  is  preserva- 
tion of  materials  and  whose  head  is  service 
to  the  researcher.  More  often  than  not, 
they  still  manage  to  toss  heads.  "I  have  no 
feeling  that  the  archivists'  proprietary  feel- 
ings interfere  with  me,"  he  notes.  "The 
most  important  ingredient  in  the  archives 
is  the  human  element— people  who  not 
only  know  the  archives  but  are  stimulated 
by  them,  whose  satisfaction  from  their 
work  comes  from  sharing  their  knowledge 
and  enthusiasms.  Archivists  have  been  the 
unsung  heroes  for  too  long." 


Vffl       ALUMNI  MAGAZINE  CONSORTIUM 


Noise  is  a  physical  fact 

of  life,  but  when  the  receiver 

is  the  human  ear,  it's  hard 

to  be  objective. 

By  Mary  Ruth  Yoe 
Illustrations  by  Allen  Carroll 


About 

A 


bout  three  million  dollars'  worth 
of  epoxy  is  being  slathered  over 
the  road  surface  of  the  Brooklyn 
Bridge  in  hopes  of  eliminating 
its  constant,  humming  whine.  Some  peo- 
ple like  the  whine.  They  find  it  part  of  the 
bridge's  history.  An  artist  even  included 
the  hum  in  a  multimedia  work  honoring 
the  span.  But  for  the  most  part,  the  people 
who  like  the  whine  aren't  the  people  living 
closest  to  it.  Residents  of  those  neighbor- 
hoods along  the  riverbank  see  the  epoxy  as 
a  victory. 

The  story  illustrates  a  central  truth  about 
the  nature  of  noise.  Noise,  like  beauty,  is 
in  the  eye— or  more  precisely,  the  ear — of 
the  beholder.  Even  the  classic  definition  of 
the  phenomenon  departs  from  real  objec- 
tivity: Noise  is  "unwanted  sound." 

That  element  of  subjectivity  has  its  roots 


in  the  basic  diagram  of  acoustics,  a  series 
of  three  boxes  linked  by  sharply  pointing 
arrows: 


SOURCE 


PATH 


RECEIVER 


In  fact,  it  would  appear  that  the  philoso- 
pher's conundrum  of  a  tree  falling  in  the 
forest  has  a  foregone  conclusion.  If  the 
tree  falls,  something  is  there  to  sense  it. 
Thus,  a  sound's  receiver  might  be  a  robot 
in  an  automated  factory.  Or  it  might  be  a 
brick  wall  shuddering  under  the  rumbling 
vibrations  from  a  stamping  machine  badly 
in  need  of  some  form  of  isolation.  Subjec- 
tivity enters  the  picture  when  the  receiver 


is  a  person.  At  that  point,  sound— like 
noise— must  be  talked  about  not  only  in 
physical  terms  such  as  mechanical  inten- 
sity, but  also  in  terms  of  human  perception 
of  loudness. 

Although  noise  is  most  often  thought  of 
in  terms  of  loudness — words  like  screech, 
shriek,  bang,  crash,  bam,  bark,  blast, 
rumble  and  roar  rush  by  in  a  wave  of  ono- 
matopoeia, assaulting  the  ears— the  soft 
creak  of  a  floorboard  can  be  noisy  enough 
to  rouse  a  light  sleeper.  To  someone  rush- 
ing to  finish  a  monthly  report,  the  sound  of 
normal  conversation  floating  in  from  the 
hallway  is  enough  to  prompt  a  significant 
banging-shut  of  the  office  door— the  bang 
probably  louder  than  the  conversation. 
There  are  even  people  who  do  not  auto- 
matically shudder  at  the  sound  of  chalk 
scraping  across  a  blackboard. 


NOVEMBER  1985       IX 


Because  human  perceptions  are 
highly  individual,  the  subjec- 
tive nature  of  noise— sound 
received  but  unwanted  by 
someone  for  some  reason— cannot  be 
ignored.  But  first,  some  objective  descrip- 
tions of  the  physical  phenomenon  of 
sound,  as  received  by  the  human  ear,  are 
in  order. 

Decibels  (dB).  named  for  Alexander 
Graham  Bell,  are  used  in  describing  both 
the  mechanical  intensity  of  sound  and  its 
perceived  loudness.  The  scale  is  logarith- 
mic because  of  the  wide  range  of  energies 
and  pressures  involved.  A  10-dB  increase 


represents  a  ten-fold  increase  in  noise 
intensity  and  is  perceived  as  roughly  a 
doubling  of  loudness.  A  quick  example: 
30  dB  is  10  times  more  intense  than  20  dB 
and  sounds  twice  as  loud,  while  80  dB  is 
1 .000,000  times  more  intense  than  20  dB 
and  sounds  64  times  as  loud. 

The  human  ear  evolved  in  a  world 
where  the  average  sound  level  pressure 
seldom  surpassed  70  decibels.  That's  the 
sound  of  an  average  radio,  or  an  automo- 
bile from  50  feet.  In  the  midst  of  urban 
rush-hour  traffic,  you're  exposed  to  about 
85  decibels.  A  jackhammer  averages  100 
decibels.  A  jet  engine  at  take-off,  from 


100  meters,  about  120.  Thus,  while  the 
20th  century  cannot  be  said  to  hold  the 
patent  on  loud  sounds  and  conflicting 
sounds,  both  are  more  prevalent  today, 
especially  in  urban  areas. 

The  ear  is  attuned  to  a  certain  set  of 
signals  created  by  sound  waves  whose  fre- 
quencies range  from  20  to  20,000  Hz 
(Hertz,  or  cycles  per  second).  Hearing  is 
most  acute  in  the  range  of  1,000  to  4,000 
Hz.  Into  that  range  fall  the  majority  of 
sounds  that  make  up  human  speech, 
including,  at  about  3,000  Hz,  the  sibilant 
consonants— s,  sh,  f,  and  th— that  are  so 
important  for  conversational  cues  and  that. 


Background  Noise 


In  the  logarithmic  decibel  scale,  a  10  dB  increase  means  that  a  sound  is  10  times  more 
intense  and  twice  as  loud.  Luckily,  it  also  means  that  simultaneous  sounds  don't  add  up  in 
the  usual  fashion:  two  50  dB  sounds  equal  53  dB. 


10 


20 


30 


40 


50 


Threshold 
of  hearing 


Rustle  of 
leaf 


Desert 


X       ALUMNI  MAGAZINE  CONSORTIUM 


Quiet 

Soft  music 

Quiet 

whisper 

from  a 
radio 

office 

When 

Normal 

background 

Quiet  living 

conversation 

noise  dips 

space.  Only 

possible  at 

below  this 

a  few  peo- 

distances 

level,  some 

ple  will 

up  to  eight 

people  may 

have  trou- 

feet. 

have  diffi- 

ble sleep- 

culty get- 

ing. 

ting  used  to 

the 

extreme 

quiet. 

compared  to  the  other  sounds  of  English 
conversation,  have  less  acoustic  power. 

Noise-induced  hearing  loss  usually 
occurs  first  at  the  higher  frequencies,  with 
the  greatest  loss  around  4,000  Hz— and 
then  spreads  to  higher  and  lower  frequen- 
cies. The  softly  hissing  consonants  may 
start  to  disappear.  In  fact,  a  feeling  that  the 
people  you're  talking  with  are  mumbling 
their  words  may  be  the  first  indication  that 
your  hearing  threshold— the  lowest  level 
of  sound  you  can  hear— has  shifted. 

Although  a  temporary  loss  of  hearing 
can  occur  after  a  relatively  short  exposure 
to  excessive  noise,  you'll   recover  your 


■  ■ 


^ 


v 


/ 


\ 


te=i 


v  * 


70 

80 

90 

100 

110 

120 

idential 

Business 

Typical 

Noisy  fac- 

Jackhammer 

Rock 

Jet  at  take 

* 

office 

factory 

tory 

band 

off  (100 

; 

meters) 

»dfor 

Upper  level 

Conversation 

Speech 

lal  con- 

for  normal 

difficult- 

extremely 

;ation. 

conversation — 
at  six  feet, 
you're 
shouting. 
Telephone 
conversation 
very  diffi- 
cult. 

even  at  one 
foot. 

difficult 
even  if 
shouting 
directly  into 
listener's 
ear. 

NOVEMBER  l%5       XI 


Making  Room  for  the 
Sound  of  Music 


As  a  concert  hall  acoustician— from  his 
Connecticut  base,  he's  worked  on  more 
than  "0  major  concert  halls  and  theaters 
nationwide— Christopher  Jaffe.  of  Jaffe 
Acoustics  Inc.,  sets  the  acoustic  criteria 
for  a  hall's  architects.  He's  concerned  with 
balancing  the  musical  sounds,  creating  the 
right  reflecting  patterns  to  showcase  the 
score.  He's  also  concerned  with  keeping 
out  unwanted  sound. 

Such  noise  usually  enters  the  building  in 
one  of  three  ways:  as  extraneous,  airborne 
noise:  as  structure-borne  noise— vibrations 
moving  the  building's  surfaces:  and 
through  the  building's  mechanical  sys- 
tems. "Perhaps  the  best-known  example 
of  extraneous  noise,"  says  the  RPI  gradu- 
ate, "is  the  Kennedy  Center,  which  was 
built  right  by  the  National  Airport  landing 
approach.  The  solution  was  essentially  to 
have  a  building  within  a  building — floating 
the  entire  concert  hall"  within  an  outer 
structure.  The  large  air  space  created 
between  the  two  separate  structures  attenu- 
ated the  airport  noise  and  "also  physically 
isolated  the  concert  hall  from  the  outer 
structure  and  its  vibrations." 

Another  good  example  of  how  to  elimi- 
nate vibration  comes  from  New  York's 
Carnegie  Hall,  under  which  subway  trains 


lessen  system  noise.  "Isolating  the 
mechanical-systems  room— floating  it— is 
often  less  expensive  than  floating  the  con- 
cert hall,"  Jaffe  says.  Also,  having  sepa- 
rate systems  for  the  stage  and  rehearsal 
areas  eliminates  the  possibility  of  sound 
leakage. 

Yet  the  acoustician's  carefully  thought- 
out  designs  and  techniques  are,  Jaffe 
admits,  "somewhat  at  the  mercy  of  the 
workmen  on  the  job."  Workmen,  for 
example,  may  drop  junk  between  the 
building's  layers,  using  up  the  air  space 
intended  for  isolation.  "Or  we'll  design  a 
beautiful  isolating  wall,  the  workers  will 
put  a  hole  in  it  for  a  duct,  and  then  won't 
caulk  around  it."  The  solution:  "We  try  to 
check  on  the  work  in  progress  as  many 
times  as  the  client  will  allow." 

Is  eliminating  the  noise  the  less  glamor- 
ous part  of  his  job?  "It's  certainly  not  less 
important.  We  can  give  you  a  great,  quali- 
tative concert  hall— but  if  the  air  condi- 
tioning comes  on,  and  you  can't  hear  the 
music  comfortably — " 


pre-noise  hearing  fairly  soon  after  the 
ruckus  has  stopped.  Prolonged  noise  expo- 
sure—the 40  years  of  eight-hour  days  that 
make  noise  an  occupational  hazard  for 
more  than  half  of  the  country's  13  million 
production  workers— can,  however,  result 
in  a  hearing  loss  that  is  irreversible,  per- 
manent. 

While  there's  some  debate  on  the  level 
that  chronic  noise  must  reach  before  it  lit- 
erally hurts  the  ears,  the  Environmental 
Protection  Agency  has  designated  75  dB 
as  the  sound  intensity  level  at  which  expo- 
sure, over  the  course  of  a  working  life, 
causes  risk  of  permanent  damage  to  hear- 
ing. For  those  who  work  in  areas  with 
noise  levels  over  85  dB,  hearing  conserva- 
tion programs  are  mandatory,  as  are  pro- 
tective devices  for  workers  where  the 
eight-hour,  time-weighted  exposure 
exceeds  90  dB  (see  box.  page  XVI). 

"Hearing  loss  due  to  noise  is  an  insidi- 
ous thing,"  says  Paul  Michael  of  Pennsyl- 
vania State  University's  Environmental 
Acoustics  Laboratory.  "You  really  don't 
sense  your  lack  of  hearing.  Sound  doesn't 
appear  less  loud.  You  don't  bleed  or  show 
that  you're  being  damaged."  Also,  a  cer- 
tain amount  of  hearing  loss,  usually  in  the 
upper  frequencies  where  noise-induced 
shifts  also  occur,  is  almost  expected  as  the 
result  of  normal  aging  (in  the  United  States 
one-fourth  of  the  population  over  age  65  is 
affected). 

Some  researchers  think  that  loss  of  hear- 
ing associated  with  aging,  or  presbycusis, 


regularly  pass:  the  building's  foundations 
were  placed  on  isolators,  absorbing  the 
worst  of  the  movement.  While  subways 
and  flight  patterns  are  usually  urban  prob- 
lems, mechanical  systems  are  possible 
noise  sources  no  matter  where  the  concert 
hall  is  located.  "Heating,  ventilation  and 
air-conditioning  systems  moving  air  into  a 
space  seating  2-3,000  people  can  make  a 
lot  of  noise,"  Jaffe  points  out.  Improve- 
ments in  duct  design — making  ducts 
larger,  lining  them,  putting  in  silencers — 


may  stem  in  part  from  life  in  a  generally 
noisy  society.  They  point  to  an  isolated 
tribe  in  the  Sudan  called  the  Mabaans,  first 
discovered  in  1956.  Mabaan  men  of  80 
have  more  acute  hearing  than  Americans 
at  age  30.  By  all  accounts,  the  Mabaans 
are  an  extremely  healthy  bunch,  with  very 
low  incidences  of  cardiovascular  disease, 
upper-respiratory  problems  or  intestinal 
disorders.  It  may  be  that  a  lack  of  20th- 
century  stress— not  just  a  lack  of  noise — is 
responsible  for  the  Mabaans'  slower  rate 
of  aging  in  general. 


XH       ALUMNI  MAGAZINE  CONSORTIUM 


The  physical  damage  done  to 
the  ear  by  prolonged  exposure 
to  noise  is  hidden  deep  in  the 
snail-like  curves  of  the 
cochlea  and  its  organ  of  Corti  (see  box, 
page  XIV).  Similarly,  the  medical  conse- 
quences of  noise  exposure  are  consider- 
ably less  straightforward  than  the 
SOURCE— PATH— RECEIVER  diagram 
appears  on  the  printed  page. 

If,  as  you  begin  to  read  this  paragraph— 
BANG!— a  cap  pistol  explodes  behind 
you,  you'll  startle.  Your  heart  leaps  up, 
along  with  your  adrenalin.  Your  muscles 
tense.  You  may  begin  to  sweat.  Your  body 
prepares  for  fight  or  flight.  Then  you  real- 
ize that  the  alarm  was  only  a  cap  pistol. 
Sheepishly,  you  settle  back  to  your  read- 
ing, and  your  body  returns,  somewhat 
more  slowly,  to  its  normal  mode  of 
operation. 

"It's  one  thing  for  the  body  to  go  into 
overdrive  occasionally,"  says  Frank 
Rosenthal,  an  environmental  health  scien- 
tist at  the  University  of  Massachussetts 
Medical  Center,  "and  another  for  it  to  stay 
there.  Loud  noises  have  always  signalled 
danger,  and  the  body  reacts."  The  most- 
often  cited  reactions  to  noise  are  known  as 
non-specific  responses,  and  they  are  asso- 
ciated with  stress.  For  example: 

•  A  Dutch  study  found  that  in  the  six 
years  following  the  opening  of  a  new  run- 
way at  Amsterdam's  Schiphol  Airport, 
sales  of  anti-hypertensive  drugs  increased 
100  percent  among  nearby  residents. 

•  A  Polish  study  compared  the  medical 
records  of  workers  exposed  to  noise  levels 
of  85-1 15  dB  with  the  records  of  workers 
in  areas  where  levels  were  70  dB  or  less. 
The  "noisy"  workers  had  (along  with 
higher  incidences  of  threshold  shifts  in 
hearing)  a  higher  incidence  of  peptic 
ulcers  and  hypertension. 

•  In  California,  children  living  and 
attending  elementary  school  under  the  air 
corridors  of  Los  Angeles  International 
Airport  were  matched  with  a  control  group 
from  quieter  neighborhoods.  The  air-corri- 
dor children  had  higher  systolic  and  dia- 
stolic blood  pressures. 

The  studies,  including  laboratory  and 
animal  experiments,  are  numerous.  They 
link  noise  with  elevated  blood  pressure, 
gastrointestinal  disorders,  increased  irrita- 
bility, headaches,  fatigue,  allergic  reac- 
tions, vasoconstriction  of  peripheral  blood 
vessels,  increases  in  catecholamine  secre- 
tions, sleeping  disorders,  damage  to  the 
brain  stem,  sore  throats,  and  more. 

But  the  research  is  often  more  sugges- 
tive than  conclusive. 

"Most    studies    are    correlational," 


Vibration: 

It's  Not  Noise,  But 


"Where  noise  was  75  years  ago,"  says 
Wright  State  University  researcher  Donald 
E.  Wasserman,  "vibration  is  today— at 
least  in  the  U.S."  Wasserman  is  talking 
about  occupational  vibration— the 
mechanical  shaking  to  which  8  million 
U.S.  workers  are  exposed,  from  truck 
drivers  to  stonecutters. 

To  engineers,  noise  and  vibration  differ 
mainly  in  the  media — air  vs.  structures — 
through  which  they  travel.  But,  says  Was- 
serman, who  once  headed  the  National 
Institute  for  Occupational  Safety  and 
Health  (NIOSH)  program  on  vibration, 
"when  it  comes  to  the  body,  the  two  are 
separate  entities." 

Occupational  vibration  itself  divides 
into  two  entities:  whole-body  and  hand- 
arm.  About  7  million  U.S.  workers — truck 
and  bus  drivers,  operators  of  heavy  equip- 
ment and  farming  machinery,  some  min- 
ers—are exposed  to  whole-body  vibration. 
About  1  million— operators  of  gasoline- 
powered  chain  saws,  pneumatic  tools,  and 
some  electrical  tools— are  exposed  to 
hand-arm  vibration.  While  whole-body 
vibration,  a  general  stressor,  has  not  been 
directly  linked  to  specific  health  problems, 
it  affects  safety:  battered  by  the  vibrations 
from  their  vehicles,  drivers  get  tired,  los- 
ing control  over  the  machines. 

"Hand-arm  vibration,"  says  Wasser- 
man, "is  a  completely  different  story." 
The  physical  symptoms  have  a  name: 
Raynaud's  phenomenon  of  occupational 
origin.  In  1862  the  French  physician 
Maurice  Raynaud  reported  several  female 
patients  with  a  blanching  and  numbing  of 
the  fingers  that  eventually  led  to  gangrene. 
With  the  advent  of  vibrating  tools  in  the 
early  1900s,  operators  began  to  display 
similar  symptoms  of  insufficient  circula- 
tion. 

While  Raynaud's  disease  occurs  in 
about  5  to  8  percent  of  the  general  popula- 
tion (often  women),  one  of  two  workers 
using  vibrating  tools  begin  to  display  Ray- 
naud-like  symptoms  within  two  years  on 
the  job. 

"There  are  no  good  treatments,"  says 
Wasserman,  "and  the  disease  is  uncur- 
able."  Attacking  the  problem  at  its  primary 
source— the  machinery— can  be  hard. 
Pneumatic  tools  like  jackhammers 
"depend  upon  vibration  for  their  working 


principles.  The  ability  to  pull  out  that 
vibration  is  very  limited." 

So  prevention  must  focus  on  personal 
protection— such  as  avoiding  work  habits 
that  themselves  reduce  circulation.  Wear- 
ing gloves  can  muffle  the  vibrating  force 
and— just  as  importantly— keep  hands 
warm.  Cold  causes  circulation  to  slow; 
thus  the  whole  body,  especially  the  hands, 
must  be  kept  warm.  Workers  can  deflect 
some  of  the  vibration  by  holding  the  tool 
less  tightly:  "You  don't  hold  on  with  a 
death  grip."  And  they  should  avoid  smok- 
ing, especially  on  the  job:  "Nicotine  is  a 
vasoconstrictor."  They  should  take  work 
breaks  (perhaps  10  minutes  for  each  con- 
tinuous hour  of  operation). 

These  are  not  official  regulations.  The 
U.S.  has  no  standards  limiting  vibration 
levels,  no  mandatory  worker  protection 
programs  a  la  noise.  "Vibration  is  just 
starting  to  come  out  of  the  woodwork." 
says  Wasserman.  "to  be  recognized  as  a 
real  problem." 


NOVEMBER  1985       XIII 


explains  Mark  Wagner,  who  teaches  envi- 
ronmental psychology  at  Franklin  and 
Marshall.  "You  can't  go  out  and  expose 
people  to  noise,  day  after  day,  to  see  what 
will  happen."  Still,  the  suggestion  is  plain: 
noise  is  a  stressor,  and,  says  Wagner,  "Just 
as  lack  of  sanitation  was  a  major  public 
health  problem  of  the  early  20th  century, 
stress- related  illnesses  are  a  major  health 
problem  today." 

jnong  the  many  scientific  yard- 
sticks used  in  talking  about  noise 
^are  units  known  as  noys.  Con- 
tours of  perceived  noisiness, 
they  are  used  to  determine— what  else?— 
annoyance.  When  an  irate  citizen  phones 
the  local  police  station  to  complain  of  muf- 
fler-less hot-rodders,  of  overamplified  out- 
pourings of  rock  music,  of  the  mournful 
howling  of  a  neighborhood  dog,  that  citi- 
zen is  seldom  prompted  by  concern  over 
possible  damage  being  inflicted  on  the 
inner  ear.  More  often,  the  complainant's 
motivation  is  annoyance. 

In  general,  high-frequency  noise  is  more 
irritating  than  low-frequency  noise;  high- 
intensity  noise  more  so  than  low.  Lots  of 
short  noises  are  more  upsetting  than  a 
steady,  continuous  source.  Complex 
noise— conflicting  layers  of  sound  that  the 
brain  automatically  tries  to  sort  out— is 
usually  more  annoying  than  noise  from  a 
simple  source. 

The  less  predictable  the  noise,  the  more 


annoying  it  usually  is,  which  seems  to 
have  a  corollary:  when  a  person  feels  she 
has  control  over  a  noise,  she  is  apt  to  find 
it  less  annoying.  Ends  are  seen  to  justify 
means:  because  an  ambulance  screaming 
by  is  usually  considered  noise  in  a  good 
cause,  its  siren  is  not  so  annoying.  If  a 
noise  is  perceived  as  threatening,  it's  rated 
more  annoying.  People  afraid  of  flying, 
for  example,  are  more  likely  to  be  upset  by 
aircraft  noise.  Although  laboratory  studies 
indicate  that  the  initial  exposure  to  noise  is 
the  most  annoying,  longtime  residents  of 
noisy  neighborhoods  often  report  at  least 
as  much  annoyance,  if  not  more,  than  do 
recent  arrivals. 

Annoyance  often  comes  from  the  mean- 
ing of  the  noise.  "To  a  person  studying," 
says  Paul  Sheldon  of  Villanova  Univer- 
sity's psychology  department,  "the  sound 
of  a  party  in  the  next  room  may  be  more 
annoying  than  its  actual  sound  level  would 
seem  to  warrant.  There  might  be  an  ele- 
ment of  jealousy  involved,  or  it  might  be 
that  relatively  low-level  speech  can  be 
more  annoying  than  continuous  noise  at  a 
higher  dB." 

While  some  people  find  noise  more 
annoying  than  others,  it's  hard  to  predict 
who  those  people  will  be.  So  far,  demo- 
graphic factors  such  as  age,  sex,  income, 
education  and  occupational  status  don't 
seem  to  be  involved.  One  study,  however, 
may  disquiet  people  who  insist  on  absolute 
quiet:   among  college  students,   greater 


Damage:  The  Inside  Story 


Within  the  tiny,  snail-like  coil  of  the 
cochlea  lies  the  organ  of  Corti,  where 
thousands  of  sensory  hair  cells  stand,  their 
filaments  extending  into  the  fluid  of  the 
cochlear  duct.  By  the  time  it  reaches  this 
inner  sanctum,  sound  has  been  tranformed 
into  mechanical  energy  that  makes  the  hair 
cells  wave  back  and  forth,  triggering  neu- 
ral impulses.  Transmitted  to  the  brain, 
those  impulses  are  interpreted:  sounds. 

Very  loud  sounds— explosions  or  gun- 
fire, for  example— can  produce  vibrations 
severe  enough  to  tear  the  organ  of  Corti  or 
cause  structural  damage  leading  to  a  rather 
rapid  breakdown  of  normal  hearing  pro- 
cesses. Over-exposure  to  noise  of  lower 
levels  for  long  periods  of  time  also  results 
in  degeneration.  The  damage  is  cumula- 
tive: first  come  blister-like  outcroppings 
along  the  hair  cells'  filaments,  or  stereoci- 
lia.  If  exposure  continues,  those  blisters 
rupture:  the  tissue  supporting  the  filaments 


may  soften;  then  the  hair  cells  themselves 
may  swell  and  finally  erode.  One  explana- 
tory theory  is  that  constant  exposure  to 
noise  makes  the  cells  work  at  high  meta- 
bolic rates,  rates  which  eventually  lead  to 
exhaustion  and  death. 

In  humans,  the  organ  of  Corti  is  34  mil- 
limeters long,  with  three  rows  of  outer  and 
one  row  of  inner  hair  cells  running  along 
its  length — thousands  of  cells  in  all.  The 
amount  of  injury  to  the  ear  (and  the  corres- 
ponding hearing  loss)  seems  to  depend  on 
where  the  damage  occurs.  Loss  of  sensory 
cells  in  the  upper  part  of  the  cochlea 
(where  hair  cells  sensitive  to  low-fre- 
quency sounds  are)  can  be  quite  exten- 
sive—up to  20  percent— with  no  change  in 
hearing.  The  same  amount  of  damage  at 
the  base  of  the  cochlea,  in  the  area  sensi- 
tive to  high  frequencies,  means  a  hearing 
threshold  shift  of  roughly  40  dB.  (The  first 
sound  you'll  hear  at  a  particular  frequency 


self-reported  sensitivity  to  noise  was  asso- 
ciated with  lower  intellectual  ability  and 
less  confidence  in  social  relationships. 

On  the  other  hand,  those  college  stu- 
dents might  be  able  to  trace  their  bad 
grades  and  lack  of  friends  back  to  their 
sensitivity  to  noise  and  the  effects  noise 
can  have  both  on  task  performance  and 
social  behavior.  First,  noise  interferes  with 
human  communication:  obviously,  noise 
can  make  it  harder  to  carry  on  conversa- 
tions. The  upper  limit  for  normal  conver- 
sation is  thought  to  be  background  noise  of 
70  decibels,  even  when  the  speakers  are 
close  together.  At  six  feet,  they  may  be 
shouting. 

Noise  can  make  people  more  aggres- 
sive, more  irritable,  more  violent— and 
less  sensitive  to  other  people,  both  during 
exposure  and  after  the  noise  has  stopped. 
In  one  study,  researchers  wanted  to  com- 
pare the  effect  of  different  noise  levels  on 
helping  behavior.  People  exposed  to  65- 


Cochlea 


Damage  is  hidden  deep  within  the  ear:  the 
organ  of  Corti  (right),  rests  within  the  cen- 
ter of  the  cochlear  duct  (above).  The  duct 
is  in  turn  part  of  the  cochlea,  the  snail-like 
coil  that  makes  up  the  auditory  portion  of 
the  ear's  bony  labyrinth  (top). 


XIV       ALUMNI  MAGAZINE  CONSORTIUM 


dB  noise  levels  were  much  more  likely  to 
help  someone  pick  up  dropped  papers  and 
books  than  were  people  exposed  to  noise 
levels  of  85  dB.  Taking  the  experiment 
from  the  lab  to  the  quad,  the  researchers 
found  that  80  percent  of  passers-by 
stopped  to  help  someone  pick  up  dropped 
and  scattered  belongings  when  the  outdoor 
setting  was  quiet.  But  when  a  loud  lawn- 
mower  was  stationed  near  the  victim — 
who  was  wearing  an  arm  cast  to  make  the 
Help  signal  even  more  pronounced— only 
15  percent  of  the  passers-by  stopped  to 
help. 

Is  it  that  noise  puts  you  in  a  bad,  even 
selfish,  mood?  Or,  as  some  researchers 
believe,  does  noise  distract  you,  so  that 
you  miss  certain  cues  or  overlook  relevant 
information— such  as,  in  the  case  above, 
the  victim's  cast? 

Missed  cues  and  overlooked  informa- 
tion can,  of  course,  affect  your  perfor- 
mance at  work.  Although  the  effects  of 


industrial  noise  are  more  often  studied, 
noise— usually  at  lower  levels— is  also  a 
factor  in  the  white-collar  workplace.  In 
fact,  says  a  1985  poll,  noise  is  the  No.  1 
factor  affecting  productivity  in  the  office 
environment.  Commissioned  by  a  manu- 
facturer of  office  systems  (including 
soundproof  dividers),  the  poll  may  have  a 
built-in  bias.  Workers  may  not  see  noise  as 
their  major  problem.  When  Philip  Greiner 
of  Villanova's  School  of  Nursing  studied  a 
company's  personnel,  he  found  that  "what 
caused  stress  for  the  employees  was  being 
caught  between  their  boss  and  the  person 
underneath  them — not  the  noisy  equip- 
ment." 

Still,  the  office  does  seem  to  be  getting 
noisier.  Large,  open-plan  office  designs, 
often  housing  banks  of  electronic  com- 
puters and  printers,  do  not  provide  work- 
ers with  much  acoustical  privacy.  The  typ- 
ical dot-matrix  printer,  sans  soundproofing 
cover,  runs  at  about  65  dB— meanwhile, 


the  West  German  government  has  legisla- 
tion in  effect  making  55  dB  the  upper  limit 
for  places  where  intellectual  work  is  in 
progress. 

How  much  does  noise  interfere  with  a 
worker's  ability  to  get  the  job  done?  It 
seems  to  depend  upon  the  task.  If  the  job  is 
relatively  boring  and  repetitive,  a  certain 
amount  of  noise,  even  high-intensity 
noise,  can  actually  improve  perfor- 
mance—by arousing  the  worker,  or  by 
masking  other,  more  distracting  noises. 
Masking  and  arousal  are  principles  behind 
the  piped-in  music  that  provides  back- 
ground noise  in  many  offices. 

But  as  the  task  increases  in  complexity, 
and  the  worker  must  pay  attention  to  addi- 
tional informational  cues,  noise  can 
present  a  problem.  Even  then,  noise 
doesn't  seem  to  affect  the  average  effi- 
ciency or  rate  of  work.  Rather,  there  are 
ups  and  downs  in  attention  and  productiv- 
ity—quality, not  quantity,  suffers.  On  the 
assembly  line,  a  lapse  in  attention  can 
mean  a  shoddy  product  or  an  accident.  In 
the  office,  it  translates  into  other  kinds  of 
mistakes. 

Interference  with  performance  also 
depends  upon  the  noise.  Human  speech— 
perhaps  because  of  the  information  it  con- 
tains—can be  the  most  unwanted  of 
sounds.  "The  original  piped-in  music, 
Muzak,  sticks  to  instrumentals,"  points 
out  Villanova's  Sheldon.  "It  never  has 
words.  Nothing  sudden,  nothing  jarring." 


Cochlear  Duct 
Organ  of  Corti 


Inner  Hair  Cell 


Stereocilia 


will  have  a 
the  first  sound 
mal  hearing.) 

At  first,  damage 
injured,  however,  the  e 
prone  to  injury.  "If  the 
points  out  Mark  Holmes,  a  matl 
at  Rensselaer  Polytechnic  Insti 
the  system  repairs  itself,  it  is  nevert 
repaired,  a  fact  that  may  affect  its  future 
workings  and  therefore  might  explain  the 
theory  that  noise  injury  seems  to  mean 
increased  susceptibility  to  noise." 

Holmes  and  an  RPI  colleague,  Julian 
Cole,  are  at  work  on  a  mathematical 
model  of  the  ear.  "We're  building  a  sys- 
tem based  on  what  is  known  about  the 
physical  characteristics  of  the  ear,"  says 
Holmes.  Such  computer  models  will  have 
obvious  advantages  over  animal  and  post- 
studies  on  which  researchers  have 
depend  for  their  knowledge  of  the 
ler  workings.  "Once  the  model  is 
ted,  we  should  be  able  to  run  com- 
ets to  see  how  noise  actually  dam- 
system." 


NOVEMBER  1985       XV 


Noise  Control: 

Whose  Job  is  It  Anyway? 


Noise,  said  the  Reagan  administration  in 
announcing  budget  cuts  for  the  Environ- 
mental Protection  Agency's  noise-control 
programs  in  the  early  1980s,  is  a  local 
problem,  for  state  and  local  authorities. 
Occupational  noise  remains  a  federal  prob- 
lem, regulated  by  the  Occupational  Safety 
and  Health  Administration  (OSHA).  Some 
observers,  however,  charge  that  OSHA 
has  put  noise  on  its  back  burner. 

As  proof,  they  cite  the  stepchild  status 
of  the  Hearing  Conservation  Amendment, 
a  much-debated  measure  that  went  into 
effect  in  1982.  Rather  than  lowering  the 
permissible  8-hour,  time-weighted  noise 
exposure  limit  from  90  dBA  (the  A- 
weighted  scale  measures  loudness  in  a  way 
that  mimics  the  properties  of  the  human 
ear),  OSHA  instituted  hearing  conserva- 
tion measures  for  employees  exposed  to 
noise  at  or  above  85  dBA.  Such  employees 
must  be  made  aware  of  the  noise  level  at 
which  they  work,  given  annual  audiomet- 
ric  tests  to  check  their  hearing  losses,  noti- 
fied in  writing  of  significant  threshold 
shifts,  provided  hearing  protectors  if 
needed,  and  provided  with  noise  educa- 
tion. (Selecting  85  dBA  as  the  boundary 
was  based  on  economic  considerations; 
noise  damage  can  occur  at  lower  exposure 
levels  over  a  worker's  career.) 

An  estimated  5  1/2  million  workers  (out 
of  13  million  in  general  industry)  are 
included  under  the  amendment;  companies 
will  spend  some  $250  million  a  year  on  the 
required  programs.  Nevertheless,  Morgan 
Downey  of  the  American  Speech- 
Lanauage-Hearing  Association  »ys, 
t'There  has  not  been  wide-scale  resistance 


to  the  Hearing  Conservation  Amend- 
ment—such changes  are  often  easier  than 
making  engineering  changes  to  get  the 
noise  down."  To  some  degree,  occupa- 
tional noise  control  is  always  a  balancing 
act  between  the  needs  of  employers  and 
employees.  "Noise  control  has  two  goals 
to  be  observed  simultaneously,"  points  out 
Henry  Scarton,  a  mechanical  engineer 
who  heads  RPI's  Noise  and  Vibration 
Control  Research  Laboratory.  "You  want 
to  quiet  down  the  net  environment,  yet  not 
ruin  the  function  of  the  tool." 

Still,  some  industries  did  not  take  the 
Hearing  Conservation  Amendment  lying 
down.  The  Forging  Industry  Association 
(forging  is  a  notoriously  noisy  trade)  took 
OSHA  to  court  (the  United  States  Court  of 
Appeals  for  the  Fourth  Circuit,  in  Rich- 
mond), charging  that  the  new  regulation 
was  unreasonable.  And,  in  November 
1984,  a  three-judge  panel  handed  down  its 
decision,  against  the  amendment.  "Air- 
planes, hunting  rifles,  loud  music  and  a 
myriad  of  other  sources,"  the  court  said  in 
its  2-1  decision,  "produce  noise  poten- 
tially as  damaging  as  any  at  the  work- 
place." 

By  extension,  the  ruling  implied  that 
unless  a  hazard  is  exclusive  to  the  work- 
place, the  government  cannot  impose 
safety  standards.  "You  could  apply  that 
logic  to  standards  on  lead,  benzene,  asbes- 
tos, and  even  radon  gas— all  of  which  we 
are  exposed  to  in  our  everyday  lives,"  Jack 
Sheehan  of  the  United  Steelworkers  of 
America  told  the  New  York  Times.  Still, 
OSHA— which  has  basically  taken  a  pro- 
employer  stance  through  the  years  of  the 
Reagan  administration— was  initially 
unsure  whether  to  appeal.  Under  pressure 
from  labor  unions,  it  eventually  asked 
the  full  nine-member  court  to  reconsider 
the  decision;  meanwhile,  OSHA  told  its 
field  offices  to  continue  to  enforce  the 
amendment. 

In  late  September,  after  almost  nine 
months  of  deliberations,  the  Richmond 
court  unanimously  upheld  the  Hearing 
Conservation  Amendment,  finding  "sim- 
ply no  merit"  in  the  forging  industry's 
argument.  The  decision  wasn't  front  page 
news,  but  the  amendment's  supporters 
were  elated,  claiming  the  stage  had  been 
set  for  real  progress. 


Random,  intermittent  bursts  often  have  the 
most  effect  on  performance,  in  the  same 
way  that  unpredictable  stressors  of  any 
kind— whether  an  electric  shock  or  your 
supervisor's  sudden  about-face  of  com- 
mands—can lead  to  an  anxious  sense  of 
being  out  of  control,  a  frustration  which 
can  linger  on  after  the  noise  itself  has 
ceased. 

Noise  is  a  fact  of  life  on  Earth. 
As  Stephen  Jasperson,  phys- 
ics department  head  at  Wor- 
cester Polytechnic  Institute, 
points  out,  "Most  physicists  don't  study 
noise  per  se.  We're  all  invariably  involved 
in  trying  to  beat  noise,  to  make  measure- 
ments in  spite  of  noise,  to  extract  very 
small  signals  in  a  noisy  world."  In  a  way, 
that's  the  same  effort  that  humans  are 
engaged  in  every  day. 

Is  the  everyday  task  of  extracting 
wanted  sound  from  background  noise  get- 
ting harder?  "America  probably  has  gotten 
noisier,"  admits  Penn  State's  Paul 
Michael.  "The  number  of  people,  the 
number  of  cars,  the  number  of  machines 
have  all  gone  up,  and  so  has  the  amount  of 
noise.  It's  hard  to  tell  what  the  rate  of 
increase  would  have  been  without  noise 
control  programs." 

As  it  is,  one  American  in  two  faces  daily 
noise  that  interferes  with  speech  or  sleep. 
Noise  may  be  a  price  paid  for  other,  more 
pleasant  aspects  of  the  Western  standard  of 
living,  and  people  seem,  at  least  on  the 
surface,  to  adapt.  Some  adapt  almost  too 
well. 

"In  a  social  context,  the  world  is  getting 
noisier,"  says  Frederick  A.  White,  a  pro- 
fessor emeritus  at  Rensselaer  Polytechnic 
Institute  and  author  of  a  standard  text,  Our 
Acoustic  Environment.  "A  lot  of  noise  is 
fashionable.  There's  no  way  to  control  it." 
White  is  talking  about  leisure  noise— hunt- 
ing, motorcycles,  snowmobiles  and,  most 
of  all,  amplified  rock  music.  "Many 
young  people,"  he  says,  "are  going  to 
encounter  permanent  hearing  loss."  Stud- 
ies in  the  U.S.  and  abroad  seem  to  bear 
him  out,  although  some,  produced  by  anti- 
rock  researchers,  have  been  dismissed 
because  musical  prejudices  colored  the 
methodology. 

But  although  amplified  rock  music  (it 
commonly  hits  as  high  as  1 10  decibels) 
has  been  shown  to  affect  hearing,  vision 
and  attention  span,  its  devotees  continue  to 
listen,  at  concerts,  at  discos,  through 
stereo  headphones.  They  may  pay  for  it  a 
few  years  down  the  road,  but  for  now  they 
enjoy  it,  the  way  some  people  like  the 
whine  of  the  Brooklyn  Bridge. 


XVI       ALUMNI  MAGAZINE  CONSORTIUM 


WPI  CLASS  NOTES 


WPI  Alumni  Association 

President,  Paul  W.  Bayliss  '60 
Senior  Vice  President, 

Richard  B.  Kennedy  '65 
Vice  President,  Alex  C.  Papianou  '57 
Past  President,  Harry  W.  Tenney,  Jr.  '56 
Executive  Committee 
Members-at-Large 
Henry  P.  Allessio  '61 
Walter  J.  Bank '46 
William  J.  Firla,  Jr.  '60 
Patricia  A.  Graham  Flaherty  '75 
Alumni  Fund  Board 
Allen  H.  Levesque  '59,  Chairman 
Edwin  B.  Coghlin,  Jr.  '56 
David  B.  Denniston  '58 
Michael  A.  DiPierro  '68 
William  A.  Kerr '60 
Bruce  A.  MacPhetres  '60 
Francis  W.  Madigan,  Jr.  '53 
Stanley  P.  Negus,  Jr.  '54 


1914 


Horace  Cole  writes,  "The  education  and  asso- 
ciations at  WPI  have  served  me  well  during  41 
years  with  the  Westinghouse  Electric  Corp.  and 
30  years  of  retirement." 


1918 


Walter  Dennen,  Sr.,  a  World  War  I  Navy  vet- 
eran, said  in  a  May  profile  in  the  (Worcester) 
Sunday  Telegram,  "We've  suddenly  got  more 
patriotism  than  we've  had  for  a  long  time. 
There's  no  country  in  the  world  that's  as  won- 
derful to  live  in  as  this  one  we  have.  We  ought 
to  respect  and  recognize  it." 

During  the  war,  Mr.  Dennen  was  an  ensign 
and  engineering  officer  aboard  a  naval  cargo 
ship. 

After  the  war,  he  returned  to  Worcester  to 
work  a  couple  of  years  at  Norton.  He  then 
became  a  teacher  at  Worcester  Boys  Trade  High 
School,  and  finally  director  of  the  school  and 
administrator  of  the  city's  Vocational  School 
Department.  He  helped  form  the  7th  Division 
of  the  U.S.  Naval  Reserves  based  in  Worcester, 
receiving  a  citation  from  the  Secretary  of  the 
Navy  for  his  work. 

At  the  request  of  the  Class  of  1930  of  Wor- 
cester Boys  Trade  School,  Mayor  Tinsley  of 


Worcester  declared  June  14,  1985,  as  Walter  B. 
Dennen  Day.  During  ceremonies  at  the  William 
Paul  House  in  Holden,  MA,  he  was  presented 
with  Mayor  Tinsley 's  proclamation  and  a  scroll 
signed  by  Governor  Dukakis. 

In  1969,  Mr.  Dennen  received  the  Goddard 
Award  from  WPI.  He  is  class  president  and  the 
father  of  Walter  B.  Dennen,  Jr.,  '51. 


1920 


Albert  Woodward,  who  retired  from  General 
Motors  in  1961,  resides  in  Cranston,  RI.  His 
wife  passed  away  last  year. 


1921 


Dr.  John  Williams  is  a  professor  emeritus  from 
the  department  of  chemistry  at  the  University  of 
Wisconsin,  Madison. 


1926 


Reunion  June  5-8,  1986 

1927 

Charles  Moore  has  swum  700  miles  in  Cleve- 
land's Cudell  Recreation  Center  pool  since 
1971. 


1930 


Russ  Barnes  and  his  wife,  Jane,  moved  from 
Kingston,  MA,  to  Plymouth.  MA,  in  June. 

After  attending  recent  family  graduations 
Roscoe  Bowers  and  his  wife  traveled  to  Cali- 
fornia, where  they  visited  friends  and  Ros. 
played  golf  at  the  Castlewood  Club  in  Pleasan- 
ton.  Other  points  of  interest  were  San  Fran- 
cisco, the  Napa  Valley,  Grants  Pass,  Eugene. 
OR,  the  Village  of  Mt.  Shasta  and  again,  San 
Francisco.  Ros.  writes,  "Just  before  leaving,  I 
beat  my  age  once  more  with  36-40 — 76  at 
Jacaranda!" 

Charlotte  and  Charlie  Cole  write  they've  had 
a  good  year.  They  recently  went  up  the  Missis- 
sippi on  the  Mississippi  Queen.  They  also 
cruised  the  West  Caribbean  and  areas  near 
Mexico  and  Panama. 

Stan  Fillion's  granddaughter,  Marie,  gradu- 
ated from  high  school  in  Burlington,  VT,  May 


3 1 .  She  has  won  track  and  music  awards  as  well 
as  a  National  Science  Award.  For  several  years, 
she  has  served  as  official  school  pianist.  She 
was  named  oboist  with  the  All-New  England 
Band. 

Carm  Greco  is  recovering  from  brain 
surgery. 

Ed  Greco,  who  is  also  ill  and  was  unable  to 
attend  the  55th  reunion,  sent  best  wishes  to  his 
classmates. 

Herbert  Hillis  worked  in  the  area  of  civil 
aeronautics  in  Washington,  DC,  for  14  years 
before  transferring  to  Army  research  and  devel- 
opment in  1954.  He  retired  from  Natick  (MA) 
Labs  in  July  1970. 

Jim  McLoughlin  and  his  wife,  Annette, 
"man  the  information  booth  one  day  a  week  at 
Fort  Nathan  Hale  Restoration  in  New  Haven, 
CT."  Jim  describes  the  fort's  history  to  visitors. 

Fred  Peters  and  his  wife,  Kate,  visited  his 
daughter,  a  missionary  sister,  in  Chile  last  Feb- 
ruary. His  daughter  "survived  the  March  earth- 
quake, but  lots  of  folks  didn't." 

Last  November,  Paul  Reynolds,  a  retired  Lt. 
Colonel  in  the  U.S.  Army,  and  his  wife, 
Bernice,  attended  a  luncheon  at  Williams  Air 
Force  Base  Officers'  Club  in  Arizona,  where 
they  met  with  Brig.  Gen.  Charles  Duke,  an 
Apollo  16  astronaut. 

Carl  Backstrom,  Class  Secretary 


1931 


Reunion 


1932 


June  5-8,  1986 


George  Barks  is  a  realtor-associate  with  Cen- 
tury 21  in  Carlsbad,  CA. 


1933 


Alex  Alves  continues  working  for  his  own  com- 
pany. Engineered  Sinterings,  in  Watertown, 
CT.  His  son  is  now  president  of  the  firm.  Alex 
is  proud  of  the  fact  that  after  12  years  of  his 
personal  involvement  with  the  development  of 
injection  molding  of  metal  powders,  his  com- 
pany has  just  issued  a  catalog  on  the  new 
process,  and  is  working  on  orders  for  parts 
made  by  this  advanced  method. 

Bill  Anderson  says  that  he  and  his  wife. 
Ruby,  are  both  well  and  enjoy  visits  with  their 
children  and  five  grandchildren.  Their  son  is  a 
high  school  teacher  and  coach  and  their  daugh- 
ter is  a  physical  therapist. 


NOVEMBER  1985       37 


Norm  Clark  and  his  wife.  Gert.  recently 
took  a  popular  cruise  to  Alaska 

Ed  Conway,  one  of  the  better  goiters  of  our 
class,  has  had  back  problems  which  adversely 
affected  his  play.  Now  that  he  has  recovered,  he 
is  playing  closer  to  his  former  effectiveness.  Ed 
enjoys  woodworking,  has  a  fully  equipped  shop 
in  his  basement,  and  recently  completed  a 
cherry  highboy— no  small  accomplishment! 

Rod  Klebart  is  also  continuing  with  his 
working  career.  He  lives  with  his  wife.  Anna, 
in  Webster.  MA.  where  he's  served  as  chairman 
of  the  town's  engineering  office  Capital  Outlays 
Committee  for  20  years. 

Both  Isabel  and  Fred  Potter  were  hospital- 
ized during  the  past  year  ("the  toughest  period 
of  our  52-year  marriage!"),  but  are  now  well 
enough  to  ride  their  motorcycles.  They  sold 
their  two  sailboats  and  three  of  their  five  motor- 
cycles, but  still  swim  at  least  a  half  mile  every 
day.  They  don't  feel  the  need  to  go  away  for 
vacations  because  they  reside  in  "a  beautiful 
vacation  spot:  Little  Silver,  NJ." 

William  A.  Slagle,  Jr.,  has  been  re-elected 
president  of  the  Royall  House  Association  of 
Medford.  MA.  During  his  first  year  in  office, 
the  historic  house  was  chosen  after  a  nation- 
wide survey  to  be  featured  on  television.  The 
house  was  also  awarded  grants  for  its  18th- 
century  perfection  of  Georgian  architecture 
and  its  role  in  the  Revolutionary  War.  Among 
"first"  exhibits  were  a  showing  of  Royall  House 
dolls  and  quilts  and  a  display  of  18th-century 
rare  pieces  of  needlework  and  furniture  during 
the  Winchester  Art  Association  show.  In  1986 
Royall  House  will  be  seen  nationwide  in  the 
PBS  film  "Pride  of  Place."  as  well  as  in  "The 
Whiskey  Rebellion."  Somehow,  in  spite  of  all 
this  public  relations  activity,  Bill  still  finds  time 
to  weed  the  Royall  House  herb  garden! 

Olga  and  Al  White  reside  in  New  Jersey,  the 
Garden  State,  and  like  the  Potters,  feel  they 
don't  need  to  travel  extensively.  Al  was  sorry  to 
hear  that  Walter  "Tut"  Tuthill  had  died,  and 
remembers  him  well  as  a  partner  in  a  joint 
project  at  WPI.  He  hopes  to  attend  our  55th 
reunion,  which,  incidentally,  is  only  2'/2  years 
away! 

We  recently  talked  with  "Buck"  Whittum, 
who  with  his  wife.  Kay,  lives  in  Eastham  on 
Cape  Cod  and  enjoys  fishing,  clamming,  scal- 
loping and  oystering.  Weather  permitting.  Buck 
often  attends  the  Tech  Old-Timers'  meetings  at 
WPI.  He  and  Kay  took  a  trip  to  Iceland,  where 
they  found  the  scenery,  people,  and  history  of 
the  country  fascinating. 

The  statistics  on  the  geographic  location  of 
your  classmates  may  be  of  interest.  Of  the  95 
we  can  account  for,  24,  or  about  one  quarter, 
live  in  Massachusetts.  Connecticut  and  the 
retirement  state  of  Florida  are  tied  for  second 
with  14  each.  The  other  43  are  scattered  among 
20  states  and  two  provinces  of  Canada.  Quite  a 
few  report  that  Florida  is  their  winter  home. 

Al  Brownlee,  Class  Secretary 


1934 


Charles  Bissell,  who  retired  in  1978.  has 
recovered  from  his  1984  coronary  by -pass  oper- 
ation and  is  spending  the  summer  gardening 
and  cruising  on  Narragansett  Bay.  The  Bissells 
winter  in  Anna  Maria.  FL. 


1936 


Reunion 


June  5-8,  1986 


Dr.  Nelson  Marshall  is  a  professor  emer- 
itus from  the  University  of  Rhode  Island  at 
Kingston. 


1937 


Allen  Benjamin's  watercolors  were  featured  in 
the  main  branch  of  the  Wayland  (MA)  Public 
Library  in  February.  Since  1983.  he  has  partici- 
pated in  student  and  member  exhibitions  at  Arts 
Wayland  and  the  DeCordova  Museum.  More 
recently,  he  has  had  solo  exhibitions  in  galleries 
at  WPI  and  Babson  College. 


1939 


John  Busada,  president  of  Busada  Manufactur- 
ing Corp..  makers  of  rigid  transparent  plastic 
tubing,  spoke  on  the  topic,  "The  Wonderful 
World  of  Plastics,"  at  the  May  meeting  of  The 
University  Club  of  Long  Island.  He  is  a  director 
of  the  Mid- Atlantic  Chapter  of  the  Society  of 
the  Plastics  Industry  and  Governor  Plastics  Pio- 
neers Association.  Previously,  he  was  associ- 
ated with  GE,  the  Northern  Industrial  Chemical 
Co.  and  with  Omni  Products  Corp.  He  is  a  past 
president  of  the  Long  Island  chapter  of  the  WPI 
Alumni  Association. 

Harold  Humphrey  of  Harwinton,  CT, 
recently  received  the  10th  Annual  Arthur  B. 
Poole  Memorial  Award  in  recognition  of  his 
contributions  to  the  town  and  society.  Chairman 
of  the  board  of  finance  since  1975,  he  has 
served  on  the  board  for  20  years.  He  was  chair- 
man of  the  town  zoning  commission  from  1957 
to  1964  and  was  a  member  of  the  economic 
development  commission  for  six  years.  An 
active  Republican,  he  was  a  former  chairman  of 
the  nomination  committee  and  treasurer  for  two 
years. 

Now  a  consultant  for  the  Torrington  Com- 
pany's Needle  Division,  in  1983  he  retired  from 
the  firm  as  chief  mechanical  engineer  for  the 
division.  He  is  a  registered  professional  engi- 
neer, and  a  past  chairman  of  the  Society  of 
Manufacturing  Engineers.  Central  Connecticut 
Chapter.  Currently,  he  operates  a  sailboat  char- 
tering business  in  the  summer. 

Elmer  Nutting  retired  in  March  following  45 
years  in  the  firearms  industry,  holding  various 
positions  from  chief  engineer  to  vice  president 
and  board  member.  He  was  associated  with 
Savage  Arms.  Noble  Mfg.  Co.  and  Smith  & 
Wesson  during  his  career.  He  recently  received 
a  product  award  of  merit  from  the  National 
Association  of  Federally  Licensed  Firearms 
Dealers  and  American  Firearms  Industry  maga- 
zine for  the  Smith  &  Wesson  Model  1000  Super 
12  shotgun  which  employs  a  revolutionary  gas 
metering  system.  The  gas  metering  system, 
which  for  the  first  time  enabled  an  auto-loading 
shotgun  to  handle  any  hunting  load,  was 
designed  by  Nutting.  "It's  not  limited  to  shot- 
guns," he  says. 

Al  Stone  has  retired  from  Industrial  Risk 
Insurers. 

Lou  Stratton  is  retired  as  manager  of  the 
Western  New  England  College  laboratory  in 


Clarence  Barrington: 
No.  1  in  Bassoons! 

Clarence  Barrington  '22  EE,  who  was 
with  Riley  Stoker  Corp.,  Worcester,  for 
31  years,  currently  has  a  second  career 
repairing  bassoons.  At  85,  he  is  also  a 
sales  agent  for  Fox  Bassoons,  the  lead- 
ing bassoon  maker  in  the  U.S. 

"I've  always  been  surrounded  by 
music,"  he  says.  "My  father  was  a 
church  organist  and  my  mother  played 
the  piano.  They  met  when  my  mother 
took  lessons  from  my  father." 

The  bassoon  is  not  the  only  musical 
instrument  that  Clarence  plays.  He 
played  one  of  the  first  saxophones  seen 
in  the  Worcester  area  back  in  1916. 
"Kids  would  come  around  and  ask 
what  it  was."  Playing  the  sax  at  the 
Worcester  Country  Club  and  local 
functions,  he  helped  put  himself 
through  WPI,  where  he  and  his  room- 
mate. Eddie  Sholz,  formed  the  original 
Tech  Band,  which  performed  at  foot- 
ball and  basketball  games. 

He  reports  that  he  took  up  the 
bassoon  rather  late  in  life,  teaching 
himself  to  play.  He  took  weekend  les- 
sons in  Rochester.  NY,  then  came  back 
and  practiced  in  the  Riley  boiler  room 
during  lunch!  He  and  his  late  wife,  an 
accomplished  pianist  and  French  horn 
player,  used  to  perform  professionally 
with  the  Worcester  Philharmonic  and 
the  Worcester  Oratorio  Orchestras. 
They  helped  form  the  Springfield 
Symphony. 

Always  handy  with  tools,  Clarence 
learned  to  fix  his  own  bassoon.  Then 
he'd  fix  his  friends'  instruments.  Word 
spread  throughout  the  professional 
community.  There  are  only  about 
a  dozen  bassoon  specialists  in  the 
country. 

"The  bassoon  is  so  complex,  you 
really  have  to  be  able  to  play  it  in  order 


Springfield,  MA.  He  writes  "Have  10  grand- 
sons (7  Strattons)  and  three  granddaughters." 


1940 


Dave  Zipser,  formerly  with  the  coil  division  of 
Singer  Co.,  is  now  retired  and  looking  forward 
to  "spending  many  years  in  Wilmington,  NC." 


1941 


Reunion 


June  5-8,  1986 


Albert  Bellos  has  been  appointed  vice  presi- 
dent for  the  Pulp  Machinery  Division  at  Sandy 


38       WPI  JOURNAL 


Clarence  and  the  "complex  instrument." 

to  repair  it,"  Mr.  Barrington  says. 

Recently,  he  got  into  sales  because 
he'd  repair  college  students'  bassoons, 
and  when  they'd  graduate  they'd  ask 
him  to  recommend  an  instrument.  As  a 
result.  Fox  offered  him  the  job  of 
agent. 


Clarence  Barrington  enjoys  his 
"retirement."  "I  was  looking  forward 
to  instrument  repair  work  when  I 
retired  from  Riley  in  1965,"  he  reports. 
"I  was  prepared."  His  philosophy  is, 
it's  all  right  to  be  growing  older,  as  long 
as  you  don't  just  grow  old! 


Hill  Corp.  of  Hudson  Falls,  NY.  He  has 
responsibility  for  overseeing  all  pulp  mill- 
related  activities  and  will  also  serve  as  vice 
president  of  manufacturing  for  Sandy  Hill 
South  Inc.  in  Pell  City,  AL.  The  latter  company 
was  opened  in  1984  to  provide  service  to  South- 
ern pulp  mills  for  Kamyr-designed  and  other 
pulping  equipment.  After  briefly  working  for 
United  States  Steel  and  serving  as  a  naval  offi- 
cer in  World  War  II,  Bellos  joined  Sandy  Hill  in 
1946  and  became  vice  president  of  engineering 
in  1977.  He  belongs  to  TAPPI  and  the  Glens 
Falls  Country  Club  which  he  has  served  on  the 
board  of  governors. 

Frederick  Chamberlin  and  his  wife.  Vir- 
ginia, who  travel  extensively,  have  been  to  the 
Middle  East,  Egypt,  South  America,  the  Ori- 
ent, Australia  and  Hawaii.  Fred  retired  three 
years  ago  after  32  years  with  Du  Pont. 


Joseph  Jurga  is  retired  as  a  consultant  for 
General  Electric  in  Harrison,  NY. 

Stanley  Majka  writes,  "I'm  very  busy  work- 
ing with  recent  retirees  and  small  corporations 
as  a  certified  financial  planner." 

Charles  Smith,  professor  of  mechanical 
engineering  at  Rose-Hulman  Institute  of  Tech- 
nology, Terre  Haute,  IN,  has  been  selected  as  a 
fellow  of  the  American  Society  for  Engineering 
Education.  He  was  also  recently  named  to  the 
Accreditation  Board  for  Engineering  and  Tech- 
nology which  evaluates  the  quality  of  college 
and  university  engineering  programs.  A  mem- 
ber of  the  Rose-Hulman  faculty  since  1981,  he 
is  considered  an  authority  in  the  area  of  product 
liability  and  design.  He  is  the  author  of  four 
textbooks;  a  frequent  lecturer  in  Europe,  Japan 
and  the  U.S.;  and  the  first  recipient  of  the  Fred 
Merryfield  design  Teaching  Award  presented 


by  the  ASEE. 

Berkeley  Williams,  Jr.,  retired  from  Rotron 
in  1982  and  moved  to  Florida  to  "enjoy  the 
good  life." 


1942 


Gordon  Raymond  says  that  after  three  years  of 
retirement  with  some  travel  and  consulting  on 
the  side,  he  still  can't  find  time  for  any  hobbies. 
William  Wheeler  is  retired  as  a  project  engi- 
neer with  Diamond  Shamrock  and  lives  in 
Wilmington,  NC. 


1943 


George  Fairhurst  is  director  of  community 
services  at  the  Downey  (CA)  Community  Hos- 
pital. He  is  also  a  board  member  and  secretary 
of  the  Downey  Symphonic  Society  and  vice 
president  and  board  member  of  Downey's  Sec- 
ond Century  Foundation. 

John  Huckins,  who  retired  in  1983,  writes 
that  he  enjoys  Cape  Cod  and  leisurely  living. 

Dr.  Arthur  Lindroos  serves  as  manager  of 
engineering  at  Penick  Corporation,  Lyndhurst, 
NJ. 

William  Walker,  who  retired  from  The  Tor- 
rington  Co.  in  1983,  writes  that  he's  enjoying 
retirement  very  much. 


1944 


Walter  Brown,  Jr.,  is  district  fire  chief  with 
the  City  of  Worcester  Fire  Department. 


1945 


In  June,  the  Webster-Dudley-Oxford  (MA) 
Chamber  of  Commerce  honored  John  Bayer 
by  presenting  him  with  its  1985  Life  Member- 
ship Award.  President  of  Bayer  Motors,  an 
automobile  dealership  in  Dudley,  Bayer  is  past 
president  and  director  of  the  Webster-Dudley  C 
of  C,  as  well  as  past  president,  director  and 
secretary  of  the  Webster  Rotary  Club.  He  was  a 
member  of  the  commission  that  formed  the 
Webster-Dudley  Credit  Bureau,  and  he 
belonged  to  the  study  committee  that  resulted  in 
Interstate  395,  and  served  on  the  committee  that 
helped  revitalize  the  South  Village  Business 
Enterprises  after  the  disastrous  South  Village 
flood. 

In  Thompson,  CT,  Bayer  has  been  chairman 
of  the  Board  of  Education  and  past  president  of 
the  local  library  and  the  Village  Improvement 
Society.  A  charter  member  of  the  Thompson 
Industrial  Development  Commission,  on  many 
occasions  he  has  served  as  a  town  meeting 
moderator.  He  has  long  been  active  with  the 
Congregational  Church. 

During  World  War  II,  Bayer  was  a  civilian 
scientist  with  the  Manhattan  Project,  which 
developed  the  atomic  bomb.  At  the  time,  he 
had  no  idea  of  the  scope  of  the  project.  He  only 
knew  that  he  was  refining  uranium.  Later,  he 
received  a  letter  from  the  Navy  telling  him  that 
he  had  participated  in  certain  tests  essential  to 


NOVEMBER  1985       39 


the  development  of  the  bomb.  Following  the 
war  he  worked  for  a  time  at  the  Na\  al  Research 
Laboratory  in  Anacostu.  DC.  and  at  Paxter  & 
Gamble  in  Cincinnati,  where  he  was  granted  a 
patent  on  one  of  his  inventions. 

Bayer,  who  holds  a  BS  and  MS  in  chemical 
engineering  from  WPI  and  who  briefly  taught 
physics  at  WPI.  is  a  past  senior  member  of  the 
ACS  and  of  the  American  Institute  of  Chemical 
Engineers. 

Owen  Kennedy,  dean  of  academic  comput- 
ing at  WPI.  recently  graduated  from  the  1985 
Greater  Worcester  Executive  Program  run 
jointly  by  \\  Pi's  Department  of  Management 
and  Clark's  Graduate  School  of  Management. 
He  and  his  wife,  Nancy,  celebrated  their  40th 
wedding  anniversary  in  July. 

Dick  Lawton  of  Longwood.  FL.  is  president 
of  RGL  Sales  Co.  Inc. 


1946 


Reunion 


June  5-8.  1986 


Frank  Mazzone  continues  as  manager  of  busi- 
ness development  at  Bechtel  Inc..  Gaithers- 
burs.  MD. 


1948 


Richard  Home  retired  from  Cincinnati  Mila- 
cron  Marketing  Co.  in  September. 

MacLean  kirkwood.  Jr..  who  retired  from 
ATT-Long  Lines  in  1982.  is  now  vice  president 
and  director  of  operations  for  ITT  U.S.  Trans- 
mission Systems. 

Lynwood  Lentell  is  enjoying  retirement  in 
Fresno.  CA  Recently  he  visited  with  Anita  and 
Roger  Staples  from  Santa  Barbara. 


1949 


Russell  Bradlaw  is  a  construction  management 
consultant  to  Turner  Construction  Co.  on  the 
Charlotte  iNO  coliseum  to  be  built  between 
1985  and  1988. 

Thomas  Coonan  III  retired  from  Du  Pont  in 
April.  He  plans  to  remain  in  northern  Illinois  in 
the  summer  and  Cancun.  Mexico,  in  the  winter. 
"May  stay  acme  selling  in  the  plastics  field." 

Len  Fish  holds  the  post  of  senior  \  ice  presi- 
dent at  American  Gas  Assoc.  Inc..  Arlineton. 
VA. 

Howard  Tinkham  retired  as  professor  emer- 
itus from  Southeastern  Massachusetts  Univer- 
sity (SMU)  in  June.  He  joined  the  faculty  in 
1949  and  had  a  strong  hand  in  the  establishment 
of  the  mechanical  engineering  department  at 
SMU  Cued  for  his  excellence  in  engineering 
teaching,  he  headed  the  ME  department  for  18 
_nd  was  the  first  chairperson  to  prepare 
the  department  for  its  initial  professional 
accreditation  visit. 


1950 


John  Cocker,  no  longer  with  Bell  Labs,  is  now 
with  Bell  Communications  Research  in  Red 
Bank. NJ 


George  Engman.  formerly  a  paxluet  support 
engineer  for  DEC.  Maynard.  MA.  has  been 
retired  for  a  y  ear  'and  enjoying  every  minute  of 
it." 

William  Griggs  has  retired  as  president  of 
W.C.  Gnggs  Inc..  Denver.  CO. 

Arthur  Joyce  was  recently  appointed  admin- 
istrative assistant  for  the  Industrial  Polymers 
Division  of  the  Polymer  Paxiucts  Department 
of  Du  Pont.  Wilmington.  DE. 

Francis  Norton  serves  as  a  construction  site 
manager  for  Monsanto  (Carondelet)  in  St. 
Louis.  MO. 


1951 


Reunion 


June  5-8,  1986 


Mark  Baker  continues  as  a  project  engineer 
with  Hamilton  Standard  in  Los  Angeles. 

Robert  Mongilio  writes.  "My  three  sons 
ha\e  now  all  graduated  from  WPI— '81.  '84 
and  "85!" 

Charles  Peiree  is  a  senior  quality  engineer  at 
SippicanCorp..  Marion.  MA. 


1952 


Michael  Essex.  Jr..  holds  the  post  of  supervi- 
sor of  price  administration  at  Norton  Co..  Wor- 
cester. 

Chester  Inman.  Jr..  resigned  from  Kodak  in 
Rochester.  NY,  in  Ausust. 


1953 


John  Gearin  is  now  director  of  AT&T's  new 
manufacturing  de\elopment  center  in  Prince- 
ton. NJ. 


1954 


Dr.  Malcolm  McLeod  is  a  senior  scientist  with 
BTS  Inc..  Seabrook.  MD.  He  holds  an  MS  and 
PhD  from  UCLA 

William  Robinson  writes.  "Children  grown 
up  and  out.  Most  of  the  time  now  spent  with 
investments  ( self-employed »  and  travel.  Every- 
thing sood  here  in  beautiful  downtown  Bur- 
bank!" 


1955 


Edouard  Bou\  ier  holds  the  post  of  staff  man- 
ager oi  fleet  operations  at  Southern  New 
England  Telephone  in  North  Haven.  CT. 

Robert  Chang  continues  as  an  engineering 
specialist  for  Ford  Aerospace  <fc  Communica- 
tions. Palo  Alto.  CA.  He  has  an  MS  from  the 
University  of  California. 

Daniel  Grant,  an  electrical  engineer  for  Fay . 
Spofford  &  Thomdike  Inc..  Lexington.  MA. 
has  been  elected  chairman  of  the  Boston  chap- 
ter of  the  IEEE  Power  Engineering  Society  for 
1985-1986. 

Richard  Loomis  continues  as  a  senior  engi- 
neer for  GE  in  S\  racuse.  NY 


1956 


Reunion 


June  5-8,  1986 


Richard  Basil.  Jr.,  is  now  chief  scientist  for 
Hughes  Aircraft.  Los  Angeles. 

Charles  Healy  has  been  pa»moted  to  senior 
vice  president  of  the  Asia  Pacific  area  for 
Ebasco  Services  International  Inc.  He  will  be 
responsible  for  securing  new  contracts  in  the 
area,  which  is  expected  to  pw\  ide  the  electrical 
generation  and  distribution  business  with  its 
most  promising  opportunities.  Since  joining  the 
firm  in  1956.  Healy  has  served  in  a  number  of 
posts  including  supervising  engineer,  then  man- 
ager of  Standards  and  Procedures,  project  man- 
ager for  the  Angaa  Nuclear  Power  Station  in 
Brazil,  and  project  manager  for  the  Philippine 
Power  Project 

Most  recently,  he  was  managing  director  of 
Ebasco  Energy  Pty .  Ltd..  Sydney.  Australia,  a 
position  he  will  continue  to  hold  in  his  new 
capacity  with  the  company.  He  is  a  professional 
engineer  in  Massachusetts  and  Queensland. 
Australia,  as  well  as  a  fellow  in  the  Institute  of 
Engineers  Australia  and  the  Australian  Institute 
of  Energy.  He  belongs  to  the  Company  Direc- 
tors Association  of  Australia,  the  ASME  and 
the  American  Association  of  Cost  Engineers. 

Hank  Nowiek.  co-chairman  of  the  Western 
Massachusetts  Coalition  for  Safe  Waste  Man- 
agement, has  been  cited  for  his  work  in  dispos- 
ing of  and  treating  hazardous  waste  with  an 
award  from  the  Pioneer  \  alley  Planning  Com- 
mission. Hank  was  one  of  three  recognized  for 
upholding  the  commission's  goals  of  planning 
and  regional  cooperation.  An  employee  of  the 
Monsanto  Co..  he  is  also  a  member  of  the  state- 
wide Site  Safetv  Council. 


1957 


Crosby  Adams  is  on  temporary  assignment  in 
Barbados  for  a  y  ear. 

Neil  Carignan.  who  is  a  senior  naval  archi- 
tect for  CDI  Marine  Co..  Jacksonville.  FL. 
writes  that  he  is  concerned  w  ith  the  engineering 
of  ship  structures  and  foundations.  He  is  a  reg- 
istered paifessional  structural  engineer.  Tn 
1981  I  became  a  grandfather." 

Sy  Friedman  has  sold  his  interests  in  Tri-K 
Industries  and  founded  International  Sourcing 
Inc..  Ridgewood.  NJ.  which  he  serves  as  presi- 
dent. The  firm  supplies  specialty  chemicals  to 
the  food,  cosmetic  and  pharmaceutical  indus- 
tries. 

George  Prozzo  serves  as  manager  of  sales 
administration  and  support  at  Fairchild  Weston 
Systems.  Sarasota.  FL. 

Michael  Spiegel  holds  the  post  of  associate 
professor  at  New  Hampshire  Vocational  Tech- 
nical College  in  Manchester. 


1958 


Jim  Demetry.  professor  of  electrical  engineer- 
ing and  chairman  of  the  Division  of  Interdisci- 
plinary Affairs  at  WPI.  was  reelected  to  a  three- 
year  term  on  the  board  of  selectmen  in  Holden. 
MA.  in  May.  Before  being  elected  as  a  select- 
man in  1981.  he  had  served  nine  years  on  the 
Holden  planning  board.  He  currently  represents 


40       WTI  JOURNAL 


Want  to  Study  Law? 
See  the  Blodgetts! 

If  you  were  a  WPI  student  headed  for  a 
career  in  patent  law  and  wanted  to  learn 
the  ropes,  all  you'd  have  to  do  is  walk 
from  campus  down  to  the  corner  of 
Highland  and  Lancaster  streets  in  Wor- 
cester. There,  in  an  unobtrusive  brick 
house,  are  the  patent  law  offices  of 
Blodgett  &  Blodgett,  whose  doors  are 
always  open  to  WPI  students  interested 
in  careers  in  law. 

"WPI  professors  have  been  sending 
prospective  lawyers  to  us  for  advice  for 
years,"  says  Norman  Blodgett  '44  ME, 
who  heads  the  firm  which  was  started 
by  his  father,  the  late  A.  Gerry  Blodgett 
'21,  and  which  currently  includes  his 
sons,  Gerry  '69  CHE,  a  patent  lawyer, 
and  David  Blodgett  '81  MGE,  office 
manager. 

The  three-generation  family  firm  has 
counseled  dozens  of  students.  Also, 
through  WPI  connections,  the 
Blodgetts  have  been  introduced  to  other 
WPI  patent  attorneys,  including  Paul 
Kokulis  '45,  a  senior  partner  in  one  of 
the  largest  patent  law  firms  in  the 
nation,  Cushman,  Darby  &  Cushman, 
Washington,  DC.  Paul  received  the 
Goddard  Award  for  outstanding  profes- 
sional achievement  from  WPI  in  May 
1985. 

"Paul  is  one  of  the  foremost  patent 
lawyers  in  the  country,"  says  Norm. 
Other  successful  WPI  patent  attorneys 
that  the  Blodgetts  know  and  work  with 
include  Martin  Flink  '45  and  Paul 
Craig  '45,  Washington;  Bill  Dorman 
'48,  Tulsa;  Phil  Sheridan  '45,  Den- 
ver; and  Mai  Wittenberg  '68,  San 
Francisco. 

Blodgett  &  Blodgett  has  had  other 
ties  with  WPI.  Both  Norm  and  Gerry 
have  lectured  at  the  Institute  on  patent 
law.  Also,  the  firm  handled  the  legal 
affairs  for  the  old  Washburn  Shops 
when  the  facility  housed  what  was  once 
a  profitable  commercial  venture. 

"My  father  obtained  a  patent  for  a 
centrifugal  coupling  used  on  helicop- 
ters to  pick  up  loads  during  World  War 
II,"  Norm  reports.  "The  Rawson  coup- 
ling was  developed  in  the  Washburn 
Shops  and  is,  I  believe,  still  being  man- 
ufactured locally."  When  the  Shops  dis- 
continued commercial  activities  in  the 
1950s,  Blodgett  &  Blodgett  negotiated 
the  sale  of  its  patents. 

Norm's  son.  Gerry,  has  close  current 
ties  on  Boynton  Hill.  Although  he 
already  holds  both  his  BS  and  MS  in 
chemical  engineering  from  WPI,  he  is 
now  enrolled  in  the  biomedical  engi- 
neering program. 


"You  have  to  keep  studying  to  keep 
up  with  the  times  in  patent  law  and 
technology,"  he  says.  "A  few  years 
ago,  no  one  believed  living  organisms, 
computer  programs,  or  holographs 
could  be  patented  or  copyrighted.  It 
turns  out  they  can.  We  must  keep  up 
with  new  technologies  so  we  can  antici- 
pate how  the  law  will  react." 

Patent  lawyers  must  also  be  able  to 
take  a  flexible  stance  on  almost  any 
issue.  "One  day  we  may  have  to  say 
black  is  white  and  the  next  day  white  is 
black,"  says  Gerry.  "It  depends 
whether  we're  representing  the  inven- 
tor or  a  company  at  the  time.  We  also 
have  to  be  able  to  see  merit  in  a  variety 
of  pretty  strange  proposals." 

Among  the  more  exotic  proposals 
that  have  obtained  patents  through 
Blodgett  &  Blodgett  are  a  zipper  for  the 
human  body  (used  following  autop- 
sies), a  program  for  doing  computer- 
ized horoscopes  and  an  air-freshening 
snorkel  device  for  toilets. 

Some  of  the  products  didn't  sell,  of 
course,  Gerry  says,  and  some  sold  so 
fast  that  the  manufacturers  couldn't 
keep  up  with  the  demand.  "A  lot  of 
teamwork  is  involved  to  make  a  prod- 
uct  a   success    after   the    patent    is 


granted,"  he  adds.  "The  inventors,  the 
manufacturers  and  the  merchandisers 
have  to  pull  together  to  effectively 
commercialize  a  new  product  or  idea." 

Norm  and  Gerry  Blodgett,  both  grad- 
uates of  George  Washington  University 
School  of  Law,  share  an  enthusiasm  for 
their  profession  that  is  contagious. 
Although  Norm  is  thinking  of  retiring 
to  Cape  Cod,  he  doesn't  want  to  be  cut 
off  from  what's  going  on  in  Worcester: 
"With  a  home  computer  terminal  I'll 
be  able  to  keep  in  touch." 

On  the  side,  he  says,  he  hopes  to 
restore  his  1910  Crosby  catboat  and  his 
ancient  Bentley  automobile.  "I  like  my 
Bentley,"  he  remarks.  "Nobody  real- 
izes that  it's  really  a  Rolls  Royce." 

Gerry  plans  to  continue  with  the  law 
practice.  "Artists  and  inventors,  as 
well  as  businessmen,  need  to  be  pro- 
tected," he  says.  "For  centuries  crea- 
tive people  have  been  taken  advantage 
of.  Patent  lawyers  see  to  it  these  crea- 
tive people  have  protection,  allowing 
investors  to  more  safely  invest  money 
in  new  inventions  and  ideas.  This  way, 
the  ideas  are  most  effectively  and  effi- 
ciently commercialized  and  the  public 
gets  the  benefit  of  the  new  technology. 
Everybody  wins!" 


NOVEMBER  1985       41 


Metzger  Wins  National 
Jr.  Achievement  Award 

John  Metzger,  Jr.  '46,  a  WPI  trustee 
and  group  vice  president  for  Du  Pont, 
has  been  named  a  1985  winner  of  the 
Gold  National  Leadership  Award  by 
the  Junior  Achievement  (JA)  corpora- 
tion. Cited  for  "exemplary  national 
leadership  in  promoting  economic 
understanding  and  career  education 
through  Junior  Achievement,"  Metzger 
received  the  award  during  the  JA 
National  Leadership  Conference  held 
in  April  in  Cleveland. 

He  is  a  member  of  the  board  of  direc- 
tors of  Junior  Achievement  of  Dela- 
ware and  of  the  JA  national  board  of 
directors.  He  also  serves  on  the  Long- 
range  Planning  Committee  for  the 
national  board.  In  1975,  when  he  began 
his  tenure  as  chairman  of  the  Delaware 
board,  there  were  fewer  than  300  mem- 
bers in  one  program.  At  the  completion 
of  his  tenure  in  1981,  there  were  1.400 
members  in  three  programs. 

Metzger  joined  Du  Pont  in  1946  as  a 
chemical  engineer  and  subsequently 
held  technical  and  supervisory  posts  in 
various  plants  in  the  U.S.  After  serving 
as  a  new  venture  manager  with  the 
Development  Department,  he  was  pro- 


V. 


John  Metzger,  group  vice  president  at  Du  Pont. 


moted  to  director  of  the  Poromeric 
Products  Division  of  the  Fabrics  and 
Finishes  Department  and  director  of  the 
Flurocarbons  Division. 

Further  promotions  included  assis- 
tant general  manager  of  the  Polymer 
Intermediates  Department  and  of  the 
Photo  Products  Department.  Currently, 
he  is  group  vice  president  of  the  Photo- 


systems    and    Electronic    Products 
Department. 

Metzger  is  a  member  of  the  WPI  Fire 
Safety  Advisory  Committee  and  the 
Trustee  Finance  Committee.  He  is 
chairman  of  the  class  anniversary  gift 
committee.  In  1981,  he  received  the 
Goddard  Award  for  professional 
achievement  from  WPI. 


elected  public  officials  on  the  board  of  directors 
of  the  Central  Massachusetts  Health  Systems 
Agency  and  chairs  the  agency's  Projects 
Review  Committee. 

Joaquim  Ribeiro  has  been  appointed  vice 
president  of  finance  and  administration  at  Info- 
com  Inc.,  a  developer,  manufacturer  and  mar- 
keter of  software  for  personal  computers.  He 
will  be  the  financial  officer,  a  new  post  in  the 
four-year-old  firm  based  in  Cambridge,  MA. 
Previously,  he  had  been  vice  president  of  busi- 
ness development  and  financial  officer  at 
Jamesbury  Corp..  Worcester,  which  has  now 
been  acquired  by  Combustion  Engineering.  In 
Worcester.  Ribeiro  has  served  as  a  director  of 
Mechanics  Bank;  a  trustee  and  treasurer  of 
TMH  Inc.,  the  Memorial  Hospital  holding 
company;  a  visiting  committee  member  of 
Clark  University's  Graduate  School  of  Busi- 
ness; the  chairman  of  the  administrative  com- 
mittee for  the  WPI/Clark  Greater  Worcester 
Executive  Program;  and  a  trustee  of  Central 
Mass  United  Way.  A  director  of  Multibank 
Financial  Corp.,  a  parent  company  of  Mechan- 
ics Bank,  he  is  also  a  prior  officer  of  the  Wor- 
cester Visiting  Nurse  Association. 

David  Ripple  is  materials  management  man- 
ager for  Avon  Products  Inc.  He  resides  in  Fair- 
field. OH. 

Robert  Simmonds,  senior  systems  engineer 
in  the  Machinery  Division  R&D  Lab,  received 
Emhart's  Technology  Innovation  Award  on 
May  23  in  Farmington,  CT.  The  award  is  one 
of  four  given  for  outstanding  technological 
innovation  by  the  Emhart  Board  of  Directors' 
Technology  Committee.  It  acknowledges  the 
effort  and  accomplishments  of  Bob  and  others 


in  the  USM  Machinery  Division  for  the  devel- 
opment of  the  PRM  powder  reinforcing 
machine.  Introduced  in  1984,  it  was  enthusias- 
tically accepted  by  the  footwear  industry.  Bob, 
who  joined  USM  in  1960  as  a  design  engineer, 
has  worked  in  the  area  of  product  development 
and  since  1979  has  been  a  senior  systems  engi- 
neer in  R&D. 


1959 


Joe  Bronzino  wrote  "Clinical  Engineering 
Education — The  Internship  Approach."  which 
appeared  in  the  June  issue  of  IEEE  Engineering 
in  Medicine  &  Biology.  He  is  a  professor  at 
Trinity  College  and  director  of  the  joint  Trinity 
College/Hartford  Graduate  Center  Program. 

David  Holloway  is  manager  of  product  engi- 
neering at  Gemini  Valve  Co..  North  Raymond, 
NH. 

Geza  Ziegler,  a  professional  engineer,  has 
been  elected  vice  chairman  of  the  Area  9  Cable 
Council.  He  is  with  Cognitronics  Corporation 
in  Stamford,  CT. 


1960 


Jerry  Gibbs  is  now  employed  as  a  senior  cryo- 
genic engineer  by  Cryogenic  Consultants,  Inc., 
Allentown,  PA. 

Alfred  Materas,  Jr.,  serves  as  vice  president 
of  human  resources  for  AVCO  Systems  Divi- 
sion in  Wilmington.  MA. 


Bruce  Schoppe  holds  the  post  of  manager  of 
manufacturing  and  engineering  for  Free  Flow 
Packaging  Corp.,  Redwood  City,  CA. 


1961 


Reunion 


June  5-8,  1986 


Paul  Sledzik  has  been  named  manager  of  auto- 
mation programs  forGE's  Automation  Products 
plant  in  Charlottesville,  VA. 

Edmund  Wozniak  continues  as  vice  presi- 
dent and  general  manager  at  Sterling  Die/Colt 
Industries,  Cleveland,  OH.  He  has  an  MBA 
from  Babson. 


1962 


In  June,  Michael  Davis  was  awarded  his  MD 
from  the  University  of  Massachusetts  Medical 
School.  Worcester.  "I  have  the  distinction  of 
being  the  oldest  graduate  in  the  school's  his- 
tory!" Currently,  he  is  a  resident  in  radiology 
and  holds  the  dual  role  of  professor  of  radiology 
and  nuclear  medicine,  as  well  as  director  of  the 
Radiologic  Science  Research  Laboratories. 

Bernard  Meister  has  been  appointed  senior 
associate  scientist  in  the  Styrene  Molding  Poly- 
mers Laboratory,  Michigan  Applied  Science 
and  Technology  Laboratories,  Dow  Chemical. 
The  appointment  recognizes  his  technical  lead- 
ership and  contributions  to  the  process  and 
product  technology  of  styrene  plastics  and  other 


42       WPI  JOURNAL 


polymers.  Most  recently,  he  developed  a  "mas- 
ter" simulation  computer  program  for  polysty- 
rene, HIPS,  ABS  and  Tyril  styrene-acryloni- 
trile  resins,  that  is  used  around  the  world  in 
Dow  production  plants  and  technology  centers. 
Meister  joined  Dow  in  the  Special  Assignments 
Program  in  1966.  He  worked  in  the  Process 
Fundamentals  Laboratory  as  a  rheologist  from 
1968  to  1972,  when  he  transferred  to  the 
Styrene  Molding  Polymers  Lab.  He  holds  a 
PhD  in  chemical  engineering  from  Cornell. 

Currently,  William  Properzio  is  with  the 
department  of  administrative  affairs  in  the  Divi- 
sion of  Environmental  Health  and  Safety  at  the 
University  of  Florida  in  Gainesville. 

Thomas  Quinn  is  principal  sanitary  engineer 
for  the  New  York  State  Environmental  Conser- 
vation Division  of  Water  in  Albany. 


1963 


Dick  Allen  serves  as  chief  of  the  radiological 
division  for  the  U.S.  Army  Chemical  School  at 
Fort  McLellan,  AL. 

Dennis  Heath  works  as  an  industrial  prod- 
ucts specialist  at  GE  in  Plainville,  CT. 

Bryan  Leclair  holds  the  post  of  manager  of 
C3I  program  development  at  Sperry  Corp., 
Clearwater,  FL. 

Kenneth  Olsen  now  serves  as  chief  patent 
counsel  for  Schlumberger  Limited  in  New  York 
City. 

Stephen  Otis,  who  currently  resides  in  Mill 
Valley,  CA,  continues  as  vice  president  of  Mer- 
rill Lynch  Pierce  Fenner  in  San  Francisco. 

Bill  Sweetser  has  been  named  president  and 
CEO  of  Howard  P.  Foley  Enterprises  Inc.,  an 
Alexandria-based  holding  company  which  is 
affiliated  with  such  firms  as  Vista  Construction 
and  Skyline  Construction  in  Virginia,  as  well  as 
other  national  electrical,  mechanical  and  gen- 
eral contracting  companies.  A  professional 
engineer,  Sweetser  had  previously  worked  for 
Stone  and  Webster  and  Burns  and  Roe,  where 
he  was  in  charge  of  all  corporate  construction 
activities. 


1964 


Charles  Connolly,  principal  of  Lynn  (MA) 
Classical,  and  his  wife,  Alice,  recently  enjoyed 
a  trip  to  Bermuda. 

Gary  Goshgarian,  author  of  Atlantis  Fire,  a 
novel  published  in  1980  by  Dial  Press,  was 
guest  speaker  at  the  Tea  With  The  Authors  pro- 
gram presented  at  the  Scituate  (MA)  Town 
Library  in  March.  His  second  novel.  The  Stone 
Circle,  will  be  published  this  fall.  Currently, 
Gary  is  an  associate  professor  of  English  at 
Northeastern  University. 

Gene  Killian  holds  the  post  of  sales  manager 
forCPI  Plants  Inc.,  Southport,  CT. 

Harold  Monde  recently  worked  with  Don 
Zwiep,  head  of  the  ME  department  at  WPI,  at  a 
meeting  of  the  ASME  National  Nominating 
Committee. 

William  Museler  has  been  elected  vice  pres- 
ident of  Electric  Operations  of  the  Long  Island 
Lighting  Company  in  New  York.  With  the 
company  since  1973,  for  the  past  year  he  has 
served  as  assistant  vice  president  of  Electric 
Operations. 

Dr.  Robert  Peura,  professor  and  director  of 


the  biomedical  engineering  program  at  WPI, 
wrote  a  book  review  of  "Cardiovascular 
Devices  and  Their  Applications,"  which 
appeared  in  the  June  issue  of  IEEE  Engineering 
in  Medicine  &  Biology. 

Kenneth  Robbins  serves  as  an  advisory 
engineer  at  IBM  in  Research  Triangle  Park, 
NC.  He  has  an  MS  from  Union  College. 

John  Ryder  holds  the  post  of  president  of 
Fifth  Dimension  Engineering.  He  lives  in  Mas- 
sillon,  OH. 

J.  Paul  Theroux  is  with  GE  Semiconductors 
in  Syracuse,  NY. 


1965 


Lee  Chouinard  has  returned  from  a  four-year 
assignment  with  Amoco  Petroleum  Additives 
Co.  in  Geneva,  Switzerland,  where  he  was 
responsible  for  petroleum  additives  marketing 
in  Europe,  Africa  and  the  Middle  East.  Now 
residing  in  Chesterfield,  MO,  he  has  been 
named  vice  president  of  marketing  for  the  firm, 
a  wholly  owned  subsidiary  of  Amoco  Corp. 

Leo  DeBlois  continues  as  a  senior  engineer  at 
Polaroid  Corp.  in  Cambridge.  He  has  an  MS 
and  an  MBA  from  Boston  University. 

Arthur  Dickey  is  R&D  section  manager  at 
Hewlett  Packard  in  Andover,  MA. 

Philip  Giantris  is  vice  president  and  director 
of  marketing  at  Metcalf  &  Eddy  Inc.,  Woburn, 
MA. 

James  Keith  owns  and  operates  Concord 
Microsystems  Inc.,  a  software  consulting  com- 
pany. 

Larry  Phillips,  RE.,  P.S.,  a  partner  in 
the  consulting  civil  engineering  firm  of  Ham- 
montree  &  Associates  Ltd.,  North  Canton, 
OH,  has  been  named  a  fellow  in  the  ASCE. 
Only  8  percent  of  active  members  of  the  Soci- 
ety obtain  the  grade  of  fellow.  The  require- 
ments include  being  in  responsible  charge  of 
civil  engineering  projects  for  at  least  ten  years. 
Hammontree  recently  acquired  Allied  Engi- 
neers &  Surveyors  Inc.,  Lake  Wales,  FL.  Their 
services  include  environmental  engineering, 
highways,  hydraulics,  and  urban  planning  and 
development. 

Charles  Seaver  holds  the  post  of  senior  mar- 
keting programs  manager  for  the  Polyethylene 
Ethylene  Polymers  Division  at  Du  Pont  in 
Houston,  TX. 

Bruce  Yung  serves  as  a  senior  scientist  at 
Ciba-Geigy,  Summit,  NJ. 


1966 


Reunion 


June  5-8,  1986 


BORN:  to  Cheryl  and  Lawrence  Pihl  a  daugh- 
ter, Lauryl,  recently.  Lauryl  has  a  brother,  Wes- 
ley, 2.  Pihl  is  an  independent  representative  of 
RF  and  microwave  components.  He  lives  in 
Groton,  MA. 

Richard  Goodell  has  been  named  president 
and  CEO  of  Pennsylvania  Glass  Sand  Corp., 
Berkeley  Springs,  WV.  With  PGS  since  1983, 
previously  he  held  the  title  of  senior  vice  presi- 
dent of  operations.  He  had  been  with  the  miner- 
als, pigments  and  metals  division  of  Pfizer 
Corp.  Earlier  in  his  career,  he  was  with 
Sikorsky  Aircraft. 

Raymond  Hopkins  is  packaging  manager  at 


Sun-Maid  in  Fresno,  CA. 

Roberto  Huyke-Luigi  is  a  professor  in  the 
civil  engineering  department  at  the  University 
of  Puerto  Rico  in  Mayaguez. 

Skip  Kunz  holds  the  post  of  president  of 
Advent  Products,  North  Lauderdale,  FL. 

Dilip  Mistry  is  now  program  manager  for 
Ingersoll-Rand  in  Princeton,  NJ. 

Thomas  Shepelrich  has  been  appointed  to 
estimating  manager  at  McCarthy,  a  Tampa 
(FL)-based  full-service  construction  company. 
Previously  he  was  chief  estimator  for  Metric 
Constructors  Inc.  Besides  WPI,  he  attended 
SUNY  (Alfred  State). 

Robert  Zahnke  is  plant  manager  for  the 
Pepsi  Bottling  Group  in  Mesquite,  TX. 


1967 


MARRIED:  Robert  Dashner  and  Kay  Mona- 
han  in  California  on  April  13,  1985.  She  gradu- 
ated from  the  University  of  Santa  Clara  and  is  a 
personnel  specialist  at  Litton  Mellonics,  Sun- 
nyvale, CA.  He  is  president  of  Landmark  Sys- 
tems Inc.,  Cupertino. 

John  Feldman  was  recently  named  manager 
of  occupational  safety  and  health  at  Raytheon 
Company,  Lexington,  MA.  He  joined  Ray- 
theon in  1984  as  manager  of  industrial  hygiene 
and  material  safety.  Earlier  he  served  as  man- 
ager of  environmental  programs  for  eastern 
operations  for  GE's  aircraft  engine  business 
group.  Before  working  for  GE,  he  was  a  super- 
visory industrial  hygienist  with  the  Occupa- 
tional Safety  &  Health  Administration.  He  has 
an  MS  in  environmental  health  science  from 
Harvard's  School  of  Public  Health  and  an  MS 
in  chemical  engineering  from  the  University  of 
Pennsylvania.  A  registered  professional  engi- 
neer, he  is  a  member  of  the  American  Board  of 
Industrial  Hygiene  and  Sigma  Xi. 

Robert  Gohsler  serves  as  an  advisory  sys- 
tems engineer  at  IBM  in  San  Diego. 

Frank  Jodaitis  holds  the  post  of  general 
manager  and  superintendent  of  the  Plainville 
(CT)  Water  Co.  He  has  an  MBA  from  RPI. 

John  Rogozenski  is  a  real  estate  director  for 
Dunkin'  Donuts  in  Randolph,  MA. 

Dr.  Neil  Shea  has  been  appointed  associate 
professor  of  physics  at  Kutztown  (PA)  Univer- 
sity, where  he  is  in  charge  of  the  physics  pro- 
gram and  advisor  to  engineering  students.  He 
has  an  MS  and  a  PhD  from  RPI. 


1968 


Donald  Aldrich  is  a  research  associate  for  Du 
Pont  in  Wilmington.  DE. 

Paul  Arruda  serves  as  a  task  force  superin- 
tendent at  Du  Pont  in  Newark,  DE.  He  has  an 
MS  from  the  University  of  Delaware. 

Norman  Brunell  and  Bob  Seldon  '69  are 
patent  attorneys  and  partners  in  the  law  firm  of 
Brunell  &  Seldon  in  Los  Angeles. 

Daniel  Creamer,  a  registered  professional 
engineer,  is  a  project  analyst  at  United  Technol- 
ogies in  East  Hartford,  CT. 

John  Holmes,  a  science  teacher  at  Lynn 
(MA)  Classical  High  School,  writes  that  he  is 
active  with  the  Appalachian  Mountain  Club, 
serving  on  various  campgrounds  and  trails  com- 
mittees. He  also  owns  and  operates  a  small 
"home-agriculture"  business. 


NOVEMBER  1985       43 


David  Hopkinson  holds  the  post  of  produc- 
tion manager  at  Teknor  Apex  Co..  Attleboro. 
MA. 

Larry  Klein  is  with  the  Johns  Hopkins 
Applied  Physics  Lab.  in  Laurel.  MD.  He  has 
an  MS  from  Johns  Hopkins. 

Phillip  LaRoe  is  stud\  ing  for  his  PhD  in  sur- 
face physics  at  Montana  State  University. 

Raymond  Lundgren  holds  the  position  of 
project  manager  at  John  R.  Jurgensen  Co. .  Cin- 
cinnati. OH. 

Roger  Pryor  is  manager  of  information 
products  at  Energy  Conversion  Devices  Inc.. 
Troy,  MI. 

Timothy  Schaffernoth  has  been  admitted  as 
a  shareholder  to  Rist-Frost  Associates.  Glens 
Falls,  NY.  Currently,  he  is  manager  of  indus- 
trial process  and  environmental  engineering  at 
the  firm.  A  licensed  professional  engineer  in 
New  York,  he  is  also  a  member  of  the  National 
Society  of  Professional  Engineers.  TAPPI. 
Instrument  Society  of  America  and  AWWA.  He 
has  an  MS  from  the  University  of  Maine. 

Kevin  Sullivan  writes  that  he  recently  spent 
104  days  in  a  hospital  in  Seattle,  survived  leu- 
kemia, and  is  apparently  cured.  Since  May  10. 
he  has  been  home  and  is  'recovering  well."  He 
hopes  to  be  working  again  by  February. 

Scott  Wilson  is  chief  of  technical  design  at 
McGuire  AFB  in  New  Jersey. 


1969 


BORN:  to  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Neil  Glickstein  a  son. 
Zachary.  last  November.  Neil  teaches  chemis- 
try and  biology  at  Governor  Dummer  Acad- 
emy. The  Glicksteins  reside  in  Rockport.  MA. 
...  to  Pat  and  Bob  Reidy  their  second  son. 
Kevin  Michael,  on  November  9.  1984.  Ke\in 
joins  his  brother.  Brian.  2. 

Army  Lt.  Col.  Michael  Delleo,  Jr.,  has  been 
decorated  with  the  second  award  of  the  Merito- 
rious Service  Medal  at  the  U.S.  Military  Acad- 
emy at  West  Point.  An  executive  officer  with 
the  department  of  chemistry,  he  received  his 
MSfromWPI. 

Rick  Follett  serves  as  area  technical  manager 
at  Advanced  Micro  Devices,  managing  field 
engineering  for  the  firm  in  New  England.  Can- 
ada, and  upstate  New  York. 

Dr.  Emanuel  Furst  wrote  "DRGs  and  Pro- 
spective Payment:  An  Introduction  to  the  Issues 
Facing  Clinical  Engineering  Programs."  which 
appeared  in  the  June  issue  of  the  Journal  of 
Clinical  Engineering.  He  is  director  of  biomed- 
ical engineering  at  the  University  Medical  Cen- 
ter in  Tucson.  AZ.  The  department  provides  a 
full  range  of  services  to  the  teaching  hospital 
and  to  the  College  of  Medicine.  Dr.  Furst's  pri- 
mary interest  is  in  the  cost-effective  manage- 
ment of  technology  with  special  regard  to  the 
effect  of  engineering  support  at  all  stages  of  the 
medical  device  life  cycle.  He  belongs  to  the 
board  of  directors  of  the  Association  for  the 
Advancement  of  Medical  Instrumentation  and 
of  the  AAMI  Foundation.  He  is  an  associate 
editor  of  the  IEEE  Transactions  on  Biomedical 
Engineering,  a  member  of  the  editorial  review 
board  of  the  Journal  of  Clinical  Engineering, 
and  a  member  of  the  American  Society  for  Hos- 
pital Engineering.  He  holds  a  PhD  from  WPI. 

George  McCandless,  Jr.,  continues  as  assis- 
tant professor  in  the  department  of  economics  at 
Dartmouth  College.  He  has  a  PhD  from  the 
University  of  Minnesota. 


Michael  Ouellette,  an  advance  manufactur- 
ing engineer  at  General  Electric  Ordnance,  is 
also  a  partner  in  a  firm  called  Plum  Associates. 
which  is  currently  drawing  up  preliminary  plans 
for  a  firehouse  in  Cheshire.  MA.  He  is  a  regis- 
tered professional  engineer  in  Massachusetts 
and  New  York.  For  six  years  he  has  served  as  a 
member  of  the  Adams  (MA)  Zoning  Board  of 
Appeals. 


1970 


Paul  Akscyn  holds  the  post  of  regional  sales 
manager  for  Forney  Engineering  Co..  Houston. 
TX.  His  wife.  Gail,  was  recently  named  chair- 
man of  the  Houston  Symphony's  1987  Annual 
Fund  Campaign. 

Francis  Belisle  is  manager  of  the  technical 
department  at  Hughes  Aircraft  Co..  Engle- 
wood.  CO. 

John  Garvin  has  been  named  director  of  sys- 
tems development  at  State  Mutual  in  Worcester. 
He  joined  the  firm  as  an  actuarial  assistant  in 
1970,  and  was  a  systems  analyst  and  consultant 
until  1983.  when  he  was  promoted  to  manager 
of  systems  development. 

Bill  Hillner  is  currently  a  senior  staff  engi- 
neer at  EXXON  Company.  U.S.A.  in  Houston. 
TX. 

James  Lovendale  is  a  senior  consultant  with 
Comp  Tech  Inc.  in  Glastonbury.  CI. 

John  Moskel  is  a  minister  for  the  Worldwide 
Church  of  God  of  Pasadena.  CA.  He  resides  in 
Hudson.  NC. 

Raymond  Paulk  serves  as  a  senior  develop- 
ment engineer  at  Tambrands  Inc.  in  Palmer. 
MA. 

Fred  Tuttle  serves  as  manager  of  product 
engineering  at  Oak  Materials  Group  Inc.. 
Hoosick  Falls.  NY. 

Recently,  Steven  Udell  joined  Interocean 
Leasing  Ltd. .  as  general  manager  for  North  and 
South  America.  Interocean.  a  New  York  City- 
based  firm,  sells  and  leases  intermodal  trans- 
portation equipment  throughout  the  world. 

Frank  Vernile  is  now  the  structural  engineer 
for  the  City  of  Hartford  (CT)  Department  of 
Public  Works.  He.  his  wife.  Sally,  and  daugh- 
ters. Sarah,  5.  and  Heather.  3.  reside  in  East 
Hartford. 


1971 


Kenneth  Kowalchek  is  currently  a  budget  and 
management  officer  with  U.S.  Mission 
Geneva.  The  Kowalcheks  have  two  children, 
Stephen.  4.  and  Katherine.  6. 

Dr.  Amrik  "Rick"  Pabley  has  opened  a  new 
office  for  the  practice  of  ophthalmology  at  the 
Medical  Arts  Center  adjacent  to  Holden  (MA) 
Hospital.  His  special  interests  are  in  the  field  of 
microsurgery  of  the  eye,  including  extracapsu- 
lar cataract  extraction  with  lens  implantation, 
radial  keratotomy  or  surgical  treatment  of  near- 
sightedness, and  Argon  and  Yag  Laser  surgery 
for  glaucoma,  diabetes,  and  other  eye  diseases. 
He  received  his  MD  from  the  University  of 
Louisville  School  of  Medicine,  where  he  com- 
pleted a  rotating  internship  in  internal  medi- 
cine. He  also  was  a  resident  in  ophthalmology 
at  the  University  of  California  Davis  Medical 
Center.  Until  recently,  he  had  a  private  practice 
in  ophthalmology  in  Sacramento,  CA. 


Formerly  a  senior  manufacturing  engineer  for 
Anderson  Power  Products  Division  of  High 
Voltage  Engineering.  Stanley  Sotek  now  holds 
the  post  of  manager  of  industrial  engineering 
and  magnetics  at  Raytheon  in  Waltham.  MA. 
He  is  also  consulting  in  automation  to  several 
Boston  area  firms. 

Thomas  Werb  serves  as  an  engineering  spe- 
cialist at  General  Dynamics/Electric  Boat  in 
Groton.  CT. 


1972 


Stephen  Domeratzky  now  works  for  Prescott 
Drywall.  Prescott.  AZ. 

Denis  Kokernak  holds  the  post  of  president 
of  Interventional  Medical  Inc..  Danvers.  MA. 

Paul  Lavigne  is  general  manager  of  Hone- 
matic  Machine  Corp.,  Boylston,  MA.  He  has 
an  MBA  from  WPI. 

Richard  Meighan  serves  as  branch  manager 
and  sales  engineer  for  Werner  Pump  in 
Framingham.  MA. 

Recently.  John  Powers  was  promoted  to 
major  in  the  U.S.  Army  Reserve  and  says  he 
continues  to  participate  actively  in  troop  drills. 
He  is  a  senior  engineer  with  Westinghouse  in 
Pittsburgh. 


1973 


BORN:  to  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Stuart  Wallack  a  son, 
Jacob  Seth,  in  February.  Jacob  has  a  sister 
Rachel,  6,  and  a  brother  Nathan,  5. 

Bruce  Beverly  has  been  named  an  associate 
and  vice  president  of  Haley  &  Aldrich  Inc., 
consulting  geotechnical  engineers,  geologists 
and  hydrogeologists.  in  Cambridge.  MA.  He 
was  also  named  manager  of  the  firm's  tunnels 
and  underground  construction  group.  He  joined 
the  company  in  1975.  Currently,  he  is  geotech- 
nical group  chairman  of  the  Boston  Society  of 
Civil  Engineers  section  of  the  ASCE. 

Mark  Erasmus  is  now  chief  resident  in  neu- 
rosurgery at  Eastern  Virginia  Graduate  School 
of  Medicine  in  Norfolk.  He  received  his  MD 
from  UConn. 

Dave  Haflich  works  as  operations  engineer 
at  Envirotech  Operating  Services,  Suisun  City, 
CA. 

Roger  Lavallee  has  been  named  senior  con- 
sultant for  Annuity  and  Pension  Operations 
(Financial  Planning  and  Reporting)  at  Aetna 
Life  and  Casualty. 

Kenneth  Levy  holds  the  post  of  purchasing 
supervisor  at  Rogers  Corporation  in  Chandler. 
AZ. 

Barry  Mendeloff  serves  as  a  group  engineer 
for  Sundstrand  Corp.  in  Rockford.  IL. 

William  Nutter,  who  works  for  Lockheed  in 
Orlando,  FL,  is  now  senior  engineer  in  charge 
of  data  processing  system  activity  for  the  new- 
est member  of  the  Space  Shuttle  fleet.  Atlantis. 

Richard  Olson  and  his  wife,  Marieke  (Van 
den  Brande).  have  two  children  and  reside  in 
Belgium.  An  account  manager  for  CIGNA  for 
seven  years  in  Belgium,  he  writes.  "It  seems 
likely  that  I  will  remain  here  indefinitely." 

Joseph  Osgood  works  for  Abacus  Program- 
ming Corp.  in  Van  Nuys.  CA. 

William  Ploran  is  general  manager  of  Rock 
Valley  Pattern  &  Tool.  Inc.,  Holyoke,  MA. 

Stephen  Robinson,  director  of  strategic 


44       WPI  JOURNAL 


planning  for  Centronics  Corp.,  has  been  elected 
president  of  the  Community  Council  of 
Nashua,  which  serves  the  mental  health  needs 
of  citizens  in  Nashua  (NH)  and  the  surrounding 
area.  Formerly  a  vice  president  of  the  Commu- 
nity Council  and  a  member  of  Litchfield's  Bud- 
get Committee.  Robinson  is  currently  chairman 
of  the  local  selectmen.  He  is  the  charter  presi- 
dent of  the  Litchfield  Jaycees.  In  1983,  he  was 
elected  one  of  New  Hampshire's  Ten  Outstand- 
ing Young  Men. 

Mark  Whitley  holds  the  post  of  district  pro- 
duction manager  for  Mitchell  Energy  Corp.  in 
Columbus,  OH.  He  and  his  wife,  Janice,  have 
two  sons,  Matthew  and  Patrick. 

Michael  Zack  continues  as  chief  executive 
officer  of  Launder-Rite  Inc.,  Wakefield.  MA. 
He  holds  an  MBA  from  Northwestern. 


1974 


Douglas  Borgatti  is  chief  of  pollution  and 
treatment  for  Passaic  Valley  Sewage  Comm., 
Newark,  NJ. 

Kenneth  Charak,  a  technical  brand  manager 
for  Procter  &  Gamble  in  Cincinnati,  recently 
received  his  MBA  from  Xavier  University  of 
Ohio.  He  and  his  wife,  Adrienne.  have  two 
daughters,  Rachel,  8,  and  Jessica,  5. 

Richard  Corey  is  with  Pro-Tech  Alarm  Sys- 
tems in  Cheshire,  CT. 

Steve  Dacri  recently  appeared  on  "TV's 
Bloopers  and  Practical  Jokes."  and  has  been 
signed  for  appearances  on  "Good  Morning 
America,"  "Entertainment  Tonight."  "The  Fall 
Guy,"  and  "Merv  Griffin."  Part  of  Steve's  act  is 
his  famous  Houdini-type  escape  from  a  water 
torture  cell,  a  performance  which  was  televised 
live  from  Hollywood  Blvd.  in  March. 

Edward  Gordon  holds  the  post  of  systems 
analyst  and  president  of  Data  Systems  Associ- 
ates in  Sunrise,  FL. 

Richard  Grisdale  is  employed  by  Alexander 
Kusko  Inc.  in  Needham,  MA. 

Mehrdad  Habib  continues  as  a  structural 
designer  for  Stone  &  Webster  in  Boston. 

Glenn  Loomer  works  as  an  electrical  engi- 
neer for  Stone  &  Webster  in  Boston. 

Hercules  Paskaiis  holds  the  post  of  product 
manager  for  plastics  at  Vista  Chemical  Europe. 
Brussels,  Belgium. 

David  Scott  is  a  partner  in  a  new  law  firm, 
Morisi,  O'Connell  &  Scott,  which  opened 
offices  for  general  practice  of  law  in 
Springfield,  MA,  recently.  After  graduating 
from  WPI.  he  entered  the  U.S.  Army  under  a 
postgraduate  scholarship,  rising  to  the  rank  of 
captain.  For  three  years  he  was  a  law  clerk, 
then  a  member  of  the  formal  legal  staff  with 
Fein,  Schulman.  Resnic.  Pearson  &  Emond.  A 
member  of  the  Massachusetts  and  Federal  Bars, 
he  concentrates  on  probate  and  domestic  rela- 
tions matters,  as  well  as  administrative  law  and 
appellate  practice.  He  is  past  chairman  of  the 
WPI  Springfield  Regional  Program. 

William  Stafford  is  vice  president  of  Profes- 
sional Service  Industries  of  Chicago,  a  civil 
engineering  firm.  He  is  in  charge  of  the  Atlantic 
Division,  which  includes  six  offices  in  the  Car- 
olinas,  Virginia  and  Maryland. 

In  February.  Robert  Trotter  received  his 
MBA  from  Western  New  England  College. 
Springfield,  MA. 

Mary  Lynch  Voshell  works  as  a  process  engi- 
neer for  Chas.  T.  Main  Inc.,  Charlotte,  NC. 


1975 


MARRIED:  Francis  Schlegel  and  Suzanne 
Pataky  on  June  29.  1985.  in  Darien,  CT.  She 
holds  degrees  from  Southern  Connecticut  State 
College  and  the  University  of  Bridgeport  and  is 
employed  by  the  Stamford  School  System.  He 
received  his  MS  in  chemical  engineering  from 
the  University  of  New  Haven  and  is  employed 
by  UniRoyal  Geismar. 

BORN:  to  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Ed  Griffin  a  daugh- 
ter, Leslie,  on  June  27.  1985.  Leslie  has  an 
older  sister,  Sheena.  18  months  old.  In  May.  Ed 
joined  Nissho  Electronics  (U.S.A.),  Irvine. 
CA,  where  he  serves  as  a  sales  engineer.  The 
company  imports  computer  boards  from  Japan 
and  sells  them  in  the  U.S.  market.  ...  to  Mr. 
and  Mrs.  Abdul  Khan  their  third  child,  a  son, 
Ehsan.  on  March  30.  1985.  Khan  is  with  Chas. 
T.  Main  in  Nigeria. 

Arthur  Aikin  has  received  an  MS  in  engi- 
neering from  Widener  University,  Chester.  PA. 

Jon  Anderson  is  now  in  private  practice  with 
Goldstein.  Manello  &  Burak.  counsellors  at  law 
in  Burlington,  VT.  The  firm  has  offices  in  Bos- 
ton and  is  affiliated  with  another  in  Montreal. 
The  major  part  of  Jon's  practice  is  utility 
related.  Active  in  his  community,  he  previously 
served  as  vice  president  of  the  Barre  (VT)  Jay- 
cees, and  he  was  just  elected  president  of  the 
Montpelier  Kiwanis  Club.  He  is  also  vice  chair- 
man of  a  committee  to  promote  the  commercial 
and  industrial  development  of  Montpelier  and 
chairman  of  a  City  Council-appointed  commit- 
tee to  investigate  what  should  be  done  to 
improve  Montpelier's  water  system.  Jon's  wife, 
Betsy,  was  recently  named  the  Deputy  Tax 
Commissioner  for  the  State  of  Vermont. 

Robert  Andren  has  been  promoted  to 
project  manager  for  Millstone  Unit  No.  1  gen- 
eration-betterment projects  by  Northeast  Utili- 
ties in  Connecticut. 

J.  Hunter  Babcock  is  currently  a  senior 
design  engineer  with  KCR  Technology.  East 
Hartford,  CT. 

Nick  Baker,  a  mid-level  manager  at  Data 
General.  Southboro.  MA,  is  also  involved  in 
community  service  in  Shrewsbury,  where  he 
lives.  He  is  a  town  meeting  member,  a  special 
police  officer,  a  civil  defense  worker,  an 
Explorer  Scout  adviser  and  an  officer  of  the 
Rotary  Club.  He  finds  that  volunteer  organiza- 
tions are  the  true  test  of  management  skills. 

Paul  Bianchet  works  as  a  construction  engi- 
neer for  Combustion  Engineering  in  Windsor. 
CT. 

Norton  Bonaparte  has  joined  the  staff  of  the 
Institute  for  Governmental  Service  at  the  Uni- 
versity of  Maryland,  where  he  serves  as  a  man- 
agement consultant  to  municipalities,  counties 
and  state  agencies  in  the  Maryland  and  Wash- 
ington, DC,  area.  Most  recently  he  was  a  con- 
sultant on  a  special  joint  task  force  of  the  U.S. 
General  Accounting  Office  and  the  U.S. 
Department  of  Health  and  Human  Services.  In 
1977  he  received  his  master's  in  public  adminis- 
tration from  Cornell. 

Fred  Borys  is  a  real  estate  appraiser  at  Dolan 
&  Rossi  Appraisers  in  Springfield.  MA. 

Robert  Donle  continues  as  project  manager 
at  Pacific  Construction  Co.  Ltd..  Richmond. 
CA. 

Martin  Fugardi,  RE.,  is  president  of 
Fugardi  Construction  Company  Inc..  in  River 
Edge,  NJ,  a  general  contracting,  engineering 
and  construction  management  firm. 


David  Irvine  serves  as  a  physician  assistant 
at  Vassar  College.  Poughkeepsie.  NY. 

Dr.  Mohsen  Kavehrad  is  a  member  of  the 
technical  staff  at  ATT  Bell  Labs.  Holmdel,  NJ. 
Ken  Lannamann  writes  that  for  the  past  ten 
years  he's  been  a  professional  yacht  captain,  a 
job  which  has  taken  him  as  far  west  as  New 
Zealand  and  as  far  east  as  Turkey.  During  the 
last  five  years,  he  has  been  based  mainly  in  the 
Caribbean  and  the  Mediterranean  areas  where 
he  has  been  involved  in  chartering.  "At  the 
moment,"  (June  1985).  "I'm  captain  of  Cynra, 
a  Bowman  57  ketch.  I've  just  sailed  up  from  St. 
Thomas  and  even  though  it's  summer  here.  I'm 
wearing  sweaters  and  sleeping  with  blankets." 
He  says  that  his  big  news  is  that  in  June  1984. 
he  was  married. 

Stephen  Mealy  serves  as  engineering  man- 
ager for  Pilot  Corporation,  Pocasset.  MA.  a 
firm  he  founded  last  spring.  The  consulting 
firm  deals  in  product  development  and  manu- 
facturing engineering.  It  has  done  a  variety  of 
work  from  designing  and  manufacturing  a 
machine  for  an  international  filter  manufacturer 
to  produce  filter  medium  to  developing  smaller, 
bench-size  equipment  for  a  medical  supply 
manufacturer. 

Stephen  Murphy  serves  as  a  systems  engi- 
neer for  GTE  Corporation  in  Westboro,  MA. 

Richard  Newhouse  is  now  a  structural  engi- 
neer for  McDermott  Inc..  Lafayette.  LA.  The 
company  is  a  world  leader  in  the  engineering 
and  construction  of  offshore  oil  and  gas  facili- 
ties. 

Judy  Nitsch,  vice  president  and  chief  engi- 
neer of  Allen  &  Demurjian.  Inc..  Boston,  has 
been  elected  president  of  the  Boston  section  of 
the  Society  of  Women  Engineers  (SWE)  for  her 
second  year.  She  is  also  vice  president  of  the 
Boston  section  of  ASCE  and  a  member  of  both 
the  National  Society  of  Professional  Engineers 
and  the  Massachusetts  Association  of  Land  Sur- 
veyors and  Civil  Engineers. 

Alex  Vogt  serves  as  construction  supervisor 
for  WASCO  Products  Inc..  a  manufacturer  of 
skylights  in  Sanford.  ME.  The  Vogts  have  a 
daughter,  Marissa,  llh. 

Dave  Westerling  is  a  consulting  engineer  for 
the  U.S.  Fish  &  Wildlife  Service  in  Newton, 
MA. 

After  ten  years  of  service,  Jeffrey  Yu  has 
been  promoted  from  international  sales  man- 
ager for  Morse  Industrial  Corp.  to  an  interna- 
tional management  assignment  with  Emerson 
Electric  Co.  in  Beijing  (Peking).  China.  He  has 
managed  Morse's  international  sales  efforts 
since  1981. 


1976 


MARRIED:  Stephen  Anstey  and  Teresa  Boy- 
kin  in  Cocoa  Beach.  FL.  on  April  13.  1985. 
Teresa  has  a  BA  in  elementary  education  from 
the  College  of  William  &  Mary  and  a  master's 
of  education  in  administration-supervision  from 
Virginia  Commonwealth  University.  She  is 
employed  by  the  Brevard  County  School  Sys- 
tem. Stephen  continues  as  a  field  engineer  for 
GE  Ordnance  Systems  at  Cape  Canaveral,  FL. 

Alan  Briggs  holds  the  post  of  division  engi- 
neer at  Mylar  Manufacturing  in  Circleville. 
OH.  He  has  an  MBA  from  the  University  of 
New  Orleans. 

Roland  Gravel  continues  as  a  mechanical 
engineer  with  the  Department  of  the  Navy  in 


NOVEMBER  1985       45 


Washington.  DC. 

Paul  Grogan  is  a  senior  air  pollution  control 
engineer  for  the  Massachusetts  Department  of 
Environmental  Qualit\  Engineering  in  Boston. 

Bruce  Haffty,  an  oncologist,  has  completed 
his  internship  and  has  entered  his  residency  at 
Yale-New  Haven  Hospital.  He  received  his 
MD  from  Yale. 

James  Hall  has  been  promoted  to  senior 
associate  at  Index  Systems  Inc.,  a  management 
consulting  company  in  Cambridge.  MA. 

Sulekh  Jain  is  a  forging  process  engineer  for 
GE  in  Cincinnati.  He  holds  a  PhD  from  the 
University  of  Birmingham,  U.K. 

Gregory  Kedderis  serves  as  a  senior 
research  biochemist  at  Merck-Sharp  &  Dohme 
Research  in  Rahway,  NJ. 

Kenneth  Korcz  serves  as  nuclear  licensing 
engineer  for  Niagara  Mohawk  Power  Corp.. 
Syracuse,  NY. 

Charles  Lauzon  serves  as  an  economist  for 
ESSO  Chimie  in  Paris,  France. 

Wayne  Lundblad  is  a  research  engineer  for 
the  Southern  Research  Institute  in  Birmingham. 
AL. 

Donald  Moore  is  currently  with  Prime  Com- 
puter. Earlier  he  had  been  employed  at  Codex 
and  Data  Terminals. 

Roland  Moreau  has  been  promoted  to  staff 
engineer  and  transferred  to  EXXON  Co.,  USA. 
production  department,  Midcontinent  Division, 
in  the  Regulatory  Affairs  Department,  Mid- 
land. TX. 

Dr.  Kas  Pauliukonis,  who  holds  an  MD 
from  Georgetown,  is  now  a  self-employed  phy- 
sician in  Alexandria.  VA. 

Edward  Perry  II,  a  captain  with  the  U.S. 
Air  Force,  is  currently  a  doctoral  student  in  sys- 
tems engineering  at  Ohio  State  University. 


1977 


BORN:  to  Donna  and  Robert  Bowser  a  daugh- 
ter. Michelle  Yvonne,  on  September  28.  1984. 
Michelle  joins  brother  Geoffrey  who  was  born 
in  1982.  Bowser  continues  as  a  project  engineer 
with  the  Naval  Sea  Systems  Command. 

Wayne  Civinskas  is  manager  of  project 
development  at  RCA  Corporation.  Burlington, 
MA. 

Joseph  Danko  serves  as  an  optical  scientist 
at  Northrop  Corp..  Norwood.  MA.  He  has  an 
MS  from  the  University  of  Rochester  and  a 
PhD  from  Boston  College. 

Albert  DeFusco,  Jr.,  has  accepted  a  post  as 
a  chemist  in  the  research  department  of  the 
technical  division  at  the  Allegany  Ballistics 
Laboratory  of  Hercules  Inc.  in  Cumberland. 
MD.  He  has  a  PhD  in  oreanic  chemistrv  from 
UVM. 

Donald  Edwards,  assistant  to  the  president 
of  the  Yankee  Atomic  Electric  Company,  was 
co-author  of  "The  Living  Schedule.  Progress  or 
Problem."  which  appeared  in  the  June  issue  of 
Cost  Engineering.  He  started  with  the  Yankee 
organization  as  a  startup  engineer  on  the  Ver- 
mont Yankee  reactor  in  1970.  In  1973  he  was 
made  lead  operations  engineer.  In  1976  he 
became  assistant  to  the  vice  president,  responsi- 
ble for  coordination  of  licensing  for  three  oper- 
ating nuclear  plants,  and  three  years  later  he 
became  manager  of  licensing.  In  1980  he  was 
named  director  of  operational  projects  for  three 
operating  nuclear  plants.  Later  he  became 
director  of  strategic  planning  and  services  and 


assistant  to  the  president.  After  receiving  his  BS 
in  physics  from  UCLA  in  Los  Angeles,  he 
earned  his  master's  in  management  science 
from  WPI. 

Capt.  Michael  Gregory  of  the  U.S.  Air 
Force  has  been  reassigned  to  Tyndall  AFB,  FL. 
He  is  an  instructor  pilot  with  the  Second  Tacti- 
cal Fighter  Training  Squadron  and  was  previ- 
ously stationed  at  Holloman  AFB,  New  Mex- 
ico. 

Kevin  Healey  works  as  a  project  planner  for 
Carlson  Group  Inc.  in  Smyrna.  GA. 

James  Howe  was  recently  appointed  assis- 
tant to  the  regional  general  manager  of  the 
Northeast  region  for  Niagara  Mohawk  Power 
Corporation.  He  joined  the  firm  in  1977  as  a 
junior  structural  engineer  in  the  Hydro  Design 
Engineering  section  at  Syracuse.  Most  recently, 
he  was  an  associate  structural  engineer.  He  is  a 
professional  engineer  in  New  York  and  a  mem- 
ber of  the  ASCE. 

Ronald  Klimas  has  been  named  town  engi- 
neer and  assistant  director  of  public  works  in 
North  Haven,  CT.  As  assistant  director,  he  will 
oversee  the  work  of  the  zoning  enforcement 
officer  and  the  building  official.  Previously,  he 
was  employed  by  the  Veterans  Administration 
in  New  York  and  Washington.  DC. 

Gary  Loeb  is  a  results  supervisor  for  Niagara 
Mohawk  Power  Corp..  Glenmont,  NY.  Once 
the  manager  of  the  WPI  crew  team,  he  says  he's 
resuming  his  rowing  interest  by  rowing  with  the 
Organization  of  Adirondack  Rowers  &  Scullers 
(O.A.R.S.)  on  the  Hudson  River  at  Albany. 
NY. 

Anthony  Marrese  serves  as  principal  elec- 
tronics engineer  for  Sanders  Associates  in 
Nashua,  NH. 

John  Roman,  who  has  an  MS  in  electrical 
engineering  (LSI  semiconductor  design  and 
manufacture)  from  the  University  of  Vermont, 
is  currently  with  IBM  in  Boca  Raton,  FL. 

Diane  Roy  is  a  computer  programmer  at 
Giant  Food  Inc.  in  Washington.  DC. 

Jeffrey  Tingle  has  received  an  MS  in  geol- 
ogy from  Brown  University  and  plans  to  stay  at 
Brown  for  his  PhD. 

Linda  Weiss  serves  as  a  hydrologist  with  the 
U.S.  Geological  Survey  in  Urbana,  IL.  She  has 
an  MS  from  Virginia  Polytechnic  Institute. 


1978 


MARRIED:  Carlton  Klein  and  Karen  Wech- 
sler  on  June  30.  1985.  in  Belmont,  MA.  She 
has  her  BA  from  Wheaton  College,  Norton, 
MA,  and  works  for  Stride  Rite  Corporation.  A 
senior  investment  manager  for  venture  capital 
with  General  Electric  Investment  Company,  he 
is  a  graduate  of  Harvard  Business  School.  .  .  . 
Robert  Pierce,  Jr.,  to  Marita  McKendall  on 
May  26.  1985.  in  Providence,  RI.  Marita  grad- 
uated from  Boston  College  School  of  Nursing 
and  the  University  of  Pennsylvania  Graduate 
School  of  Nursing,  and  is  with  the  Visiting 
Nurse  Association  Inc.,  Providence.  Robert 
works  for  Eastern  Utilities  Associates,  Lincoln, 
RI.  .  .  .  Jennifer  Pollard  and  John  Clark  on 
May  25,  1985,  in  New  Braintree.  MA.  They 
are  both  civil  engineers  employed  by  the  New 
York  State  Department  of  Transportation  in 
Poughkeepsie. 

BORN:  to  Paul  and  Lisa  Moore  Cody  '80 
their  second  son.  John  Michael,  on  December 
23,  1984.  Brother  Richard  is  now  3.  ...  to  Eva 


and  Ken  Steinhardt  twin  daughters,  Tara  and 
Alana,  on  January  10,  1985.  Prior  to  moving  to 
Minnesota  last  year,  Eva  worked  at  WACCC 
(computer  operations)  at  WPI.  Currently,  Ken 
is  an  executive  consultant  with  the  DEC  sales 
organization  in  Bloomington.  MN.  Last  year. 
as  a  consultant  with  corporate  sales  training,  he 
taught  in  nine  countries  in  Europe  and  the  Far 
East. 

Paul  Avakian  has  been  named  marketing 
manager  fordataCon  Inc.,  the  leading  indepen- 
dent wirewrap  service  in  the  U.S.  He  is  respon- 
sible for  the  development  of  corporate  market- 
ing plans  and  strategies,  as  well  as  advertising 
and  sales  promotion.  In  addition,  he  has 
assumed  responsibility  for  dataCon's  CAE- 
related  product  areas.  Formerly,  he  was  a 
senior  product  marketing  engineer  with  the 
microcomputer  division  of  NEC  Electronics. 
He  holds  an  MBA  from  Babson. 

Ian  Cannon  is  currently  working  as  a  sys- 
tems engineer  in  welding  robotics  for  Rockwell 
International,  Canoga  Park,  CA.  He  is  respon- 
sible for  the  development  and  implementation 
of  state  of  the  art  sensors  which  determine  weld 
penetration  in  real  time.  These  sensors,  robots 
and  associated  controls  will  be  used  to  improve 
manufacturing  productivity  for  the  Space  Shut- 
tle main  engines.  As  a  side  business,  he  teaches 
windsurfing.  The  Cannons  have  a  son,  Taylor 
Douglas,  2. 

John  DiBiasi  currently  holds  the  post  of 
engineering  manager  for  Sikorsky  Aircraft  in 
Stratford,  CT. 

Pat  Donahue,  a  liaison  engineer  for  Du 
Pont,  is  working  on  a  project  to  immobilize 
high-level  radioactive  waste  in  bordsilicate 
glass.  He  writes  that  Du  Pont  has  subcontracted 
Bechtel  National  to  design  the  defense  waste 
processing  facility  to  be  built  at  the  Savannah 
River  site  which  Du  Pont  manages  for  the  U.S. 
DOE.  The  $910  million  plant  is  scheduled  to 
start  up  in  1989. 

John  Downes  serves  as  senior  sanitary  engi- 
neer for  the  Massachusetts  Dept.  of  Environ- 
mental Quality  Engineering  in  Springfield.  Last 
April  he  moved  from  Kentucky  back  to  Massa- 
chusetts, where  he  has  started  to  work  for 
DEQE's  Springfield  office  on  hazardous  waste 
issues  and  projects. 

Mark  Duchesne  holds  the  post  of  manager 
of  technology  programs  at  Harris  Graphics 
Corp.,  Melbourne,  FL. 

William  Emerson  holds  the  post  of  vice 
president  of  Sterling  Enterprises  in  Leominster, 
MA. 

Bruce  Filgate  is  a  consultant-engineer  for 
DEC  in  Shrewsbury,  MA. 

James  Fisher  is  a  design  supervisor  for  vehi- 
cle test  equipment  at  Hamilton  Test  Systems, 
Tucson,  AZ. 

Mark  Freitas  works  as  a  senior  engineer  for 
Codex  Corp..  Mansfield.  MA. 

William  Gagne  is  a  project  engineer  at 
Cochrane  Associates  Inc.,  Boston. 

Carl  Gerstle  continues  with  DEC  in  May- 
nard,  MA.  where  he  is  a  principal  engineer. 

Richard  Gottlieb,  an  engineer  estimator  for 
Perini  Corp.,  is  currently  located  in  Helwan, 
Egypt. 

Last  year,  Austin  Kalb  received  an  Ameri- 
can Vacuum  Society  scholarship  for  research  in 
optical  thin  film  deposition.  He  is  with  Rock- 
well International  in  Anaheim,  CA. 

Stephen  Koch,  who  holds  the  post  of  vice 
president  of  software  engineering  at  Cadnetix 
Corp.,  Boulder,  CO.  wrote  "Improved  CAE  to 


46       WPI  JOURNAL 


CAD  Communication  Smooths  Design,"  which 
was  published  in  the  June  issue  of  Computer 
Design. 

Yun-Shang  Lin,  who  has  been  employed  by 
the  Ford  Motor  Company's  Scientific  Research 
Laboratory,  Dearborn,  MI,  has  received  his 
PhD  in  engineering  science  from  the  University 
of  Toledo  in  Ohio.  He  has  an  MS  in  chemical 
engineering  from  WPI.  The  Lins  have  two  chil- 
dren. 

Bettina  Tuttle  Potter  continues  as  engineer- 
ing manager  at  Polyclad  Laminates  in  West 
Franklin,  NH. 

Gary  Sowyrda  has  been  promoted  to  senior 
supervisor  in  charge  of  acquiring  oil  and  gas 
properties  for  the  Central  Division  of  EXXON 
in  Houston,  TX.  His  area  extends  from  north  of 
Houston  to  Canada  and  west  of  Ohio  to  the 
Rockies. 

Paula  Stoll  serves  as  a  research  scientist  for 
Kodak  in  Rochester,  NY.  She  has  a  PhD  from 
the  University  of  Illinois. 

Ricardo  Wever  sends  "Regards  from 
Aruba." 


1979 


MARRIED:  Raymond  DiMuzio  and  Karen 
Sprinkle  on  May  18,  1985,  in  Salisbury,  NC. 
Karen  graduated  from  Salisbury  Business  Col- 
lege and  Southeastern  Academy.  She  is  a  travel 
consultant  with  Trans-Charlotte  Inc.  Raymond 
serves  as  an  engineering  supervisor  for  National 
Starch  and  Chemical  Corp.  .  .  .  Stephen  Les- 
niewski  and  Anna  Kiljanska  in  Warsaw, 
Poland,  recently.  Anna  and  Stephen  are  fifth- 
year  veterinary  students  in  Warsaw. 

BORN:  to  Kim  and  Mark  McCabe  a  daugh- 
ter, Sarah  Elizabeth,  on  Christmas  Day,  1984. 
Mark  serves  as  a  project  manager  for  Wendel 
Kent  &  Company.  He  and  his  family  reside  in 
Sarasota,  FL. 

Donald  Abells  continues  with  Raytheon  in 
Sudbury,  MA. 

Kent  Backe  has  changed  jobs  and  is  now  a 
member  of  the  technical  staff  at  Pathway 
Design  Inc.,  Wellesley,  MA.  The  firm 
develops  computer  networking  software. 


Seott  Booth  works  as  a  project  engineer  at 
Turner  Construction  Co.,  Philadelphia. 

Jack  Craffey  writes,  "I'm  making  millions 
of  video  cassettes  for  Minnesota  Mining  & 
Manufacturing  in  the  great  town  of  Wahpeton, 
ND." 

Charles  Curtis  works  for  the  Common- 
wealth Electric  Company  in  Wareham,  MA. 

Michael  De  La  Cruz  holds  the  post  of  direc- 
tor of  manufacturing  technology  at  Apple  Com- 
puter in  Fremont,  CA. 

Douglas  DeSimone,  who  received  his  PhD 
from  Dartmouth  in  June,  is  now  a  National 
Institutes  of  Health  postdoctoral  research  fellow 
at  the  Center  for  Cancer  Research  and  Depart- 
ment of  Biology  at  MIT. 

Andrew  Faiss  received  his  MBA  from  RPI 
in  June. 

Alwyn  Fitzgerald  holds  the  post  of  vice 
president  of  marketing  for  Connecticut  Valley 
Biological  Supply,  Southampton,  MA. 

Peter  Greer  is  a  production  engineer  for 
American  Cyanamid  Co.,  Willow  Island,  WV. 

Scott  Hansen  was  recently  promoted  to  man- 


Former  Presidential 
Advisor  Captains 
Worcester  Codes 

Ten  years  ago  the  City  of  Worcester 
had  one  of  the  worst  building  code 
inspection  departments  in  Massachu- 
setts, according  to  state  inspectors. 
Today,  the  inspectors  point  to  the  Wor- 
cester building  department  as  one  of  the 
best  in  the  state.  And  most  of  the  credit 
for  the  transformation  goes  to  Norton 
Remmer  '60  CE,  city  code  commis- 
sioner. 

When  Remmer  arrived  on  the  scene 
nine  years  ago,  there  were  virtually  no 
inspections,  he  says  today.  "The  city 
didn't  even  know  about  half  the  lodg- 
ing houses  in  existence.  Two-thirds  of 
what  appeared  on  building  permits  was 
obsolete,  and  no  certificates  of  occu- 
pancy were  awarded."  The  manage- 
ment of  the  department  was  in  a  word, 
he  says,  "informal." 

Remmer  had  the  credentials  to  turn 
things  around.  One  of  the  reasons  Wor- 
cester hired  him  was  because  he'd  just 
written  the  state  building  code.  A  pro- 
fessional engineer  with  degrees  from 
Yale  and  Oxford,  he  had  worked  as  a 
consultant  with  governmental  and  pro- 
fessional agencies  and  as  a  member  of  a 
commission  in  Saudi  Arabia.  He  served 
as  a  science  and  technology  consultant 
for  former  President  Gerald  Ford  and 
taught  at  Oxford  University  in 
England.  He  still  teaches  part  time  at 
WPI  and  is  widely  published  in  the 
field  of  earthquake-resistant  building 
design. 

Remmer  smiles  when  asked  why  he's 
chosen  Worcester  to  practice  his  trade. 

"It's  been  interesting,"  he  says.  One 


"interesting"  aspect  has  been  his 
involvement  with  the  construction  of 
the  Centrum  in  Worcester,  the  city's 
popular  auditorium  and  civic  center.  "It 
was  an  impossible  situation,"  he 
reports.  "There'd  be  up  to  five  design 
changes  a  week  and  I  wouldn't  receive 
any  of  them."  Nevertheless,  the  Cen- 
trum was  completed  and  has  served  as 


the  centerpiece  of  a  revitalized  down- 
town Worcester. 

A  project  manager  for  a  local  con- 
struction firm  sums  up  Remmer's  con- 
tributions to  Worcester's  Code  Inspec- 
tion Department  by  saying,  "He's 
smart  and  can  rule  the  roost.  Before  he 
got  here,  the  department  was  a  ship 
without  a  captain." 


NOVEMBER  1985       47 


ufacturing  supervisor  of  Intermediates  at  Mon- 
santo's  Decatur  (AL)  plant.  With  Monsanto 
since  1979.  he  has  served  as  a  process  engineer 
in  acrilan  manufacturing  and  was  promoted  to 
senior  process  engineer  in  1983.  He,  wife  Les- 
lie, and  their  daughter  reside  in  Decatur. 

John  Haponik  serves  as  a  plant  engineer  at 
Spencer-Kellogg  in  Valley  Park.  MO. 

Robert  Hart  serves  as  marketing  manager  of 
power  line  filters  for  Cornell  Dubilier  (CDE)  in 
Santa  Monica.  CA. 

Henry  Hazebrouck,  a  staff  engineer  at 
Priam  Corp..  San  Jose.  CA.  was  co-author  of 
"Half-Height  Drive  Packs  70M-Byte  Power." 
which  appeared  in  the  February  issue  of  Mini 
Micro  Systems.  Before  going  to  Priam,  he 
designed  disk-drive  actuators  and  magnetic  tape 
transports  at  Ampex. 

Bill  Herman  holds  the  post  of  manager  at 
Arthur  Andersen  Company.  Hartford.  CT. 

Robert  Howe  is  now  a  senior  design  engi- 
neer for  Hamilton  Standard.  Windsor  Locks. 
CT. 

Bruce  Jenket,  a  quality  engineer  for  Varian 
Associates  of  Palo  Alto.  CA.  is  also  a  student  at 
the  micro  campus  of  the  University  of  Arizona 
in  Tucson.  He  spent  five  years  in  the  Navy. 

Richard  Jenkins  is  now  a  civil  engineer  for 
PRC  Engineering  in  Iselin,  NJ. 

Capt.  Steve  Kanevski  has  been  decorated 
with  the  U.S.  Air  Force  Commendation  Medal 
at  Mountain  Home  AFB.  Idaho.  The  medal  is 
awarded  to  those  individuals  who  demonstrate 
outstanding  achievements  or  meritorious  ser- 
vice in  the  performance  of  their  Air  Force 
duties.  Kanevski  is  an  instructor  navigator  with 
the  391st  Tactical  Fighter  Squadron. 

Tony  Marini  serves  as  a  senior  design  engi- 
neer at  Micro  Networks  in  Worcester.  Cur- 
rently, he  is  completing  his  MSEE  degree  at 
WPI. 

Gail  D'Amico  Mason  and  her  husband. 
Mark  Mason,  were  the  first  married  team  to 
receive  veterinary  medical  degrees  from  Tufts 
University.  During  graduation  ceremonies  held 
last  spring.  Gail  received  the  American  Animal 
Hospital  Association's  Small  Animal  Practi- 
tioners' Award  for  clinical  proficiency.  She 
holds  an  MS  from  Mount  Sinai  School  of  Medi- 
cine. Her  husband  graduated  from  Bowdoin 
and  has  an  MS  from  UConn.  The  couple  has 
accepted  one-year  internship  posts  in  medicine 
and  surgery  with  the  West  Los  Angeles  Veteri- 
nary Medical  Group  in  California.  Eventually 
they  hope  to  practice  in  Connecticut. 

Jeffery  Mills  is  a  senior  engineer  in  the  Elec- 
tric Boat  Division  at  Groton.  CT. 

Kaveh  Pahlavan  wrote  "Wireless  Commu- 
nications for  Office  Information  Networks," 
which  appeared  in  the  June  issue  of  IEEE  Com- 
munications Magazine. 

Tom  Rockwood  serves  as  department  man- 
ager, disposable  diapers,  for  Procter  &  Gamble 
in  Mehoopany,  PA. 

James  Sears  holds  the  post  of  supervisor  of 
projects  and  industrial  engineering  at  Norton 
Co..  Worcester. 

Rich  Seifert  works  as  a  consulting  engineer 
for  Industrial  Networking  Inc.  in  Santa  Clara, 
CA. 

Joe  Silva  is  a  test  engineer  at  Computervision 
in  Bedford,  MA. 

Alan  Smelewicz  is  with  Associated  Electro- 
Mechanics  in  Springfield,  MA. 

John  Wheeler  holds  the  post  of  president 
and  director  of  Lytton  &  Tolley  Inc.,  a  general 
contracting  company  in  Citrus  County.  FL. 


1980 


MARRIED:  Allison  Averv  and  James  Powers 
III  on  May  18.  1985.  in  Granby.  CT.  Allison  is 
a  support  engineer  for  Stone  &  Webster,  where 
James,  a  Northeastern  graduate,  is  also  an  engi- 
neer. .  .  .  John  Cermenaro  to  Maria  Scalise 
recently.  Maria  graduated  from  Union  College 
with  a  BSCS.  John,  who  is  a  sales  engineer  of 
movable  shelving  systems  for  Spacesaver  Sys- 
tems in  Santa  Fe  Springs,  CA.  still  plays  drums 
for  a  rock  'n*  roll  band.  .  .  .  Brian  Chapman 
and  Maria  Salarda  in  May.  Brian  is  a  field  engi- 
neer at  Nine  Mile  Point  Unit  2  nuclear  power 
plant.  .  .  .  Frances  Fortin  and  Erik  Rasmus- 
sen  on  June  8.  1985,  in  Great  Falls.  VA. 
Frances  receives  her  MS  from  George  Wash- 
ington University  this  year.  Erik  graduated 
from  Rutgers  and  has  an  MS  from  George 
Washington  University.  They  are  structural 
engineers  at  the  David  Taylor  Naval  Ship 
Research  and  Development  Center  in  Bethesda, 
MD.  .  .  .  William  Guilfoile.  Jr.,  and  Elizabeth 
Donovan  in  Quincy.  MA.  on  April  27.  1985. 
Betty  graduated  from  Regis  College  and  is  a 
private  consultant  for  Military  Information  Sys- 
tems. William,  chief  controls  engineer  for 
Bodine  Corp.,  Bridgeport,  CT,  is  studying  for 
his  MBA  and  MSCS  at  the  Hartford  Graduate 
Center. 

MARRIED:  Bruce  Jacobson  and  Maria 
Hickey  in  Worcester  on  May  19.  1985.  Maria, 
a  graduate  of  Boston  College  Law  School  and 
Manhattanville  College,  recently  passed  the 
Massachusetts  Bar  examination.  Bruce,  general 
manager  and  special  equipment  engineer  for 
Photopanels  of  New  England  Inc.,  Princeton. 
MA,  is  an  MBA  candidate  at  WPI.  He  was 
recently  elected  to  a  three-year  term  on  the 
Princeton  Planning  Board.  He  is  also  vice  presi- 
dent of  the  Princeton  Business  Association  and 
a  captain  and  emergency  medical  technician  for 
the  local  fire  department.  .  .  .  Peter  LaBelle 
and  Julia  Reed,  an  alumna  of  the  University  of 
Nebraska,  on  July  6,  1985.  Julia  works  for 
Texas  Instruments  as  a  mathematician.  Peter  is 
with  Bell  Northern  Research  in  Richardson, 
TX.  .  .  .  Susan  Lowney  and  Dr.  Roy  Bon- 
durant  in  Wayland,  MA.  Susan,  who  has  an 
MSEE  from  WPI,  also  graduated  from  Clark. 
Roy  holds  degrees  from  MIT.  Both  are 
employed  at  M.I.T.  Lincoln  Laboratory,  Lex- 
ington, MA.  .  .  .  Donald  MacKinnon  HI  to 
Leslie  Potter  in  Osterville,  MA,  on  June  1, 
1985.  Leslie,  a  nursery  school  teacher,  has  an 
associate's  degree  from  Endicott  College  and  a 
bachelor's  degree  from  Bridgewater  State  Col- 
lege. Donald  works  for  New  England  Tele- 
phone Co.  .  .  .  Louis  Palecki  and  Michele 
Bordogna  on  May  26,  1985.  in  Shrewsbury, 
MA.  A  certified  public  accountant,  she  gradu- 
ated from  Holy  Cross  and  is  a  master's  degree 
candidate  at  Babson  College.  He  serves  as  a 
senior  systems  engineer  at  Killmorgen  Corp., 
Northampton,  MA. 

BORN:  to  Lisa  and  Ron  Lesnikoski  a  son, 
Steven  Andrew,  on  January  16,  1985.  Ron  is 
now  a  senior  applications  engineer  at  Megatest 
Corp.  ...  to  Bonnie  and  Peter  Schoonmaker  a 
son,  Christopher  Mark,  on  April  23.  1985.  The 
Schoonmakers  reside  in  Woburn,  MA. 

John  Apostolou  is  a  body  panel-bumper 
development  engineer  at  Du  Pont. 

Craig  Autio  is  currently  with  Controlonics 
Corporation  in  Westford,  MA. 

Amos  Barnes  works  for  Southern  Connecti- 


cut Gas  Co.  in  Bridgeport. 

Raymond  Cronin,  who  recently  graduated 
from  Harvard  Business  School,  is  now  regional 
manager  for  Megatest  Corporation. 

Thomas  De  Bellis  serves  as  a  systems  pro- 
grammer at  Columbia  University.  New  York 
City. 

Duane  Delfosse,  who  received  his  MS  in 
materials  science  from  Stanford  University  in 
December,  is  now  a  senior  associate  engineer 
for  IBM  in  San  Jose.  CA. 

David  Drevinsky  has  completed  all  require- 
ments for  an  MS  in  environmental  engineering 
from  Northeastern  University. 

Curtis  Dudley  is  now  with  AT&T  Technolo- 
gies. Boston. 

David  Fox  left  Digital's  Software  Engineer- 
ing Group  two  years  ago  and  is  now  with  the 
firm's  Software  Services  Group  in  the  Bedford, 
NH,  sales  and  service  office.  In  January  he  was 
promoted  to  senior  software  specialist  and  in 
June  celebrated  his  fifth  year  with  Digital. 

Cathryn  Ricci  Giunta  has  been  promoted  to 
project  specialist  for  field  service  at  DEC  in 
Woburn,  MA. 

Dave  Gura  was  recently  advanced  from  gen- 
eral field  engineer  to  sales  engineer  at  Schlum- 
berger  Well  Services  in  Corpus  Christi,  TX. 

James  Gustafson  is  a  senior  engineer  at 
United  Technologies  in  Springfield.  MA. 

Douglas  Hawks  serves  as  a  microelectronic 
packaging  engineer  for  DEC  in  Marlboro.  MA. 

David  Hazen  has  joined  the  Advanced  Sys- 
tems Group  of  Aerodyne  Research  Inc.  as  an 
applied  mathematician.  He  will  work  in  the 
area  of  infrared  background  and  aircraft  signa- 
ture phenomonology.  He  has  an  MS  in  applied 
mathematics  from  MIT. 

Greg  Heath  works  as  a  senior  staff  engineer 
for  Metcalf  &  Eddy  in  Wakefield,  MA. 

Mike  Herberg  holds  the  post  of  manager  of 
silicone  technology  at  Emerson  &  Coming 
Inc.,  Lexington,  MA. 

James  Idelson  is  now  associated  with  Ana- 
log Devices. 

Paul  Kidder  is  studying  for  his  MS  in  man- 
agement at  Purdue  University. 

Gareth  Kucinkas  is  a  manufacturers'  repre- 
sentative in  the  aerospace/military  market. 

Edward  Kurdziel  is  now  with  Combustion 
Engineering  in  Windsor,  CT. 

Capt.  Stephen  Lawry  has  been  decorated 
with  the  second  award  of  the  Air  Force  Com- 
mendation Medal.  He  is  an  assistant  professor 
of  aerospace  studies  at  St.  Joseph's  University 
in  Philadelphia.  He  has  a  master's  degree  from 
WPI. 

Don  Maki  now  holds  the  post  of  project 
engineer  at  Ahlstrom  Machinery  Inc.,  Glens 
Falls,  NY. 

Serge  Molinari  is  area  supervisor-power  at 
Du  Pont  in  LaPlace,  LA. 

In  June.  Art  O'Leary  received  his  MSME 
from  Northeastern  University. 

William  Perkins  serves  as  a  project  engineer 
for  ARDC  in  Dover.  NJ. 

Rodney  Poole  is  now  employed  by  the 
Michelin  Tire  Corporation,  Greenville,  SC. 

Joseph  Roberts  currently  serves  as  a  princi- 
pal planner  for  Woodbridge  Township,  NJ.  He 
had  been  with  the  Morris  County  Planning 
Board  for  three  years. 

Martin  Rowe  serves  as  supervisor  of  techni- 
cal support  for  Varian/Extrion,  Gloucester, 
MA.  He  joined  the  company  in  February. 

George  Tobin  has  been  employed  as  an 
investment  counselor  with  the  Shrewsbury.  NJ, 


48       WPI  JOURNAL 


office  of  First  Investors  Corp.  of  New  York 
City. 

Michael  Vicens  is  a  test  engineer  manager 
for  Storage  Technology  Corp.,  Ponce,  Puerto 
Rico. 

Scott  Wade  received  his  MBA  from  Drexel 
University  in  Philadelphia  in  June.  He  is  now  a 
staff  industrial  engineer  for  Texas  Instruments 
Inc.,  Attleboro,  MA. 

Pamela  Wright  serves  as  a  senior  research 
biologist  at  Lever  Research  Inc.,  Edge  water, 
NJ. 


1981 


MARRIED:  Gregory  Stanford  and  Melissa 
Park  in  Columbia,  MD,  on  November  17, 
1984.  Melissa  graduated  from  Mount  Holyoke 
College  with  a  BA  in  French  literature.  She  is  a 
linguist  for  the  Department  of  Defense.  Greg 
still  works  at  Greiner  Engineering  in  Baltimore 
where  he  is  currently  with  the  geotechnical 
engineering  department. 

BORN:  to  Christopher  and  Judy  Batchelor 
Paquette  a  daughter,  Rebecca  Anne,  on  Sep- 
tember 27,  1984.  Judy  is  an  analytical  engineer 
at  Hamilton  Standard  in  Farmington,  CT.  .  .  . 
to  Ray  and  Lynn  Dunphy  Perigard  '82  a 
daughter,  Danielle,  on  June  13,  1984.  Ray 
serves  as  a  process  development  engineer  for 
Union  Carbide  in  Tarrytown,  NY. 

Arthur  Sainton  is  now  a  test  equipment 
engineer  for  Raytheon  in  Portsmouth,  RI. 

Timothy  Bazinet  is  with  the  Los  Angeles 
County  Public  Works. 

Capt.  Daniel  Beliveau,  USA,  graduated 
from  the  Infantry  Officers'  Advance  Course  in 
February.  Currently,  he  is  responsible  for 
development  of  Special  Forces  training  and 
evaluation.  Dan,  who  is  stationed  at  Fort 
Bragg,  NC,  resides  with  his  wife,  Terry,  in 
Fayetteville. 

Joseph  Celentano  recently  received  the 
Bechtel  Award  of  Merit  for  an  article  which 
appeared  in  the  magazine,  PC  World.  Joe  is  a 
microcomputer  applications  specialist  for 
Bechtel  in  San  Francisco.  Currently,  he  is  in 
Riyadh,  Saudi  Arabia,  consulting  on  the  King 
Khaled  International  Airport  project. 

Paul  Chetham  has  received  his  MD  degree 
from  the  University  of  Massachusetts  Medical 
School,  Worcester.  He  will  serve  his  residency 
in  internal  medicine  at  George  Washington  Uni- 
versity Hospital. 

James  Connor  holds  the  post  of  product 
marketing  manager  at  Gould/AMI  Semicon- 
ductors in  Santa  Clara,  CA. 

Thomas  Cotton  currently  holds  the  title  of 
manager  of  modem  development  at  Infinet  Inc. , 
Andover,  MA.  He  is  married  to  Rhonda  Lynne 
Bolivar,  a  graduate  of  Hartwick  College. 

Eleanor  Cromwick  is  an  estimator  for 
Turner  Construction  Co.  in  Washington,  DC. 

Rick  Cunneen  has  been  promoted  to  interna- 
tional sales  manager  at  Morse  Industrial  Corpo- 
ration, having  most  recently  worked  in  San 
Francisco  and  Philadelphia  for  the  firm.  He  is 
located  in  Ithaca,  NY. 

Daretia  Davis  is  a  research  engineer  for 
EXXON  Production  Research  Co.,  Houston. 

Bradford  Drury  has  graduated  from  UMass 
Medical  School  and  is  now  continuing  his  train- 
ing with  the  Department  of  Surgery  at  Massa- 
chusetts General  Hospital. 

Russell  Ellis  is  a  product  engineer  for  The 


Foxboro  Co.,  Plymouth,  MA. 

Richard  Laflamme  works  as  a  manufactur- 
ing analyst  for  Teradyne  Connection  Systems  in 
Nashua,  NH. 

Paul  Laurienzo  is  a  test  engineer  at  Ray- 
theon Co.,  Waltham,  MA. 

Dennis  Moulton  is  with  Stone  &  Webster  in 
Shippingport,  PA. 

David  Normen  returned  in  September  from 
an  8-month  "great  adventure"  of  hiking,  cross- 
country skiing,  and  mountain  climbing,  includ- 
ing Mt.  McKinley  in  Alaska. 

Michael  Pugh  holds  the  post  of  project  engi- 
neer for  Burroughs  Corp.,  San  Diego,  CA. 

Stuart  Ross  serves  as  manager  of  R&D  at 
Gridcomm  Inc.,  Ridgefield,  CT. 

Maryanne  Valinski  Spillane  is  a  support 
engineer  with  Stone  &  Webster,  temporarily 
assigned  to  the  Millstone  power  plant.  Water- 
ford,  CT. 

Peter  Tiziani  is  pursuing  an  MSME  at  the 
University  of  Connecticut. 

Jeff  Trask  has  transferred  to  the  process 
engineering  division  of  Chevron  USA  at  the 
firm's  El  Segundo,  CA,  refinery. 

Gary  Winer,  who  holds  a  JD  from  New 
England  School  of  Law,  is  now  a  patent  attor- 
ney with  Dennison  Mfg.  Co.,  Framingham, 
MA.  He  and  his  wife,  Soheyla,  reside  in 
Ashland,  MA. 


1982 


MARRIED:  Bob  Addiss  and  Doreen  Daly  at 
Castle  Hill  in  Ipswich,  MA,  on  May  24,  1985. 
The  wedding  took  place  over  live  television  on 
Channel  5's  "Good  Day  Show,"  which  is  aired 
in  New  England.  Doreen  graduated  from 
Chelmsford  High  School  and  works  in  the 
design  department  of  The  Leather  Shop,  West 
Concord,  MA.  Bob  is  an  electrical  engineer  at 
Transkinetic  Systems  Inc.  in  Canton.  .  .  .  John 
Hanly  and  Michele  Giard  in  Leicester,  MA, 
on  June  1,  1985.  Michele,  who  did  graduate 
study  at  the  University  of  Connecticut,  is  a 
structural  engineer  with  Christopher  Marx 
Associates,  New  Haven,  CT.  John  serves  as  a 
process  engineer  at  Pfizer  Chemical  Company 
in  Groton,  CT.  .  .  .  Mark  Jennings  to  Cheryl 
Machado  in  Dracut,  MA,  on  April  13,  1985. 
She  attended  the  University  of  Lowell  and  is  a 
production  control  coordinator-expeditor  at 
Wang  Labs,  Lowell,  where  he  is  a  software 
engineer.  .  .  .  David  Pecevich  and  Brenda 
McQuillan  in  Auburndale,  MA,  on  June  15, 
1985.  She  graduated  from  Clark  University, 
Worcester.  He  serves  as  a  field  engineer  with 
the  Square  D.  Company. 

Donald  Aitken  has  been  commissioned  a 
second  lieutenant  in  the  U.S.  Air  Force  upon 
graduation  from  OTS  at  Lackland  AFB,  TX. 
He  is  stationed  at  Keesler  AFB,  MS. 

Jane  Bulejcik  Becker  holds  the  post  of  dis- 
tribution assistant  at  Eastern  Edison  Co., 
Brockton,  MA. 

Michael  Bickford  recently  accepted  a  post 
as  sales  representative  in  the  Detroit  area  for 
Data  General  of  Birmingham,  MI. 

Jay  Dempsey  is  a  machine  engineer  special- 
izing in  industrial  ultrasonic  applications  at 
Kodak  in  Rochester,  NY. 

No  longer  with  Florida  Power  &  Light,  John 
Dougherty  is  now  an  associate  engineer  in  the 
facilities  engineering  department  at  IBM  in  East 
Fishkill,  NY. 


Brian  Dunne  is  a  design  engineer  for  Wes- 
tinghouse  in  Baltimore,  MD.  He  has  been  on 
leave  as  a  research  assistant  at  MIT. 

Drew  Erickson  is  an  associate  engineer  at 
IBM  in  Hopewell  Junction,  NY. 

Brian  Haendiges  serves  as  an  actuarial  asso- 
ciate at  Union  Mutual  Life  in  Portland,  ME. 

Nils  Jacobson  is  a  process  engineer  with 
ECC  Corporation,  Holden,  MA.  The  firm  man- 
ufactures high-density  multi-layer  and  double- 
sided  printed  circuit  boards. 

Richard  Nicholson  works  for  Martin 
Marietta  in  Denver,  CO. 

Steven  Oxman,  who  holds  an  MSCS  from 
WPI  and  a  BS  from  the  University  of  Mary- 
land, wrote  "Selecting  a  DBMS  for  Large  Sys- 
tems—A Real-Life  Case  Study,"  for  the  Octo- 
ber 1984  issue  of  Data  Management.  His  career 
has  included  data  processing  and  computer  sci- 
ence positions  in  the  public  sector. 

Timothy  Roughan  is  a  consumer  service 
representative  for  Mass.  Electric  in  Leominster, 
MA. 

John  Sansoucy  works  as  a  manufacturing 
engineer  for  Parametrics  in  Orange,  CT. 

George  Schultheiss  is  with  Natick  R&D 
Center,  Natick,  MA. 

Ingrid  Slembek  was  recently  promoted  to 
senior  software  engineer  at  DEC's  midrange 
systems  group  in  Littleton,  MA. 

Garrett  Thompson  works  in  CEO  develop- 
ment for  Data  General  in  Westboro,  MA. 

Janice  Thornton  is  a  senior  industry  associ- 
ate for  The  Foxboro  (MA)  Co. 

Steve  Tuch  is  with  Chromalloy  PMT  (porous 
material  technology)  in  Dallas,  TX. 

Brian  Walker  is  with  the  engine  design 
group  of  Mack  Truck,  Hagerstown,  MD. 


1983 


MARRIED:  Jane  Adamson  and  Stanley 
Pawlukiewicz  in  New  London,  CT,  on  April 
27,  1985.  He  graduated  from  UConn.  They  are 
both  electronics  engineers  at  the  Naval  Under- 
water Systems  Center  in  New  London.  .  .  . 
Daniel  Alcombright  to  Nancy  Squitieri  of  Bil- 
lerica,  MA,  on  April  27,  1985.  Nancy,  a  gradu- 
ate of  Tufts  University,  is  a  chemical  engineer 
at  Procter  &  Gamble,  Cincinnati,  OH,  where 
Daniel  serves  as  an  electrical  engineer.  .  .  . 
Elizabeth  Aspden  and  Michael  Tavares  in  May 
in  Somerset,  MA.  Elizabeth  is  a  buyer  for 
Texas  Instruments  Inc.  Michael,  a  graduate  of 
Providence  College,  is  a  financial  analyst  for 
Raytheon  Co.  He  is  also  an  MBA  candidate  at 
Bryant  College.  .  .  .  Douglas  Butler  and 
Nancy  Nickerson  in  Barnstable,  MA,  on  May 
5,  1985.  Nancy  attended  Cape  Cod  Community 
College.  Douglas  is  a  design  engineer.  .  .  . 
William  Lamberti  and  Christine  Cataldo, 
'84,  in  Cranston,  RI,  on  June  9,  1985.  She  is  a 
mechanical  engineer  with  GE,  and  he  is  an 
electrical  engineer  with  Hamilton  Standard.  .  .  . 
Michael  Valiton  and  Anne  Saunders  last 
April.  Anne  has  a  new  job  working  for  Digital 
in  Littleton,  MA.  .  .  .  Adrian  VanderSpek  and 
Shari  Deiana  '84  in  Milford,  MA.  He  is  an 
electrical  engineer  with  Bany'n  Systems  Inc.  in 
Westboro,  MA. 

Sonia  Adrianowycz  continues  as  a  general 
engineer  at  Naval  Underwater  Systems  Center, 
New  London,  CT. 

No  longer  with  Rockwell  in  Los  Angeles, 
Roy  Arsenault  is  currently  with  RACAL  in 


NOVEMBER  1985       49 


The  Class  of  1989  contains  nearly  20  sons  and  daughters  of WPI  alumni.  These  families  are  pictured  above ,  on  the  steps  ofAlden 
Memorial  with  President  Jon  C.  Strauss  (front  row,  far  left)  at  Freshman  Orientation  in  August.  Congratulations,  one  and  all! 


Westford,  MA,  where  he  is  an  application  engi- 
neer. 

Christine  O'Connor  Cataldo  is  a  test  engi- 
neer at  Computervision  in  Bedford,  MA.  Her 
husband,  Michael,  is  a  sales  manager  at  TDX 
Systems. 

Eric  De  Rivera  works  for  Warner  &  Swasey 
Co.,  Worcester. 

Matthew  Falco  is  a  development  chemist  at 
MacDermid  Inc.,  Waterbury,  CT. 

Pamela  Fearn  serves  as  a  product  engineer 
for  a  small  semiconductor  company,  Xicor 
Inc.,  in  Milpitas,  CA. 

Charles  Gordon  holds  the  position  of  engi- 
neering manager  at  Monet  Jewelers  in  Paw- 
tucket,  RI. 

Susan  Godbout  Hersey  is  an  associate  plan- 
ning engineer  at  EUA  Service  Corp.,  Lincoln, 
RI. 

Sean  Leach  holds  the  post  of  chief  of  field 
operations  at  GHR  Engineering  in  New 
Bedford,  MA. 

Stephen  LeCIerc  works  as  a  performance 
engineer  at  Maine  Yankee  Nuclear  Power  plant 
in  Wiscasset,  ME.  He  and  his  wife,  Debbie, 
reside  in  Freeport,  ME. 

Douglas  Macarthur  serves  as  a  manufactur- 
ing engineer  at  Sanders  Associates  in  Nashua, 
NH. 

Donald  Mackay  is  a  mechanical  engineer  for 
Dataproducts  in  Milford,  NH. 

Bernard  Mara  is  a  corporate  industrial  engi- 
neer at  AM  PAD  Corp.,  Holyoke,  MA. 

Peter  Marino  works  as  a  sales  engineer  with 
M.A.  Olson  Co.,  Topsfield,  MA. 

Fernando  Motta  is  a  marketing  executive 
with  Felipe  Motta  Liquors  in  Panama.  In  June, 
he  received  his  MS  from  Sloan  School  of  Man- 
agement, MIT. 

John  Nicholson,  Jr.,  holds  the  post  of 


project  engineer  in  the  retained-earth  branch  of 
VSL  Corporation,  Springfield,  VA. 

Charles  Pappis  works  as  a  process  engineer 
at  Tegal  Corporation  in  Hopkinton,  MA. 

Joe  Phelan  serves  as  a  production  control 
specialist  for  GE's  Aircraft  Engine  Business 
Group  in  Cincinnati. 

Vivian  Hiscock  Podsiadlo  continues  as  a 
reliability  engineer  at  Data  General  in  West- 
boro,  MA. 

David  Shatford  is  a  software  engineer  II  at 
Wang  Labs,  Lowell,  MA. 

Eric  Soederberg  is  a  staff  engineer  at  C.S. 
Draper  Labs  in  Cambridge,  MA. 

Michael  Splaine  has  graduated  from  the 
Basic  Civil  Engineer  Corps  Officer  Course  at 
Port  Hueneme,  CA.  He  is  an  ensign  with  the 
Navy. 

Daniel  Statile  received  his  MS  from  RPI, 
Troy,  NY,  in  May. 

Bill  Wheeler  has  been  attending  a  Navy  sub- 
marine officer  basic  course  in  New  London, 
CT. 

Wayne  Whippie  is  an  engineer-in-training  in 
electric  construction  at  Downing  Engineering  in 
Harrisville,  NH. 

Stephen  Wright  continues  as  a  mechanical 
design  engineer  with  Kollmorgen  Corp. ,  North- 
ampton, MA. 

Tien-Chung  Ying  is  a  senior  scientist  associ- 
ate at  Lockheed  Missiles  &  Space  Co.,  Palo 
Alto,  CA.  He  has  an  MS  from  WPI. 


1984 


MARRIED:  Robert  Bunce  to  Pamela  Haga- 
man  in  Pompton  Lakes,  NJ,  on  May  5,  1985. 


Pam  graduated  from  Fairfield  (CT)  University 
and  works  for  IBM  in  Poughkeepsie,  NY,  as  an 
accountant.  Robert  is  with  IBM  (East  Fishkill), 
Hopewell  Junction,  NY.  .  .  .  Bruce  Daube, 
Jr.,  and  Pamela  Shanley  in  Avon,  CT,  on 
March  30,  1985.  Pamela  graduated  from  Hart- 
ford College  for  Women  and  Connecticut  Col- 
lege. She  was  registrar  and  teacher  of  children's 
art  at  Farmington  Valley  Arts  Center.  Bruce  is  a 
graduate  student  at  California  Institute  of  Tech- 
nology. .  .  .  Glen  Reed  and  Carol  Esmeraldo 
on  May  25,  1985,  in  Attleboro,  MA.  She  grad- 
uated from  Dean  Junior  College.  He  works  for 
Raytheon.  .  .  .  Paul  Thurston,  Jr.,  and  Terry 
Hazlewood  on  April  28,  1985,  in  Plymouth, 
MA.  Terry  graduated  from  Becker.  Paul  is  a 
lieutenant  in  the  USAF  stationed  in  Colorado 
Springs,  CO. 

Betsy  Barrows,  who  has  a  master's  in  math 
from  WPI,  is  chairman  of  the  math  department 
at  Gateway  Regional  High  School  in  Hun- 
tington, MA. 

Mary  Bartos  continues  with  Babcock  & 
Wilcox,  Lynchburg,  VA. 

Gregory  Baumann  is  a  senior  design  engi- 
neer with  Sperry  Corp.,  Blue  Bell,  PA. 

Joel  Bernstein  is  a  manufacturing  engineer 
forGE  in  Wilmington,  MA. 

Dr.  Peter  Bradley  serves  as  a  research  asso- 
ciate in  the  biology  department  at  Northeastern 
University,  Boston. 

Fabio  Carrera  is  a  hardware  design  engineer 
forBTU/Bruce  Corp.,  North  Billerica,  MA. 

Charles  Chandler  works  as  a  project  engi- 
neer at  M/A-COM  Microwave  in  Burlington, 
MA. 

Laurie  Cocchi  continues  as  an  associate 
engineer  at  Westinghouse  Electric  Corp. ,  Balti- 
more, MD. 

William  Duffy  has  joined  AT&T,   North 


50       WPI  JOURNAL 


Andover,  MA. 

Linda  Dunn  serves  as  a  systems  program- 
mer-analyst at  Pratt  &  Whitney  Aircraft  in  East 
Hartford,  CT. 

John  Herrin  works  for  Norton  Co.  in  Fair- 
port,  NY,  where  he  and  his  wife,  Lisa,  reside. 

Michael  Hoyt  serves  as  a  field  marketing 
engineer  at  Hewlett-Packard  in  Andover,  MA. 

Joseph  Ledoux  has  been  employed  as  a  sci- 
entific analyst  by  Xon  Tech  Inc.,  Van  Nuys, 
CA. 

Philip  Litchfield  works  for  RCA  Automated 
System,  Burlington,  MA. 

Larry  Manor  is  with  RCA  Government  Sys- 
tems Division  in  Burlington,  MA. 

William  McCauley  is  now  a  logic  products 
marketing  manager  for  Chancellor  Computer 
Corp.,  Mountain  View,  CA.  He  graduated 
from  UConn  and  holds  an  MSME  from  WPI. 

Waman  Nawathe  holds  the  post  of  test  engi- 
neer for  Gould  Electronics  of  Andover,  MA. 

Michael  Ortolano  is  a  junior  engineer  with 
the  U.S.  Navy  in  Washington,  DC. 

Joseph  Parisi  continues  as  a  field  engineer 
for  DCM  Corp.,  Framingham,  MA.  He  and  his 
wife,  Pamela,  reside  in  Gloucester. 

Michael  Powers  is  in  the  manufacturing 
management  program  at  GE  in  Wilmington, 
MA. 

Wayne  Risas  is  a  graduate  student  at  Cornell 
University. 

Peter  Schibly  is  employed  by  Sanders  Asso- 
ciates, Nashua,  NH. 

Christopher  Scholl  serves  as  a  junior  sani- 
tary engineer  for  the  Department  of  Environ- 
mental Quality  in  Worcester. 

Leslie  Schur  is  employed  as  a  programmer  I 
with  Atex  Inc.,  Bedford,  MA. 

Roy  Seelye  works  for  Hewitt  Engineering  of 
Berlin,  CT. 

Philip  Sheridan  has  been  employed  as  a 
structural  engineer  by  Camp  Dresser  &  McKee, 
Boston. 

Andrea  Siano  has  joined  Bendix  Corpora- 
tion, Utica,  NY. 

Keith  Silver  has  been  employed  as  a  diag- 
nostic engineer  by  GenRad  in  Concord,  MA. 

Kathy  Spieler  is  a  quality  assurance  engineer 
for  Du  Pont's  textile  fibers  department  in  Rich- 
mond, VA. 

Jeremy  Spraggs  has  accepted  a  post  with  St. 
Lawrence  Explosives  Corp.  in  Adams  Center, 
NY. 

Paul  Stephenson  is  on  the  staff  at  Raytheon 
Company  in  Sudbury,  MA. 

Andrew  Stewart  works  as  a  hardware  engi- 
neer for  DEC,  Littleton,  MA. 

Mark  Stockwell  serves  as  a  packaging  engi- 
neer at  Astra  Pharmaceutical  Products  in  West- 
boro,  MA. 

Michael  Stone  works  as  a  patent  examiner 
for  the  U.S.  Department  of  Commerce  in  the 
Patent  &  Trademark  Office,  Arlington,  VA. 

Jonathan  Super  is  a  design  engineer  at 
MassComp  in  Westford,  MA.  He  has  an  MSEE 
from  WPI. 

Richard  Tashjian,  who  holds  an  MBA  from 
WPI,  is  employed  as  a  senior  engineer  at  Nor- 
ton Co.,  Worcester. 

Eric  Thune  is  a  design  engineer  for  Bur- 
roughs Corporation  in  San  Diego. 

John  Truesdell  serves  as  a  design  engineer  at 
Sturtevant  Co.,  Boston. 

Tom  Turano,  who  has  his  MSEE  from  WPI, 
works  as  a  senior  software  engineer  at  DEC, 
Marlboro,  MA. 

Karla  Twedt  has  joined  AT&T  Technolo- 


gies-Western Electric,  North  Andover,  MA,  as 
a  product  engineer. 

Jennifer  Udall  works  for  Mitre  Corporation, 
Bedford,  MA. 

Timothy  Ufert  has  joined  RCA-Astro  Elec- 
tronics, Hightstown,  NJ.  He  is  an  associate 
member  of  the  technical  staff. 

Tim  Urekew  works  for  the  Gillette  Co. ,  Bos- 
ton, as  an  associate  engineer. 

Douglas  Valentine  serves  as  assistant  scien- 
tist at  Pfizer  Inc.,  Groton,  CT. 

Erik  Van  Bork  is  currently  with  OMYA 
Inc.,  Florence,  VT. 

Dale  VanLandingham  has  accepted  a  post 
with  Raytheon  Company. 

Edward  Vassar  holds  the  post  of  principal 
engineer  at  Raytheon  in  Sudbury,  MA.  He  has 
an  MSEE  from  WPI. 

Ensign  Joseph  Veilleux  is  on  active  duty  as  a 
student  at  the  U.S.  Naval  Nuclear  Power 
School  in  Orlando,  FL.  As  a  midshipman,  he 
served  aboard  the  U.S.S.  Mississippi  and  the 
nuclear  powered  submarine  U.S.S.  Skipjack. 
He  is  designated  as  a  submarine  warfare  officer. 

David  Williams  works  for  Cybermation 
Inc.,  Cambridge,  MA. 


1985 


MARRIED:  Laura  Mackertich  and  Michael 
Scanlon  in  Worcester  on  March  21,  1985. 
Laura  is  employed  by  Rice-Barton  Corp. 
Michael  has  been  attending  the  University  of 
Maine  at  Orono.  .  .  .  Andrew  Powell,  Jr.,  and 
Betsy  Bolinser  in  Merrimack,  NH.  She  gradu- 
ated from  Sherburne-Earlville  High  School  and 
is  an  assistant  manager  at  Pizza  Hut  in  Nashua. 
He  is  employed  by  Wendy's  in  Merrimack. 

Mark  Carpenter  has  accepted  an  advance 
networking  systems  post  with  IBM  at  Palo 
Alto,  CA. 

Christopher  Claussen  serves  as  a  marketing 
representative  for  Sperry  Corporation  in  Wel- 
lesley,  MA. 

Ann  Marie  Gagnon  has  accepted  a  post  with 
the  Arthur  Andersen  Company  of  Hartford, 
CT.  Currently,  she  resides  in  Brookfield,  MA, 
with  her  husband,  Darrell,  and  daughter,  Jes- 
sica Lea. 

John  Hachey  is  a  staff  scientist  for  EIC  Lab- 
oratory Inc.,  Norwood,  MA. 

Richard  Hilow  works  as  a  design  engineer  at 
Harris  Graphics-Press  Division  in  Dover,  NH. 
He  and  his  wife,  Ginger,  reside  in  Dover. 

Stephen  Hooley  is  a  sales  engineer  for  Texas 
Instruments  in  Dallas,  TX. 

Teresita  Icaza  serves  as  assistant  parts  man- 
ager for  E  Icaza  in  Panama. 

Arthur  Kingsley  is  an  associate  engineer  for 
Baltimore  (MD)  Gas  &  Electric. 

Robert  Labonte  is  a  member  of  the  technical 
staff  at  Mitre  Corp. ,  Bedford,  MA. 

Edward  Leonard  III  works  for  Olektron 
Corporation  in  Webster,  MA.  Besides  his 
MSEE  from  WPI,  he  holds  degrees  from  Wash- 
ington &  Lee  University  and  the  University  of 
Bridgeport. 

Tom  Lucey,  who  has  his  MBA  from  WPI, 
serves  as  a  project  engineer  for  Data  General  in 
Westboro,  MA. 

Catherine  Marinelli  is  now  a  management 
intern  with  Consolidated  Edison  in  New  York 
City. 

John  Martin  plans  to  pursue  a  PhD  in 
medicinal  chemistry  at  the  University  of  Mary- 


land in  Baltmore. 

John  Miller,  who  holds  an  MBA  from  WPI, 
serves  as  a  quality  control  engineer  and  a  chem- 
ical planner  for  the  Polaroid  Corporation  in 
New  Bedford,  MA.  He  has  a  BS  from  the 
United  States  Military  Academy  at  West  Point 
and  a  master's  in  engineering  from  the  Univer- 
sity of  Washington  in  Seattle. 

Patricia  Nugent  has  been  granted  a  fellow- 
ship for  graduate  studies  at  RPI,  Troy,  NY. 

Paul  Saucier  has  been  employed  as  a  senior 
project  member  at  RCA  Corp.,  Burlington, 
MA.  He  has  an  MSCS  from  WPI  and  a  BS  from 
Central  New  England  College. 

Robert  Sweeney  is  enrolled  in  the  PhD  pro- 
gram at  California  Tech  in  Pasadena. 

Richard  Sylvestre,  Jr.,  has  accepted  a  post 
with  Hughes  Aircraft  Co.,  Fullerton,  CA. 

Thomas  Tillman  works  for  Yankee  Atomic 
Electric  Co.,  Framingham,  MA. 


School  of 

Industrial  Management 

Milton  Steen  '79  has  been  appointed  district 
manager  of  Massachusetts  Electric 's  Southeast 
District.  He  is  responsible  for  the  overall  opera- 
tion of  the  district,  which  serves  more  than 
96,000  customers.  He  joined  Mass.  Electric,  a 
retail  subsidiary  of  New  England  Electric  Sys- 
tem, in  1961,  and  has  held  sales  management 
posts  in  the  company's  Marlboro,  Weymouth 
and  Worcester  offices.  In  1982,  he  was  pro- 
moted to  manager  of  Mass.  Electric 's  Southeast 
District,  after  having  served  as  assistant  direc- 
tor of  consumer  services  for  New  England 
Electric.  He  has  a  BS  from  the  University  of 
Rhode  Island.  .  .  .  Dennis  Lynch  '82  has  been 
promoted  to  manager  of  materials  and  produc- 
tion control  at  Coes-Knife  Co.,  Worcester.  A 
metallurgical  engineer  at  Coes  since  1976,  he 
has  a  BS  from  Northeastern.  .  .  .  Bay  State 
Abrasives,  Westboro,  MA,  has  named  David 
Guild  '83  sales  respresentative  in  the  Boston 
area  of  the  New  England  region.  He  joined  the 
firm  in  1973  and  has  held  posts  in  the  produc- 
tion, drafting,  customer  service  and  pricing 
departments.  He  attended  Franklin  and  Mar- 
shall College.  .  .  .  Wayne  Everett  '84  recently 
graduated  from  the  Greater  Worcester  Execu- 
tive Program  (GWEP),  which  is  run  jointly  by 
WPI's  Department  of  Management  and  Clark 
University's  Graduate  School  of  Management. 
Wayne  is  manager  of  laboratory  services  at 
Wyman-Gordon,  where  he's  been  employed 
since  1974.  He  has  a  BSME  from  Northeastern 
and  an  MS  in  metallurgy  from  Rochester  Poly- 
technic Institute. 


Natural  Science  Program 

Donovan  Lewis  '78,  a  science  and  math 
teacher  at  Rocky  Hill  School  in  East 
Greenwich,  RI,  was  chosen  to  participate  in  the 
1985  Woodrow  Wilson  Institute  on  High 
School  Physics  held  at  Princeton  University. 
He  was  one  of  50  physics  teachers  from  250 
applicants  nationwide  to  receive  the  award. 
During  the  four-week  summer  program,  he 
studied  methods  of  enriching  the  physics  curric- 
ulum with  prominent  physicists.  Before  joining 
the  faculty  at  Rocky  Hill,  he  did  research  in 
high-energy  physics  at  Brown  University. 


NOVEMBER  1985       51 


COMPLETED  CAREERS 


Dr.  Glen  A.  Richardson,  of  Terre  Haute.  IN, 
head  of  the  electrical  engineering  department  at 
WPI  from  1958  to  1973,  passed  away  on 
August  12.  1985. 

Born  in  Havensville,  KS,  on  July  15,  1915, 
he  received  his  BS  from  the  University  of  Kan- 
sas in  1941,  and  his  MS  from  the  same  univer- 
sity in  1947.  In  1952  he  received  his  PhD  from 
Iowa  State  College  (ISU).  After  teaching  at 
both  universities,  he  joined  the  WPI  faculty  as  a 
professor  and  head  of  electrical  engineering  in 
1958.  In  1972,  he  received  a  professional 
achievement  citation  from  ISU. 

Active  in  his  professional  societies  at  the 
New  England  and  national  levels,  in  1971  he 
was  named  chairman  of  the  American  Society 
for  Engineering  Education  (ASEE),  New 
England  section.  He  had  been  a  national  vice 
president  of  ASEE.  Besides  serving  as  secre- 
tary of  the  Kansas-Nebraska  section  of  the 
ASEE  in  1946-47,  he  also  worked  on  the  Com- 
mittee on  Correlation  of  Teaching  Aids.  Later 
posts  were  as  chairman  of  the  Electrical  Engi- 
neering Division  and  as  a  steering  committee 
member  for  the  Council  of  Technical  Divisions. 
He  was  national  director-at-large  for  the  Insti- 
tute of  Electrical  and  Electronics  Engineers 
from  1969  until  1972,  as  well  as  a  member  of 
the  Student  Development  Committee  and  an 
accreditation  visitor  for  the  Engineers  Council 
for  Professional  Development. 

His  professional  experience  was  with  Com- 
monwealth Edison  Co.,  Chicago;  Radio  Corp. 
of  America,  Camden,  NJ;  and  Wilcox  Electric 
Co..  Kansas  City.  He  was  the  author  of  publi- 
cations on  radio  subjects  and  the  co-author  of 
19  technical  manuals  for  aircraft  receiving  and 
transmitting  equipment,  as  well  as  a  book  on 
the  principles  of  radio.  At  one  time,  he  was 
editor  of  the  Electronics  Series  at  Charles  M. 
Merrill  Books  Inc. 

While  at  WPI,  Dr.  Richardson  and  Prof. 
Harit  Majmudar  correlated  a  report  that  helped 
initiate  a  program  to  stimulate  interest  in  the 
electric  power  industry  among  students  in  both 
undergraduate  and  graduate  fields  of  study.  He 
served  on  Gov.  Volpe's  (MA)  Advisory  Com- 
mittee for  Science  &  Technology  and  presided 
over  a  session  on  Societal  Problems,  Technol- 
ogy and  Public  Policy  for  the  ASEE  in  Boston 
in  1972.  He  belonged  to  the  Masons  and  the 
Methodist  Church. 

Arthur  F.  Barnes  '08,  former  chairman  of  the 
board  of  Texas  Engineering  Corp.,  Houston, 
TX,  passed  away  recently. 

He  was  born  on  May  28,  1886,  in  Worcester, 
and  graduated  with  his  BSME  from  WPI.  Dur- 
ing his  career,  he  was  associated  with  the  Uni- 
versity of  Pennsylvania  (instructor).  Middle- 
bury  College  (assistant  professor  of 
engineering).  New  Mexico  A&M  College 
(dean  of  engineering),  and  Barglebaugh  & 
Barnes.  For  many  years  he  owned  and  operated 
Texas  Engineering  Corp.,  Houston. 

Mr.  Barnes,  a  professional  engineer, 
belonged  to  the  ASME,  the  Engineers  Club  of 
Houston,  the  Shrine,  the  Knights  Templar  and 
the  Masons,  as  well  as  the  American  Society  of 
Heating,  Refrigeration,  and  Air  Conditioning 
Engineers  (past  president,   Houston  chapter). 


He  was  a  former  chairman  of  the  board  of 
health  of  the  City  of  West  University  Place  and 
a  charter  member  and  past  director  of  the  Hous- 
ton Rotary  Club. 

J.  Francis  Granger  '12,  class  president,  died 
in  Worcester  on  May  4,  1985,  at  the  age  of  94. 
A  Worcester  native,  he  received  his  BSCE  in 
1912. 

For  30  years  he  was  superintendent  of  streets 
in  Marlboro,  MA.  Earlier  he  was  city  engineer 
for  two  years.  After  retirement,  he  became  a 
partner  in  the  engineering  company  of  Granger, 
Thompson  &  Liston  Inc.,  Marlboro. 

He  served  as  clerk  of  the  works  on  the  addi- 
tion to  Marlboro  Hospital  in  1960  and  was 
appointed  chairman  of  the  building  committee 
which  oversaw  construction  of  the  new 
Marlboro  High  School. 

From  1912  to  1917,  he  was  an  inspector  and 
draftsman  for  the  Fitchburg  Sewage  Disposal 
Commission.  He  joined  the  Ohio  Department 
of  Public  Health  in  1917,  as  head  of  Ohio's 
sewage  treatment  plants. 

He  was  an  Army  captain  in  World  War  I, 
seeing  duty  in  France.  During  World  War  II,  he 
served  for  four  years  as  a  captain,  major  and 
lieutenant  colonel  in  the  Army  Corps  of  Engi- 
neers. After  discharge,  he  remained  in  the 
active  reserves  and  was  commanding  officer  of 
the  357th  Engineer  Construction  Group  from 
1946  to  1950. 

Mr.  Granger  was  a  registered  professional 
engineer  and  land  surveyor  in  Massachusetts. 
He  had  served  as  a  trustee  of  the  board  of  gov- 
ernors of  Marlboro  Hospital.  A  50-year  mem- 
ber of  the  Massachusetts  Highway  Association, 
he  was  secretary  for  the  past  32  years.  He  was  a 
former  clerk  of  the  Marlboro  Planning  Board 
and  deputy  director  of  Civil  Defense.  He 
belonged  to  the  Immaculate  Conception 
Church,  the  Knights  of  Columbus,  the  Ameri- 
can Legion,  the  VFW,  the  American  Public 
Works  Association,  the  Tech  Old-Timers  and 
Tau  Beta  Pi.  In  1958,  he  received  the  Samuel 
A.  Greeley  Service  Award  from  the  American 
Public  Works  Congress  for  his  service. 

James  W.  Armour  '13  of  Grosse  Pointe  Park, 
MI,  a  retired  vice  president  of  Riley  Stoker 
Corp . ,  died  on  May  11,1 985 ,  at  the  age  of  93 . 
He  was  born  in  Worcester  and  received  his 
BSME  from  WPI. 

Following  graduation,  he  joined  Armour's 
Pattern  Shop.  From  1917  to  1919  he  was  with 
U.S.  Army  Ordnance.  He  was  employed  by 
Riley  Stoker  from  1919  to  1957.  After  retiring 
from  Riley  Stoker,  he  served  as  secretary  of  W. 
Hawley  &  Co.  Inc.  He  belonged  to  SAE,  PTS 
and  Skull,  the  ASME  and  Engineering  Society 
of  Detroit.  He  was  a  registered  professional 
engineer. 

Arthur  H.  Burns  '14  of  Woodbury  Heights, 
NJ,  passed  away  on  April  30,  1985.  A  graduate 
electrical  engineer,  he  was  born  on  November 
22,  1891,  in  Salem.  MA. 

In  1956.  he  retired  as  division  equipment 
engineer  from  AT&T,  Wayne,  PA,  after  many 
years  with  the  company  (1915-56).  He  saw  ser- 
vice in  Pawtucket,   RI;   Boston,   MA;   Provi- 


dence, RI;  Washington,  DC;  New  York  City 
and  Philadelphia. 

He  was  a  former  member  of  the  AIEE  Com- 
munication Group  and  of  the  Public  School 
Board  in  Riverton,  NJ.  He  belonged  to  Lambda 
Chi  Alpha,  and  he  had  served  as  president  of 
the  Philadelphia  chapter  of  the  Alumni  Associa- 
tion, as  well  as  an  Alumni  Council  representa- 
tive. His  son,  Arthur,  Jr.,  graduated  in  1948. 

George  Ross  '14  of  North  Augusta,  SC,  passed 
away  on  December  3 1 ,  1984,  at  the  age  of  94. 
A  native  of  Kensington,  CT,  he  was  born  on 
Oct.  12,  1890. 

A  graduate  civil  engineer,  during  his  career 
he  was  with  Fiske-Carter  Construction  Co., 
Oregon  Lumber  Co.,  Welborn-Ross  Lumber 
Co.  (partner),  and  George  Ross  Lumber  Co. 
(owner).  He  had  served  as  president  and  chair- 
man of  Ross  Builders'  Supplies  before  his 
retirement  in  1964.  At  one  time  he  was  chair- 
man of  Rosco  Supply.  During  World  War  II,  he 
was  director  of  purchasing  for  Daniel  Construc- 
tion Co. 

Active  with  his  local  Presbyterian  Church. 
Mr.  Ross  also  held  executive  posts  with  the 
Kiwanis,  the  Red  Shield  Club  and  the  Berea 
Sewer  and  Water  District.  He  belonged  to 
Skull. 

William  L.  G.  Mackenzie  '17  of  Spartanburg, 
SC,  retired  president  of  Fiske-Carter  Construc- 
tion Co.,  died  September  26,  1984.  He  was 
born  on  March  22,  1896,  in  Uxbridge,  MA, 
and  graduated  as  a  civil  engineer. 

From  1917  to  1920,  he  was  with  the  Corps  of 
Engineers,  U.S.  Army,  where  he  rose  to  cap- 
tain. From  1920  until  he  retired  in  1969,  he  was 
with  Fiske-Carter  Construction  Co.,  Spartan- 
burg, serving  as  vice  president  and  president 
during  the  last  12  years. 

Mr.  Mackenzie  belonged  to  the  National 
Society  of  Professional  Engineers  and  the  Con- 
sulting Constructors  Council  of  America.  In 
1961  he  received  the  "Engineer  of  the  Year 
Award"  from  the  South  Carolina  Society  of 
Professional  Engineers.  For  many  years  he  was 
chairman  of  the  city  planning  commission  of 
Spartanburg.  He  was  a  member  of  Tau  Beta  Pi 
and  Sigma  Xi. 

Past  president  of  the  local  Rotary  Club,  he 
was  also  a  former  director  of  the  local  chapters 
of  the  Red  Cross,  the  Salvation  Army,  the 
Chamber  of  Commerce  and  the  Tuberculosis 
Association,  as  well  as  of  the  Piedmont 
National  Bank.  He  was  a  four-term  director  of 
the  Carolinas  Branch  of  the  Associated  General 
Contractors  of  America  Inc.  He  was  the 
brother-in-law  of  Edward  Colesworthy  '22, 
who  died  March  17. 

Raymond  E.  Taylor  '19  died  recently  in  a 
retirement  home  in  Evanston,  IL.  He  was  born 
in  Worcester  on  November  5,  1896,  and  later 
studied  electrical  engineering  at  WPI. 

He  spent  his  entire  career  (1921-62)  with 
Norton  Co.,  as  a  methods  engineer,  salesman 
and  district  sales  manager.  A  Mason,  he  also 
belonged  to  the  Scottish  Rite  Bodies.  He  was  a 
member  of  Phi  Gamma  Delta  and  the  brother  of 
Ernest  Taylor  '12. 


52       WPI  JOURNAL 


Carroll  Stoughton  '21  passed  away  in  Corapo- 
lis,  PA,  on  February  2,  1985,  at  the  age  of  87. 
He  was  born  in  Montague,  MA. 

After  studying  at  WPI,  he  later  received  his 
BS  from  the  University  of  New  Hampshire.  For 
36  years  he  served  in  education.  From  1920  to 
1929  he  taught  at  Lancaster  (NH)  High  School, 
where  he  was  principal  for  27  years.  In  1958  he 
moved  to  Wells  River,  VT,  and  taught  until  his 
retirement  in  1965. 

During  his  career,  he  served  as  a  coach  and 
counselor  and  was  a  teacher  of  manual  arts, 
physics,  chemistry,  geometry  and  advanced 
mathematics. 

Mr.  Stoughton,  who  was  a  World  War  II 
Army  veteran,  was  past  president  of  the  N.H. 
State  Teachers'  Association,  and  the  North 
Country  Principals'  Association,  as  well  as  a 
member  of  the  local  selective  service  board,  the 
Noyes  Free  Lecture  Fund  Committee  and  the 
North  Country  Science  Fair  Committee.  He 
was  a  past  commander  of  the  local  American 
Legion,  a  former  president  of  the  Rotary  Club 
and  the  Lancaster  Golf  Club  and  a  former  offi- 
cer of  the  Knights  Templar.  He  belonged  to  Phi 
Sigma  Kappa. 

David  P.  Ashley  '22  of  Mineola,  NY,  passed 
away  recently.  He  was  born  September  6, 
1899,  in  Quincy,  MA,  and  graduated  from  WPI 
as  an  electrical  engineer. 

During  his  career,  he  was  with  Worcester 
Electric  Light  Co.,  New  York  Edison  and  E.L. 
Phillips  &  Co.  For  many  years  he  was 
employed  by  Long  Island  Lighting  Company, 
Hicksville,  NY,  retiring  in  1964. 

Besides  being  a  life  member  of  the  IEEE,  he 
held  professional  engineering  licenses  in  New 
York,  Massachusetts,  New  Hampshire  and  Ver- 
mont. He  belonged  to  the  New  York  State  Soci- 
ety of  Professional  Engineers. 

Alden  I.  Brigham  '22  died  in  Bellevue,  PA,  on 
April  12,  1985.  A  graduate  electrical  engineer, 
he  was  born  in  Worcester  on  Aug.  10,  1900. 

From  1922  to  1961  he  was  with  Wes- 
tinghouse  Electric  Corp.  At  retirement  he  was 
manager  of  market  analysis  for  the  Manufactur- 
ing and  Repair  Division  in  Pittsburgh.  He 
belonged  to  Phi  Gamma  Delta. 

Edward  H.  Colesworthy  '22  of  Zellwood, 
FL,  died  March  17,  1985.  A  Worcester  native, 
he  was  born  on  May  17,  1901 . 

After  receiving  his  BSME,  he  joined  Worces- 
ter Pressed  Steel  Co.  Other  employers  were 
Union  Twist  Drill  Co.,  Chicago;  Union  Bag  & 
Paper  Corp.,  New  York  City;  Robert  Gair  Co., 
Toronto,  Ontario,  Canada;  Central  Paper  Co., 
Muskegon,  MI;  Fulton  Bag  &  Cotton  Mills, 
Atlanta;  U.S.  Navy  Construction  Battalions 
and  Gustin-Bacon  Mfg.  Co.,  Kansas  City. 
After  retirement,  he  became  a  self-employed 
consulting  engineer  specializing  in  glass  fiber 
processing  equipment. 

Active  in  town  affairs,  he  was  a  former  mem- 
ber of  the  ASME  and  of  the  Society  of  Military 
Engineers.  He  belonged  to  Skull,  ATO  and  the 
Poly  Club.  He  was  the  brother-in-law  of  Wil- 
liam Mackenzie  '17,  who  died  on  Sept.  26, 
1984. 

Frank  R.  Mason  '22  of  Detroit,  MI,  a  retired 
general  manager  from  Riley  Stoker  Corpora- 
tion, Worcester,  died  March  1,  1985.  He  was 
born  in  West  Springfield,  MA,  on  July  16, 
1899.  In  1922  he  received  his  BSCE. 


During  his  career,  he  was  with  Eastern 
Bridge  and  Structural  Co.,  Worcester,  and 
Riley  Stoker,  from  which  he  retired  in  1969.  He 
belonged  to  the  Engineering  Society  of  Detroit, 
Skull,  Phi  Sigma  Kappa  and  the  Poly  Club. 

George  F.  Parsons  '22  died  in  Dover,  NH,  on 
April  13,  1985,  at  the  age  of  84.  A  native  of 
Rye,  NH,  he  graduated  as  a  civil  engineer. 

He  had  been  employed  by  Fiske-Carter  Con- 
struction Co.,  the  Worcester  Sewer  Depart- 
ment, New  Hampshire  State  Highway  Dept., 
Norton  Co.  (Worcester)  and  the  Mass.  Dept. 
of  Public  Works.  In  1965  he  retired  from  the 
DPW  after  serving  as  a  highway  engineer  for 
many  years.  A  life-member  of  the  Boston  Soci- 
ety of  Civil  Engineers,  he  was  also  a  registered 
professional  engineer  and  land  surveyor.  He 
belonged  to  the  Massachusetts  State  Employ- 
ees' Association  and  the  Retired  State,  County 
and  Municipal  Employees  Association  of  Mas- 
sachusetts. 

Other  memberships  included  the  Rye  Histori- 
cal Society  (charter  member),  the  Congrega- 
tional Church,  the  Masons  (50  years),  the 
Shrine,  the  Knights  Templar  and  the  Scottish 
Rites  and  the  Massachusetts  and  New  Hamp- 
shire Councils  of  Thrice  Illustrious  Masters  and 
the  Tech  Old-Timers.  He  was  the  brother  of 
Arthur  Parsons  '26. 

George  S.  Cary  '23  of  Tucson,  AZ,  an  early 
aviation  enthusiast,  died  January  28,  1984.  A 
native  of  Cincinnati.  OH,  he  was  born  on  Aug. 
10,  1900.  He  was  a  graduate  mechanical  engi- 
neer. 

In  1924  he  bought  a  house  and  65  acres  of 
land  in  Torrington,  CT,  discovering  after  the 
purchase  that  he'd  bought  the  only  flying  field 
(later,  Cary  Field)  in  the  area.  His  interest  in 
flying  whetted,  he  went  to  Cincinnati  for  flying 
lessons. 

Prior  to  World  War  II,  he  was  a  private  pilot 
and  instructor.  During  the  war,  he  taught  instru- 
ment flying  in  the  armed  forces.  After  the  war, 
he  flew  for  Charter  Airlines.  As  president  of 
Central  Connecticut  Aviation  Association,  he 
was  active  in  the  struggle  to  save  a  portion  of 
Brainard  Field  for  general  aviation.  For  his 
efforts,  he  was  cited  as  "Outstanding  Airman" 
of  the  year  in  1957  by  the  Civil  Air  Patrol. 

In  1963,  he  retired  from  commercial  instruc- 
tion and  piloting,  but  continued  with  recrea- 
tional flying  when  he  moved  to  Tucson.  Over 
the  years  he  owned  several  planes,  including  a 
Waco  10  and  a  Cessna  180,  and  air-toured  the 
country  with  his  family.  He  belonged  to  Theta 
Chi. 

Dr.  Raymond  L.  Copson  '25,  an  authority  on 
chromium  chemicals,  died  at  his  home  in  Boca 
Raton,  FL,  on  May  1,  1985,  at  the  age  of  80. 
He  was  born  in  Easthampton,  MA. 

After  receiving  his  degree  in  chemistry  from 
WPI,  he  received  advanced  degrees  from  WPI 
and  Yale.  Early  in  his  career,  he  was  a  chemical 
engineer  for  Socony.  From  1935  to  1945,  he 
was  chief  chemical  engineer  in  the  research 
division  of  the  Tennessee  Valley  Authority. 
Other  employers  were  Rumford  Chemical 
Works  and  Mutual  Chemical  Co.  of  America, 
which  he  served  as  research  director.  In  1970, 
he  retired  from  the  Allied  Chemical  Corpora- 
tion where  he  had  been  assistant  director  of 
research  in  the  Solvay  Process  Division,  Syra- 
cuse, NY. 

Besides  being  an  authority  on  chromium 


chemicals,  Dr.  Copson  was  a  pioneer  in 
research  on  phosphorus  fertilizers  and  the 
author  of  many  professional  publications.  A 
licensed  professional  engineer  in  New  York,  he 
belonged  to  the  ACS,  A.I.Ch.E.  and  the 
AAAS.  He  was  a  member  of  the  Chemists' 
Club  of  New  York  City,  Lambda  Chi  Alpha, 
Tau  Beta  Pi  and  Sigma  Xi. 

John  W.  Curran  '25  passed  away  on  January 
21,  1985,  in  Springfield,  MA.  He  was  born  in 
West  Springfield  on  October  7,  1901 . 

After  receiving  his  BSEE  from  WPI,  he 
joined  the  New  York  Central  Railroad  as  drafts- 
man-assistant engineer  in  Albany,  NY.  He 
retired  from  a  39-year  railroad  career  in  1963  as 
administrative  signal  engineer  (system),  in  New 
York  City.  Previously  he  had  served  the  firm  in 
Boston,  Cleveland  and  New  York  as  assistant 
signal  engineer,  system  chief  inspector  and 
assistant  chief  signal  engineer  (system).  He 
wrote  several  articles  and  reports  on  signaling 
systems  and  received  a  patent  for  his  coded 
track  circuit  signaling  system  for  railroads. 

The  grandfather  of  Joseph  Fitzgerald  '88, 
he  belonged  to  Lambda  Chi  Alpha  Fraternity 
and  Skull. 

Frederick  C.  Pomeroy  '27,  a  retired  longtime 
supervising  engineer  for  New  England  Tele- 
phone Co.,  died  on  December  15,  1984,  in 
Westfield,  MA.  He  was  born  in  Westfield  on 
April  5,  1905,  and  he  was  graduated  as  an  elec- 
trical engineer. 

After  spending  two  years  with  Strathmore 
Paper  Co.,  Mr.  Pomeroy  joined  New  England 
Telephone,  where  he  was  employed  for  41 
years.  During  his  career,  he  served  as  transmis- 
sion engineer,  district  plant  engineer  and  joint 
line  practices  engineer.  At  the  time  of  his  retire- 
ment in  1970,  he  was  outside  plant  supervisor 
in  Springfield,  MA.  He  was  a  member  of  ATO 
and  the  father  of  Collins  Pomery  '57. 

Russell  G.  Whittemore  '27,  a  pioneer  in  the 
development  of  laminated  safety  glass,  died 
June  30,  1985,  in  San  Diego,  CA.  The 
Framingham,  MA,  native  was  78,  and  held  a 
BS  in  chemistry  from  WPI. 

Long  an  executive  with  PPG  Industries  (for- 
merly Pittsburgh  Plate  Glass),  Mr.  Whittemore 
was  instrumental  in  the  development  of  lami- 
nated safety  glass,  the  forerunner  of  today's 
automobile  windshields.  During  World  War  II 
he  was  a  technical  representative  dealing  with 
the  glass  needs  of  the  aircraft  industry.  He  also 
was  a  glass  consultant  for  Howard  Hughes's 
famous  "Spruce  Goose"  airplane. 

He  began  his  43-year  with  PPG  in  1928, 
serving  in  various  technical  and  advisory  posts. 
After  the  assassination  of  President  Kennedy, 
he  was  a  consultant  on  the  safety  glass  require- 
ments for  a  new  presidential  limousine.  In  1971 
he  retired  from  PPG  as  director  of  automotive 
glass  product  development.  Early  in  his  career, 
he  had  worked  briefly  for  Du  Pont. 

From  1974  until  1982  he  served  on  the  board 
of  the  San  Diego  Symphony,  and  he  was  active 
with  the  San  Diego  Opera  Association,  Aero- 
space Museum,  Museum  of  Art,  Zoological 
Society  and  the  Kiwanis  Club.  He  was  a  mem- 
ber of  Lambda  Chi  Alpha  and  the  Poly  Club. 

Julian  A.  Witkege  '28,  a  44-year  employee  of 
AT&T,  died  at  his  home  in  Worcester  on  Janu- 
ary 10,  1985.  He  was  78,  a  native  of  Worcester, 
and  a  former  civil  engineering  student  at  WPI. 


NOVEMBER  1985       53 


Following  two  years  with  Morgan  Construc- 
tion, he  went  with  AT&T  Long  Lines  in  New 
York  City  as  a  test  man.  He  retired  in  1972  in 
the  Worcester  office.  He  belonged  to  the  Tele- 
phone Pioneers  of  America  and  Notre  Dame 
Church.  His  brother  was  Francis  Witkege  '38. 

Robert  S.  Heald  '29,  former  vice  president  of 
Heald  Machine  Co.,  Worcester,  died  in 
Norwalk,  CT.  on  July  27,  1985,  at  the  age  of 
78.  He  was  a  Worcester  native. 

For  many  years  he  was  with  Heald  Machine, 
retiring  in  1959.  He  had  served  as  president  of 
the  Worcester  County  Music  Association  and  as 
a  sponsor  of  the  Worcester  Music  Festival. 

A  former  member  of  the  Unitarian  Church, 
Worcester,  he  was  also  on  the  board  of  the  Wor- 
cester chapter  of  the  American  Cancer  Society. 
He  belonged  to  ATO  and  to  several  country 
clubs  in  Connecticut  and  California. 

Andrew  J.  O'Connell  '29,  a  former  teacher 
and  dean  at  Worcester  Academy,  died  June  29, 
1985.  He  was  77,  a  native  of  Beverly,  MA,  and 
a  graduate  chemist. 

From  1929  to  1933,  he  was  a  chemical  engi- 
neer for  GE.  In  1942  he  joined  the  faculty  of 
Worcester  Academy  as  an  instructor  of  chemis- 
try. In  1974  he  retired  after  teaching  at  the  acad- 
emy for  32  years.  He  had  also  served  the  school 
as  dean  of  citizenship.  Science  Club  adviser, 
bookstore  manager  and  adviser  to  the  Class  of 
1949. 

Active  in  WPI  alumni  affairs,  he  had  been 
class  treasurer  and  chairman  of  the  class 
reunion  committee.  He  belonged  to  the  New 
England  Association  of  Chemistry  Teachers, 
the  Worcester  Chemists'  Club  and  the  Ameri- 
can Chemical  Society,  as  well  as  the  Tech  Old- 
Timers. 

Michael  R.  Boyle  '30  of  Wilton,  CT,  a  retired 
power  plant  operator  for  South  Norwalk  Elec- 
tric Works,  died  recently.  He  was  born  in 
Darien,  CT,  on  January  8,  1907. 

After  graduating  as  an  electrical  engineer,  he 
joined  Management  &  Engineering  Corp.,  and 
then  was  employed  by  Metropolitan  Life  Insur- 
ance Co.  and  A.F  Holden  Co..  New  Haven, 
before  joining  South  Norwalk  Electric  Works. 

Mr.  Boyle  belonged  to  the  American  Society 
for  Metals  and  the  Holy  Name  Society.  He  was 
the  father  of  Thomas  Boyle  '64. 

John  R.  Parker  '30,  a  former  senior  design 
engineer  for  Rocketdyne,  Canoga  Park.  CA. 
passed  away  on  October  8.  1984.  A  native  of 
Lunenburg,  MA,  he  was  born  on  November 
30,  1907.  He  was  a  graduate  mechanical  (aero) 
engineer. 

During  his  career,  he  was  with  Buffalo  Forge 
Co..  Buffalo  Pumps  Inc.,  Pacific  Pumps  Inc. 
and  Peerless  Pumps  as  a  design  and  sales  engi- 
neer. He  was  also  involved  with  technical  writ- 
ing and  inventing.  Prior  to  retirement,  he  was 
senior  design  engineer  for  the  Rocketdy  ne  Divi- 
sion, North  American  Rockwell-North  Ameri- 
can Aviation  International  Inc.  After  retirment. 
he  worked  for  a  time  as  a  mailman  in  Woodland 
Hills.  CA. 

He  was  a  licensed  professional  engineer  in 
California  and  a  member  of  Lambda  Chi  Alpha 
and  the  Poly  Club. 

Clarence  L.  Buell  '31  of  Trumbull,  CT.  died 
July  14,  1984.  He  was  bom  in  Hebron,  CT,  on 
December  3 1 ,  1906.  and  later  studied  mechani- 


cal engineering  at  WPI. 

He  had  been  employed  by  United  Engineers 
&  Constructors,  Bryant  Electric  Co..  Du  Pont, 
Remington  Arms  Co.  and  Bedford  Hills  Con- 
crete Products  Co.  For  many  years  he  was  self 
employed  with  Buell  Sales  Company,  a  lawn- 
mower  and  garden  tractor  sales  and  service  firm 
in  Trumbull,  CT,  from  which  he  retired  in 
1972.  He  belonged  to  the  Lions  Club  and  the 
local  fire  department. 

C.  Hall  Covell  '32,  a  former  comptroller  from 
East  Providence,  RI,  died  November  27.  1984. 
He  was  74  and  a  native  of  Barrington,  RI. 

After  studying  at  WPI  and  Bryant  College,  he 
became  a  public  accountant  and  auditor  and  an 
associate  partner  of  W.A.  Brackett  &  Co., 
Accountants.  Later,  he  was  with  Narragansett 
Machine  Co.,  and  he  also  served  as  comptroller 
at  J.C.  Hall  Co.,  Pawtucket.  RI.  For  15  years 
prior  to  his  retirement  in  1978,  he  was  with  the 
Rhode  Island  Department  of  Employment 
Security. 

He  was  a  founding  member  of  the  Barrington 
Players  and  belonged  to  SAE,  the  Barker  Play- 
ers of  Providence,  the  Lions  Club,  the  Netopian 
Club  and  the  National  Association  of  Accoun- 
tants. 

George  W.  Lyman  '33,  class  president  and 
former  plant  superintendent  and  chief  engineer 
of  Reed  Rolled  Thread  Die  Co.,  Holden,  MA, 
died  August  20,  1985,  in  Hartford,  CT.  at  the 
age  of  73.  Born  in  Meriden,  CT,  he  was  a  grad- 
uate mechanical  engineer. 

He  was  with  Reed  for  24  years,  with  Landis 
Machine  Co.,  Waynesboro,  PA,  for  five  years 
and  with  Henry  G.  Thompson  Co.,  New 
Haven.  CT,  for  eight  years.  For  a  time  he  was 
with  Spartan  Saw,  Springfield,  MA,  which  had 
been  acquired  by  Armstrong-Blum  Mfg.  Co.  In 
1980,  he  retired  as  executive  vice  president. 

Mr.  Lyman,  who  also  graduated  from  WPI's 
School  of  Industrial  Management  in  1954,  was 
a  member  of  Lambda  Chi  Alpha,  Skull,  Tau 
Beta  Pi,  the  Tech  Old-Timers  and  the  Poly 
Club.  Other  memberships  were  with  ASTME. 
Worcester  Engineering  Society,  and  SME,  as 
well  as  the  Springfield,  MA.  Kiwanis  Club  and 
Suffield  Country  Club.  He  had  been  chairman 
of  the  building  committee  of  Waschusett 
Regional  High  School  in  Holden,  MA,  and  a 
former  vice  president  of  the  Connecticut  Valley 
chapter  of  the  Alumni  Association. 

An  avid  golfer  and  square  dancer,  Mr.  Lyman 
also  enjoyed  skiing  both  in  the  U.S.  and 
Europe.  He  and  his  wife,  Barbara,  recently 
returned  from  a  two-week  tour  of  the  Scandina- 
vian countries  with  a  side  trip  to  Leningrad, 
Russia.  He  was  the  brother  of  Richard  Lvman 
'37. 

Wright  H.  Manvel  '33  of  Warren.  MI,  passed 
away  last  year.  A  graduate  mechanical  engi- 
neer, he  was  born  in  Pittsfield,  MA.  on  July  23, 
1910. 

He  was  a  longtime  GE  employee,  having 
worked  for  the  company  as  supervisor  of 
accounting  (Bridgeport.  CT),  as  well  as  super- 
visor of  methods  and  standards  and  manager  of 
industrial  engineering.  Other  posts  included 
manager  of  wage  and  salary  administration  and 
personnel  manager  (Louisville)  and  manager  of 
employee  and  public  relations  for  GE  in 
Detroit,  MI. 

Mr.  Manvel  belonged  to  Phi  Gamma  Delta, 
Tau  Beta  Pi,  Sigma  Xi  and  Skull,  as  well  as 


GE's  Elfun  Society,  his  local  Chamber  of  Com- 
merce education  committee,  the  Kiwanis  Club, 
Workman's  Compensation  Committee  and  the 
Industrial  Relations  Association.  He  was  a 
trustee  for  two  hospitals  and  was  active  with  the 
Boy  Scouts. 

Arthur  E.  Smith  '33, 

retired  chairman  of 
United  Aircraft  Corpo- 
ration (now  United 
Technologies),  and  a 
former  WPI  trustee, 
died  August  6,  1985,  at 
his  home  in  Manchester, 
CT,  following  a  long  ill- 
ness. He  was  74. 
A  native  of  Maiden, 
MA,  Mr.  Smith  graduated  as  a  mechanical 
engineer  from  WPI.  Early  posts  were  with 
Mack  Truck  in  Allentown,  PA,  and  Manning, 
Maxwell  &  Moore  in  New  York. 

He  joined  the  Pratt  &  Whitney  Aircraft  Divi- 
sion of  United  Aircraft  Corp.,  East  Hartford, 
CT,  in  1935  as  a  test  engineer.  From  1942  to 
1944  he  was  chief  engineer  of  the  P&WA  plant 
in  Kansas  City,  MO,  which  was  established 
during  the  war  years  to  help  meet  the  nation's 
urgent  need  for  aircraft  engines.  In  1949  he  was 
named  chief  engineer  for  the  entire  Pratt  & 
Whitney  Aircraft  Division.  He  was  promoted  to 
division  executive  vice  president  in  1957  and 
president  in  1967. 

He  became  president  of  United  Aircraft  Cor- 
poration in  1968.  In  1973,  he  retired  as  chair- 
man of  United  Aircraft,  now  known  as  United 
Technologies.  He  remained  a  member  of  the 
board  of  directors  until  1980. 

Mr.  Smith,  an  engine  scientist  and  inventor, 
made  numerous  contributions  to  the  improve- 
ment of  World  War  II  aircraft  engines.  He  is 
credited  with  an  important  role  in  the  develop- 
ment of  the  J-75  turbojet  engine  used  by  the  Air 
Force  and  Navy.  In  1964  he  was  named  to  a 
six-man  committee  by  the  Aerospace  Industries 
Association  of  Washington,  DC,  to  study  the 
development  of  a  supersonic  transport. 

A  fellow  of  the  American  Institute  of  Aero- 
nautics and  Astronautics,  he  also  served  on  sev- 
eral committees  with  the  Society  of  Automotive 
Engineers.  He  was  a  director  of  The  Travelers 
Corp.  and  the  Savings  Bank  of  Manchester,  as 
well  as  the  Manchester  (CT)  Memorial  Hospi- 
tal and  the  Connecticut  Bank  and  Trust  Com- 
pany. He  was  also  a  trustee  of  RPI.  Troy,  NY, 
and  a  member  of  Sigma  Xi. 

Elected  to  a  five-year  term  as  a  WPI  trustee 
in  1975,  Mr.  Smith  was  honored  by  his  alma 
mater  with  the  Robert  H.  Goddard  Award  for 
professional  achievement  in  1967,  an  honorary 
doctor  of  engineering  degree  in  1969,  and  the 
Herbert  F  Taylor  Award  for  service  to  the  col- 
lege in  1979.  He  was  a  member  of  the  WPI 
President's  Advisory  Council  and  had  held 
posts  with  the  Hartford  chapter  of  the  Alumni 
Association.  At  the  rededication  of  the 
Washburn  Shops  and  Labs  in  1984,  the  Materi- 
als Processing  Laboratory  was  named  in  his 
honor. 

Survivors  include  his  widow,  Frances  Smith. 
and  son.  David  Smith  '62. 

Walter  W.  Tuthill  '33,  a  retired  member  of  the 
technical  staff  at  Bell  Laboratories,  died  May 
27,  1985,  in  Morristown,  NJ,  at  the  age  of  74. 
He  was  born  in  Orient  Point,  NY,  and  he 
received  his  BSEE  and  MSEE  from  WPI. 


54       WPI  JOURNAL 


Early  in  his  career,  Mr.  Tuthill  was  with  U.S. 
Rubber  Products.  For  39  years  he  was  with  Bell 
Telephone  Labs  in  Whippany,  NJ,  retiring  in 
1976.  He  belonged  to  Sigma  Phi  Epsilon, 
Sigma  Xi,  and  the  Oyster  Pond  Historical  Soci- 
ety of  Long  Island,  as  well  as  the  Telephone 
Pioneers  of  America. 

Active  with  the  Morris  County  Canal  Soci- 
ety, he  was  also  active  in  the  County  Stroke 
Club,  the  Boy  Scouts,  the  Red  Cross  and  the 
Congregational  Church.  He  was  a  former  vice 
president  of  the  Northern  New  Jersey  chapter  of 
the  Alumni  Association. 

Lloyd  S.  Jenkins  '34  died  in  Worcester  on 
December  6,  1984,  at  the  age  of  72.  A  Worces- 
ter native,  he  studied  civil  engineering  at  WPI. 

He  owned  and  operated  Robert  G.  Pratt  Co., 
makers  of  textile  machinery,  in  Worcester  for 
25  years,  retiring  last  July.  He  wrote  the  "Wake 
Robin"  bird  column  for  the  Sunday  Telegram 
for  27  years.  His  last  column  appeared  Nov. 
25,  1984.  During  World  War  II,  he  was  a  first 
sergeant  in  Co.  "B,"  Ordnance  School  Battal- 
ion, U.S.  Army. 

For  many  years  he  was  president  of  the  For- 
bush  Bird  Club  (of  which  he  was  a  life  mem- 
ber). A  life  member  of  the  Hawk  Mountain 
Association,  he  belonged  to  the  Massachusetts 
Audubon  Society,  the  Brookline  Bird  Club,  the 
Nashua  River  Watershed  Association,  the 
Henry  J.  Thoreau  Society  and  the  National 
Bluebird  Society.  He  was  also  affiliated  with 
the  Worcester  Area  Chamber  of  Commerce  and 
the  Paxton  Conservation  Commission. 

V.  Thomas  Ratkiewich,  Jr.,  '34,  a  former 
Naugatuck  state  representative,  died  at  his 
home  in  Prospect,  CT,  on  April  4,  1985,  at  the 
age  of  75.  He  was  a  native  of  Naugatuck,  and  a 
former  chemistry  student  at  WPI. 

He  had  served  Thomas  Ratkiewich  Co.  Inc. 
as  president  and  treasurer.  Also,  he  had  been 
president  of  Rakie  Bros.  Co.  Inc.  and  employed 
as  an  accountant  for  Gay  Price  of  Milldale,  CT, 
for  more  than  25  years.  He  was  a  charter  mem- 
ber of  the  Naugatuck  Exchange  Club,  a  director 
of  the  local  chapters  of  the  Red  Cross  and  Little 
League,  and  a  member  of  Theta  Chi  and  St. 
Anthony's  Church. 

George  W.  Axelby  '35  died  in  the  Veterans' 
Hospital  in  Brockton,  MA,  on  February  17, 
1985,  following  a  long  illness.  He  was  71,  a 
former  chemistry  student  at  WPI  and  a  native  of 
Northfield,  CT. 

In  1971,  he  retired  from  Chase  Brass  and 
Copper  Company,  Waterbury,  CT,  where  he 
had  been  a  draftsman  and  tool  designer  for 
many  years. 

An  Army  veteran  of  World  War  II,  he  was 
with  the  88th  Field  Artillery  Division  in  Italy. 
He  was  an  honorary  deacon  of  his  local  Con- 
gregational Church. 

Harry  S.  Press  '37  of  Flushing,  NY,  passed 
away  last  November.  He  was  born  in  Cincin- 
nati, OH,  on  November  6,  1915. 

He  was  vice  president  of  sales  at  Kay  Mfg. 
Corp.,  Syosset,  NY,  and  had  been  with  the  firm 
since  1935. 

R.  William  Leckie  '38,  vice  president  of 
Allen,  Ross  &  Leckie  Inc.,  Buffalo,  NY, 
passed  away  last  November.  Born  on  August 
23,  1916,  in  Bridgeport,  CT,  he  studied  electri- 
cal engineering  at  WPI. 


He  had  worked  for  Revere  Copper  &  Brass  as 
Cincinnati  manager  and  as  Midwestern  sales 
manager  in  Chicago  before  becoming  associ- 
ated with  Allen,  Ross  &  Leckie.  He  belonged 
to  Phi  Sigma  Kappa. 

Daniel  G.  Mazur  '38,  who  retired  in  1973  as 
associate  deputy  director  for  engineering  of  the 
Goddard  Space  Flight  Center,  Greenbelt,  MD, 
died  in  Washington,  DC,  on  December  16, 
1984.  He  was  68  and  a  native  of  Buffalo.  NY. 

An  electrical  engineer,  he  began  his  federal 
career  at  the  Philadelphia  Navy  Yard  in  World 
War  II.  He  transferred  to  Washington  in  1946 
and  was  at  the  Naval  Research  Laboratory  until 
he  joined  NASA  at  its  inception  in  1958.  In 
1964,  he  received  NASA's  Medal  for  Excep- 
tional Scientific  Achievement  for  his  work  on 
communications  satellites. 

After  retiring  in  1973.  he  was  a  consultant  to 
various  private  corporations  for  several  years. 
He  belonged  to  IRE,  ARS  and  AEPi.  He  was 
the  father  of  Samuel  Mazur  '78. 

Peter  P.  Holz  '42,  a  retired  senior  development 
engineer  from  Union  Carbide,  Oak  Ridge,  TN, 
passed  away  on  March  31,  1985.  A  native  of 
Koeningsberg,  Germany,  he  was  born  on 
December  15,  1921.  He  was  a  graduate 
mechanical  engineer. 

In  World  War  II  and  the  Korean  conflict  he 
served  in  the  U.S.  Navy,  and  attained  the  rank 
of  commander  in  the  Navy  Reserve.  During  his 
career,  he  was  with  ALCOA,  Harrison  Corry 
Co.,  Glazer  Steel,  Maxon  Construction  and 
Rust  Engineering.  In  1983,  he  retired  from 
Union  Carbide,  Oak  Ridge  National  Labora- 
tory. 

Mr.  Holz,  who  was  active  with  the  ASME 
and  community  affairs  in  Oak  Ridge,  was  asso- 
ciated with  the  U.S.  Junior  Chamber  of  Com- 
merce, the  Jewish  War  Veterans  and  the  Boy 
Scouts. 

George  E.  Kent,  Jr.,  '47  of  Westboro,  MA, 
passed  away  on  January  14,  1985.  A  native  of 
Jersey  City,  NJ,  he  was  born  on  October  19, 
1921,  and  received  his  BSME  from  WPI. 

For  a  number  of  years,  he  was  a  sales  engi- 
neer for  Gulf  Oil  Corp.  and  an  industrial  engi- 
neer for  Hobbs  Manufacturing,  both  in  Worces- 
ter. At  the  time  of  his  death,  he  was  self 
employed. 

Albert  D.  Farnum  '56  SIM,  a  former  official 
of  Wyman-Gordon  Co.,  died  January  27,  1985, 
in  Hyannis,  MA,  at  the  age  of  84.  He  was  born 
in  Providence,  RI. 

Mr.  Famum  was  director  of  community  rela- 
tions and  exhibits  and  special  events  at  Wyman- 
Gordon  in  Worcester  and  North  Grafton,  where 
he  worked  for  29  years,  retiring  in  1970.  He 
began  his  career  in  1941  at  Norton  Co.  as  assis- 
tant to  the  plant  engineer  in  charge  of  forge 
shop  maintenance  in  Worcester.  In  1955,  he 
was  named  director  of  community  relations  at 
Norton.  At  one  time,  he  published  a  magazine 
in  Worcester. 

A  life  member  of  his  local  Masonic  lodge, 
Mr.  Farnum  also  belonged  to  the  Lutheran 
Church,  the  Brewster  (MA)  Men's  Club,  and 
the  Brewster  Sportsmen's  Club  (secretary). 
While  living  in  Worcester,  he  was  vice  presi- 
dent of  the  Worcester  Industrial  Council,  trea- 
surer of  Crompton  Park  Senior  Citizens  Club 
and  a  director  for  the  Worcester  Chamber  of 
Commerce.  He  was  active  with  the  National 


Safety  Council,  the  Worcester  Advertising  Club 
and  the  former  Community  Chest.  He  was  a 
past  president  of  the  Personnel  Directors  Coun- 
cil. 

Robert  W.  Franklin  '57,  a  retired  captain  with 
the  National  Oceanic  and  Atmospheric  Admin- 
istration, died  February  4,  1985.  at  his  mother's 
home  in  Falmouth,  MA,  following  a  long  ill- 
ness. He  was  born  in  Winthrop.  MA,  on  May 
23,  1935. 

After  graduating  with  his  BSCE,  he  joined 
the  U.S.  Coast  &  Geodetic  Survey  (now 
NOAA)  and  traveled  throughout  the  U.S.  He 
had  worked  on  the  Alaska  Aerial  Survey 
Project.  In  1977,  he  retired  with  the  rank  of 
captain.  He  belonged  to  Phi  Sigma  Kappa,  the 
American  Concrete  Institute  and  the  Society  of 
American  Military  Engineers. 

Stanley  J.  Andrysiak  '64  of  Orchard  Park, 
NY,  passed  away  on  December  27,  1984.  He 
was  born  in  Kamianka,  Poland,  on  February  2, 
1942. 

In  1964  he  graduated  from  WPI  as  a  mechan- 
ical engineer.  He  had  worked  for  Bell-Aero- 
space, Buffalo,  NY. 

Franklin  A.  Harrald  '64  SIM  died  January 
15,  1985,  in  Kaneohe,  Oahu,  Hawaii,  after  an 
illness  while  visiting  relatives.  He  was  72  and  a 
native  of  Essex,  CT. 

He  graduated  from  Tufts  University  in  1934. 
Before  retiring  in  1975,  Mr.  Harrald  was  direc- 
tor of  engineering  services  at  American  Optical 
(AO)  Corp.,  Southbridge,  MA.  He  joined  AO 
in  1941  and  held  posts  in  the  personnel,  manu- 
facturing and  engineering  departments.  He  was 
plastic  lens  development  manager  before  being 
appointed  manager  for  technological  and 
administrative  services  of  the  optical  products 
division  in  1971. 

A  former  member  of  the  Southbridge  Plan- 
ning Board,  he  had  been  serving  as  treasurer  of 
the  Congregational  Church.  He  was  a  former 
Sunday  school  teacher  and  local  scoutmaster 
for  the  Boy  Scouts. 

Richard  S.  Parzuchowski  '64,  vice  president 
of  Chromalloy  R&T.  died  in  Pound  Ridge,  NY, 
on  April  18,  1985.  He  was  born  in  Danbury, 
CT,  on  March  13,  1942.  In  1964  he  received 
his  BS  in  chemical  engineering. 

His  former  employers  included  Whitfield 
Laboratories,  Bethel,  CT;  Union  Carbide;  and 
Pratt  &  Whitney  Aircraft,  Middletown,  CT.  He 
belonged  to  TKE,  the  ASM  and  to  A.I.Ch.E. 

Peter  A.  Heibeck  '65  of  Malvern,  PA,  a  flight 
systems  engineer  for  General  Electric,  passed 
away  recently.  He  was  born  on  November  10, 
1943,  inBrynMawr,  PA. 

Following  graduation  as  a  chemical  engineer, 
he  worked  a  year  at  Bethlehem  Steel  Corp. 
(Looper)  in  Sparrows  Point,  MO.  In  1966,  he 
joined  GE  as  a  flight  evaluation  thermodynami- 
cist  in  Philadelphia.  He  belonged  to  Sigma  Phi 
Epsilon  and  to  the  Poly  Club  and  the  A.I.Ch.E. 

Joseph  N.  Passaro,  Jr.,  '66,  of  Mountain 
View,  CA,  died  suddenly  on  May  6,  1985.  He 
was  42. 

After  receiving  his  BS  in  management  from 
WPI,  he  got  his  master's  at  Columbia.  For 
many  years  he  served  with  General  Electric  in 
various  capacities.  He  belonged  to  Theta  Chi 
and  APO. 


NOVEMBER  1985       55 


Engineer  A 

Happy  Holiday 


(1)  Hooded  Pullover  Sweat  Shirt... 

With  front  pocket.  50/50  blend.  White 
with  maroon  imprint.  Sizes  S-M-L-XL. 
$15.95@ 

(2)  Special    Hooded    Pullover  Sweat 

Shirt...  With  front  pocket  White  with  rasp- 
berry inner-hood,  stripes  on  sleeves,  pip- 
ing, and  imprint.  S-M-L-XL.  $16.95@ 

(19)  White  Painter's  Cap... Grey  and 
maroon  stripes  and  "WPI".  S-M-L. 
$1.50@ 


m*1 


ifr  I  n 


m 


1 


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■ 


(20)  Canvas  Tote  Bag.. .Maroon  cam 
with  white  seal  and  line  drawing  of  Bdi 
ton  Hall.  $6.50 


15 


4fe 


>o» 


V 


<&l 


'/ 


IF 


o(ll)  Toddlers'  Hooded  Sweat  Suit... 

Acrylic.  Grey  with  maroon  full-front  im- 
print. Toddler  sizes.  $12.95@ 

o(12)  Infant  Snap-Up  Hooded  Sweat 

Suit.. .Maroon  with  white  imprint,  snaps, 
and  leg  piping.  3  mos.,  6  mos.,  9  mos.,  12 
mos.  $11.95@ 

o  (13)  Child's  Traditional  Grey  Tee-Shirt 

...With  maroon  WPI  seal.  Youth  S-M-L. 
$4.95@ 

o(14)  Child's  Snoopy  Tee-Shirt...Grey 
with  WPI  logo.  S-M-L.  $5.95@ 

(15)  White  Athletic  Socks...  With 
maroon  &  grey  stripe  on  top,  maroon 
"WPI".  L-XL.  $3.99@ 

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$4.95@ 

°  LIMITED  AVAILABILITY  IN  CERTAIN  SIZES 


M 


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(8)  Rainbow  Tee-Shirt... 50/50  blend. 
Multi-colored  WPI  imprint  on  maroon.  S- 
M-L-XL.  $6.50@ 


m* 


(6)  Snoopy  Football  Jersey... 50/50 i 
blend.  Maroon  shoulder  gussets.  Snoopy/ 
Cheers/WPI  imprint  S-M-L-XL.  $8.95@ 

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ester/Cotton  blend.  Maroon  WPI  imprint 
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colored  seal.  $3.95@ 


.24  inches.  Multi- 


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ITEMS  NOT  PICTURED... 

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(5)  Gym  Shorts.. .Cotton/Polyester  blenc 
Elastic  Waist.  White  with  maroon  "WP 
Engineers".  S-M-L-XL.  $8.95(& 


matter  how  long  you've  been  away  you  are 
1  a  big  part  of  the  college  community.  Now 
are  only  as  far  away  as  your  mailbox.  The 
akstore  has  a  great  selection  of  unprinted 
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la  Mater.  Order  today  -  or  send  for  our  new 
t  featuring  other  great  college  merchan- 


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Name. 


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Zip. 


Phone 


Mail  to:  WPI  Bookstore 
Daniels  Hall 

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Phone  (617)  793-5247 


WPI  ENGINEERS 

1985-1986  WINTER  SPORTS 

SCHEDULE 


MEN'S  BASKETBALL 
Home/ 
Away 

A 


Date 

12-3 

12-7 

12-10 

12-12 

12-14 

1-8 

1-14 

1-18 

1-23 

1-25 

1-28 

1-31 

2-1 

2-5 

2-8 

2-10 

2-13 

2-15 

2-18 

2-22 


Opponent 

Babson 

Bowdoin 

Amherst 

Wesleyan 

Thomas 

SMU 

Suffolk 

Bates 

Brandeis 

King's  Point 

Trinity 

Coast  Guard 

Anna  Maria 

Williams 

Tufts 

Newport 

MIT 

NYU 

Nichols 

Clark 


JUNIOR  VARSITY  BASKETBALL 


12-3 

12-10 

12-12 

1-28 

1-31 

2-1 

2-5 

2-8 

2-10 

2-15 

2-22 


Babson 

Amherst 

Wesleyan 

Trinity 

Coast  Guard 

Bridgeton  Academy 

Williams 

Tufts 

WITTI 

Worcester  Academy 

Clark 


Time 

7:30  pm 
4:00  pm 
8:00  pm 
8:00  pm 
3:00  pm 
8:00  pm 
8:00  pm 
8:00  pm 
8:00  pm 
4:00  pm 
8:00  pm 
8:00  pm 
8:00  pm 
8:00  pm 
8:00  pm 
8:00  pm 
8:00  pm 
8:00  pm 
8:00  pm 
8:00  pm 

5:30  pm 
6:00  pm 
6:00  pm 
6:00  pm 
6:00  pm 
6:00  pm 
6:00  pm 
6:00  pm 
6:00  pm 
6:00  pm 
6:00  pm 


WOMEN'S 

11-14         A 
11/22-23   A 


12-2 

12-5 

12-7 

12-9 

12-11 

12-12 

1-18 

1-21 

1-23 
1-25 
1-28 
1-30 
2-1 


2-2 


2-5 

2-7 

2-11 

2-13 

2-18 

2-21 

2-25 


BASKETBALL 

Lowell  (scrimmage)    7:00  pm 
City  Tournament — 

Anna  Maria, 

Clark.  Worcester 

State.  WPI.  at 

Clark 


Fitchburg  State 
Emmanuel 
Bowdoin 
Bridgewater  State 
RIC 

Framingham  State 
Bates 
Coast  Guard 

Academy 
Anna  Maria 
WNEC 
Wheaton 
Nichols 
Colby  Invitational 

WPI-University  of 

S.  Maine 

Colby-UMASS: 

Boston,  at  Colby 
Colby  Invitational 

Consolation 

Championship,  at 

Colby 
Brandeis 
Manhattanville 
Amherst 
MIT 

Clark  University 
SMU 
Trinity  College 


MEN'S  SWIMMING 

11-22 

11-25 

12-4 

12-7 

12-10 

1-22 

1-25 

1-29 

2-1 

2-6 

2-8 

2-12 

2-15 

2-19 


Holy  Cross 

Babson 

Boston  College 

RPI  Invitational 

Clark 

Conn.  College 

Coast  Guard 

U.Mass  Boston 

SMU 

Trinity 

Tufts 

Bridgewater 

Keene  State 

Brandeis 


6:00  & 
8:00  pm 
7:00  pm 
7:00  pm 
2:00  pm 
7:00  pm 
7:00  pm 
7:00  pm 
2:00  pm 

7:00  pm 
7:00  pm 
2:00  pm 
7:00  pm 
7:00  pm 


6:00  pm 

8:00  pm 

1:00  pm 

3:00  pm 
7:00  pm 
7:00  pm 
7:00  pm 
6:00  pm 
7:00  pm 
7:00  pm 
7:00  pm 


5:30  pm 
6:00  pm 
7:00  pm 

6:00  pm 
6:30  pm 
2:00  pm 
6:00  pm 
1:00  pm 
7:00  pm 
2:00  pm 
6:00  pm 
2:00  pm 
7:00  pm 


WOMEN'S  SWIMMING 


11-25 

1-10 

1-21 

1-24 

1-29 

2-1 

2-4 

2-12 


WRESTLING 

12-4  H 


Babson  6:00  pm 

Clark  6:00  pm 

Conn.  College  7:00  pm 

Southern  Conn.  7:00  pm 

U .  Mass  Boston  6:00  pm 

SMU  1:00  pm 

Regis  7:00  pm 

Bridgewater  6:00  pm 


Boston  College  7:00  pm 

Trinity  College  1 :00  pm 

Plymouth  State 

College  7:00  pm 

Harvard  University/ 

University  of  New 

Hampshire/NYU  Noon 

RPI/Williams.  at 

Williams  1:00  pm 

Amherst  College  7:00  pm 
Rhode  Island 

College  1 :00  pm 

Western  New 

England  College  7:00  pm 
University  of 

Lowell  1 :00  pm 

New  England 

Intercollegiate 

Invitational 

Tournament,  at 

Cambridge  10:00  am 

MIT  7:00  pm 

Bowdoin  1:00  pm 

Coast  Guard  7:00  pm 

Wesleyan/ 

University  of 

Hartford,  at 

Hartford  1 1 :00  am 

Bridgewater  6:00  pm 

New  England  Col- 
lege Conference 

Championship,  at 

Trinity 

NCAA  Div.  Ill 

National 

Tournament,  at 

Trenton  State 

College 


JUNIOR  VARSITY  DATES 

1-22  H  Naval  Academy 

Prep  School  4:00  pm 

2-16  H  New  England  J.V. 

Tournament  1 1 :00  am 


12-7 
12-11 

12-14 

111 

1-15 
1-18 

1-21 

1-25 

1-26 


1-29 

2-1 
24 
2-8 


2-11  A 

2/21-22     A 


2-28- 
3-1 


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FEBRUARY  1986 


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D.C.  PROJECT  CENTER  •  STARCH 


A  MESSAGE 


From  Dr.  Richard  H.  Gallagher 

Vice  President  and  Dean  of  the  Faculty 


I 


t  is  important 
to  remember 
.that  a  college, 
like  a  person,  is 
not  an  island  unto 
itself.  The  environment  we  work  to  en- 
hance is  populated  with  both  internal 
and  external  issues,  resources  and 
opportunities. 

Two  elements  in  this  environment  of 
current  and  profound  importance  to  WPI 
are  the  Massachusetts  Microelectronics 
Center  (MCC)  and  our  efforts  at  more 
comprehensive  integration  of  computers 
in  all  of  the  Institute's  activities. 

MMC  began  more  than  three  years 
ago,  a  collaboration  of  Massachusetts 
engineering  colleges  and  high  technol- 
ogy businesses.  Collectively,  this  group 
of  educators  and  industrialists  sought  a 
scheme  of  laboratories,  commercial 
enterprise  and  instructional  facilities  that 
would,  in  part,  give  to  electrical  engi- 
neering students  exposure  to  microelec- 
tronics design  and  fabrication  second  to 
none.  WPI  will  benefit  directly  from  its 
association  with  MCC.  which  will  be 
sited  in  nearby  Westboro,  MA. 

In  a  related  development,  early  in 
1985.  WPI  received  from  Data  General 
Corporation  a  gift  of  equipment  for  a 
state-of-the-art  computer-aided  WPI  cir- 
cuit design  laboratory.  This  laboratory 
will  give  students  hands-on  experience  in 
the  materials  processing  technology 
associated  with  integrated  circuits. 
Truly,  a  new  era  is  dawning  on  the 
microelectronics  concentration  in  electri- 
cal engineering  at  WPI. 

Equally  significant  are  our  initiatives 
to  enhance  the  computational  resources 
of  virtually  every  element  of  WPI  opera- 
tions. A  year  and  a  half  ago.  two  key 
actions  were  taken.  First,  the  Office  of 
Academic  Computing  was  created,  with 
Professor  Owen  W.  Kennedy.  Jr. 
appointed  dean.  Second,  the  college 
selected  the  AT&T  Model  6300  as  the 
standard  microcomputer  for  the  campus. 

These  were  critical  steps  in  building  a 
comprehensive   computational    network 


on  campus,  a  network  that  will  accom- 
modate data  communication  among  the 
many  types  of  equipment  already  in  use. 
In  addition,  we  are  creating  more  com- 
puter labs;  faculty  members  are  actively 
integrating  microcomputers  into  the  cur- 
riculum; and  use  of  these  tools  is  spread- 
ing to  the  administrative  and  secretarial 
functions  of  the  college.  This  vital  pro- 
gram has  been  helped  immeasurably  by  a 
$1.2  million  grant  from  the  Alden  Trust 
in  1984.  and  by  substantial  new  alloca- 
tions from  the  college's  operating  budget. 

Already,  we  can  identify  many  exam- 
ples of  the  tangible  impacts  of  the  com- 
puter initiative  on  instruction  at  WPI. 
Last  summer,  we  refurbished  the  Graph- 
ics Laboratory  in  Mechanical  Engineer- 
ing, a  facility  dedicated  to  instruction  in 
introductory  graphics.  Microcomputers 
and  computer  plotters  have  been 
installed,  and  a  computer-aided  design 
(CAD)  program  of  the  type  widely  used 
by  practitioners  was  introduced.  The 
course  has  been  oversubscribed  since  it 
began,  and  plans  are  already  being  laid 
for  the  expansion  of  these  facilities. 

Similar  tales  could  be  told  about  labo- 
ratories in  other  departments  of  the  Insti- 
tute. The  challenge,  of  course,  will  be  to 
acquire  funds  to  achieve  full  campus 
computerization  and  to  offer  mainte- 
nance of  equipment  and  the  other  serv- 
ices demanded  in  an  environment  where 
as  many  as  3,500  individuals  are  making 
use  of  computer  equipment,  with  nearly 
as  many  different  objectives  for  that  use. 

As  a  relative  newcomer  to  WPI, 
whose  experience  is  principally 
in  the  engineering  sphere,  I  find 
the  continuing  development  of  the 
humanities  especially  impressive. 

In  1984,  you  may  recall,  a  5250,000 
grant  was  received  from  the  Mellon 
Foundation  for  the  strengthening  of  the 
humanities  program  at  WPI.  Last  year, 
we  formed  a  group  of  off-campus  sup- 
porters known  as  the  "Friends  of  the 
Humanities." 
What  is  more,  the  humanities  faculty 


itself  is  being  strengthened  in  such  areas 
as  communications  and  history.  Today, 
exciting  ideas  about  an  even  greater  role 
for  humanities  at  WPI  are  under  discus- 
sion, and  I  believe  that  these  are  moves 
in  the  right  direction. 

By  any  measure,  the  WPI  Plan  has 
successfully  withstood  the  test  of 
time.  Today,  nearly  half  of 
WPI's  living  alumni  have  matriculated 
under  the  Plan.  Although  a  significant 
block  of  faculty  prefer  retention  of  the 
Plan  in  virtually  all  of  its  present  details, 
there  is  also  considerable  sentiment  for 
change  of  one  or  another  of  its  elements. 
Debates  on  these  issues  date  back  to  the 
Plan's  inception,  but  the  major  changes 
have  taken  place  in  only  recent  years. 

One  such  change  affects  the  grading 
system.  At  this  point  the  recorded  grades 
for  course  work  are  AD  (distinction)  and 
AC  (acceptable).  Last  year  the  faculty 
voted  for  a  future  change  of  the  recorded 
grades  to  A,  B  and  C.  Another  change  of 
recent  years  was  to  add  "distribution" 
requirements,  demanding  of  every  stu- 
dent course  work  in  science,  mathemat- 
ics and  other  disciplines. 

What  more  of  the  Plan  might  be 
altered?  If  indeed  there  is  on  the  horizon 
more  change,  it  will  result  from  intensive 
study  and  debate  about  how  best  to  serve 
the  objectives  of  undergraduate  educa- 
tion at  WPI.  I  am  confident  that  the  hall- 
marks of  the  program,  in  the  form  of  the 
Major  Qualifying  and  Interactive  Quali- 
fying Projects,  together  with  the  Human- 
ities Sufficiency  and  the  Competency 
Examination— will  remain. 

Encompassing  all  that  I've  mentioned 
here  and  certainly  much  more  is  a  five- 
year  plan  we  are  currently  conceiving  for 
the  Institute.  In  all  of  higher  education, 
as  in  science  and  technology,  times  are 
changing— and  more  rapidly  than  some 
institutions  can  respond  to.  We  intend  to 
anticipate  and  pursue  our  dynamic  envi- 
ronment actively.  I  know  you'll  be  hear- 
ing more  about  these  initiatives  in  the 
months  ahead. 


WHJournal 

WORCESTER  POLYTECHNIC^ INSTITUTE 


VOLUME  89,  NUMBER  3 

Staff  of  The  WPI  JOURNAL 

Editor,  Kenneth  L.  McDonnell 

Alumni  Information  Editor.  Ruth  S.  Trask 

Sports  Editor,  Roger  Crimmins 

Alumni  Publications  Committee:  William  J. 
Firla,  Jr.  '60,  chairman;  Judith  Nitsch,  '75, 
vice  chairman;  Paul  J.  Geary  '71;  Carl  A. 
Keyser  '39;  Robert  C  Labonte  '54;  Samuel 
Mencow  '37;  Maureen  Sexton  '83. 

The  WPI  Journal  (ISSN  0148-6128)  is  pub- 
lished quarterly  for  the  WPI  Alumni  Associa- 
tion by  Worcester  Polytechnic  Institute  in 
cooperation  with  the  Alumni  Magazine  Con- 
sortium, with  editorial  offices  at  the  Johns 
Hopkins  University.  Baltimore.  MD  21218. 
Pages  I-XVI  are  published  for  the  Alumni 
Magazine  Consortium  (Franklin  and  Marshall 
College,  Hartwick  College,  Johns  Hopkins 
University,  Rensselaer  Polytechnic  Institute, 
Villanova  University.  Western  Maryland  Col- 
lege, Worcester  Polytechnic  Institute)  and 
appear  in  the  respective  alumni  magazines  of 
those  institutions.  Second  class  postage  paid 
at  Worcester.  MA.  and  additional  mailing 
offices.  Pages  1-24.  41-64  ®  1986.  Worcester 
Polytechnic  Institute.  Pages  I-XVI  {  1986. 
Johns  Hopkins  University. 

Staff  of  the  Alumni  Magazine  Consortium: 

Editor,  Mary  Ruth  Yoe;  Design  and  Produc- 
tion Coordinator,  Amy  Doudiken;  Assistant 
Editor.  Leslie  Brunetta;  Designer.  Allen  Car- 
roll. 

Advisory  Board  of  the  Alumni  Magazine 
Consortium:  Franklin  and  Marshall  College. 
Bruce  Holran  and  Linda  Whipple;  Hartwick 
College,  Merrilee  Gomillion;  Johns  Hopkins 
University,  B.J.  Norris  and  Elise  Hancock; 
Rensselaer  Polytechnic  Institute,  Robert  M. 
Whitaker;  Villanova  University,  Eugene  J. 
Ruane  and  Joan  DelCollo;  Western  Maryland 
College,  Joyce  Muller  and  Pat  Donohoe; 
Worcester  Polytechnic  Institute,  Donald  F. 
Berth  and  Kenneth  L.  McDonnell. 


Acknowledgments: 

Typesetting.  BG  Composition,  Inc. 
American  Press,  Inc. 


Printing. 


Diverse  views  on  subjects  of  public  interest 
are  presented  in  the  magazine.  These  views 
do  not  necessarily  reflect  the  opinions  of  the 
editors  or  official  policies  of  WPI.  Address 
correspondence  to  the  Editor,  Vie  WPI  Jour- 
nal, Worcester  Polytechnic  Institute,  Worces- 
ter, MA  01609.  Telephone  (617)  793-5609. 
Postmaster:  If  undeliverable  please  send  form 
3579  to  the  address  above.  Do  not  return  pub- 
lication. 


1CONTENTS 


FEBRUARY  1986 


6  The  Entrepreneurial  Spirit: 
The  Redemption  of  a  CEO 

William  M.  Lester,  '28  ME,  inventor. 
Michael  V.  Shanley 

10  The  Boyntons  Go  to  Washington 

Behind  the  scenes  on  Capitol  Hill. 
Evelyn  Herwitz 

16  From  Classroom  to  Courtroom 

WPI  students  help  Worcester's  troubled  youth. 
Michael  E.  Donnelly 

18  Maker  of  Magical  Light 

Percy  F.  Marsaw  '30  EE,  WPI  stained-glass 
designer  and  citizen  extraordinaire. 
Ruth  Trask 

20  How  Sweet  It  Is 

CE  Professor  James  E.  Rollings  and  starch. 
Paul  Susca 

I  Sporting  Strife 
Division  I  teams  at  Division  III  schools? 
Marshall  Ledger 

VI  Science  for  Art's  Sake 

Conservators  are  turning  to  materials  science. 
Leslie  Brunetta 

IX  What  Makes  Life  Worthwhile? 

The  "winning"  responses  to  the  contest. 

41   A  pictorial  review  of  Homecoming  '85 

Photography  by  Michael  Carroll 

Departments 

News  from  the  Hill        2 

Class  Notes        44 
Completed  Careers        62 
Feedback       Inside  Back  Cover 


Page  I 


Cover:  Percy  "Pete"  Marsaw  '30  EE,  before  one  of  his  Sinclair  Hall  stained- 
glass  creations,  as  photographed  by  Michael  Carroll.  Profile  on  page  18. 


FEBRUARY  1986       1 


NEWS  FROM  THE  HILL 


On  the  Road  Again — 
Strauss  Style 

At  the  conclusion  of  his  cross-country 
train  and  tandem-bicycle  junket  with 
wife  Jean  last  summer,  just  after  their 
wedding  and  prior  to  assuming  the  presi- 
dency of  WPI,  President  Jon  C.  Strauss 
may  have  thought  his  whistle-stopping 
days  were  behind  him.  But  in  the  spring 
of  1985,  he'll  be  on  the  road  again,  this 
time  to  meet  with  alumni  groups  as  well 
as  with  key  foundation  and  corporate 
individuals.  His  visits  will  take  him  from 
Boston  to  Los  Angeles,  Detroit  to  New 
York  City,  with    stops  along  the  way. 

The  tour,  to  occur  in  March  and  April, 
is  part  of  Dr.  Strauss's  busy  pre- 
inaugural  calendar  of  activities,  culmi- 
nating with  his  official  induction  as 
WPI's  13th  president  on  May  10,  the 
121st  anniversary  of  the  signing  of  WPI's 
charter.  In  all.  Dr.  Strauss  will  visit  some 
20  cities,  making  scores  of  appearances 
at  luncheons,  dinners,  receptions  and 
alumni  events.  It's  an  opportunity  for 
him  to  meet  with  graduates  and  friends 
of  the  college  and  to  share  his  thoughts 
on  WPI's  next  five  years. 

"We  recognize  that  not  all  of  the  WPI 
family  will  be  able  to  join  us  in  May," 
says  Strauss,  "so  we  want  to  acquaint 
ourselves  with  as  many  alumni  and 
friends  as  we  can  before  then." 

Where  schedules  conflict,  vice  presi- 
dents Richard  H.  Gallagher,  dean  of  the 
faculty,  and  Donald  F.  Berth  '57  CHE, 
University  Relations,  will  convey  Dr. 
Strauss's  message.  Each  visit  will  be 
complemented  by  a  video  presentation 
highlighting  the  Institute's  plans  for 
enhancing  all  elements  of  the  WPI 
experience— academics,  faculty,  facili- 
ties, student  life. 

Following  his  inauguration,  Dr. 
Strauss  hopes  to  continue  his  tour,  visit- 
ing additional  locations,  alumni  groups 
and  individuals  into  the  fall  of  1986. 
WPI  will  announce  the  tour  schedule 
early  in  the  year. 


Funding  Sources  More 
Generous  than  Ever 

WPI  received  a  total  of  $6,944,190  in 
gifts  and  bequests  during  fiscal  year 
1984-85,  a  10-percent  increase  over 
comparative  figures  in  1983-84,  accord- 
ing to  Donald  F.  Berth  '57,  vice  presi- 
dent for  University  Relations. 

"This  was  the  last  fiscal  year  under  Dr. 
Edmund  T  Cranch's  overall  leadership," 
he  says.  During  the  seven  years  of 
Cranch's  presidency,  WPI  realized  an 
impressive  $31,691,600  in  gifts  and 
bequests.  "This  is  a  great  foundation 
from  which  Dr.  Strauss  can  further 
enhance  the  resources  of  WPI  during  his 
presidency,"  Berth  adds. 

WPI's  endowment  market  value  was  at 
$31.5  million  when  Cranch  began  his 
service  in  July  1978;  it  was  at  a  record 
$65  million  at  June  30,  1985,  at  the  time 
of  his  resignation. 

"We're  most  pleased  with  our  sus- 
tained momentum,  especially  during  a 
year  when  the  presidential  leadership 
was  changing,"  says  Berth.  "Our  alumni 
continue  their  fine  record  of  Annual 
Fund  support,  which  accounts  for  about 
one  out  of  every  five  dollars  received  by 
WPI  from  all  sources." 

In  the  year  ended  June  30,  1985,  40 
percent  of  the  alumni  body  contributed 
another  record-breaking  total  of 
$1,063,000  combined  with  employer 
matching-gift  funds  of  over  $354,000. 


Raytheon  Leads  New 
WPI  Hiring 

According  to  figures  released  recently  by 
William  F.  Trask,  director  of  the  Office 
of  Graduate  and  Career  Planning 
(OGCP),  Raytheon  Company  hired  more 
Class  of  1985  graduates  than  any  of  the 
other  130  reporting  companies. 

Of  graduating  seniors  notifying  OGCP 
of  their  employment  results,  33  say  they 


are  now  receiving  paychecks  from  Ray- 
theon. Other  leading  employers  include 
Digital  Equipment  Corporation,  United 
Technologies  Corporation,  General 
Electric  Company,  and  General 
Dynamics/Electric  Boat  Division. 

Electrical  engineering  and  mechanical 
engineering  majors  far  outdistanced  all 
other  majors  in  numbers  of  positions 
accepted.  EE  was  also  the  winner  in 
terms  of  salary,  with  graduates'  median 
starting  salaries  reaching  $28,800. 
Chemical  engineering  was  less  than  $200 
behind,  followed  by,  in  descending 
order,  ME,  computer  science,  manage- 
ment, mathematics,  and  civil  engineer- 
ing. No  valid  salary  information  was 
reported  for  chemistry  and  physics.  The 
greatest  increase  in  median  starting  sal- 
ary came  to  mathematics  majors,  with  a 
7.5  percent  jump,  to  $25,500. 

Kimball  R.  Woodbury 
Is  Schwieger 
Award  Winner 

Preferred  residence:  Worcester  or 
Honolulu.  So  reads  the  placement  office 
questionnaire  Kim  Woodbury  filled  out 
during  his  days  at  WPI.  The  guy  seemed 
to  know  what  he  wanted. 

Today,  four  decades  later,  Kimball  R. 
Woodbury  '44  ME,  '56  SIM,  is  still  in 
Worcester— or,  more  accurately,  residing 
with  his  wife  Betty  in  Boylston,  MA. 

Whether  or  not  the  Honolulu  listing 
was  just  for  effect,  these  days  it  matters 
little,  for  the  war-time  graduate  has  more 
than  made  a  name  for  himself  here  in  his 
hometown.  Woodbury  is  president  of 
Woodbury  &  Co.,  of  Worcester,  one  of 
the  nation's  leading  printers  of  fine  com- 
mercial stationery.  What's  more,  he  con- 
tinues to  give  unselfishly  to  his  commu- 
nity. 

And  on  January  14,  1986,  Kim  Wood- 
bury was  recognized  by  WPI's  School  of 
Industrial  Engineering  at  its  annual  ban- 
quet as  the  1 986  recipient  of  the  Albert  J . 


WPI  JOURNAL 


Kimball  R.  Woodbury  '44  ME,  '56  SIM 

Schwieger  Award  for  professional 
achievement. 

Woodbury's  college  career,  like  those 
of  many  of  his  classmates,  was  inter- 
rupted by  the  second  world  war,  in  which 
he  served  in  the  Air  Force  in  the  Pacific 
theater.  Following  graduation  in  1947, 
he  joined  the  family  stationery  business. 
He's  been  with  the  firm  ever  since,  rising 
to  president  in  1966. 

Kim  Woodbury's  presence  on  the  Wor- 
cester civic  scene  is  almost  unparalleled. 
He  is  past  president  and  an  active  volun- 
teer of  the  board  of  the  YMCA.  Organiz- 
ing the  financing  for  construction  of  the 
Greendale  branch  of  the  Y  was  his 
responsibility.  Today,  this  comprehen- 
sive facility  is  one  of  the  nation's  finest. 

He  has  served  on  the  Worcester  School 
Committee,  on  the  boards  of  Worcester 
Academy,  his  alma  mater;  Worcester 
County  Institution  for  Savings,  of  which 
he  was  a  corporator  in  1969;  and  Wor- 
cester Memorial  Hospital.  He  is  past 
president  of  the  United  Way  of  Central 
Massachusetts  and  today  serves  on  the 
Boylston  Finance  Committee. 

It  is  noteworthy  that  both  of  Kim 
Woodbury's  grandfathers  were  graduates 
of  WPI-John  C.  Woodbury,  in  1876, 
and  Henry  E.  Kimball,  in  1891.  Con- 
gratulations to  one  of  SIM's  most  distin- 
guished graduates. 


Alumni  Boards  Advising 
Faculty  and  Deans 

Wilfred  Houde  '59  EE  was  a  recipient  in 
1984  of  WPI's  Robert  Goddard   '08 


Award  for  professional  achievement.  He 
has  made  his  mark  in  the  computer 
industry  as  founder  and  chairman  of 
Vimart  Corporation.  George  H.  Long, 
Jr.  '57  CHE.  has  achieved  an  eminent 
career,  as  well,  as  Manager  of  Engineer- 
ing of  Exxon  Research  &  Engineering 
Co. 

Now,  Houde  and  Long,  as  well  as 
other  distinguished  alumni,  are  bringing 
their  organizational  talent  and  technical 
expertise  back  to  campus,  to  the  aid  of 
the  departments  that  granted  them  their 
degrees.  In  their  roles  as  chairmen  of 
advisory  committees  for  the  Departments 
of  Electrical  Engineering  and  of  Chemi- 
cal Engineering,  the  two  are  leading 
other  alumni,  scholars  and  off-campus 
experts  in  helping  chart  the  course  for 
EE  and  CHE  in  the  years  ahead.  In 
November,  both  the  EE  and  CHE  boards 
held  their  charter  meetings  on  campus. 

CHE  and  EE  are  the  newest  advisory 
committees  at  WPI.  They  are  modeled 
after  successful  boards  formed  in  the  late 
'70s  and  early  '80s  in  the  Department  of 
Management  and  the  Center  for  Fire 
Safety  Studies.  Similar  boards  are  in  the 
formative  stages  in  Civil  Engineering 
and  Mechanical  Engineering. 

Howard  O.  Painter  '58  EE.  owner  of 
Painter  &  Co..  is  chairman  of  the  Man- 
agement committee;  John  A.  Love,  pres- 
ident and  C.E.O.  of  Factory  Mutual 
Engineering  and  Research  Corporations, 
heads  the  Fire  Safety  Board  of  Advisors; 
and  Philip  A.  Wild  '50  CE,  a  vice  presi- 
dent at  Stone  &  Webster  Engineering, 
chairs  the  CE  board. 

According  to  Dr.  Richard  H.  Gal- 
lagher, vice  president  and  dean  of  the 
faculty,  the  advisory  boards  contribute  to 
the  academic  quality  of  their  departments 
in  several  ways.  First,  the  college  regu- 
larly apprises  each  board  of  the  direc- 
tions the  departments  are  taking  in  aca- 
demic matters.  The  board  members  then 
meet  to  formulate  responses  to  this 
information— advice  and  counsel  on  the 
merit  of  these  plans.  Finally,  the  boards 
assist    the    college    in    seeking    the 


support— human  and  financial— to 
achieve  its  goals. 

"Advisory  boards  provide  an  opportu- 
nity for  alumni  and  other  professionals  in 
senior  scientific  and  technical  manage- 
ment positions  to  become  involved  in 
academic  policy  issues,"  says  Gallagher. 
"They  enable  the  Institute  to  draw  on  the 
informed  advice  of  distinguished  practi- 
tioners. By  serving  as  respected  sound- 
ing boards,  their  members  help  assure 
that  our  academic  plan  is  designed  to 
respond  effectively  to  real-world  needs 
and  concerns." 

Advisory  board  members  are  not 
charged  with  management  or  teaching 
responsibilities,  he  adds.  "Still,  the  serv- 
ice they  provide  is  an  invaluable  source 
of  guidance,  information  and  encourage- 
ment." 

3R  Campaign  Passes 
$l-MillionMark 

As  the  winter  sports  season  rolls  along— 
toasty  inside  Harrington  Auditorium  and 
Alumni  Gymnasium— WPI's  outside  ath- 
letic facilities  witness  the  presence  of  but 
the  heartiest  of  souls— an  occasional  jog- 
ger trying  to  avoid  the  slosh  of  city 
streets;  pick-up  football  games  in  the 
evening. 

Still,  while  newly  carpeted  Alumni 
Field  and  the  freshly  seeded  baseball 
facilities  are  blanketed  with  the  white 
stuff,  efforts  go  on  to  raise  the  funds 
needed  to  complete  financing  of  the 
$1.9-million  project. 

Reports  Raymond  J.  Forkey  '40. 
chairman  of  the  Fields  Finance  Commit- 
tee. "WPI  now  enjoys  one  of  the  finest — 
and  most  attractive— athletic  complexes 
in  New  England.  Last  fall,  many  of  us 
got  a  close  look  at  Alumni  Field's  Omni- 
turf  surface— either  from  the  stands  or  in 
the  heat  of  competition  in  field  hockey, 
football  or  soccer.  What's  more,  nearly  a 
dozen  regional  high  school  playoffs  took 
place  on  our  all-weather  surface.  And 
believe  me,  many  of  those  players— as 


FEBRUARY  1986 


well  as  WPI  athletes— welcomed  the 
sure-footed  and  relatively  dry  conditions 
possible  on  artificial  turf. 

"I'm  happy  to  report  that  our  efforts  to 
complete  the  financing  of  the  project  are 
progressing  at  a  gratifying  pace." 

At  year's  end,  some  $1.1  million,  or 
60  percent  of  the  project's  costs,  had 
been  raised.  "Gifts  from  alumni,  parents 
and  friends  continue  to  reach  the  college 
regularly,"  he  says,  "and  we're  espe- 
cially pleased  with  the  response  parents 
have  made  on  behalf  of  the  3R  [Recrea- 
tional Resources  Renovation]  project." 

According  to  Stephen  J.  Hebert  '66, 
director  of  development  and  alumni  rela- 
tions, the  "new"  fields,  including  reno- 
vation of  Alumni  Field's  running  track, 
are  scheduled  to  be  dedicated  during 
Reunion  Weekend,  June  7,  1986.  "By 
that  time,  final  touches  to  the  construc- 
tion itself  will  be  completed,"  he  says, 
"and  we  hope  to  announce  at  those  cere- 
monies the  successful  conclusion  of  our 
3R  fund  raising  efforts  as  well." 


Brown  Selected  Student 
Affairs  V.R 

Bernard  H.  Brown  has  been  named  vice 
president  for  student  affairs,  effective 
December  1,  1985.  Dean  of  students  at 
WPI  since  1981,  Brown  succeeds  Robert 
F.  Reeves,  who  last  spring  announced 
plans  to  step  down  from  the  post  after  a 
successor  was  chosen. 

Brown  was  one  of  three  finalists 
selected  after  a  nationwide  search  by  a 
campus  committee  appointed  by  WPI 
President  Jon  C.  Strauss.  In  announcing 
Brown's  selection,  Strauss  said,  "Dean 
Brown  has  been  at  WPI  for  almost  two 
decades,  yet  he  retains  a  fresh  perspec- 
tive on,  and  enthusiasm  for,  the  impor- 
tant issues  of  student  affairs.  I  am 
pleased  to  note  his  ambitious  plans  for 
student  affairs  and  his  demonstrated  abil- 
ities to  work  well  with  all  constituencies 
here  at  WPI." 


Bernard  H.  Brown 

Brown  joined  WPI  in  1966  as  assistant 
dean  of  student  affairs.  He  had  previ- 
ously served  as  administrative  assistant 
to  the  dean  of  men  at  the  University  of 
Connecticut  and  as  head  resident  director 
at  Northeastern  University.  He  earned 
both  his  bachelor's  and  master's  degrees 
at  Springfield  College.  He  earned  his 
advanced  professional  degree  in  admin- 
istration of  higher  education  at  the  Uni- 
versity of  Connecticut  in  1972. 

He  has  been  instrumental  in  develop- 
ing a  summer  orientation  program  for 
incoming  freshmen  and  their  families, 
earning  him  two  national  awards.  In 
1984,  he  was  the  recipient  of  the  Donald 
L.  McCullough  Award  for  outstanding 
contributions  to  the  field  of  campus 
activities  programming  by  the  National 
Association  for  Campus  Activities. 

In  his  new  role,  Brown  will  have 
administrative  responsibility  for  all  stu- 
dent affairs  activities,  which  include 
admissions,  financial  aid,  placement, 
campus  housing,  campus  health  serv- 
ices, student  counseling,  fraternities, 
minority  student  programs,  international 


student  assistance,  and  student  clubs  and 
activities. 

Reeves  came  to  WPI  in  1979  as  vice 
president  after  1 1  years  in  student  affairs 
posts  at  Lehigh  University.  At  the  time 
of  his  appointment  to  WPI,  he  was  asso- 
ciate dean  of  students  at  Lehigh.  When 
he  announced  plans  to  step  down, 
Reeves  indicated  a  desire  to  reassess  his 
future  career  goals.  He  and  his  family 
have  purchased  a  home  in  Maine. 

"Bob  Reeves  virtually  changed  the 
course  of  student  affairs  at  WPI,"  com- 
ments president  emeritus  Edmund  T. 
Cranch.  "He  steadfastly  directed  his 
efforts  toward  enabling  the  Institute  and 
its  students  to  achieve  their  fullest  poten- 
tial. I  known  Bernie  will  carry  on  in 
Bob's  footsteps.  He  has  long  been  close 
to  students;  their  welfare  is  always  his 
first  concern." 

Howard  Freeman  '40,  chairman  of  the 
WPI  Board  of  Trustees,  worked  closely 
with  Reeves.  "Bob  had  the  great  ability 
to  share  with  the  trustees  his  views  on 
both  the  problems  and  the  opportunities 
of  student  affairs,"  he  says.  "WPI  has 
lost  one  of  its  strongest  assets  in  Bob 
Reeves,  but  I  respect  his  decision  to  pur- 
sue other  of  his  many  interests.  And  I 
know  that  in  Bernie  Brown  this  impor- 
tant vice  presidency  continues  in  good 
hands." 


Loss  of  Insurance  = 
Goat's  Head  Changes 

Your  next  visit  to  WPI  may  bring  with  it 
some  surprising  changes  to  an  old 
watering-hole.  As  of  November  25, 
1985,  the  Goat's  Head  Pub  is  no  longer 
serving  alcoholic  beverages,  this  in 
response  to  WPI's  loss  of  adequate  liquor 
liability  insurance. 

But,  according  to  David  E.  Lloyd, 
vice  president  for  business  affairs  and 
treasurer,  because  of  the  loss  of  insur- 
ance coverage,  the  Pub  is  not  the  only 
campus  function  that  has  given  last  call. 


4       WPI  JOURNAL 


If  music  be  the  food  of  love  .  .  .  Pictured  above,  in  the  public- 
ity photo  by  Kenneth  Malkin  '88  CS,  ofNorwalk,  CT,  are 
members  of  the  cast  o/Twelfth  Night,  William  Shake- 
speare 's  play  about  the  courtship  of  the  Countess  Olivia  in 
the  mythical  country  oflllyria. 

Staged  in  Alden  Memorial  on  November  21-23  by  the 
Masque,  a  student  theatrical  group,  the  production  was 
directed  by  Humanities  Professor  Susan  Vick.  Lee  Lopes  '88 


■ML 

EE,  of  Springfield,  MA,  composed  much  of  the  music  for  the 
production. 

Though  Masque  employed  modern  props  and  costumes  as 
well  as  bare  stage,  Shakespeare 's  script  was  not  altered.  The 
effect,  together  with  the  intimacy  of  theater-in-the-round, 
was  nothing  less  than  fascinating,  proving  once  again  the 
timelessness  of  Shakespeare 's  work  and  the  competence  of 
Susan  Vick  as  a  director. 


Cash  bars  associated  with  campus 
events,  tailgate  parties,  faculty  lunch- 
eons and  other  functions  are  also  pre- 
cluded from  serving  alcoholic  beverages, 
he  says. 

Only  "host  functions"— those  spon- 
sored officially  by  WPI  at  which  repre- 
sentatives of  the  college  entertain 
guests— are  exempt  from  the  new  "dry" 
treatment.  Meetings  or  luncheons  at  the 
president's  home  exemplify  such  host 
functions. 

As  Bernard  H.  Brown,  vice  president 
for  student  affairs,  points  out,  WPI  is  far 
from  alone  in  having  to  deal  with  the 
insurance  issue.  Many  colleges  and  uni- 
versities, he  says,  are  having  difficulty 


obtaining  liquor  liability  insurance.  "In 
fact,  all  state  schools  have  had  to  close 
their  pubs  because  of  the  situation." 

The  dilemma  stems  from  the  fact  that 
the  cost  of  liability  insurance  for  all  types 
of  coverage  has  been  skyrocketing 
nationwide  in  the  past  few  years.  In  the 
case  of  liquor  liability  coverage,  says 
Lloyd,  the  heavier  premiums  are  partly 
the  result  of  the  rapidly  increasing  fre- 
quency and  severity  of  law  suits  arising 
from  the  actions  of  allegedly  intoxicated 
patrons. 

WPI's  loss  of  coverage  is  not  the  result 
of  any  infraction  at  the  college,  accord- 
ing to  Roger  N.  Perry,  Jr.  '45,  director  of 
public  relations.  "We're  just  victims  of 


the  system,"  he  says,  "like  everyone 
else." 

According  to  Lloyd,  WPI's  insurance 
carrier  didn't  want  to  turn  down  WPI's 
request  for  a  policy  renewal.  Instead,  it 
hiked  the  premium  to  $500,000  for  $1- 
million  of  coverage,  a  payment  that 
would  not  have  been  "cost-effective,"  he 
says.  Efforts  to  employ  other  carriers,  he 
adds,  have  been  equally  unfruitful. 

Still,  the  Pub  will  live  on,  says  Brown, 
though  outfitted  in  a  new  suit  of  clothes 
and  possibly  wearing  a  new  name- 
hopefully  by  the  start  of  the  1986  winter 
term.  "We're  exploring  several  options 
for  use  of  the  Pub's  attractive  space  in 
Alden  Memorial." 


FEBRUARY  1986       5 


THIRD  IN  A  SERIES 


THE  ENTREPRENEURIAL  SPIRIT 

The 
Redemption  of 

_  William  M. 
Lester, 

'28  ME 


By  Michael  V  Shanley 

For  33  years,  Bill  Lester  owned  and 

operated  a  highly  successful  injection 

molding  company.  But  to  his  pioneering 

mind,  that  represented  little  more  than 

an  extended  holding  pattern. 


"w-^y  y  illiam  Lester  had  to  retire  before  he  could  get  back 
\\  /  down  to  work  again.  What  he  had  really  wanted  to 

%  A  /be  doing  for  the  three-plus  decades  of  his  "active" 
Y  Y  career  was  inventing,  exploring,  creating— as  he  had 
in  his  early  days  when  he  was  a  pioneer  in  the  field  of  injection 
molding. 

Now,  in  a  renovated  chicken  coop  in  Livingston,  NJ,  Bill 
Lester  is  exploring  again.  And  his  two  creative  periods,  one 
coming  early  in  his  career  and  one  late,  stand  as  bookends  to 
the  decades  when  he  was  too  busy  with  the  day-to-day  affairs 
of  running  a  business  to  indulge  himself  in  inventive  pursuits. 

Lester,  77,  says  he  has  felt  a  tremendous  sense  of  release 
since  retiring  from  the  strains  of  traditional  business  some  15 
years  ago. 

"On  my  way  to  work  at  Pyro  [Plastics  Corporation,  the 
custom  injection  molding  company  he  owned],  there  was  a  fork 
in  the  road,"  Lester  recalls.  "One  road  went  to  the  office,  and 
one  went  to  the  country  club.  I  found  myself  always  wanting  to 


6       WPI  JOURNAL 


go  to  the  club.  Since  retiring  I  don't  think  that  way  anymore. 
Now,  I'd  rather  go  to  the  office." 

The  office  for  him  now  is  the  chicken  coop,  which  is  like  no 
other  you've  ever  seen— unless  you  happen  to  have  run  across 
one  stocked  with  a  full  line  of  machine  shop  equipment,  pan- 
eled offices,  a  kitchen,  tool  rooms,  and,  as  an  added  touch,  a 
pristine  1937  P-3  12-cylinder  Rolls  Royce  and  an  equally  gor- 
geous 1941  Packard  convertible. 

The  cars  represent  one  of  Lester's  passions  from  years  gone 
by.  ("That  was  a  hobby,  but  I  don't  have  time  for  hobbies 
anymore.")  Now,  he'd  much  rather  discuss  his  latest  project:  a 
one-step  packaging  process  for  the  food,  drug  and  beverage 
industries.  He  and  two  partners— Dr.  Edward  J.  Towns,  who 
has  a  long  background  in  the  packaging  industry,  and  Edward 
M.  Brown,  a  former  farmer  who  owns  the  land  the  coop  is  on— 
have  formed  the  TBL  Development  Corp. 

Working  out  of  the  refurbished  coop,  they've  perfected  sev- 
eral new  plastic  container  closures  and  hope  to  soon  set  up  an 


William  Lester  '28,  in  the  "Chicken  Coop  "  with  his  prized  P-3 
12-cylinder  1937 Rolls  Royce. 

automated,  computerized  injection  molding  facility  to  produce 
these  caps. 

The  TBL  prototype  differs  from  others  in  that  the  cap,  liner, 
seal  and  tamper-proof  features  are  all  produced  in  one  step. 
This,  Lester  believes,  will  give  them  an  edge  over  the  rest  of 
the  market. 

"Our  competition  has  to  first  mold  the  cap,  then  manufacture 
and  install  a  liner,  and  then  decorate,"  he  explains. 

Like  the  aluminum  caps  now  popular  on  beverage  bottles, 
the  TBL  cap  utilizes  a  breakaway  ring.  Once  the  container  is 
opened,  the  ring  drops  down  and  cannot  be  reattached. 

TBL  has  developed  an  application  for  every  major  industry 
that  uses  such  closures.  For  motor  oil  containers,  the  TBL 
design  would  eliminate  the  need  for  induction-sealed  aluminum 
foil  on  the  neck  of  the  container. 


FEBRUARY  1986       7 


In  addition  to  a  child-resistant  model,  there  is  one  for  food 
that  is  packed  hot  (jams,  jellies,  baby  food.) 

"The  caps  now  on  the  market  use  a  dimple  to  show  if  the 
package  has  lost  pressure  and  has  thus  been  tampered  with," 
says  Lester.  "But  it's  very  difficult  to  see  the  dimple.  I'll  bet 
most  mothers  never  even  notice  it  on  baby  food.  Our  cap  uses  a 
button  that  pops  up  when  the  cap  is  unscrewed.  It's  an  obvious 
indication,  and  there's  no  way  to  get  that  button  back  down. 
Our  final  design  is  a  few  years  down  the  road  yet." 

Lester's  work  on  container  closures  began  soon  after 
retirement,  when  he  set  up  an  office  in  East  Orange, 
NJ.  There  he  designed  and  patented  an  automatic  clo- 
sure for  squeezable  containers,  like  those  used  for  laun- 
dry detergent  bottles.  Lester's  model,  which  uses  a  disc-like 
membrane,  automatically  closes  and  won't  leak  even  when  in 
the  open  position. 

He  was  looking  for  a  place  to  make  experimental  molds 
when  he  heard  about  Ed  Towns  and  Ed  Brown.  "They  had  the 
facilities  for  machine  shop  tooling  and  invited  me  to  set  up  an 
office  with  them." 

Lester  didn't  work  exclusively  on  the  closures  until  after  the 
Tylenol  scare  in  1982.  In  that  tragedy  approximately  eight 
people  died  as  a  result  of  ingesting  Tylenol  that  had  been 
tainted  with  a  powerful  poison  prior  to  the  drug's  retail  sale. 
Before  that  episode  brought  the  problem  of  tamper-proof  con- 
tainers into  the  public  eye,  Lester  spent  a  good  deal  of  time 
designing  and  building  an  internal  combustion  engine. 

"I  started  thinking  about  the  rotary  engine  even  before  I 
founded  Pyro,  but  I  didn't  have  time  to  make  the  engineering 
drawings  and  build  a  prototype,"  he  says. 

Since  his  official  retirement,  he  has  completed  the  drawings, 
been  awarded  two  patents,  and  built  a  prototype. 

"After  the  caps  are  in  production,"  he  says,  "I'll  go  back  to 
the  engine.  Then  there's  a  new  die-casting  machine  I  want  to 
work  on,  and  a  few  other  projects." 

That  new  die-casting  machine  will  take  Lester  back  to  his 
roots,  back  to  his  early  period  of  creativity. 

While  at  WPI,  Lester  did  a  considerable  amount  of  die  cast- 
ing and  machine  design  after  hours  and  during  vacations.  He 
even  lectured  in  the  foundry  course  on  die  casting  and  alternate 
methods  of  casting  non-ferrous  metals. 

After  graduation  from  WPI  in  1928,  he  went  to  work  as  a 
plant  engineer  in  Fayetteville,  NY.  For  two-and-one-half 
years,  he  redesigned  and  rebuilt  production  equipment;  then  he 
headed  for  Cleveland  to  become  chief  engineer  of  his  father's 
tool  and  die  company.  There,  he  was  involved  in  the  design  of 
the  die-casting  machines  licensed  by  Worcester's  Reed  Prentice 
Co.,  the  first  successful  injection  machine  manufacturer. 

Working  for  Lester  at  the  time  was  a  young  draftsman  named 


Philip  Graham,  who  would  eventually  join  the  Foster  Grant 
Company  in  Leominster,  MA,  and  be  widely  credited  with 
designing  one  of  the  first  Foster  Grant  injection  molding 
machines. 

"Graham  had  been  privy  to  all  my  machine  design,  and  he 
used  a  lot  of  it  when  he  went  to  Foster  Grant,"  says  Lester.  "I 
have  always  felt  a  'pride  of  authorship'  not  only  for  my 
machines,  but  also  for  Foster  Grant's." 

Die  casting  and  injection  molding,  he  explains,  are  basically 
the  same  operation— each  forces  under  pressure  a  molten  mate- 
rial into  a  mold.  Die  casting  is  the  term  used  when  metal  is  the 
material  involved,  injection  molding  when  plastic  is  the  mate- 
rial. Thus  much  of  what  Graham  learned  from  Lester  about  die 
casting  was  applicable  to  injection  molding. 

In  1933,  Lester  began  his  own  consulting  company,  Lester 
Engineering,  and  started  designing  and  building  his  own  die- 
casting  equipment.  Some  of  his  patents  from  those  days  were 
the  basis  for  what  would  become  the  automatic  injection  mold- 
ing machine. 

Meanwhile,  the  New  England  Novelty  Co.,  in  Leominster, 
heard  about  Foster-Grant's  injection  molding  efforts  and  were 
quite  eager  to  enter  the  new  field.  Officials  of  the  company 
asked  Lester  to  help,  so  in  1934  he  returned  to  Massachusetts 


Bill  Lester  working  on  a  miniature  part  for  an  injection  mold- 
ing machine  with  TBL  Corporation  partner  Edward  M.  Brown. 


8       WPI  JOURNAL 


Lester  with  the  prototype  of 
the  rotary  engine  he  hopes 
to  resume  work  on — once  he 
puts  a  new  container  cap 
into  production. 


to  co-found  Commonwealth  Plastics  Co. 

In  just  10  weeks,  Lester  completed  the  design  and  construc- 
tion of  the  injection  molding  machine.  As  it  turned  out,  Foster 
Grant  and  Commonwealth  unveiled  their  machines  almost 
simultaneously. 

Within  a  year,  Lester  and  his  partners  had  assembled  40  of 
the  machines  in  their  shop  and  were  turning  out  costume  jew- 
elry, plastic  utensils,  combs,  radio  parts  and  other  custom 
industrial  moldings. 

Lester  went  on  to  design  molds  that  would  become  standards 
for  the  injection  molding  industry  throughout  the  world.  Also 
during  this  time,  he  helped  his  father's  company  branch  out  into 
the  injection  molding  machine  field.  In  fact,  prior  to  that  com- 
pany's sale  in  1950,  Lester  was  a  director,  consultant  and  its 
largest  individual  stockholder. 

Unhappy  with  the  financial  arrangements  at  Commonwealth, 
Lester  headed  to  Westfield,  NJ,  in  1939  to  set  up  his  own 
company.  As  he  puts  it,  "I'd  had  a  belly  full  of  partners." 

7|"TT  T  ith  $13,000  and  as  much  experience  in  the  field  of 
\  \  I  mJect'on  molding  as  virtually  anyone  in  the  world, 

\A  /  Bill  Lester  established  the  Pyro  Plastics  Corp.  (Pyro 

V  V  because  "it's  short  and  indicates  heat.")  He  bought 
two  machines,  hired  a  half-dozen  employees  and  began  to  turn 
out  custom-molded  buttons  and  cosmetics. 

"At  that  time,"  Lester  says,  "the  industry  was  limited  by  the 
materials,  which  weren't  sophisticated  enough  to  withstand 
much  heat  or  pressure." 

But  with  the  onset  of  World  War  II,  he  explains,  there  was  a 
serious  shortage  of  metals,  and  plastics  came  into  their  own  as 
a  viable  substitute.  In  addition  to  the  cosmetics  industry,  Pyro 
began  to  go  into  production  of  parts  for  automobiles  and  mili- 
tary vehicles. 

During  this  period,  Lester  developed  a  completely  automatic 
small  injection  molding  machine  for  Pyro's  exclusive  use.  In 
1945,  he  began  to  license  one  machine  in  each  of  10  foreign 
nations.  Later,  in  1958,  he  would  license  one  non-competitor  in 


the  U.S.,  Owens-Illinois,  and  he  became  a  special  consultant  to 
that  company. 

For  many  years,  Pyro's  main  product  was  the  plastic  hobby 
kit:  ships,  cars,  planes,  human  anatomy.  "The  average  toys  in 
those  days  were  insipid,"  Lester  explains.  "Hobby  kits,  on  the 
other  hand,  had  therapeutic  and  educational  value." 

Although  the  hobby  kits  sold  well,  another  major  effort, 
"disarmament  in  the  nursery"  toys,  failed  despite  a  public 
relations  effort  that  included  national  media  coverage.  The 
toys,  which  were  of  the  "fairyland  and  educational"  variety 
rather  than  "tanks  and  guns,"- just  never  caught  on. 

Pyro  itself,  however,  had  grown  spectacularly.  By  the  late 
1940s,  the  company  employed  hundreds  of  people— engineers, 
designers,  model  makers,  molders,  finishers  and  inspectors— 
and  had  the  facilities  to  take  products  from  idea  conception  all 
the  way  to  final  shipping. 

Despite  continued  growth  and  success  through  the  '50s  and 
'60s,  Lester  had  grown  tired  of  the  "drudgery"  of  day-to-day 
business. 

"Pyro  had  become  a  routine  sort  of  operation,"  he  says.  "My 
days  were  spent  on  things  like  payroll,  collections  and  advertis- 
ing. It  had  been  years  since  I'd  had  the  chance  to  be  what  I  call 
creative." 

Finally,  in  1972,  Lester  called  it  quits.  He  sold  Pyro  to 
Gateway  Sporting  Goods  and  started  anew.  He  turned  his 
attention  to  creative  pursuits:  the  internal  combustion  engine, 
tamper-proof  packaging  and  new  ideas  for  die  casting 
machines.  Soon  he  met  up  with  Towns  and  Brown  and  moved 
into  the  renovated  chicken  coop. 

"I've  never  been  happier,"  Lester  says  today  with  the  genu- 
ine excitement  of  a  man  who  once  again  feels  challenged  after 
years  of  relative  dormancy. 

He  does  admit  to  one  problem  with  being  so  tied  to  all  these 
new  projects,  however.  "My  golf  game,"  he  notes,  "has  gone 
sour." 

Michael  Shanley  is  a  freelance  writer  living  in  Holden,  MA. 


FEBRUARY  1986 


Seven  weeks  in  the  nation's  capital  can  test 

the  mettle  of  even  the  most  inspired  students. 

For  the  agencies  they  serve, 

the  benefits  are  far-reaching. 


The  Boyntons 
Goto 


Washington 


It's  a  warm  day  in  October,  even  for 
Washington.  Already  at  8:30  in  the 
morning,  my  wool  suit  feels  too 
hot,  and  I  wish  I'd  had  the  fore- 
sight of  my  two  companions.  Pro- 
fessors Arthur  and  Susan  Gerstenfeld. 
Looking  cool  and  crisp  in  their  summer- 
weight  clothes,  the  Gerstenfelds  are  well 
prepared  for  the  long  day  ahead  of  us,  a 
day  they  have  been  anticipating  for  the 
past  seven  weeks. 

As  our  cab  plunges  through  rush  hour 
traffic,  past  postcard  landmarks,  we  chat 
about  Washington  politics  and  the  pre- 
sentation we  are  going  to  hear.  Our  desti- 
nation is  the  Department  of  Labor,  where 
three  WPI  undergraduates  have  been 
examining  ways  to  measure  the  return  on 
investment  of  quality  of  work  life 
(QWL)  programs. 

This  is  the  first  of  six  such  presenta- 
tions we  will  see  in  the  next  two  days, 
the  culmination  of  an  intensive  program 
of  study  known  as  WPI's  Washington 
Project  Center.  As  participants  in  the  11- 
year-old  program.  18  juniors  and  seniors 
have  spent  seven  weeks  back  in  Worces- 
ter and  seven  weeks  here  in  the  nation's 


capital  researching  current  issues  for  a 
variety  of  government  agencies  and  pri- 
vate organizations. 

Grouped  in  teams  of  three,  the  stu- 
dents have  tackled  problems  involving 
some  facet  of  the  interaction  between 
technology  and  society  to  fulfill  their 
Interactive  Qualifying  Project  (IQP) 
degree  requirement.  Now,  as  the  final 
step  in  their  work,  the  teams  must 
present  their  findings  in  oral  and  written 
form  to  their  respective  agencies,  as  well 
as  to  the  Gerstenfelds.  who  have  been 
serving  as  resident  faculty  advisors  for 
the  term,  and  to  dean  of  undergraduate 
studies  William  Grogan  '46  EE.  '49 
MSEE,  who  is  coming  to  Washington 
just  to  hear  them. 

Our  taxi  heads  down  Pennsylvania 
Avenue  toward  the  Capitol.  Shimmering 
in  the  morning  haze,  the  building  is 
wrapped  in  scaffolding  and  flanked  by  a 
crane.  But  even  with  the  trappings  of 


By  Evelyn  Herwitz 


renovation,  the  Capitol's  majestic  aura 
remains  intact,  and  its  graceful  architec- 
tural lines  dominate  the  wide  boulevard. 
Though  I  have  been  here  before,  I  am 
once  again  captured  by  the  excitement 
that  is  Washington,  and  I  wonder  what  it 
has  been  like  for  the  students  who  have 
lived  and  worked  here  for  the  past  two 
months. 

At  the  Department  of  Labor,  a  mam- 
moth high-rise  of  glass  and  steel,  we  are 
met  by  Thomas  Nowak  '87,  of 
Springfield.  MA.  who  guides  us  through 
the  maze  of  corridors  to  a  room  filled 
with  round  tables  and  padded  chairs. 
There  we  meet  his  partners,  juniors  Ellen 
Klee,  Acton,  MA,  and  Philo  Shelton, 
Fairfield,  CT,  nervously  reviewing  their 
notes  and  overlays  at  a  long  table  in  the 
front  of  the  room. 

It's  nine  o'clock,  and  no  Labor  Depart- 
ment staff  members  have  yet  arrived. 
The  students  laugh  nervously,  and  the 
Gerstenfelds  offer  words  of  encourage- 
ment. Then,  as  if  summoned  by  a  bell, 
two  dozen  staff  people  enter,  and  the  pre- 
sentation begins. 

The  students  have  been  charged  with 


10       WPI  JOURNAL 


developing  a  method  for  determining  the 
return  on  investment  of  QWL  programs, 
a  topic  of  great  interest  to  the  Labor 
Department's  Bureau  of  Labor- 
Management  Relations  and  Cooperative 
Programs.  QWL  programs  include  such 
activities  as  discussion  groups  that  allow 
workers  to  become  more  involved  in 
devising  company  policies.  The  team's 
research  has  included  contacting  nine 
companies  of  various  sizes  around  the 
country  to  develop  case  histories  of  their 
QWL  programs. 

Taking  turns,  the  students  summarize 
their  research,  using  overlays  on  an  over- 
head projector  to  illustrate  their  findings. 
They  distinguish  between  start-up  and 
operating  costs  of  QWL  programs,  then 
review  benefits,  such  as  increased  pro- 
ductivity, before  describing  different 
ways  of  calculating  return  on  invest- 
ment. 

Summarizing  two  formulas,  Nowak  is 
about  to  go  on  to  the  next  overlay  when 
he  is  interrupted  by  a  question  from  the 
audience.  Later,  I  learn  that  the  ques- 
tioner is  deputy  undersecretary  of  labor 
Stephen  Schlossberg. 


Dean  William  R.  Grogan.  Brendon  F. 
Somerville.  of  the  National  Associa- 
tion of  Manufacturers,  Professor 
Sue  Vernon-Gerstenfeld.  Patrick 
Bannon,  Sangeeta  Patel,  Radha 
Murthy  and  Professor  Arthur  Ger- 
stenfeld  outside  NAM  headquarters. 

Nowak  is  trying  to  make  the  point  that 
QWL  programs  are  comparable  only 
when  return  on  investment  calculations 
are  based  on  the  same  formula,  a  factor 
which  must  be  accounted  for  when 
assessing  program  evaluations.  But 
Schlossberg  points  out  that  the  distinc- 
tion between  the  two  formulae  has  not 
yet  been  made  clear.  Nowak  tries  to  clar- 
ify his  point  several  times  by  restating  his 
original  explanation,  to  no  avail. 

Red-faced,  he  takes  a  deep  breath  and 
stops  for  a  moment.  Then  he  tries  again, 
but  this  time  by  analogy:  "Suppose  you 
had  a  lemonade  stand  .  .  ."  The  example 
works.  Nowak  sighs  with  relief  and  pro- 
ceeds with  his  prepared  notes.  Though 
he  apologizes  for  not  being  clear  to  begin 
with,  Nowak  has  demonstrated  one  of 
the  greatest  benefits  of  his  Washington 


experience:  the  ability  to  think  on  your 
feet  under  pressure. 

The  presentation  continues  with  a 
summary  of  indices  that  could  be  used  to 
quantify  QWL  program  outcomes,  such 
as  reduction  in  absenteeism,  and  a  dis- 
cussion of  the  factors  that  can  make  or 
break  a  QWL  program.  The  question  and 
answer  period  focuses  on  the  need  for 
labor-management  cooperation.  As  the 
students  conclude  their  remarks,  they  are 
met  with  a  warm  round  of  applause. 

Among  those  who  have  enjoyed  and 
learned  from  the  presentation  is  Leona 
Sibelman,  an  industrial  relations  special- 
ist who  has  been  the  students'  mentor 
and  department  contact.  As  some  staff 
members  remain  to  chat  with  the  trio, 
Sibelman  tells  me  that  she  hopes  the  stu- 
dents* report  will  become  a  bureau  publi- 
cation. 

"This  was  a  unique  kind  of  internship 
experience,"  says  Sibelman,  "and  one  of 
the  best  I've  seen.  The  students  had  a 
predetermined  project  and  formed  a  team 
unto  themselves.  They  have  been  a  plea- 
sure to  be  around.  ...  I'm  going  to  miss 
them." 

The  students  are  equally  enthusiastic — 
and  relieved— as  we  talk  after  the  room 
empties.  "I  feel  like  we've  accomplished 
something  worthwhile  here."  says 
Shelton.  "We  put  in  a  good  eight  to  ten 
hours  a  day  on  the  project." 

"And  three  to  four  hours  a  day  on 
weekends,"  adds  Nowak.  "You  live,  eat 
and  drink  the  project.  Then  you  combine 
that  almost  total  immersion  with  an 
incredible  atmosphere— historic  sights, 
social  happenings— even  the  tourist  traps. 
You're  in  the  Hub." 

Although  Shelton  and  Nowak  are  fra- 
ternity brothers,  they  didn't  know  each 
other  well,  and  neither  knew  Klee  until 
they  began  working  together  in  prepara- 
tion for  their  Washington  term.  All 
applied  for  the  program  in  the  fall  of 
1984  and  were  accepted  just  before 
Christmas.  They  were  then  grouped 
according  to  project  preference  and  per- 
sonality. Now,  Shelton  and  Nowak  intro- 


FEBRUARY  1986       11 


duce  Klee  to  me  by  her  nickname— 
"Mom."  It  is  a  joke  all  three  enjoy. 

Learning  to  work  well  in  a  group  is  not 
the  only  skill  the  students  have  sharp- 
ened. "We  developed  some  valuable 
communications  skills,  like  how  to  speak 
in  public  and  get  information  over  the 
phone,"  says  Shelton. 

There  was  also  the  challenge  of  a  new 
environment.  "Being  an  engineer,  you 
want  to  see  things  done,"  says  Klee. 

"This  is  a  place  that  deals  with  ideas, 
and  we're  used  to  seeing  something  tan- 
gible." adds  Nowak.  But  all  agree  that 
the  Bureau  of  Labor-Management  Rela- 
tions doesn't  suffer  from  some  of  the 
bureaucratic  hangups  of  other  agencies, 
a  quality  which  has  made  their  work  life 
here  in  Washington  enjoyable. 

The  sun  is  high  in  the  sky  and 
the  temperature  in  the  80s  as 
we  move  on  to  our  next 
stop,  the  Department  of 
Commerce.  Inside  the  cool 
marble  lobby  of  the  Commerce  Building. 
I  study  the  high-vaulted,  brass-plated 
ceiling  and  a  large  digital  readout  of  the 
United  States'  current  population  as  ue 
wait  in  line  for  the  receptionist  to  guide 
us  to  one  of  Commerce's  many  units,  the 
Office  of  Trade  Information  Services 
(OTIS). 

This  time  the  presentation  room  is  just 
a  small  office  which  has  been  filled  with 
chairs.  It  seems  that  all  the  conference 
rooms  were  tied  up  at  the  last  minute. 
But  juniors  Frank  Childs,  of  Hayden- 
ville,  MA,  Neil  Skidell,  Bellmore,  NY, 
and  Joseph  Tompkins.  Deny.  NH.  seem 
unconcerned  by  the  less  than  perfect 
space.  They've  already  given  variations 
of  this  presentation  twice  to  key  depart- 
ment staffers  and  will  do  it  again  for 
another  interested  party  later  today. 

The  project  has  been  an  analytical 
challenge  as  well  as  a  test  of  the  stu- 
dents' abilities  to  avoid  political  pitfalls. 
They  have  been  asked  to  evaluate  the 
effectiveness  of  a  series  of  OTIS  publica- 
tions,  or  "products,"   for  exporters. 


These  Export  Promotion  Service  (EPS) 
reports  range  from  inexpensive  pam- 
phlets of  Commerce  and  United  Nations 
data  on  import  and  market  share,  to 
thousand-dollar  customized  statistical 
analyses.  OTIS's  problem,  however,  is 
that  the  availability  of  these  products  is 
not  widely  known.  So.  the  team  has  had 
to  come  up  with  ways  to  improve  the 
content  and  marketing  of  reports  that  can 
be  implemented  by  the  OTIS  staff. 

Most  of  the  chairs,  crowding  through 
the  door  and  into  the  adjoining  office,  are 
filled  by  the  time  the  students  are  ready 
to  start.  They  distribute  handouts  of  all 
overlays  and  launch  into  their  presenta- 
tion, using  the  wall  as  a  screen  for  the 
overhead  projector.  Their  experience  of 
the  preceding  two  presentations  is 
evident— none  uses  notes  to  speak,  and 
all  talk  with  confidence,  directly  to  the 
audience. 

Among  the  students'  recommenda- 
tions is  the  use  of  a  "harmonized  code" 
system  of  int6rnational  market  data, 
slated  for  Census  Bureau  implementation 
in  1987.  The  new  code,  they  explain, 
will  enable  OTIS  to  collect  comparable 
data  from  different  countries,  enhancing 
the  usefulness  of  their  reports. 

Addressing  marketing  problems,  the 
students  advise  EPS  to  publish  an  annual 
catalog  with  quarterly  updates  and  prod- 
uct descriptions  that  emphasize  what  the 
document  can  do  for  the  consumer  rather 
than  just  summarize  the  kind  of  data 
available.  They  also  suggest  that  the 
office  reorganize  along  industry  lines,  so 
that  each  analyst  becomes  an  expert  in  a 
given  field  and  can  better  collect  and 
assess  the  accuracy  of  data. 

Although  not  everyone  present  accepts 
all  of  the  students'  recommendations,  the 
response  is  warm,  and  the  trio  is  com- 
mended on  a  job  well  done.  One  EPS 
staff  member,  Bruce  Cromack,  tells  me 
that  the  team  "has  some  valid  points  in 
certain  areas,  like  product  specificity, 
but  we  don't  have  the  manpower  to 
become  industry  experts.  We  would  run 
into  turf  problems  with  other  government 


Professor  Sue  Vernon-Gerstenf eld 
greets  a  National  Research  Council 
official  following  the  presentation 
by  Timothy  Moran,  Paul  Hambelton 
and  Dag  Anderson. 

agencies." 

But  another  EPS  staffer,  Ray  Prat, 
agrees  with  the  findings.  "I  think  their 
suggestions  were  useful,  particularly 
regarding  specializing  along  industry 
lines.  I  think  I'd  feel  a  sense  of  accom- 
plishment learning  about  an  industry, 
rather  than  just  worrying  about  the 
mechanics  of  getting  out  the  products." 

Learning  to  function  effectively  within 
an  environment  where  turf  is  well  fenced 
was  at  times  frustrating  but  not  impos- 
sible, the  students  report.  "I  worked  in 
industry  for  a  while,  and  you  find 
bureaucracy  everywhere,"  says  Joe 
Tompkins.  "I  anticipated  it  here, 
although  I  didn't  expect  the  magnitude  of 
the  bureaucracy  and  all  the  politics.  We 
had  to  be  careful  with  our  wording." 

He  goes  on:  "But  we  weren't  looking 
to  cast  blame.  We  were  just  trying  to 
make  recommendations.  The  people 
here— I  consider  them  our  friends.  They 
were  very  helpful." 

During  lunch  with  the  Ger- 
stenfelds  and  Dean  Gro- 
gan,  who  joined  us  back  at 
the  Labor  Department, 
there  is  time  to  talk  about 
the  Washington  Project  Center  experi- 
ence and  the  students  who  come  here. 

"Part  of  the  success  of  project  centers 
such  as  this  one  is  that  it's  an  honor  to  be 
here,"  says  Grogan,  himself  a  former 
resident  advisor  in  Washington.  Still,  he 
admits,  applicants  have  dropped  from  as 
high  as  100  to  about  50  students  annually 
since  the  Washington  center  opened  in 
1974.  But  the  group  agrees  that  this  is 
due  in  part  to  what  may  be  a  lack  of 
publicity  and  a  perception  that  "it's 
impossible  to  get  in."  Grogan  says,  how- 
ever, that  standards  for  acceptance 
remain  high. 


12       >XTI  JOURNAL 


There  are  36  slots  open  for  two  groups 
of  18  students,  one  group  in  each  of 
WPI's  two  fall  terms.  "We  want  students 
who  are  very  solid  academically,  but 
we're  not  just  slanted  toward  top  honors 
candidates,"  Grogan  explains.  "We  look 
for  students  with  varied  interests  and 
backgrounds  in  different  fields,  students 
who  tend  to  be  outgoing— good,  versatile 
students  who  will  be  able  to  learn." 

The  application  process  includes  a 
written  essay,  a  transcript  review  and  an 
interview  by  a  board  of  former  resident 
faculty  advisors.  Once  selected,  students 
are  then  grouped  into  teams  and  begin 
work  on  their  Preliminary  Qualifying 
Project  (PQP)  during  the  seven-week 
term  in  the  spring  prior  to  their  stay  in 
Washington.  The  PQP  involves  defining 
and  refining  the  problem  each  team  has 
been  assigned,  and  developing  a  pro- 
posal for  how  they  will  attack  the  issue. 

The  project  topics  come  from  the 
sponsoring  agencies.  It's  the  task  of  asso- 
ciate dean  for  projects  Francis  Lutz  to 
work  with  the  Center's  agency  contacts 
and  to  winnow  out  the  best  proposals  and 
refine  them  into  a  form  that  students  can 
manage  and  learn  from. 

Once  in  Washington,  housed  this  year 
three  to  a  room  at  the  Georgetown  Hotel, 
the  students  are  immersed  in  full-time 


Joe  Tompkins  (standing,  center) 
clarifies  a  point  as  teammates  Neil 
Skidell  and  Frank  Childs  look  on 
during  a  presentation  before  Depart- 
ment of  Commerce  staffers.  Profes- 
sor Arthur  Gerstenfeld  is  seated 
center. 

research.  Most  of  their  time  is  spent 
working  on  projects  at  their  given  agen- 
cies. In  addition,  to  help  the  students 
refine  communication  skills,  there  are 
weekly  meetings  with  faculty  advisors 
for  progress  reports  and  practice  presen- 
tations. 

"It's  a  whirlwind  existence,"  says  Sue 
Gerstenfeld,  a  lecturer  in  the  Division  of 
Interdisciplinary  Affairs.  "They  have  lit- 
tle time  to  adapt.  But  it's  astounding  to 
watch  them  grow  intellectually.  By  the 
time  they're  through,  instead  of  thinking 
in  small  compartments,  they're  thinking 
in  large  systems." 

"They  have  to  do  much  more  than  just 
please  the  professor,"  adds  her  husband. 
Management  Professor  Art  Gerstenfeld. 
"They're  presenting  to  a  very  powerful 
audience.  The  expectations  placed  on 
them  are  tremendous.  This  isn't  just  an 
undergraduate  paper.  They  have  to  do  a 
literature  search  and  know  everything 
written  on  that  subject." 


Since  faculty  members  live  with  the 
students,  there  is  also  the  opportunity  to 
get  to  know  each  other  on  a  personal 
basis.  "You  get  a  sense  of  the  ideal  col- 
lege student  to  faculty  ratio,"  says  Gro- 
gan. "You  get  to  know  them  socially  as 
well  as  academically.  It  has  all  the  very 
best  elements  of  education." 

I  ask  whether  the  quality  and  the  vol- 
ume of  work  that  the  students  produce 
within  such  a  short  time  frame  indicate 
that  more  could  be  asked  of  them— and 
received— back  on  campus.  Sue  Gersten- 
feld answers  with  an  emphatic  "Yes!" 
Adds  Grogan:  "If  anything,  it  proves 
they  can  do  just  about  anything  you  insist 
they  do.  It  teaches  you— and  them— to 
raise  expectations." 

As  we  prepare  to  leave  for  the  after- 
noon's presentations,  Grogan  sums  up 
his  thoughts  on  the  program.  "You  gain 
a  real  respect  for  students,"  he  says,  "—a 
new  appreciation." 

Two  more  presentations  fill 
the  rest  of  the  day,  one  for 
the  National  Association  of 
Manufacturers  (NAM)  ex- 
ploring university-industry 
relations,  and  the  other  at  the  National 
Research  Council  (NRC)  concerning  the 
selection  of  software  for  precollege 
mathematics  and  science  curricula. 

The  NAM  team,  juniors  Patrick  Ban- 
non,  of  Manchester,  NH,  Radha  Murthy 
and  Sangeeta  Patel,  both  of  Shrewsbury, 
MA,  illustrates  the  value  of  university- 
industry  cooperation  with  a  case  history 
of  the  American  textile  industry. 
Describing  the  factors  which  have  weak- 
ened the  nation's  $1 15-billion  "textile 
complex,"  which  includes  the  fiber,  fab- 
rics and  apparel  industries  and  employs  3 
million  workers,  the  students  emphasize 
that  the  industry  is  labor  intensive,  faces 
stiff  wage  competition  from  abroad,  and 
has  low  profit  margins,  with  little  money 
available  for  research  and  development 
activities. 

One  way  universities  can  provide  the 
research  capability  the  textile  industry 


FEBRUARY  1986       13 


lacks,  they  explain,  is  through  coopera- 
tive efforts  such  as  Draper  Laboratories' 
Textile  Clothing  Technology  Corpora- 
tion, which  operates  in  conjunction  with 
Burlington  Industries.  The  students  point 
to  the  corporation's  development  of 
machines  that  will  automate  suit  coat 
production. 

The  ensuing  discussion  brings  out 
some  of  the  problems  of  automating  a 
labor-intensive  industry,  and  the  need  for 
university  research  into  ways  to  retrain 
displaced  workers. 

"I  enjoy  these  seven-week  encoun- 
ters," says  Brendon  F.  Somerville, 
NAM's  director  of  innovation,  technol- 
ogy and  social  policy,  and  a  longtime 
supporter  of  the  Washington  Project 
Center.  "We  use  the  information  to  back 
up  positions  we  take  on  legislation." 

There  is  just  enough  time  to  walk  over 
to  the  National  Research  Council  for  the 
day's  final  presentation.  Here,  juniors 
Dag  Anderson,  of  South  Easton,  MA, 
Paul  Hambelton,  North  Andover,  MA 
and  Timothy  Moran,  of  Worcester,  are 
concerned  with  how  to  help  teachers 
select  the  appropriate  computer  software 
for  math  and  science  curricula  from  the 
8,000  to  10,000  pieces  of  educational 
software  currently  crowding  the  market. 

From  their  research,  they  have 
reviewed  and  categorized  more  than  100 
criteria  used  by  evaluators  to  assess  soft- 
ware content,  instructional  value  and 
technical  quality.  The  presentation  cov- 
ers such  issues  as  how  to  get  information 
about  new  software  and  evaluator  serv- 
ices, how  to  help  teachers  overcome 
"cyberphobia"  through  resources  such 
as  computer  enhanceable  textbooks,  and 
the  need  to  involve  teachers  in  software 
evaluation. 

After  the  presentation,  Anderson  tells 
me  how  the  team  tackled  their  project. 
"We  addressed  the  problem  in  the  same 
ways  a  teacher  would,"  he  says.  "We 
wanted  to  find  some  of  the  problems  with 
selecting  software.  One  issue  we  thought 
we  could  handle  was  how  to  evaluate 
software.  But  once  we  got  into  it,  we  felt 


lost.  We  realized  there  are  many  evalua- 
tors out  there.  So  we  tried  to  develop  a 
tool  for  educators  to  make  the  selection 
process  easier." 

For  Anderson,  the  experience  has  led 
him  to  refine  his  career  goals.  "I'm 
thinking  of  changing  my  major  to  a  dual 
degree  in  education  and  electrical  engi- 
neering," he  says.  "I  originally  had  the 
idea  of  going  into  business,  but  now  I 
can  see  the  real  need  for  research  in  areas 
dealing  with  technology  and  society." 

The  next  day  dawns  warmer 
than  the  first,  with  weather 
predictions  of  temperatures 
in  the  '90s.  We  start  out  a 
half  hour  earlier,  at  8:00,  to 
allow  sufficient  time  for  the  subway  ride 
out  to  Alexandria,  VA.  There,  at  the 
National  Society  of  Professional  Engi- 
neers (NSPE),  we  listen  to  juniors  Peter 
DeBellis,  of  Foxboro,  MA,  Daniel  King, 
of  Mattapoisett,  MA,  and  Stephen 
Madaus,  of  Worcester,  discuss  ways  of 
teaching  engineering  students  about  eth- 
ics. 

For  their  project,  the  team  has  devel- 
oped a  scenario  for  a  videotape  on  engi- 
neering ethics  that  the  NSPE  is  planning 
to  produce.  The  plot  involves  a  group  of 


Back  at  their  quarters  at  Washing- 
ton's Georgetown  Hotel,  Professor 
Arthur  Gerstenfeld  walks  Butter 
while  Sangeeta  Patel,  Pat  Bannon 
and  Radha  Murthy  set  off  on  their 
own. 

engineers  working  for  a  bus  company 
who  are  under  pressure  to  develop  a  new 
brake  system.  One  of  the  engineers 
designs  a  system  that  meets  basic  stan- 
dards and  is  cheaper  to  produce  than  the 
old  brake  system,  but  not  as  safe. 
Another  engineer  objects  that  public 
safety  is  being  sacrificed  for  profit  mar- 
gins, and  must  decide  how  far  to  press 
his  case.  The  resolution  of  the  dilemma 
is  left  to  the  viewers,  to  encourage  dis- 
cussion. Art  Schwartz,  NSPE  assistant 
general  counsel,  is  pleased  with  the  idea 
and  says  it  will  help  the  society  get  fund- 
ing for  their  video. 

Our  last  stop  is  the  high-rise  complex 
at  Crystal  City,  where  we  head  for  the 
Patent  and  Trademark  Office  (PTO)  of 
the  Department  of  Commerce.  Juniors 
David  Brunell,  of  North  Attleboro,  MA, 
and  Michael  Perrone,  of  Worcester, 
together  with  senior  Michael  Gualtieri, 
of  Boxboro,  MA,  meet  us  in  a  confer- 
ence room  already  full  of  staff  people. 


14       WP1  JOURNAL 


Like  the  team  working  for  Com- 
merce's Office  of  Trade  Information 
Services,  this  group,  too,  has  been  asked 
to  evaluate  an  internal  problem.  PTO  has 
invested  in  a  multi-million-dollar  com- 
puter system,  LEXPAT,  which  is 
designed  to  fully  automate  the  agency's 
search  and  patent  application  processing 
functions.  Although  some  900  examiners 
have  been  trained  to  use  the  system,  less 
than  half  are  regular  users.  Continuing  a 
project  from  the  previous  year,  the  team 
has  been  asked  to  suggest  ways  to  reduce 
examiners'  resistance  to  automation. 

Their  solution  is  to  adapt  training 
methods  to  learning  styles.  Using  Kolb's 
theory  of  "experiential  learning"  to  eval- 
uate "learning  style  profiles"  of  a  sam- 
ple group  of  100  examiners,  the  students 
observed  that  the  majority  favor 
"abstract"  reasoning. 

From  this,  they  concluded  that  most 
examiners  would  probably  benefit  from 
training  that  first  gives  them  a  system 
overview  and  explains  LEXPAT's  under- 
lying rationale,  and  only  then  offers 
hands-on  experience.  Others  who  favor  a 
"concrete"  learning  style,  they  note, 
would  probably  prefer  to  be  able  to  use 
the  system  as  soon  as  possible,  rather 
than  get  bogged  down  in  theory. 

"You  have  raised  questions  that  have 
to  be  considered,"  William  Lawson, 
documentation  director,  tells  the  students 
when  they  are  done.  "I  hope  after  all  the 
hundreds  of  millions  of  dollars  invested 
in  the  Automated  Patent  System,  we 
won't  blow  it  on  poor  training.  Your 
report  is  a  valuable  input  in  that  effort." 

"I  don't  think  I've  ever  learned  this 
much  in  seven  weeks  in  my  entire  life," 
Mike  Gualtieri  tells  me  afterward.  "I 
can't  wait  to  get  back  to  Worcester.  My 
courses  will  be  much  more  relevant." 

Several  weeks  later,  I  speak  with 
Frank  Lutz  about  the  transformation 
which  occurs  when  students  return  to 
campus.  "They  develop  a  sense  of  self- 
confidence  and  accomplishment,  more 
pride  in  who  they  are,"  says  Lutz.  "They 
learn  they  can  make  a  contribution  to 


Once  in  Washington,  the 

students  are  immersed  in 

full-time  research.  Most  of 

their  time  is  spent  on  projects 

at  their  given  agencies.  And,  to 

help  them  refine 

communication  skills,  there 

are  weekly  meetings  with 

faculty  advisors  for  progress 

reports  and  practice 

presentations.  "In 

Washington,"  says  Dean 

William  R.  Grogan,  "our 

students  and  faculty  get  to 

know  each  other  both 

academically  and  socially.  The 

experience  offers  the  best 

elements  of  education." 


problems  they  didn't  think  they  could 
solve. 

"One  advantage  of  any  IQP  is  that 
once  the  students  complete  the  project, 
they  feel  more  confident  with  open- 
ended  problems,"  he  continues.  "In 
engineering  and  science  curricula,  it's 
difficult  to  present  problems  that  have 
more  than  one  correct  answer.  Here  the 
students  learn  there  is  something  in  their 
engineering  education  that  allows  them 
to  analyze  non-engineering  problems. 
It's  a  thought  process  that's  not  necessar- 
ily taught,  but  learned." 

What  kind  of  thought  process?  "If  stu- 
dents are  given  a  problem  that  is  ill- 
defined  and  appears  impossible  to 
address,  they'll  first  define  the  problem 
explicitly,"  explains  Lutz.  "They'll  con- 
tinue that  process  until  they  gain  consen- 
sus that  this  is  the  problem  to  be 
addressed,  and  then  they'll  collect  data 
in  an  attempt  to  quantify  the  problem. 
Even  if  the  problem  can't  be  quantified, 
this  makes  the  assumptions  explicit.  The 
students  order  priorities,  people  respond, 
the  students  adjust  their  analysis,  and 
repeat  the  process  to  refine  the  problem." 


Currently  students  can  hone  those 
skills  not  only  through  the  Washington 
Project  Center  and  on-campus  IQPs,  but 
also  via  off-campus  centers  at  Digital 
Equipment  Corporation  headquarters  in 
Maynard,  MA,  and  at  Worcester's  Nor- 
ton Company,  St.  Vincent's  Hospital  and 
the  University  of  Massachusetts  Medical 
Center.  Next  year,  opportunities  will  be 
expanded  through  a  Municipal  Studies 
Center  that  will  involve  projects  in  com- 
munities throughout  Massachusetts. 

Then  there  is  the  Institute's  latest 
venture— a  project  center  in  London. 
Working  with  their  Washington  connec- 
tions, WPI  faculty,  and  professors  at  the 
City  University  in  London,  Lutz  and 
Professor  Lance  Schachterle  (chairman 
of  the  Division  of  Interdisciplinary 
Affairs)  traveled  to  England  last  fall  and 
returned  with  the  names  of  15  organiza- 
tions that  have  expressed  interest  in  a 
program  similar  to  the  one  in  Washing- 
ton. 

Next  year,  Lutz  plans  to  talk  further 
with  those  organizations,  which  include 
the  U.K.  Patent  Office  and  Gestetner, 
Ltd.,  for  project  proposals.  And  by  April 
1987,  he  hopes  to  see  the  first  group  of 
12  to  15  students  on  their  way  to  London 
for  a  seven- week  educational  adventure. 

Center  co-directors  will  be  Professor 
Schachterle  and  Maria  Watkins,  lecturer 
emeritus  in  the  Electrical  Engineering 
Department  of  the  City  University.  The 
Center  will  build  on  the  experience  of 
IQPs  done  by  more  than  100  WPI  stu- 
dents who  have  gone  to  London  under  a 
previous  exchange  program  with  City 
University. 

Should  that  venture  prove  successful, 
Lutz  says  he  would  like  to  see  more  WPI 
project  centers  in  other  parts  of  the 
world,  such  as  Southeast  Asia.  "It  would 
make  sense  for  engineering  schools  to  set 
up  international  experiences  for  stu- 
dents," he  says.  "That's  the  direction  the 
profession  is  moving  in." 

Evelyn  Herwitz  is  a  freelance  writer  liv- 
ing in  Worcester. 


FEBRUARY  1986       15 


_,  From  the 
Classroom 

to  the 
Courtroom 


By  Michael  E.  Donnelly 


Can  engineering  and 

ence  students  serve 

our  overburdened 

juvenile  court  system? 

Ask  a  lawyer-teacher 

who's  deeply 

involved. 


The  question  just  posed  is  a  fair 
one.  For  at  first  glance  there  may 
.  m  to  be  scant  connection 
berween  the  skills  of  students  being  edu- 
cated in  sophisticated  technological  prin- 
ciples and  the  needs  of  troubled  youths . 

Yet  for  several  years  now.  I*ve  had  the 
pleasure  of  working  with  WPI  under- 
graduates as  they  step  out  of  the  class- 
room to  conduct  their  Interactive  Quali- 
IQPsi  in  Worcester's 
busy  Juvenile  Court. 

Here's  a  sampling  of  IQPs  students 
have  done  in  the  court  system: 

•  In  separate  reports  written  for  children 
and  forjudges  and  lawyers,  an  IQP  team 
explained  the  scientific  principles  under- 
lying various  types  of  forensic  technol- 

-jch  as  fingerprint  analysis,  breath- 
alyzers used  in  drunk-driving  cases,  and 
biological  and  medical  evidence  in  rape 
cats 

•  Another  IQP  team  developed  materi- 
als based  on  laws  of  physics  to  help 
driver  education  programs  produce  better 
instructional  tools. 

•  third  group  explored  the  latest 


biomedical  research  on  dietary  and  r 
iological  imbalances  that  may  produce 
antisocial  behavior  in  juvenile  offenders. 

In  every  IQP.  the  goal  is  to  bring 
ence  and  technology  to  the  aid  of  the 
Court  and  the  children  it  saves.  I've 
seen  these  students  struggle  with  legal, 
scientific  and  ethical  problems — the 
kinds  of  issues  that  they'll  confront 
throughout  their  professional  1 

That  these  students— and  the  children 
the  court  serves— are  better  off  for  the 
struggle  is  abundantly  clear  to  me  A 
closer  look  at  the  IQPs  described  above 
may  help  explain  why. 

In  "Forensic  Technology."  Brian  Cole- 
man "84.  Jeffrey  Lenard  "84  and  Eric 
Langevin  "84  had  to  develop  not  only  a 
working  knowledge  of  the  criminal  court 
system  and  how  criminal  charges  are 
proved,  but  also  a  practical  understand- 
ing of  how  scientific  techniques  are 
offered  and  accepted  by  the  courts.  To  be 
able  to  present  their  reports  effectively. 
the  students  had  to  learn  how  lawyers  use 
such  evidence  when  offering  or  challeng- 
ing its  admission  to  court.  They  also  had 
to  develop  a  knowledge  of  the  law  in  this 
area  equal  to  their  know  ledge  of  the  sci- 
entific methods.  But  their  work  did  not 
stop  there.  They  had  to  use  those  two 
areas  in  combination  to  write  intelli- 
gently for  both  lawyers  and  children. 

With  a  nice  blend  of  technical  ingenu- 
ity and  humor  (d  la  drawings  after  the 
antics  of  Saturday  Night  Lives  "Mr. 
Bill"),  the  "Driver  Education*'  IQP  team 
!;chelle  Cutler  "86.  of  Braintree. 
MA,  James  Granger  '86  and  Patrick 
Hester  '86.  both  of  Worcester,  and  John 
Williams  "85.  of  Oxford.  MA.  fashioned 
materials  that  were  at  once  contemporary 


and  scientifically  sound. 

To  test  a  particular  question  in  ph> 
concerning  motor  vehicle  dynamics  and 
accident  reconstruction,  the  members  off 
this  group  pressed  into  sen  ice  the  trusty, 
iff  somewhat  dilapidated,  automobile  of 
Jim  Granger 

To  determine  whether  motor  vehicle 
stopping  distances  would  van  with  the 
amount  of  weight  placed  in  the  car.  the 
group  designed  several  effective  field 
With  the  help  of  area  police  offi- 
cers who  volunteered  their  time,  and  the 
Worcester  Airport,  which  volunteered  an 
open  runway,  the  tests  were  conducted, 
confirming  scientific  procedures  of  acci- 
dent reconstruction  technologv . 

The  types  of  ethical  problems  often 
faced  in  IQPs  were  confronted  by  Timo- 
thy P.  Mavor  '86.  of  Bridgewater.  MA. 
Matthew  P  Vincent  "86.  of  Granby.  CT. 
and  Gordon  Walker  '86.  of  East  Granby. 
CT.  in  their  IQP.  "The  Treatment  of 
Juvenile  Offenders  by  Orthomolecular 
Therapy."  From  their  review  of  the  liter- 
ature and  from  inteniews  with  experts, 
this  group  proceeded  to  write  a  protocol, 
or  working  checklist,  for  human-sen  ices 
and  medical  workers  to  use  w hen  screen- 
ing children  for  nutrition-based  disor- 
ders. 

The  students  were  left  with  the  same 
ethical  problem  that  the  experts  struggle 
with;  i.e. .  what  level  of  intrusion  into  a 
child's  life  is  permissible  when  an  orga- 
nization sets  out  to  change  that  child's 
behavior?  Or.  as  their  final  report  asked, 
what  is  to  be  done  with  such  children0 
Are  delinquent  offenders  fit  merely  for 
punishment,  or  are  they  troubled  chil- 
dren in  need  of  treatment?  The  students 
learned  that  the  best  legal  and  medical 
evidence  is  still  unclear  on  this  point. 
Their  approach  was  to  state  this  ambigu- 
ity and  to  honestly  reflect  this  as  an  unre- 
solved problem. 

Ambiguities  aside,  as  a  result  of  the 
project,  each  group  member  made  a  per- 
sonal commitment  to  improve  his  diet. 
Incidentally,  in  meeting  with  this  and 
other  IQP  teams  at  my  home,  my  wife 
and  I  have  been  interested  in  this  project 
in  particular  as  we  work  to  develop 
healthy  diets  for  ourselves  and  for  our 
grow  ing  toddler. 

Each  student  w ho  participates  in  the 
juvenile  court  IQP  senes  for  a 
year  as  a  volunteer  probation  offi- 
cer for  the  Worcester  Juvenile  Court 
under  the  supenision  of  a  professional 
juvenile  probation  officer.  This  is  an 


16       WPI  jOL  7 


extremely  important  element  of  the  IQP. 
The  student's  commitment  to  the  child  on 
probation  determines  part  of  a  student's 
final  grade. 

Contact  with  the  children  enriches  the 
academic  research  element  of  the  project 
by  giving  students  first-hand  knowledge 
of  the  problems  and  strengths  of  the  chil- 
dren they  wish  to  serve.  It  is  not  uncom- 
mon to  hear  these  students  comment  on 
the  children's  sense  of  wonder  at  what 
are  often  their  first  visits  to  a  college 
campus.  The  children  are  exposed  to  a 
wide  range  of  new  experiences,  includ- 
ing computer  labs  and  athletic  facilities, 
often  opening  entirely  new  worlds  to 
them. 

But  the  experience  runs  both  ways. 
I've  often  heard  students  say  that  they 
were  initially  reluctant  to  meet  these 
"delinquents,"  whom  they  later  find  to 
be  interesting  and  enjoyable  people.  Ste- 
reotypes and  misconceptions  fall  away 
on  both  sides  when  the  students  and  chil- 
dren have  to  interact  with  each  other  for 
a  full  year. 

This  IQP  experience  should  not  be 

At  the  Worcester  County  Court  House, 
assistant  district  attorney  Michael  E. 
Donnelly  discusses  a  case  with  WPI 
students  whose  projects  address  prob- 
lems in  the  Worcester  County  Juvenile 
Court  system:  James  P.  Granger  '86 
CE,  Michelle  R.  Cutler  '86  MGE,  and 
Matthew  P.  Vincent  '86  CH. 


overly  romanticized,  however,  because 
providing  supervision  to  children  who 
truly  need  the  help  and  attention  of  con- 
scientious role  models  can  be  a  difficult 
job.  Students  have  to  meet  weekly  with 
the  children,  a  policy  that  some  children 
resist.  And  sometimes  matches  of  stu- 
dents and  children  fail. 

Problems  have  to  be  talked  out  and 
worked  on,  and  there  is  a  constant 
requirement  on  the  students'  part  to  keep 
documented  records  of  their  contacts 
with  these  children— children  who  are  on 
probation  and  whose  commitment  is  not 
voluntary.  It's  this  commitment  by  our 
students— to  both  the  children  and  the 
Court— that  makes  the  program  work. 

At  the  heart  of  the  IQP  is  the  notion 
that  this  experience  is  the  first  step  in 
transforming  students  into  professional 
engineers  and  scientists— professionals 
who  can  observe,  think  about  what  they 
see.  express  their  ideas  to  others,  and 
then  act.  Three  particular  experiences 
demonstrate  how  this  education  can  hap- 
pen. 

Jim  Granger,  for  example,  spent  sev- 
eral days  for  his  group  following  a  trial 
in  which  two  competing  expert  witnesses 
in  motor  vehicle  dynamics  and  accident 
reconstruction  testified  before  a  jury  on 
the  cause  of  an  accident  that  led  to  the 
death  of  a  passenger. 

After  the  trial  was  over.  Jim  engaged 
the  experts  on  their  own  turf,  introducing 
himself  and  explaining   his  research 


project  to  them.  They  took  the  time  to  go 
over  their  calculations  with  Jim  and 
pointed  out  reasons  for  reaching  their 
separate  conclusions. 

The  members  of  the  "Forensic  Tech- 
nology" group  chose  to  write  a  pamphlet 
that  would  help  children  understand  spe- 
cial scientific  tools  used  in  court.  Of  par- 
ticular note  was  the  use  of  rape  kits  in 
sexual  assault  cases.  To  learn  how  to 
avoid  technical  jargon  and  to  write 
clearly,  simply  and  interestingly  for  chil- 
dren, these  students  sought  the  help  of 
Regina  Hannigan.  a  one-time  school 
librarian  and  now  owner  of  a  children's 
bookshop  in  Worcester.  In  this  IQP.  the 
ability  to  communicate  scientific  ideas  to 
special  groups  was  paramount  to  the  con- 
cept of  the  "humanistic  technologist." 

Gordon  Walker  of  the  "Orthomolecu- 
lar  Therap>  "  group  observed  during  one 
of  his  weekly  five-hour  meetings  with  his 
"little  brother"  that  the  boy  was 
extremely  flippant  and  aggressive. 
Walker  noted  that  this  was  out  of  charac- 
ter for  the  boy,  who  was  usually  very 
quiet  and  passive. 

As  the  evening  went  on.  Walker,  who 
had  taken  his  little  brother  bowling, 
watched  as  the  boy  threw  the  bowling 
balls  erratically  down  the  alley.  Finally, 
though,  the  boy  quieted  down.  Walker 
later  found  time  to  talk  with  him.  The 
boy  confided  that  before  his  meeting 
with  Walker,  he  had  eaten  "all  of  his 
father's  jelly  beans." 

This  episode  of  mood-swing  con- 
firmed Walker's  literature  review  of 
medical  data  on  hypoglycemia— a  rapid 
and  dramatic  change  in  blood  sugar  lev- 
els which  often  produces  dramatic 
behavioral  shifts.  Here  was  actual  obser- 
vation based  on  research  data  of  a  ke\ 
component  in  his  IQP. 

In  these  simple,  often  anecdotal 
though  at  the  same  time  technological 
ways,  students  push  themselves  to  neu 
frontiers  of  experience,  skill  and  view- 
point. By  addressing  the  needs  of  often 
desperate  children  on  a  very  personal 
level,  students  prepare  for  the  kinds  of 
professional,  ethical  and  societal  chal- 
lenges they  will  soon  face  in  a  career  and 
in  post-collegiate  life. 

Michael  Donnelly  is  an  affiliate  assistant 
professor  in  the  Division  of  Interdiscipli- 
nary Affairs.  He  is  also  Assistant  District 
Attorney  of  Worcester  County,  as  well  as 
director  of  the  D.A.  Office  's  child  abuse 
unit  and  coordinator  of  its  elder  abuse 
program. 


FEBRUARY  1986       17 


Pete  Marsaw  30: 
Maker  of  Magical  Light 


TTTThen  the  Class  of  1930  wanted 

1  J|  /   to  give  a  lasting  senior-class 

W  gift  to  WPI,  it  turned  to  class 
artist  Percy  "Pete"  Marsaw,  EE.  What 
we'd  like,  the  gift  committee  told  him, 
are  some  stained-glass  windows  for  the 
chapel. 

"I'll  see  what  I  can  do,"  said  Marsaw, 
who  had  seen  his  first  stained-glass  win- 
dow at  age  five,  and  who  had  boarded 
briefly  with  a  glassblower's  family  while 
attending  high  school  in  Worcester.  With 
his  artistic  bent,  he  was  certain  he  could 
design  stained-glass,  but  he'd  had  no 
actual  experience  with  its  manufacture. 

At  almost  the  same  time  the  gift  com- 
mittee requested  his  services,  so  did  the 
now-defunct  Worcester  Stained  Glass 
Company.  "The  company  needed  a  part- 
time  stained-glass  designer,"  Marsaw 
reports.  "I  was  recommended  by  the  col- 
lege, so  they  hired  me."  The  amazing 
thing  about  all  this  is  that,  at  the  time, 
Marsaw  was  still  an  undergraduate. 

"The  gift  committee  commissioned 
me  to  design  window  seals  representing 
the  four  branches  of  engineering,"  says 
Marsaw.  "An  interesting  assignment, 
since  no  such  seals  were  in  existence! 
We  decided  to  depict  a  monkey  wrench, 
a  hammer,  calipers  and  a  square  for  the 
mechanical  engineering  seal;  a  micro- 
scope and  retort  for  chemical  engineer- 
ing; and  a  rod  and  transit  for  civil  engi- 
neering. [See  cover  photo.] 

"When  it  came  to  designing  the  elec- 
trical engineering  seal,"  he  says,  "WPI 
president  Admiral  Ralph  Earle  lent  a 
hand.  He  suggested  that  to  our  turbine 
and  electric  lamp  we  add  a  Ley  den  jar. 
Ultimately,  the  seals  were  to  be  enclosed 
in  glass  shaped  like  the  shield  pins  from 
the  various  departments." 

Much  thought  was  given  to  the  order 


By  Ruth  Trask 


of  the  four  windows  in  the  chapel  (also 
once  known  as  the  library  or  Sinclair 
Hall,  and  more  recently  as  the  placement 
office  or  OGCP)  on  the  top  floor  of 
Boynton  Hall. 

In  the  end,  it  was  decided  that  the  win- 
dows should  be  arranged  according  to 
the  seniority  of  the  branches  of  engineer- 
ing within  the  WPI  curriculum.  The  seal 
of  the  United  States,  which  Marsaw  con- 
siders to  be  his  best  effort  in  stained 
glass,  and  the  seal  of  the  State  of  Massa- 
chusetts, would  also  be  included.  When, 
with  the  assistance  of  Worcester  Stained 
Glass  Company,  the  windows  were  pro- 
duced and  installed,  WPI  had  the  only 
engineering  seals  of  original  design  in 
the  nation. 

Marsaw  eventually  took  other  engi- 
neering and  administrative  posts,  but  he 
continued  designing  for  Worcester 
Stained  Glass  until  it  closed  its  doors  in 
1940.  "My  experience  with  the  design 
and  manufacture  of  the  engineering  seals 
was  such  a  positive  one,"  he  says,  "that 
I've  continued  to  make  stained  glass  ever 
since." 

According  to  Marsaw,  stained- 
glass  making  is  a  time- 
consuming  task.  In  creating  a 
window,  he  makes  a  scale  drawing  of  his 
design,  then  paints  it  with  watercolors. 
His  next  step  is  a  full-sized  working 
drawing— a  cartoon,  it's  called.  With 
special  shears,  a  tracing  of  the  cartoon  is 
cut  into  sections.  The  glass  is  then  made 
to  fit  the  cartoon  pieces  and  the  designs 
are  painted  on  with  vitrifiable  colors  or 
pigments,  which  are  oxides  of  metals. 
Each  piece  is  then  placed  in  a  kiln  and 
fired  at  1050  to  1200  degrees  F.  This 
actually  causes  the  color  to  enter  the  sur- 
face and  become  part  of  the  glass.  The 


final  step  is  putting  the  design  together 
with  lead  strips  and  soldering  the  joints. 

Marsaw  has  designed  and  made  exqui- 
site windows  for  Central  Congregational 
Church,  Christ  the  King  Church,  St. 
Ann's,  St.  Anthony's  and  the  old  Lincoln 
Square  Baptist  Church,  all  in  Worcester, 
as  well  as  for  St.  Mary's  in  Jefferson, 
MA,  and  the  Pleasant  Valley  Methodist- 
Episcopal  Church  in  Poughkeepsie,  NY. 

The  three  Poughkeepsie  windows  are 
his  largest  (18  feet  high  and  3  feet  wide), 
and  took  him  15  months  to  complete. 
The  center  panel  has  a  large  illuminated 
cross,  which  required  much  hand  paint- 
ing and  firing.  The  side  panels  depict 
symbols  of  the  Old  and  New  Testaments. 

Besides  creating,  Marsaw  is  among 
the  finest  craftsmen  anywhere  at  mend- 
ing stained  glass.  After  the  1938  hurri- 
cane, John  W.  Higgins  asked  him  to 
make  360  pieces  of  glass  to  replace  those 
lost  at  Worcester's  Higgins  Armory 
Museum  during  the  storm.  Marsaw 
replaced  the  broken  glass  in  the  Armo- 
ry's beautiful  13th-century  St.  Adrian 
window,  for  which  he  also  designed  the 
tile  floor  and  canopy. 

"Mr.  Higgins  was  very  particular 
about  his  forge  rose  window,  as  well," 
he  recalls.  "It  represented  his  ties  with 
industry  through  Worcester  Pressed  Steel 
Company.  He  wanted  the  forge  center 
flame  to  be  exactly  the  color  of  the  forge 
flame.  Without  describing  to  me  in  detail 
just  what  that  was,  he  asked  me  to  find 
the  right  glass." 

Marsaw  knew  he'd  have  to  go  to  New 
York  City  to  get  it.  "When  I  returned  to 
Worcester,  I  showed  him  what  I'd 
found." 

"That's  it,  Pete.  Exactly,"  Higgins 
congratulated  him.  "You  knew  just  what 
I  was  looking  for! " 


18       WPI  JOURNAL 


Percy  "Pete  "  Marsaw  30  with  three  of 
the  six  Sinclair  Hall  stained  glass  win- 
dows he  designed.  Located  on  the  top 
floor  ofBoynton  Hall  and  once  used  as 
the  library  and  as  a  chapel,  Sinclair 
Hall  is  now  occupied  by  the  Office  of 
Graduate  and  Career  Planning. 

Marsaw  has  not  only  made  a  lot  of 
stained  glass,  he  has  also  lectured  about 
it  extensively.  While  earning  his  master's 
degree  at  Boston  University,  he  wrote  a 
paper  on  the  subject.  It  was  so  well 
received  that  he  was  invited  to  give  lec- 
tures on.  the  topic  at  B.U.  He  has  also 
spoken  before  a  number  of  other  college, 
club  and  religious  groups,  occasionally 
branching  out  into  the  areas  of  religious 
symbolism  and  architecture. 


Listing  Pete  Marsaw 's  interests  and 
enthusiasms  is  an  experience  in 
itself.  His  many  accomplishments 
have  been  noted  in  Who's  Who  in  the 
East.  At  the  moment,  he's  renovating  the 
archives  cabinets  at  the  United  Congre- 
gational Church  (formerly  the  Central 
Congregational  Church)  in  Worcester,  a 
fitting  task  for  the  chairman  of  the 
church  historical  committee.  In  1962,  he 
wrote  a  booklet  titled  Symbolism  in  Cen- 
tral Church.  In  1959,  he  served  as  chair- 
man of  the  building  committee  for  the 
church  parish  hall. 

During  World  War  II,  while  director  of 
the  Industrial  Arts  Division  of  Worcester 
Public  Schools,  Marsaw  supervised  the 
student  manufacture  of  fighter  plane 
models  to  aid  in  the  identification  of  air- 


craft. He  also  wrote  and  illustrated  the 
booklet,  How  to  Identify  Aircraft  of 
United  States  Armed  Forces. 

For  ten  years,  he  played  the  violin  with 
the  Worcester  String  Ensemble.  He 
designs  his  own  Christmas  cards,  col- 
lects stamps,  and  enjoys  woodworking, 
photography  and  jewelry  making.  He's 
been  everywhere  looking  for  stones  for 
his  jewelry.  "Do  you  know,"  he  asks, 
"that  in  The  Smokies  you  can  find  real 
rubies  and  gem  quality  garnets  and  sap- 
phires?" 

Still,  all  this  fun  didn't  keep  him  from 
finding  a  satisfying  career.  While  an 
undergraduate,  Marsaw  was  an  electric 
designer  with  the  St.  Lawrence  Valley 
Power  Corporation.  He  even  taught 
design  courses  at  Northeastern  Univer- 
sity. From  1930  to  1939,  he  taught 
mechanical  drawing  in  Worcester  high 
schools.  He  was  director  of  Industrial 
Arts  in  the  Worcester  Public  Schools 
from  1939  to  1947.  From  1947  to  1950 
he  was  assistant  plant  manager  of  the 
Wickwire-Spencer  Division  of  the  Colo- 
rado Fuel  and  Iron  Corp.  in  Worcester. 
He  also  taught  at  Worcester  Junior  Col- 
lege and  worked  for  Universal  Boring 
Machine  Co.  and  Heald  Machine. 

Prior  to  becoming  Holden  Hospital 
administrator  in  1954,  he  had  served  four 
years  as  purchasing  agent  and  personnel 
manager  for  the  Reed  Rolled  Thread  Die 
Co.  in  Holden,  MA.  Later,  he  was 
administrator  for  Fairlawn  Hospital  in 
Worcester,  from  which  he  retired  in 
1972.  For  the  next  12  years,  he  served  as 
a  consultant  in  industry,  working  for  the 
Central  Massachusetts  Employers'  Asso- 
ciation. 

While  with  Holden  Hospital,  he  super- 
vised the  construction  of  its  new  building 
and  purchased  all  the  equipment.  Along 
the  way,  he  received  a  gold  medal  from 
the  Massachusetts  Hospital  Association 
as  its  "Most  Valuable  Member."  He 
smiles,  "The  medal  is  still  in  the  bank!" 

Active  in  civic  affairs,  he  has  been 
associated  with  the  YMCA,  the  Rotary 
Club,  the  Worcester  Junior  College 
Board  of  Governors,  the  Massachusetts 
Hospital  Association  (former  trustee  and 
treasurer)  and  the  Worcester  County 
Hospital  Administrators'  Association 
(past  president). 

Pete  Marsaw 's  brilliance  is  reflected  in 
all  he  has  ever  done— from  the  facets  of 
his  gem-stone  jewelry,  to  the  enchanting 
light  his  windows  create,  to  the  students 
he  has  had  a  hand  in  molding.  He  is  a 
true  maker  of  magic. 


FEBRUARY  1986       19 


By  Paul  Susca  In  the  small  but  sticky  world  of  starch 

processing,  Professor  Jim  Rollings  is  WPI's 
rising  star.  He's  also  WPFs  first  recipient  of  the  Presidential 
Young  Investigator  award.  His  work  on  processing  starch  into 
sweeteners  and  fuels  may  one  day  change  entire  industries. 


J  was  high  for  about  48  hours  after  I 
received  the  award,"  Jim  Rollings 
says.  "Then  I  read  what  it  said.  It 
didn't  say  that  I  necessarily  did  anything. 
All  it  said  is  that  I  have  the  potential  to 
do  something." 

Judging  by  the  Presidential  Young 
Investigator  (PYI)  program's  emphasis 
on  research  of  interest  to  industry,  that 
probably  means  the  potential  to  do  some- 
thing aimed  at  concrete  applications.  But 
although  he  is  an  engineer,  Rollings 
doesn't  always  think  in  terms  of  applying 
technology  in  the  same  way  many  engi- 
neers do. 

"When  I  talk  with  engineers,  they  say, 
'You  sound  like  a  scientist,'  and  when  I 
talk  with  scientists  I  get  the  opposite 
reaction."  Rollings  says  his  niche  is 
"somewhere  between  pure  research  and 
applied  work."  He  is  explaining  how  he 
earned  the  distinction  of  being  one  of 
three  biochemical  engineering  research- 
ers in  the  country  to  be  named  Presiden- 
tial Young  Investigators. 

The  PYI   program,   funded  by  the 


Office  of  the  President  and  administered 
by  the  National  Science  Foundation 
(NSF),  provides  exceptional  young  sci- 
entists and  engineers  the  opportunity  to 
begin  building  research  programs.  The 
PYI  program  provides  $25,000  per  year, 
and  then  sweetens  the  pot  with  up  to 
$37,500  to  match  grants  from  industry. 
That's  a  total  of  up  to  $100,000  per  year 
for  five  years.  This  amount  of  money 
could  enable  Rollings,  who  currently  has 
three  graduate  students  and  one  postdoc- 
toral associate  in  his  program,  to  build 
the  biggest  research  effort  in  WPI's 
Chemical  Engineering  department. 

But,  does  Jim  Rollings  want  to  build 
the  biggest  program  in  the  department? 
He  answers  with  a  story:  Around  the 
time  Rollings  joined  WPI,  Professor 
Edward  L.  Cussler  at  the  University  of 
Minnesota  wrote  a  tongue-in-cheek 
paper  titled  "How  to  Do  Basic 
Research." 

Cussler's  system  defines  several  types 
of  research  scientists.  Some  are  "archi- 
tects," who  take  the  building  blocks  of 


research  results  and  structure  them  into  a 
framework  of  knowledge  on  a  particular 
topic.  "Bombers"  are  another  type,  set- 
ting their  sights  on  a  particular  problem 
and  attacking  it  until  it  doesn't  exist  any- 
more. Finally,  there  are  the  "princes," 
who  amass  large  research  programs, 
build  dynasties,  and  then  become  admin- 
istrators. 

"My  initial  approach  to  any  problem  is 
as  a  bomber,"  Rollings  admits.  "But  I 
don't  get  very  far  before  I  start  asking 
about  what's  going  on  architecturally." 
So,  Rollings  concludes,  "I  have  bomb- 
ing initiatives  with  architectural  tenden- 
cies." 

Since  Jim  Rollings  went  to  work 
bombing  a  problem  in  starch  processing 
eight  years  ago,  he  has  spent  most  of  his 
time  heightening  the  architecture  of 
biopolymer  science  through  analytical 
chemistry. 

"I'm  interested  in  understanding  the 
properties  of  biopolymers,"  he  says. 
"I'm  attempting  to  meld  what  we  know 
about  polymer  science  and  physical 


20       WPI  JOURNAL 


chemistry  into  an  understanding  of 
biopolymers." 

Polymers  are  substances  whose  mole- 
cules are  made  up  of  chains  of  smaller 
component  molecules.  Biopolymers  are 
simply  polymers  of  biological  origin. 
For  example,  polystyrene  and  polyvinyl 
chloride  (PVC)  are  synthetic  polymers 
derived  from  petrochemicals. 

Starches,  which  occur  abundantly  in 
plants,  are  biopolymers  comprising 
chains  of  simpler  sugar  molecules. 
Through  hydrolysis,  or  breaking  the 
hydrogen-oxygen  bonds  between  sugar 
molecules,  starches  can  be  processed 
into  their  component  sugars,  or  glucose, 
or  modified  to  become  other  monosac- 
charides, like  fructose. 

"The  typical  example  of  starch  hydrol- 
ysis occurs  when  you  eat  a  cracker," 
Rollings  explains.  "If  you  chew  on  it 
long  enough,  the  enzymes  in  your  saliva 
break  down  the  starch  into  sugars,  and 
you  actually  get  the  sensation  of  sweet- 
ness." So,  one  application  of  Rollings' 
work  with  starches  lies  in  the  conversion 
of  plentiful  starches  such  as  corn  starch 
to  liquid  sweeteners  such  as  fructose, 
which  is  a  common  ingredient  in  pre- 
pared foods. 

A  similar  method  of  starch  hydrolysis 
can  be  used  to  produce  ethanol  (grain 
alcohol),  which  many  see  as  an  alterna- 
tive to  non-renewable  fossil  fuels. 

But  starches  are  only  one  of  many 
kinds  of  biopolymers.  Others  include 
proteins  (polymers  of  amino  acids)  and 
polynucleic  acids  such  as  DNA. 
Although  Rollings'  work  to  date  has 
focused  on  starch  hydrolysis,  he  is  really 
building  a  much  broader  body  of  knowl- 
edge about  biopolymers  and  how  they 
can  be  processed. 

Biopolymer  research  has  been  a 
national  priority  only  since  1973,  when 
world  cane  sugar  and  petroleum  prices 
shot  up  (quite  independently  of  one 
another),  according  to  Rollings.  These 
events  prompted  research  into  two  types 
of  biopolymers  belonging  to  the  polysac- 
charides. Starches  were  seen  as  a  source 


Lvly  initial  approach  to 

any  problem  is  as  a  bomber, 

but  1  dont  get  very  far  before 

I  start  asking  about  what's 

going  on  architecturally^ 


of  sweeteners  and  fuel,  and  cellulose 
(present  in  all  plants)  was  also  seen  as  a 
source  of  grain  alcohol. 

Because  the  bulk  of  biopolymer 
research  activity  since  the  mid-1970s 
concentrated  on  trial-and-error  methods 
of  finding  effective  ways  to  use  acids, 
bases  or  enzymes  to  break  up  polysac- 
charides, biopolymer  science  stayed  far 
behind  the  science  of  neutral  polymers. 
That's  why  Jim  Rollings  has  been  single- 
mindedly— but  not  single-handedly — 
building  an  understanding  of  the  reac- 
tions involved  in  starch  hydrolysis, 
including  the  interactions  between  bio- 
polymers and  water  solutions. 

Rollings  explains  his  special  interest  in 
biopolymers:  "We  know  a  good  deal 
about  synthetic  polymers,  but  the 
polyelectrolytic  properties  of  biopoly- 
mers add  another  layer  of  complexity  to 
this."  Rollings'  fascination  with  these 
polyelectrolytic  properties  is,  in  fact, 
what  makes  him  sometimes  seem  more 
like  a  scientist  than  an  engineer. 

"Polyelectrolytic"  refers  to  the  fact 
that  biopolymer  molecules,  which  in 
nature  are  produced  in  water  solutions 
within  living  cells,  are  peppered  with 
minute  electrical  charges.  It  is  the  elec- 
trical interaction  between  biopolymers 
and  the  solution  in  which  they  are  dis- 
solved that  makes  them  more  compli- 
cated than  synthetic  polymers  existing  in 
electrically  neutral  organic  solvents  such 
as  benzene. 


How  did  Jim  Rollings  become  so 
enthralled  with  the  electrical  properties 
of  biopolymers?  After  finishing  his  B.S. 
in  biochemistry  at  the  University  of  Min- 
nesota in  1972,  Rollings  began  a  two- 
and-a-half-year  stint  with  the  Peace 
Corps,  teaching  high  school  biology  and 
chemistry  in  Mombasa,  Kenya.  There  he 
met  Mary  Ann  Garcia,  a  Peace  Corps 
volunteer  from  Victoria,  TX,  who  was 
teaching  nursing. 

Jim's  stay  in  Kenya  convinced  him  that 
world  hunger  problems  were  not  simply 
a  matter  of  supply,  but  one  of  processing 
and  distribution  as  well— of  developing 
and  implementing  technologies  that  are 
appropriate  for  the  social,  political,  eco- 
nomic and  environmental  conditions  for 
which  they  are  intended.  As  a  scientist, 
Rollings  felt  ill-equipped  to  attack  these 
problems,  and  thought  about  going  into 
engineering.  Married  in  Kenya,  Jim  and 
Mary  Ann  returned  to  the  States  in  1975, 
their  plan  being  for  Jim  to  earn  an  engi- 
neering degree  and  return  to  Kenya. 

Then,  two  years  later,  having  earned  a 
bachelor's  degree  in  chemical  engineer- 
ing at  Purdue  University,  Rollings  con- 
tinued his  training  at  Purdue  in  food 
engineering.  Completing  his  master's 
work  in  starch  processing  in  1979,  Jim 
felt  that  a  purely  engineering  approach  to 
food  processing  ("mish-mash  some 
starch  and  some  enzymes  together  and 
see  what  you  get")  was  not  for  him. 
Entering  a  multidisciplinary  program  at 
Purdue  in  1977,  Rollings  joined  a  team 
working  on  starch  processing  under  a 
grant  from  the  Department  of  Energy 
(DOE). 

That  was  where  the  issue  of  applica- 
tions started  to  surface. 

One  day  I  was  working  in  my 
cubicle,  and  suddenly  this  bun- 
dle of  paper  came  flying  over 
my  shoulder  and  landed  on  my  desk.  It 
was  my  quarterly  report  for  the  DOE 
project."  One  of  the  other  team  members 
had  sent  a  symbolic  protest:  Rollings 
was  not  working  toward  the  project's 


FEBRUARY  1986       21 


Kollings  confers  here  with  Li-Ping  Yu  on  the  workings 

of  a  low-angle  light  scattering  detector.  Coupled  to  a  size-exclusion 

chromatographic  molecular  weight  separation  device,  this 

equipment  analyzes  starch  hydroly sates  (products  of  enzymatic 

chemical  transformations).  Developed  by  Professor  Rollings  and 

his  research  team,  the  scheme  analyzes  a  critical,  little 

understood  element  of  the  process  for  converting 

starch  to  sugars. 


stated  purpose,  which  was  to  study  the 
production  of  alternative  sweeteners 
from  corn  starch. 

Rollings  had  taken  exception  to  the 
standard  practice  of  talking  about  the 
products  of  starch  hydrolysis  in  terms  of 
the  average  size  of  the  molecules  pro- 
duced. Molecular  size  was  supposed  to 
indicate  the  composition  of  the  sugars 
produced  in  the  reaction,  but  Rollings 
felt  that  that  approach  did  not  reveal 
much  about  the  reaction  itself— the 
actual  process  of  breaking  starch  poly- 
mers into  sugars. 

During  his  years  of  graduate  study  at 
Purdue,  Rollings  worked  on  an  analyti- 
cal technique  called  size  exclusion  chro- 
matography (SEC),  which  analyzes  a 
solution  of  sugars  (or  other  substances) 
based  on  the  time  it  takes  for  the  sugar 
molecules  to  pass  through  a  filter  made 
of  microscopic  beads.  The  SEC  tech- 
nique depends  on  the  relationship 
between  the  size  of  a  molecule  and  its 
molecular  weight  (the  mass  of  a  mole- 
cule), the  latter  being  a  more  accurate 
indication  of  its  chemical  structure,  but 
not  directly  measurable. 

Rollings  and  his  coworkers  found  that 
changing  the  electrical  properties  of 
polyelectrolyte  water  solutions,  such  as 
by  adding  salts,  affected  the  shape— and, 
as  a  result,  the  size— of  water-soluble 
polymers  by  interacting  with  the  electri- 
cal charges  on  the  surface  of  the  mole- 
cules. 

Rollings'  Ph.D.  work  dealt  with  what 
seemed  less  like  a  biochemical  engineer- 
ing problem  than  a  chemistry  topic: 
developing  an  analytical  technique.  Of 
course,  the  aim  of  Rollings'  work  was  to 
better  study  the  process  of  starch  hydrol- 
ysis by  improving  on  the  available  tech- 
nique for  analyzing  the  products  of  the 
process.  Fortunately,  despite  the  doubts 
of  one  team  member,  Rollings'  thesis 
advisor  had  the  foresight  to  let  him  fol- 
low his  nose,  and  he  produced  some 
results  with  what  RollLgs  terms  "broad 


implications  for  usefulness,  despite  the 
fact  that  some  of  them  might  be  years 
off- 
After  earning  his  Ph.D.  in  bio- 
chemical/food engineering  in  1981, 
Rollings  was  faced  with  the  choice  of 
entering  the  food  processing  industry  or 
continuing  his  research.  "I  figured  that  if 
I  was  going  to  enter  academe,  it  was  now 
or  never,"  Rollings  explains,  so  he 
applied  for  academic  positions  in  chemi- 
cal engineering,  chemistry,  food  science, 
and  agricultural  engineering.  "It  wasn't 
exactly  clear  where  I  belonged,  since  I 
had  a  very  interdisciplinary  back- 
ground," he  says. 

"So  I  ended  up  here,"  he  continues, 
surrounded  by  shelves  laden  with  binders 
full  of  the  thousands  of  articles  he  has 
read  on  polymer  science  and  starch  pro- 
cessing. "And  I  have  been  reasonably 
successful  at  teaching  and  getting  grant 
money."  Today,  after  four  years  with 
WPI's  Chemical  Engineering  Depart- 
ment, Jim  Rollings  is  the  Institute's  first 
Presidential  Young  Investigator. 

A  chat  with  Rollings  reveals  the  con- 
viction behind  his  pertinacious  pursuit  of 
"the  truth  about  biopolymers."  He  starts 
off  talking  at  a  lecturer's  pace.  But  when 
he  gets  going,  forget  the  notebook  and 
make  sure  the  tape  recorder  is  on.  "He's 
very  energetic,"  hints  one  department 
colleague  with  some  degree  of  under- 
statement. 

When  Jim  Rollings  is  not  teaching  or 
working  on  his  research,  he  is  jogging 
"anywhere  from  zero  to  60  miles  per 
week,"  but  it  averages  just  under  four 
miles  a  day.  Or,  he  is  spending  time  with 
Mary  Ann  and  their  six-year-old  son, 
Ean,  or  doing  home  improvements. 
"Last  year  I  remodeled  the  kitchen,  and 
now  I'm  building  a  greenhouse  over  our 
garage."  Someone  with  that  kind  of 
energy  must  be  doing  what  he  wants  to 
do.  So,  during  Jim's  grad  student  days, 
he  wasn't  going  to  let  someone  tell  him 
that  his  work  was  irrelevant. 


•MM*— '** 


The  challenge  that  faces  Jim  Roll- 
ings now  is  to  realize  the  "poten- 
tial" for  which  he  was  recognized 
by  obtaining  funding  from  industrial 
sponsors  interested  in  the  same  topics  he 
is.  That  means  thinking  in  terms  of  appli- 
cations for  his  work. 

But  because  of  the  basic  nature  of  that 
work,  many  of  its  applications  are  indeed 
years  down  the  road.  After  all,  Jim  Roll- 
ings is  building  a  body  of  knowledge 
about  biopolymers,  which  have  enjoyed 
increased  interest  only  since  the  mid- 
1970s.  This  is  in  contrast  to  synthetic 
polymers,  which  have  been  in  the  spot- 
light of  chemical   engineering   since 


22       WPI  JOURNAL 


World  War  II,  when  industry  looked  to 
petroleum  as  a  raw  material  to  provide 
substitutes  for  such  natural  polymers  as 
rubber  and  silk. 

Yet  starches  are  only  the  beginning. 
Other  types  of  biopolymers,  including 
proteins  and  polynucleic  acids  such  as 
DNA,  are  in  line  to  be  scrutinized.  So 
far,  Rollings  has  focused  on  starches  and 
other  polysaccharides  because,  for  all 
their  complexity  compared  to  neutral 
polymers,  polysaccharides  are  the  sim- 
plest of  biopolymers. 

Although  most  of  the  benefits  of  Roll- 
ings' work  are  in  the  future,  some  appli- 
cations can  be  readily  identified.  And 


Rollings  is  busy  pursuing  applications- 
oriented  industry  grants. 

Novo  Laboratories,  for  example,  is 
interested  in  Rollings'  work  with  SEC 
analytical  techniques.  Novo  manufac- 
tures enzymes  for  use  in  the  production 
of  sugar  substitutes  from  polysac- 
charides, and  SEC  can  be  used  in  the 
testing  of  these  enzymes. 

Another  application  of  Rollings'  work 
is  in  the  design  of  chemical  reactors  that 
use  enzymes  to  break  up  biopolymers. 
Currently,  biopolymer  hydrolysis  pro- 
cesses use  enzymes  that  float  around  in  a 
liquid.  When  the  liquid  is  removed  from 
the  reactor,  the  enzymes  have  to  be  sepa- 


rated out  and  returned  to  the  reactor  for 
reuse. 

Some  processes  involving  neutral 
polymers  get  around  this  separation 
problem  by  utilizing  enzymes  that  are 
immobilized,  or  stuck  to  the  surface  of 
beads  piled  in  a  column.  This  way,  as  a 
polymer  solution  passes  through  the 
column,  the  immobilized  enzymes  act  on 
the  polymer  molecules  without  actually 
entering  the  solution.  Hence,  there  is  no 
need  to  separate  the  enzymes  from  the 
product  at  the  end  of  the  process. 

So  far,  the  solution  dimensions  of 
many  biopolymers  have  been  an  ob- 
stacle to  using  immobilized  enzymes  on 


FEBRUARY  1986       23 


Li-Ping  Yu  (LJ,  uho  is  originally  from  Taiwan,  is  a 
post-doctoral  research  associate  in  Rollings' 's  laboratory. 


biopolymers.  "There  are 
two  ways  of  avoiding 
(and  exploiting)  this 
physical  constraint." 
Rollings  explains.  "You 
have  the  choice  of  mak- 
ing the  pores  where 
the  enzyme  is  immobi- 
lized large  enough  to  accommodate  these 
large  substrates.  Or.  if  possible,  you  can 
adjust  the  bulk  solution  so  that  the  biopo- 
lymers  become  more  compact.  In  the 
case  of  neutral  water-soluble  polymers, 
you  are  constrained  by  only  the  first 
option.'* 

Development  of  such  reactors,  he 
adds,  would  take  cooperation  of  groups 
schooled  in  materials  science.  "There's  a 
strong  possibility  that  we  will  soon  be 
working  with  corporate  new  product 
R&D  people  on  this  concept."  One  of 
Rollings'  graduate  students  is  working 
on  this  problem. 

Rollings  adds.  "If  we  are  dealing  with 
a  poly  electrolytic  biomolecule.  like  pec- 
tin, then  we  can  exploit  not  only  the  first 
situation,  but  also  the  bulk  solution  ionic 
strength,  which  will  affect  ion- 
containing  polymers  solution  dimen- 
sions. So  we  have  to  consider  interac- 
tions between  all  system  components: 
the  polyelectrolyte.  the  enzyme,  the 
solution  and  the  solid  porous  support 
where  the  enzyme  is  immobilized. 
Clearly,  not  an  easy  problem,  but  one 
that  is  theoretically  tractable." 

The  common  thread  running  through 
all  of  Rollings'  work  is  the  interaction 
between  biopolymer  molecules  and  their 
environment.  So  far.  his  work  has 
focused  on  polysaccharides'  responses  to 
the  electrical  properties  of  the  solutions 
in  which  they  are  dissolved. 

When  it  comes  to  studying  the  interac- 
tions between  polymers  and  their  envi- 
ronment in  living  cells.  Rollings  is  team- 
ing up  with  David  DiBiasio.  a  chemical 
engineering  professor  involved  with  fer- 
mentation research.  Rollings  and 
DiBiasio  are  planning  to  study  the  for- 
mation of  a  biopolymer  in  genetically 


engineered  cells. 

"Most  biotechnology  processes 
involve  taking  a  gene  from  a  nucleated 
cell  (one  with  a  nucleus)  and  implanting 
it  in  a  non-nucleated  cell  (one  w  ithout  a 
nucleus)  such  as  yeast  or  bacteria."  the 
aim  usually  being  to  enable  the  yeast  or 
bacteria  to  manufacture  the  protein 
described  by  the  gene.  Rollings  explains. 
The  problem  is  that  nucleated  and  non- 
nucleated  cells  are  fundamentally  differ- 
ent forms  of  life,  and  they  manufacture 
proteins  in  very  different  ways. 

"Since  the  manufactured  protein  is  a 
foreign  material  to  the  cell,  it  is  secreted 
into  an  internal  sac  called  an  inclusion 
body.  Which  is  great,  because  not  only 
does  the  cell  make  the  protein  for  you.  it 
puts  it  in  a  neat  little  package."  Rollings 
continues.  He  and  DiBiasio  hope  to 
study  how  cells  form  these  microscopic 
litter  bags.  The  results  could  be  of  con- 
siderable benefit  to  pharmaceutical  and 
other  biotechnology  companies,  who 
want  to  find  better  ways  of  harvesting 
proteins  from  genetically  engineered 
cells. 

Rollings  and  DiBiasio  are.  in  fact,  the 
nucleus  of  their  own  biochemical  engi- 
neering entity.  Recognizing  the  potential 
for  an  interplay  between  WPI  and 
research  institutions  such  as  the  Massa- 
chusetts Biotechnology  Park,  to  be 
located  in  Worcester,  as  well  as  hospitals 
and  biotech  firms  in  Central  Massachu- 
setts, Rollings  and  DiBiasio.  along  with 
Professor  Judy  Miller  of  the  Biology  and 
Biotechnology  Department,  have  formed 
the  New  England  Biotechnology  Associ- 
ation. "There  are  only  about  a  dozen 
academic  institutions  in  the  country  with 
two  or  more  biochemical  engineers,  and 
WPI  is  one  of  them."  Rollings  points 


out,  "so  we  felt  we  had  a 
critical  mass." 

"Biochemical  engi- 
neering and  biotechnol- 
1  ogy  are  two  fields  that 
r  necessitate  bringing  peo- 
i  pie  together  from  differ- 
ent  disciplines— microbi- 
ology, chemical  engineering,  genetic 
engineering,  etc.  So  we  formed  NEBA 
to  create  a  regional  forum."  according  to 
Rollings.  Thus  far  a  rather  modest  orga- 
nization. NEBA  sponsors  an  annual 
speakers  forum. 

Rollings  is  not  eager  to  see  NEBA— or 
his  own  research  program — experience 
phenomenal  growth.  He  feels  that, 
although  the  PYI  program  seems  to 
implicitly  expect  recipients  to  start  a  big 
program  with  the  help  of  matching 
industry  grants,  his  mission  is  in  educa- 
tion as  much  as  in  research.  "Industry 
can  call  some  of  the  shots  if  they  want. 
but  I  don't  want  them  running  the  entire 
program.  I  don't  want  to  have  to  tell  grad 
students  to  change  their  thesis  topics  to 
meet  industry's  needs,  unless  they  want 
to." 

At  Purdue,  Rollings  stuck  to  his  guns 
and  resisted  changing  his  thesis  topic  to 
make  it  more  germane  to  the  immediate 
needs  of  industry.  He  seems  to  want  to 
preserve  that  same  freedom  for  his  grad- 
uate students.  Rollings  feels  that  such  a 
strategy  may  have  the  greatest  long-term 
benefits  in  terms  of  applications.  "We 
expect  that  our  students  will  be  able  to  go 
out  and  do  something  more  beneficial 
than  we  can  do  in  the  academic  labora- 
tory today."  Rollings  saw 

Besides,  academic  freedom  seems  to 
hold  more  allure  for  Jim  Rollings  than 
heading  a  lofty  research  program. 
Whether  his  '"bombing"  initiatives  or 
""architectural"  tendencies  have  more 
influence  on  his  work.  Rollings  states 
with  certainty.  "I'm  not  interested  in 
being  a  prince." 

Paul  Susca  is  a  freelance  writer  living  in 
Norfolk,  MA. 


1-        "wPI  JOURNAL 


*«***" ***** 


TT7  Then   Villanova   University's 

\  Y   /basketball    team    won    the 

\A/NCAA  Division  I  tournament 

?  flast    spring,    it    became    the 

national  champion,  experiencing  all  the 

attention  that  goes  along  with  winning  a 

game  seen  by  millions. 

Philadelphia  celebrated  Villanova's 
victory  with  a  parade  down  Broad 
Street— a  special  honor,  previously 
reserved  for  the  city's  professional 
teams.  Back  on  campus,  the  school 
received  countless  requests  for  pictures 
and  autographs  of  the  athletes  and  coach 
Rollie  Massimino,  while  local  stores 
experienced  a  run  on  Villanova  Wildcat 
hats,  T-shirts  and  the  whole  line  of  "Cat- 
wear." 

Villanova  got  another  bonus  from  the 
win— $751,889.  a  share  of  the  NCAA's 
television  and  ticket  sales  revenues  for 
the  tournament. 

When  Rensselaer  Polytechnic  Institute 
(RPI)  won  the  NCAA's  Division  I 
hockey  title  last  year,  its  bonus  was  much 
smaller  in  terms  of  dollars  ($37,427). 
But  championship  fever  still  caused  a 
major  commotion.  About  3.000  RPI  fans 
found  their  way  to  the  championship 
game  in  Detroit,  including  a  crowd-rous- 
ing group  of  student-musicians  modestly 
deeming  themselves  "America's  Pep 
Band."  An  estimated  500  people  greeted 
the  triumphant  team  when  it  arrived  back 
at  Albany.  N.Y..  airport:  the  next  day. 
hundreds  more  stood  in  a  drizzle  at  a 
rally  outside  the  student  union.  Three 
students  settled  in  as  squatters  on  the 
porch  of  the  building:  they  claimed,  per- 
haps not  altogether  whimsically,  to  be 
waiting  first  in  line  for  1985-86  season 
tickets. 

Hartwick  College  didn't  win  the  Divi- 
sion I  championship  in  soccer  this  year. 
But  it  won  in  1977.  and  the 
team  comes 


close  almost 
every  year,  this  year  making  it 
to  the  semifinals.  Hartwick  home  games 
draw  as  many  as  4.000  fans— about  three 
times  the  population  of  the  student  body. 
At  Johns  Hopkins  University.  Division 
I  champion  in  lacrosse  (worth  Si 7. 835). 
it's  a  similar  story:  8.000  fans  to  a 
lacrosse  game,  newcomers  often  becom- 


FEBRUARY  1986       I 


ing  swept  up  in  the  frenzy.  Hopkins  has 
played  in  the  national  championship 
finals  for  eight  years  running,  winning 
four  times. 

Division  1  sports  are  big  time.  They're 
where  the  excitement  is. 

Compare  that  Division  I  hoopla  with 
the  reception  that  greeted  the  women's 
cross-country  team  at  Franklin  and  Mar- 
shall College,  when  it  returned  to  Penn- 
sylvania last  fall  after  winning  the  Divi- 
sion III  national  championship— the  first 
such  championship  ever  won  by  an  F&M 
team.  There  was  no  brass  band  at  the 
airport,  says  William  Marshall,  the 
school's  athletic  director.  But  on  hand 
were  the  college  president,  other  offi- 
cials, "and  a  few  students  and  par- 
ents"—a  coterie  more  in  keeping  with 
the  restrained  role  of  sports  in  colleges 
registered  in  Division  III. 

And.  some  would  say.  more  in  keep- 
ing with  the  role  sports  ought  to  play  on 
the  campuses  of  Hopkins.  Hartwick. 
F&M.  and  RPI.  Under  NCAA  classifi- 
cation, all  four  schools  are  registered  in 
Division  III.  but  they  can  "play  up"  in  a 
sport  of  their  choice  because  of  an 
NCAA  regulation  allowing  limited 
multi-level  classification.  About  20 
schools  take  advantage  of  the  rule  to  play 
up  in  a  sport.   That  same  regulation 

Marshall  Ledger  is  associate  editor  of 
the  Pennsylvania  Gazette,  the  alumni 
magazine  of  the  University  of  Pennsylva- 
nia, which  plays  in  Division  J-AA. 


allows  about  110  schools  to  "play 
down"  in  one  sport — a  big  money-saver 
for  schools  that  want  to  play  Division  I 
basketball,  say.  but  who  do  not  want  to 
spend  the  money  fielding  a  Division  I 
football  team.  Villanova.  which  dis- 
banded its  football  team  several  years 
ago,  took  advantage  of  the  multi-level 
option  when  it  re-established  football  this 
fall— but  at  a  Division  III  level  (eventu- 
ally they  will  rebuild  to  Division  I-AA). 

The  result  of  these  multi-level  pro- 
grams, admits  Tom  Greene,  athletic 
director  at  Hartwick.  is  "a  little  bit  of 
apples  and  pears."  Others  put  it  more 
strongly.  "Some  of  us  find  it  difficult  to 
imagine  how  you  can  have  a  Division  I 
team  in  one  sport  and  not  let  that  influ- 
ence the  philosophy  of  your  entire  pro- 
gram," says  Anthony  Diekema.  presi- 
dent of  Calvin  College  in  Grand  Rapids. 
Michigan,  and  a  member  of  the  NCAA's 
Division  III  Council. 

Division  III  purists  have  taken  action. 
Through  the  Division  III  Council, 
they've  submitted  a  proposal  to  the 
NCAA  that  multi-level  classification  be 
discontinued.  Originally  scheduled  to  be 
voted  on  by  the  850-member  NCAA  in 
January  1986.  the  proposal  has  been 
tabled— in  part  because  of  an  aggres- 
sive lobbying  effort  spearheaded  by 
Hartwick's  Greene.  But  the  proposal  will 
likely  reappear,  and  some  of  the  issues  it 
raises,  even  multi-level  partisans  at 
F&M.  Hopkins.  Hartwick.  and  RPI 
agree,  are  important  ones. 


The  NCAA  exists,  in  a  sense,  to 
enforce  consistency;  it  was 
founded  in  1902  to  help  control 
violence  in  intercollegiate 
sports.  Since  the  organization  is  made  up 
of  the  schools  themselves,  they,  in 
effect,  agree  to  curb  their  own  abuses  to 
keep  their  peers  from  gaining  untoward 
advantages.  For  more  than  50  years,  the 
NCAA  has  chiefly  kept  records,  and. 
with  better  or  worse  success,  policed 
violations.  The  latter  activity  has  become 
acutely  important  in  recent  decades  as 
astronomical  TV  revenues  from  the 
major  sports— football  and  basketball- 
made  winning  more  and  more  important. 
In  1973.  NCAA  schools  divided  them- 
selves into  three  divisions,  according  to 
their  interest  in  gaining  a  share  of  the 
major  sports  revenue.  To  a  large  extent, 
the  divisions  simply  separated  the  differ- 
ent-sized schools  of  the  NCAA;  schools 
of  like  sizes  were  determined  to  have  like 
interests.  That  argument— "'schools  with 
like  philosophies  in  like  groups"— was 
repeated  when  Division  I  was  restruc- 
tured into  I-A  and  I-AA  five  years  later. 
Segmentation  is  determined  by  quantifi- 
able criteria — in  addition  to  the  size  of  a 
school,  the  size  of  its  stadium,  spectator 
attendance  and  the  number  of  other 
sports  offered— rather  than  by  formal 
statements  of  philosophy  or  principle. 

Still,  the  leaders  of  Division  III  see 
themselves,  by  and  large,  as  a  principled 
bunch.  "When  you're  a  Division  III 
school,"  says  Anthony  Diekema.  "you 
have  a  certain  philosophy  about  the  place 
of  athletics." 

George  Drake,  a  former  Rhodes 
Scholar  and  now  president  of  Grinnell 
College  in  Iowa,  is  a  member  of  the 
NCAA's  Presidents'  Commission  for 
Division  III.  Drake  was  also  dean  of 
Colorado  College  for  four  years.  Colo- 
rado College  plays  in  Division  III — 
except  for  a  Division  I  team  in  ice 
hockey . 

"I  enjoyed  the  hockey  games 
immensely."  Drake  says,  "but  at  the 
same  time  I  was  troubled  by  them."  It 
was  difficult  to  blend  the  hockey  players 
into  the  rest  of  the  student  body;  "they 
were  definitely  a  class  apart."  he  says, 
and  were  treated  with  different  expecta- 
tions academically .  Drake  sensed  tension 
in  the  athletic  department,  jealousy,  per- 
haps, over  the  money  spent  on  hockey. 

The  hockey  team  did  add  something  to 
the  college  life.  "Division  I  sports  are 
lots  of  fun  to  watch."  Drake  grants.  But 
he  questions  "putting  the  interest  of  the 


H       ALUMNI  MAGAZINE  CONSORTIUM 


spectators  ahead  of  the  interests  of  the 
players."  Priority  should  be  put  on  what's 
best  for  the  players,  and  he  isn't  sure  that 
the  pressures  of  high-powered  sports  are 
appropriate  at  an  academically  oriented 
college. 

If  a  recent  survey  on  pressures  experi- 
enced by  Division  I  players  accurately 
reflects  the  experience  of  players  in 
schools  that  play  up,  Drake's  worry 
about  the  athlete's  interests  may  be  well- 
founded.  Allen  L.  Sack,  chairman  and 
professor  of  sociology  at  the  University 
of  New  Haven,  and  Robert  Theil,  pro- 
fessor of  health  sciences  at  Southern 
Connecticut  State  University,  polled  644 
student-athletes  at  47  colleges  and  uni- 
versities around  the  country.  Sack  and 
Theil  asked  the  student-athletes  whether 
they  felt  that  demands  put  on  them  by 
coaches  prevented  them  from  becoming 
top  students:  55  percent  of  the  males  in 
Division  I  said  yes,  as  did  29  percent  in 
Division  III.  Asked  whether  the  student- 
athletes  felt  pressure  to  be  "athletes  first 
and  students  second,"  41  percent  of  the 
males  in  Division  I  agreed,  compared  to 
12.8  percent  in  Division  III.  Athletes  on 
scholarship  felt  more  of  this  pressure 
than  walk-ons,  as  did  athletes  who  prac- 
ticed 30  hours  or  more  a  week. 

Athletics  should  be  just  an  extra 
dimension  of  a  college  education,  Drake 
and  Diekema  argue.  To  those  who 
believe  most  strongly  in  the  Division  III 
philosophy,  citing  examples  of  well-bal- 
anced Division  I  programs  is  beside  the 
point.  Villanova,  for  example,  graduates 
virtually  all  of  its  players,  giving  them 
special  tutoring,  when  necessary,  to 
compensate  for  the  pressures  of  playing 
Division  I  basketball.  Still,  the  purists 
argue,  the  potential  for  abuse— admitting 
unqualified  students,  letting  scholarship 
athletes  use  up  their  eligibility  without 
ever  graduating,  alumni  payoffs  to  star 
athletes— is  always  there  in  a  Division  I 
program,  and  many  schools  don't  follow 
the  Villanova  example. 

Division  III  is  trying  to  hold  the  line. 
Its  athletes  are  supposed  to  be  treated 
like  other  students;  there  are  no  athletic 
scholarships. 

All  sports  in  a  Division  III  program  are 
to  be  treated  equally,  women's  and 
men's,  football  and  field  hockey  and 
cross  country.  It's  hard  keeping  that  in 
mind  even  without  the  influence  of  a 
Division  I  team,  say  Division  HI  coaches 
and  athletic  directors.  Carol  Fritz,  asso- 
ciate athletic  director  for  women's  sports 
at  Western  Maryland  College  (Division 


III  across  the  board),  points  out  that  dif- 
ferentiating among  sports  can  be  a  big 
problem  because  it  inevitably  leads  to 
classification  of  "major"  and  "minor" 
sports,  even  though  athletic  directors 
"never  like  to  admit  that."  It's  an  espe- 
cially important  issue  as  colleges  try  to 
establish  equality  between  men's  and 
women's  sports.  When  a  men's  sport  is 
established  at  a  higher  caliber  of  play, 
she  says,  "you  highlight  inequities." 

Some  Division  III  coaches  and  athletic 
directors  feel  the  multi-level  classifica- 
tion rule  can  also  create  inequities 
between  schools  that  must  compete 
together.  Division  III  schools  that  play 
up  in  one  sport  may  bring  some  unfair 
advantages  to  the  other  teams  in  their 
athletic  programs.  James  Culpepper,  ath- 
letic director  at  Worcester  Polytechnic 
Institute,  notes  that  institutions  such  as 
his  (which  plays  solely  in  Division  III) 
labor  at  a  disadvantage  to  supposed  peers 
when  those  Division  III  peers  field  a 
Division  I  team.  Division  I  sports,  even 
in  Division  III  schools,  have  superior 
operations— they  are  "better  funded  and 
more  appropriately  staffed"— in  areas 
ranging  from  public  relations  to  business 
functions  to  training  facilities.  The 
crunch  hits  especially  hard  in  recruiting: 
"There's  a  natural  aura  that  goes  with  a 
successful  sport  that  adds  a  luster  to  the 
other  sports— and  we  can't  add  that." 


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Fairness  in  competition  is  an  issue. 
Still,  the  discussions  in  the  NCAA  have 
tended  to  focus  on  the  bigger  picture.  As 
Judith  Sweet,  chair  of  the  Division  III 
Council  and  director  of  athletics  at  the 
University  of  California,  San  Diego, 
says,  "It's  a  question  of  philosophy." 

How  do  schools  that  play  up 
accommodate  the  "apples  and 
pears"  programs  they  sponsor? 
A  few  case  studies  show  a 
range  of  situations. 

Franklin  and  Marshall  College  has 
been  a  national  power  in  wrestling  since 
the  1920s,  says  Bill  Marshall,  the 
school's  athletic  director,  so  when  the 
NCAA  went  to  divisions  the  school  had 
to  reconsider  its  program.  As  a  school 
then  of  only  about  2,100  students,  it  fell 
into  Division  III.  But  it  wanted  to  con- 
tinue scheduling  the  top-flight  wrestling 
competition  to  which  it  was  accustomed, 
and  it  enjoyed  its  membership  in  the 
Eastern  Intercollegiate  Wrestling  Associ- 
ation, whose  tournament  automatically 
qualifies  the  winner  for  the  NCAA  Divi- 
sion I  tournament. 

F&M  opted  for  Division  I  in  wres- 
tling, but  on  Division  III  terms.  "Going 
in,"  Marshall  says,  "we  decided  that  we 
wouldn't  enlarge  our  coaching  staff,  and 
we  weren't  going  to  schedule  anybody 
else  that  we  weren't  already  scheduling. 
We  weren't  going  to  be  giving  grants-in- 
aid,  and  we  weren't  going  to  be  giving 
anybody  special  admission  consideration 
just  because  he  happened  to  be  a  wres- 
tler." 

F&M  recruits  wrestlers— its  academic 
departments  are  known  in  central  and 
eastern  Pennsylvania  as  assiduous 
recruiters,  too— and  some  wrestlers 
receive  financial  aid.  But,  Marshall 
adds,  "it  is  all  given  on  a  showing  of 
need,  based  on  the  College  Scholarship 
Service." 

F&M  generally  ranks  in  the  middle  of 
the  pack  among  the  16-member  wres- 
tling association.  Some  superior  wres- 
tlers are  attracted  by  the  Division  I  status 
in  the  otherwise  less-pressured  Division 
III  atmosphere,  Marshall  says,  and  now 
and  then  a  late  bloomer  arrives,  over- 
looked by  the  grant-in-aid  schools.  Try- 
outs  are  open  to  all,  and  walk-ons  (those 
who  make  the  team  without  having  been 
recruited)  are  not  uncommon. 

Marshall  says  that  one  of  his  sons  vol- 
unteered for  the  team  when,  to  avoid 
conceding  points  in  every  match,  F&M 
needed  a  healthy  entry  in  the  1 1 8-pound 


FEBRUARY  1986       III 


class.  "He  didn't  tear  the  league  up.  but 
he  felt  good  that  he  had  tried,  and  his 
teammates  accepted  him."  Marshall 
says.  He  doubts  that  such  an  occurrence 
could  happen  at  a  totally  Division  I 
school— or  even  in  Hopkins  lacrosse. 

Robert  Scott,  the  Hopkins  athletic 
director,  agrees— to  a  point.  Lacrosse 
skills  are  so  specialized,  he  says,  "that 
it's  almost  a  must  today  that  a  kid  have 
high-school  experience."  Most  start  even 
younger.  When  Hopkins  recruits,  it  goes 
out  after  the  best  players  in  the  lacrosse 
hotbeds  of  upstate  New  York.  Maryland 
and  Long  Island,  where  youth  lacrosse 
can  be  as  popular  as  baseball. 

Aside  from  their  lacrosse  background. 
Scott  says.  Hopkins  players  look  like 
other  students  on  campus.  The  school 
offers  them  grants-in-aid.  and  some  may 
score  below  the  average  admissions  stan- 
dards for  the  school,  he  acknowledges. 
But  lacrosse  players  do  not  reside  in  ath- 
letic dormitories,  or  eat  exclusively  at 
training  tables,  or  attend  special  courses, 
or  drag  their  education  out  over  five 
years— perks  at  many  major-sports 
schools.  "They  don't  stand  out  as  a  spe- 
cial group  of  roughnecks  who  are 
brought  in  to  play  lacrosse  and  win 
national  championships,"  Scott  says. 
"It's  difficult  to  get  through  this  place, 
but  the  kids  make  it.  and  they  make  it  in 
normal  time." 

Can  athletic  scholarships  lead  to  a 
"professionalism  of  spirit"  out  of  keep- 
ing with  Hopkins's  academic  orienta- 


tion? "There's  no  professional  lacrosse," 
says  Hopkins  President  Steven  Muller. 
"so  a  college  lacrosse  player  is  not  on  a 
farm  club.  I  feel  that  athletic  scholar- 
ships do  not  professionalize  them  and  do 
not  violate  the  spirit  of  the  liberal  arts 
education  here."  But  if  grants-in-aid 
were  staples  of  the  baseball  and  football 
programs,  he  points  out,  "I'd  have  to 
reassess  them." 

At  Hartwick,  athletic  officials  point 
with  pride  to  the  number  of  All-Ameri- 
cans  the  school's  soccer  program  has 
produced,  as  well  as  the  number  of  play- 
ers who  have  gone  on  to  play  profession- 
ally. Jim  Lennox,  Hartwick's  soccer 
coach,  says  that  applicants  with  profes- 
sional aspirations  may  choose  Hartwick 
for  that  reason— and  for  a  good  educa- 
tion, too. 

Is  their  budding  professionalism  out  of 
proportion  to  the  institution?  "Why 
would  it  be?"  he  asks.  "I  don't  think 
there's  any  difficulty  as  long  as  the  soc- 
cer players  are  studying  for  a  degree." 
He  points  out  that  last  year,  five  players 
had  3.0  averages  on  a  4.0  scale,  and  the 
best  player  majored  in  physics.  "It's  fine 
as  long  as  the  emphasis  is  on  the  educa- 
tion." he  maintains. 

Hartwick  takes  pride,  says  Athletic 
Director  Greene,  in  playing  "purist" 
soccer,  the  sort  seen  in  the  more  civilized 
arenas  of  Europe.  The  focus  is  on  perfec- 
tion of  skills  rather  than  brawn.  "That's 
why  everybody  likes  to  play  Hartwick," 
he  says,  " — it's  a  skilled  game  here." 


in  ter*s  °Ln,.  1  »n  * 


m. 


One  reason  for  Hartwick's  European 
game,  besides  Lennox's  coaching,  is  its 
continuing  supply  of  English  players— 
currently  five  of  them,  all  on  athletic 
scholarship,  brought  to  the  school's 
attention  by  an  unofficial  recruiting  staff 
of  former  players. 

"We  don't  ever  talk  about  winning 
here,  strange  as  that  may  seem,"  says 
Lennox.  "What  we  talk  about  is  playing 
the  highest  quality  of  soccer  that  we  can. 
It  works  out  that  we  win  a  lot  of  games 
because  we  play  very  high-quality  soc- 
cer." And  unlike  most  Division  I 
coaches,  he  does  not  have  to  win  to  keep 
his  job.  "I'm  a  tenured  professor  of 
physical  education,"  he  says.  "I  could 
lose  every  game  on  the  schedule  and  I 
wouldn't  be  fired.  I  would  quit— but  I 
wouldn't  be  fired." 

RPI  resumed  playing  hockey  after  a 
hiatus  during  World  War  II,  when  its 
president,  a  figure  skater,  bought  a  Navy 
warehouse  and  turned  it  into  an  ice  rink, 
says  Bob  Ducatte,  athletic  director  at  the 
school.  It  played  whoever  would  play, 
and  the  schedule  that  evolved  was  what 
RPI  decided  to  stick  with  when  the 
NCAA  divisions  were  created— a  Divi- 
sion I  schedule. 

Five  years  ago,  the  school  approved 
grants-in-aid  for  hockey  players.  Ducatte 
had  tried  to  have  them  approved  twice 
previously  but  was  turned  down  by  the 
administration  after  the  faculty  objected. 
The  third  time,  he  says,  he  did  "much 
better  marketing"  of  the  idea  to  the  fac- 
ulty, as  well  as  to  other  groups.  Most  of 
the  faculty  remains  "lukewarm,"  but 
other  constituencies— alumni  and  student 
organizations— support  the  idea,  he 
adds.  Grants-in-aid,  he  says,  "are  part  of 
our  American  heritage  in  college  ath- 
letics." 

Its  hockey  triumph  last  year  presented 
RPI  with  a  new  problem.  Six  players 
received  offers  of  multi-year  profes- 
sional hockey  contracts— at  sums  rang- 
ing from  the  low  six-figures  to  more  than 
SI  million,  according  to  Ducatte— and 
all  seven  signed.  Four  of  the  players 
were  not  seniors,  and  it  is  unlikely  they 
will  complete  their  degree  work.  "You 
can't  blame  the  players,"  Ducatte  says. 
"You'd  have  to  work  a  lot  of  years  as  an 
engineer  to  make  up  that  money." 

Hopkins.  RPI.  F&M.  and 
Hartwick  willingly  address  the 
issues  raised  by  their  Division 
III  colleagues  about  their  high- 
powered  sports.  They  say  they  steer  clear 


IV       ALUMNI  MAGAZINE  CONSORTIUM 


bflS     citv  in !         i 


tlight- 


of  feared  abuses. 

What  about  letting  athletics  take  prece- 
dence over  academics,  for  example? 

The  hockey  players  collectively  "are 
not  as  qualified  as  the  student  body  in 
general,"  RPI's  Ducatte  admits.  But, 
closely  monitored  by  the  coaches,  they 
probably  have  "much  stricter"  regula- 
tions about  attending  class  and  keeping 
academic  pace  than  fellow  students. 

At  Hartwick,  senior  Patrick  Cruick- 
shank,  a  midfielder  on  the  soccer  team, 
agrees  that  entering  freshmen  may  feel 
heady  about  playing  Division  I  soccer, 
but  they  are  quickly  brought  to  earth, 
like  most  freshmen,  when  their  mid-term 
exam  results  roll  in.  As  an  upperclass- 
man,  Cruickshank  takes  his  major 
courses  in  the  spring,  when  he  figures  to 
have  more  time  to  devote  to  subjects 
important  to  him. 

At  Hopkins,  Muller  points  out  that  no 
student  studies  all  the  time— and  that  ath- 
letes probably  forego  other  sorts  of  activ- 
ities in  order  to  spend  more  of  their  non- 
academic  time  on  sports.  The  lacrosse 
players  "are  not  at  a  significant  aca- 
demic disadvantage  because  of  the  time 
spent  on  lacrosse,"  he  says. 

Faculty  at  the  schools  agree  that  aca- 
demic abuses  are  few.  At  RPI,  Annette 
Kolodny,  professor  of  literature,  says 
that  she  has  heard  "grumbling"  over  the 
fact  that  RPI  gives  hockey  scholarships, 
but  "only  in  passing— never  with  con- 
viction or  real  concern." 

Faculty  members  are  proud  of  the 
team's  success,  she  says.  The  players 
happen  to  be  "rather  sweet  guys,"  she 
adds,  illustrating  her  point  with  an  anec- 
dote that  apparently  is  famous  at  the 


school:  One  of  the  players,  faced  with 
the  assignment  of  an  oral  presentation  in 
class,  asked  the  professor  if  he  could 
simply  play  a  tape  of  his  interview  on  a 
local  television  station,  which  was 
scheduled  to  be  aired  that  night.  "This 
story  is  told  with  enormous  affection  and 
good  humor  and  with  no  sense  that  the 
player  was  trying  to  get  away  with  some- 
thing. He  was  just  shy,  personally,"  says 
Kolodny.  She  punctuates  the  story  by 
observing  that  the  professor  denied  the 
request. 

Hartwick,  RPI,  F&M,  and  Hopkins 
deny  that  their  Division  I  success  gives 
their  Division  III  teams  unfair  advan- 
tage—and they  can  point  to  the  spotty 
success  of  their  Division  III  teams  as 
proof.  On  the  other  hand,  having  a  Divi- 
sion I  team  doesn't  necessarily  mean 
Division  III  teams  must  do  poorly. 
Hopkins  has  a  powerful  Division  III 
swimming  program,  finishing  in  the  top 
five  nationally  year  in,  year  out. 

All  three  schools  feel  that  the  Division 
I  teams  do  bring  their  schools  other  kinds 
of  advantages,  however.  There's  national 
visibility.  An  occasional  article  in  Vie 
New  York  Times  or  Sports  Illustrated. 
says  Lennox  of  Hartwick,  "does  create 
interest  in  the  school." 

Playing  up  also  serves  as  a  rallying 
point  for  alumni,  although  most  schools 
feel  that  winning  bears  no  direct  re- 
lationship to  fundraising.  William 
McGoldrick,  head  of  fundraising  at  RPI, 
suggests  that  the  reward  for  development 
involves  delayed  gratification:  "My  sus- 
picion is  that,  over  time,  we'll  benefit 
from  the  hockey  championship— it's  a 
point  of  pride,  a  point  of  recognition, 
which  will  translate  into  more  committed 
alumni  and  lead  to  success  in  fundraising 
down  the  line." 

On  campus,  the  effect  of  playing  up 
can  be  almost  therapeutic.  Kolodny  at 
RPI  observes  that  many  of  the  major  aca- 
demic subjects  "are  so  narrowly  focused 
that  the  hockey  team  becomes  common 
parlance  that  all  can  share.  Hockey  is 
campus-wide  permission  for  kids  other- 
wise in  a  lab  or  at  a  computer  worksta- 
tion 24  hours  a  day  to  get  excited  and 
yell  and  scream." 

How  important  is  it,  ultimately, 
to  play  in  Division  I?  "To  be 
honest,"  Hartwick's  Greene 
says,  "I  don't  think  we  could 
recruit  the  same  kind  of  soccer  team 
without  giving  scholarships."  And  so  he 
perceives  the  proposal  to  eliminate  the 


multi-level  classification  as  a  threat. 
"They're  trying  to  take  away  something 
we  treasure." 

If  the  NCAA  took  away  multi-level 
classifications,  RPI  would  face  a  differ- 
ent kind  of  problem.  The  school  recently 
invested  an  estimated  $2.5  million  in 
renovating  its  rink— the  hangar  is  long 
since  gone— to  bring  it  up  to  Division  I 
standards.  For  many  years,  a  hefty 
chunk  of  every  ticket  (priced  for  students 
at  $3.25;  alumni,  faculty  and  staff  mem- 
bers, $6.25:  and  the  general  public, 
$6.75)  will  be  helping  to  pay  that  off- 
revenue  that  might  plummet  if  RPI  had 
to  play  in  Division  III. 

Playing   Division   I   lacrosse   is   so 


sP^S?h   board- 


important  to  Hopkins,  says  Athletic 
Director  Scott,  that  if  the  NCAA  actually 
forced  each  institution  to  choose  a  single 
division,  Hopkins  would  have  to  think 
about  moving  up  to  Division  I  across  the 
board,  even  though  the  move  "would 
really  almost  destroy  our  athletic  pro- 
gram." Keeping  the  sport  at  the  level  it 
has  reached,  it  seems,  is  one  of  the  lega- 
cies of  having  won  41  national  champi- 
onships in  102  years  of  college  lacrosse. 
Scott  suggests  that  lacrosse  has  found  a 
justifiable  niche  in  a  school  that  does  not 
sacrifice  its  academic  integrity  to  it.  His 
fellow  athletic  directors  make  similar 
statements  about  their  colleges.  Pointing 
to  F&M,  RPI,  and  Hartwick  (and  pre- 
sumably Hopkins),  Scott  says,  "They 
have  that  one  little  hoorah.  If  they're 
good  enough  to  compete  with  the  Divi- 
sion I  teams,  then  more  power  to  them! " 


FEBRUARY  1986       V 


Whether  working 
to  uncover  a  forgery 
or  to  recover  the 
original  beauty  of 
a  piece  of  art, 
conservators  are 
turning  to  materials 
science  for  help. 


Science 
for  Arts 
Sake 


By  Leslie  Brunetta 


Vr  ictorian  men  placed  fig  leaves 
'  over  those  parts  of  classical 
statues  they  didn't  want  their 
wives  and  children  to  see.  Yet  it's 
easy  for  someone  looking  at  those  statues 
today  to  assume  that  the  leaves  play 
some  part  in  the  Roman  and  Greek  con- 
cepts of  physical  beauty. 

A  fig  leaf  may  be  the  most  blatant 
breach  of  an  artist's  original  inspiration 
you'll  encounter  in  a  museum,  but  it's 
not  likely  to  be  the  only  one.  Other  more 
subtle  transgressions  are  displayed  in 
nearly  every  gallery  and  museum  in  the 
country — but  unmasking  them  takes 
more  than  just  a  discerning  eye.  For 
instance,  did  the  17th-century  painter  see 
the  world  as  quiet  and  subdued,  or  have 
his  bright  colors  been  muted  by  a  19th- 
century  varnish?  Did  the  classical  sculp- 
tor intend  his  work  to  have  an  even, 
green  patina,  or  has  the  Renaissance 
infatuation  with  antiquity  allowed  this 
corrosion  to  hide  his  varying  shades  of 
burnished  bronze?  Did  Leonardo  con- 
ceive the  face  of  the  Christ  of  "The  Last 
Supper"  as  speaking,  or  silent,  as  his 
overpainters  would  have  it? 

"Modern  conservators  really  make  us 
think  about  objects,"  says  Carol  Faill, 


administrator  of  college  collections  at 
Franklin  &  Marshall  College.  "There's 
been  a  consciousness  raising  about 
objects'  own  integrity."  Art  and  science 
are  being  used  together  as  never  before 
to  gain  an  understanding  of  the  physical 
and  chemical  properties  of  materials  and 
their  role  in  the  fine  arts.  Whether  an 
artist  is  creating  a  new  work  or  a  conser- 
vator is  trying  to  restore  and  preserve  a 
work  hundreds  of  years  old,  the  art  com- 
munity can  use  the  knowledge  and  meth- 
ods of  materials  science  to  make 
informed  choices  for  the  future. 

^TjTe  don't  at  all  profess  to  be  art- 

\  V  /  'sts'  says  R°bert  B.  Pond, 
\  A/  Sr. .  chairman  of  the  Materials 
Y  Y  Science  and  Engineering 
Department  at  Johns  Hopkins  Univer- 
sity. "But  art,"  says  Jerome  Kruger  of 
the  same  department,  "is  made  of  mate- 
rials." Pond  and  Kruger,  along  with 
Robert  E.  Green,  Jr.,  will  offer  "Materi- 
als Science  of  Art  Objects"  for  the  first 
time  this  spring.  The  course  will  cover 
nondestructive  evaluation  techniques, 
materials  processing  methods  such  as 
casting,  and  the  characterization  of  mate- 
rials properties  (the  nature  of  corrosives 


VI       ALUMNI  MAGAZINE  CONSORTIUM 


and  the  microstructure  of  alloys,  for 
example).  The  three  expect  the  course's 
enrollment  to  include  both  engineers  and 
artists,  but  think  their  main  audience  will 
be  drawn  from  the  local  community  of 
art  curators  and  conservators. 

"Conservators  and  artists  need  to 
know  about  materials,"  notes  Kruger. 
"because  they  work  with  them  every 
day."  But  for  all  their  practical  experi- 
ence, many  artists  don't  have  a  sche- 
matic understanding  of  why  certain 
materials  act  the  way  they  do— why,  for 
instance,  aluminum  is  softer  than  steel. 
"We'll  be  carrying  out  a  dialogue 
between  artists  and  materials  people,  try- 
ing to  bridge  two  cultures  that  don't 
come  together  very  often,"  Kruger  says. 
"We  see  ourselves  as  offering  a  service 
for  artists." 

"There  can  be  a  symbiotic  relationship 
between  science,  or  scholarship,  and  art, 
or  connoisseurship,"  says  Arthur  M. 
Feldman.  Feldman,  a  1964  graduate  of 
Villanova  University,  has  held  positions 
at  London's  Victoria  and  Albert 
Museum,  the  Smithsonian,  and  the  Sper- 
tus  Museum  of  Judaica,  and  now  has  his 
own  business  specializing  in  antiques 
and  Judaica.  "Scholarship  is  very  exact- 


ing  and  relies  upon  using  known  facts, 
whereas  connoisseurship  relies  upon  hav- 
ing a  feel  for  something,  upon  experi- 
ence of  a  type  or  a  particular  artist's  work." 

When  a  museum  decides  to  have  a 
piece  authenticated,  evaluated,  and 
restored,  science  and  art  come  together 
in  a  most  obvious  way.  The  process  of 
authenticating,  say,  a  painting  is  not  a 
simple  one  and  so  will  be  performed  only 
when  a  conservator  has  some  reason  to 
doubt  the  painting's  supposed  origin. 
This  is  where  connoisseurship  comes  in: 
Are  the  colors  and  the  brush  strokes  sim- 
ilar to  those  in  the  artist's  other  works? 
Does  the  signature  look  right?  Does  the 
vamish  look  original  or  restored?  Is  the 
composition  characteristic  of  the  artist's 
other  work? 

If  the  conservator  gets  the  wrong  feel- 
ing about  the  painting,  it's  time  to  turn  to 
science.  When  Christine  Flom.  associate 
professor  of  art  history  and  curator  of  the 
fine  arts  collection  at  Hartwick  College, 
wants  a  piece  authenticated  and  evalu- 
ated, she  often  sends  it  to  the  State 
University  College  at  Buffalo  Art 
Conservation  Department  (located  in 
Cooperstown,  NY).  The  Cooperstown 
staff  and  graduate  students  are  trained  in 


Some  forgeries  can  be 
cracked  with  simple 
methods:  A  microscopic 
examination  during  cleaning 
of  "The  Rape  of  the  Sabine 
Women"  (left)  revealed  the 
scratched-out  signature 
(above)  of  Giovanni 
Battista  Foggini.  The 
drawing  had  been  attributed 
to  Pietro  Berrettini  Da 
Cortona  in  hopes  of  gaining 
a  better  selling  price. 


a  scientific  approach  to  art  conservation. 

"There  comes  a  time  when  you  have 
to  rely  on  someone  else's  expertise,"  says 
Flom.  Hartwick,  for  instance,  was 
recently  given  a  Baroque  drawing:  "We 
knew  nothing  about  it,"  Flom  remem- 
bers, "other  than  that  it  had  a  piece  of 
tape  attached  to  it  naming  Da  Cortona  as 
the  artist.  We  had  had  a  Baroque  special- 
ist look  at  it  who  said  that  it  was  very  like 
a  Foggini  at  the  Metropolitan  Museum  of 
Art,  and  that  it  looked  as  though  a  signa- 
ture had  been  scratched  out. 

"At  Cooperstown,  though,  they  were 
able  to  use  microscopic  and  other  tech- 
niques during  the  cleaning  and  restora- 
tion process.  They  discovered  that  the 
specialist  had  been  right— the  drawing 
had  originally  been  signed  by  Foggini. 
and  the  signature  had  been  scratched  out. 
So  we've  gone  from  having  a  drawing 
that  we  really  knew  nothing  about  to 
knowing  that  we've  got  a  quite  valuable 
drawing  similar  to  one  held  by  the  Met." 

A  signed  drawing  is  usually  consid- 
ered to  be  more  valuable  than  an 
unsigned  one.  But  whoever  covered  up 
Foggini's  signature  had  reason  to  believe 
that  a  drawing  attributed  to  Da  Cortona. 
even  an  unsigned  one.  would  bring  more 
money  than  a  signed  Foggini.  Changing 
or  obscuring  a  signature  is  probably  the 
easiest  form  of  forgery  to  perpetrate; 
however,  it's  also  easily  uncovered  with 
a  microscope.  Unmasking  more  complex 
forgeries— works  purposely  made  to 
deceive  collectors— requires  a  greater 
knowledge  of  materials'  properties. 

Because  some  paints  (for  instance, 
lead  and  mercury  based  oil  paints)  block 
X-rays,  they  produce  a  definite  contrast 
on  X-ray  film.  So.  by  examining  a  paint- 
ing with  X-rays,  a  conservator  can  view 
underlayers  of  paint  that  are  invisible  to 
the  naked  eye.  This  can  be  an  important 
step  in  authentication:  a  forger  worthy  of 
the  name  will  always  try  to  obtain  mate- 
rials that  are  contemporary  with  the  artist 
whose  work  he  is  trying  to  fake.  The  best 
way  to  get  a  suitable  canvas,  then,  is  to 
paint  over  a  painting  from  the  period. 
Han  van  Meegeren,  the  infamous  1930s 
forger  of  Vermeers  and  de  Hooghs.  for 
instance,  almost  always  painted  on  can- 
vases dating  from  the  17th  century. 
When  a  "lost"  Vermeer  showed  up  in 
Hermann  Goering's  collection,  van 
Meegeren  (who  had  sold  the  piece)  was 
tried  for  collaborating  with  the  Nazis  in 
the  plunder  of  Holland's  great  art  trea- 
sures.  When  van  Meegeren  confessed 


FEBRUARY  1986       VII 


that  the  painting  was  a  forgery,  an  X-ray 
examination  of  his  "Vermeers"  bore 
him  out:  underpaintings  were  revealed. 

Even  though  forgers  are  well  aware  of 
X-ray  authentication,  the  use  of  over- 
painting  has  by  no  means  become  a  thing 
of  the  past.  Dan  Kushel,  assistant  profes- 
sor at  Cooperstown,  says  that  every  year 
one  or  two  misattributed  paintings  (some 
deliberate  forgeries,  some  with  inno- 
cently mistaken  identities)  come  through 
the  Cooperstown  center  and  are  exposed 
by  either  X-ray,  ultra-violet,  or  infra-red 
examination.  (Ultra-violet  and  infra-red 
examinations  work  on  the  same  principle 
as  X-ray:  the  material  properties  of  cer- 
tain paints  cause  them  to  show  up  under 
either  ultra-violet  or  infra-red  light, 
thereby  revealing  underpainting.) 

"For  instance,"  Kushel  says,  "a  paint- 
ing came  in  recently  that  was  supposed 
to  be  by  a  major  19th-century  American 
landscape  artist.  With  the  microscope, 
we  found  some  cracks  that  had  been 
filled  in,  which  made  us  suspicious,  so 
we  tried  using  infra-red  light.  What  we 
found  underneath  was  a  rather  insipid 
early  20th-century  portrait." 

It  is  in  conserving  art,  not  disproving 
it,  that  science  can  offer  most  bene- 
fits. Many  of  the  techniques  used  to 
authenticate  a  piece  of  art  are  also 
used  to  evaluate  its  condition.  X-rays  can 
reveal  cracks  in  stretchers,  deterioration 
of  nails,  and  tears  in  the  canvas  of  paint- 
ings. In  sculptures  they  can  expose  stress 
fractures,  compression  deformities,  and 
the  state  of  joints  and  welds.  Other 
chemical  and  physical  tests  can  also  be 
helpful:  emission  spectroscopy,  chroma- 
tography, and  X-ray  powder  diffraction 
analysis  can  all  help  to  identify  the  mate- 
rials used  in  a  piece  and  their  current 
condition,  thereby  pointing  the  way  to  a 
conservation  strategy. 

Not  all  evaluation  techniques  depend 
on  fancy  instrumentation,  though.  "I'm 
a  pewter  biter,"  declares  Robert  Pond. 
Pewter  is  the  name  for  any  one  of  various 
alloys  made  up  largely  of  tin.  Tin  is  sub- 
ject to  an  allotropic  transformation  at 
about  55 °F— above  this  temperature  it 
begins  to  develop  tin  disease,  a  blackish 
glaze  which  can  be  mistaken  for  other 
metals.  But  one  thing  about  tin  can't  be 
mistaken:  when  tin  is  compressed 
between  the  teeth,  it  sends  a  squeak  up 
through  the  jaw  bones  and  into  the  ears. 
"That's  tin  noise,"  says  Pond.  "Then 
you  know  for  sure  you're  dealing  with 
pewter  and  what  to  do  with  it." 


Knowing  for  sure  what  you're  dealing 
with  is  a  central  tenet  of  the  modem  con- 
servator's creed.  Artists  will  be  artists: 
like  great  chefs,  they  can't  be  counted  on 
to  stick  to  the  recipe.  "Albert  Pinkham 
Rider,  for  instance,"  says  Arthur  Feld- 
man  of  the  19th-century  American  land- 
scape and  figure  painter,  "made  up  all 
his  own  recipes  for  pigments.  It  would 
be  crazy  to  treat  his  lead  white  paint  like 
someone  else's.  You  would  certainly 
have  to  test  each  pigment  before  begin- 
ning to  work  on  it." 

And  not  just  pigments  have  been  fid- 
dled with.  Linda  Cunningham,  associate 
professor  of  art  at  Franklin  &  Marshall 
and  a  sculptor,  has  made  use  of  the  study 
of  metallurgy  in  order  to  realize  an  artis- 
tic conception.  "The  image  and  the 
process  are  completely  inseparable,"  she 
says  of  her  semi-figurative  bronze  forms. 
"It  meant  a  lot  of  research  and  experi- 
menting with  industrial  processes  before 
I  discovered  exactly  which  additives  and 
how  much  of  them  would  allow  me  to 
reheat  the  bronze  and  bend  it  the  way  I 
wanted  to."  The  composition  of  Cun- 
ningham's bronze  is  unique.  If  the  fig- 
ures ever  need  to  be  restored,  no  conser- 
vator can  rely  upon  experience  with 
other  bronzes;  Cunningham's  documen- 
tation of  her  processes  as  well  as  materi- 
als testing  will  be  essential. 

Conservators  today  have  no 
desire  to  imitate  the  restorers  of 
yesteryear,  whose  works 
include  atrocious  "restorative" 
overpaintings  of  Leonardo's  "The  Last 
Supper,"  overpaintings  which  are  now 
taking  years  of  painstaking  work  to 
remove.  Restoring  is  no  longer  a  process 
which  aims  to  make  a  piece  look  new. 
but  one  which  strives  to  reflect  the  art- 
ist's original  intentions.  "Modem  con- 
servators proceed  very  cautiously,"  says 
Christine  Flom,  "and  anything  they  do 
to  a  work,  they  do  so  that  it  can  be  easily 
reversed."  Reversing  restoration  means 
distinguishing  between  the  original  mate- 
rials of  a  work  and  more  recent  restor- 
ative materials  which  have  been  added 
with  the  express  intention  that  they  will 
be  visually  indistinguishable  from  the 
originals.  "These  scientific  tools  enable 
us  to  weed  out  the  truth  from  the  fiction 
much  more  easily,"  says  Dan  Kushel. 

At  a  conference  on  corrosion  and 
metal  artifacts,  for  instance,  Jerome  Kru- 
ger  heard  the  story  of  a  Roman  bronze 
that  was  found  in  analysis  to  contain 
chromium.   The  problem  is  that  chro- 


mium wasn't  discovered  until  1797— yet 
the  piece  really  was  Roman.  It  appears 
that  at  some  point  after  1797,  the  bronze 
had  been  dunked  in  an  electrolytic  bath 
using  stainless  steel  electrodes.  The 
chromium  had  been  transferred  from  the 
steel  to  the  bronze.  The  appearance  of 
the  bronze  was  largely  unaffected,  but  a 
treatment  aimed  at  conserving  an  artifact 
had  instead  added  a  foreign  element  that 
changed  the  artifact 's  physical  character. 
Knowing  that  the  chromium  is  there, 
however,  conservators  can  now  avoid 
treatments  that  might  cause  further  dam- 
age. 

A  scientific  understanding  of  chemical 
and  physical  reactions,  then,  can  help  the 
conservator  appreciate  not  only  which 
strategies  to  use,  but  also  which  not  to 
use.  No  ideal  solutions  exist,  but  guess- 
work is  reduced:  This  particular  varnish 
will  dry  to  a  darker  shade  than  the  origi- 
nal on  a  painting;  this  process  will  con- 
vert a  salmon-colored  bronze  patina  to 
green;  this  solvent  will  react  with  origi- 
nal materials  so  as  to  leave  behind 
unwanted  foreign  compounds. 

Scientists  cannot  always  tell  what  was, 
only  what  now  is.  Not  that  a  simple  sci- 
entific determination  of  what's  original 
and  what's  not  will  suddenly  determine 
the  course  of  a  restoration:  a  work  of  art, 
after  all,  is  weighted  with  certain  quali- 
ties that  make  it  more  than  just  an  object. 
Art  historians  still  tussle  over  whether 
the  masters  intended  their  varnishes  to 
darken  over  time,  over  whether  they 
knew  certain  paints  faded  over  time  and 
painted  accordingly,  over  whether 
ancient  sculptors  intended  their  works  to 
have  reddish-brown  or  bluish-green  pati- 
nas. 

"There's  some  controversy  that  aes- 
thetic judgment  has  been  dominated  by 
technology,"  says  Dan  Kushel.  "I  think 
that's  a  fake  argument.  Just  because  tech- 
nology is  talked  about  more  at  the 
moment  it  seems  that  aesthetics  have 
dropped  from  the  fore.  But  aesthetics  are 
always  the  first  priority  for  the  conserva- 
tor." So  for  conservation  to  be  ideal,  sci- 
ence must  be  tempered  with  connoisseur- 
ship.  Writings  by  artists  or  their 
contemporaries  can  shed  light  on  some 
problems;  comparisons  with  an  artist's 
other  work  may  suggest  solutions;  know- 
ing what  it  feels  like  to  paint  a  picture  or 
mold  a  sculpture  may  provoke  intuitions 
that  turn  out  to  be  right  on  the  mark. 
"But  science,"  says  Dan  Kushel,  "can 
really  clear  up  a  lot  of  nebulous  terri- 
tory." 


VUI       ALUMNI  MAGAZINE  CONSORTIUM 


In  August,  we  invited 
readers  to  share  with  us 
their  reasons  for  living. 
Some  200  readers  sub- 
mitted essays — 
thoughtful,  humorous, 
personal,  cosmic — and 
from  those  essays  we 
had  the  difficult  task  of 
selecting  a  representa- 
tive sampling.  The  17 
"winning"  essays  have 
one  thing  in  common: 
they  all  make  worth- 
while reading. 


Phil  Holzinger 

F&M  76 

Bethlehem,  Penn. 


hat    makes    life    worth- 


while? A  weighty  question,  but  I  think 
I've  come  up  with  the  answer.  Follow 
these  simple  steps: 

1 .  Mix  together: 

—  1  lb.  hamburger 

—  1  large  Bermuda  onion 

—  1  teaspoon  salt 

—  1  teaspoon  pepper 

—2  tablespoons  chili  powder 

—  1  teaspoon  cumin 

—  1  teaspoon  garlic  powder 

2.  Cook  above  ingredients  together 
until  hamburger  and  onion  are  done. 

3.  Add  1  16-oz.  can  crushed  tomatoes 
and  1    16-oz.  can  red  kidney  beans, 
then  simmer  for  1/2  hour. 

4.  Call  up  three  friends,  buy  some 
beer,  and  have  a  party! 


FEBRUARY  1986       IX 


The  staff  at  the  Beacham  Adult  Day 
Care  Center,  part  of  the  Francis  Scott 
Key  Medical  Center  in  Baltimore, 
asked  its  participants  for  their 
answers  to  the  contest's  questions.  The 
ages  of  the  group  range  from  54  to  92. 
Most  have  disabling  medical  problems 
that  they  have  been  dealing  with  for  at 
least  ten  years.  In  answering,  the 
group  became  an  "I": 

{Beacham  Adult 
Day  Care  Center 
Baltimore,  Md. 
think  the  most  important  thing  is 
to  have  family  and  friends  that  I  can  rem- 
inisce with.  So  often  no  one  wants  to 
listen.  Friends  my  own  age  can  under- 
stand me.  I  need  to  feel  that  there  is 
someone  who  really  cares  what  is  hap- 
pening to  me  and  with  whom  I  can  share 
my  love.  "No  man  is  an  island."  You  are 
my  friends  and  my  family  sometimes. 

Of  course,  when  you  think  about  qual- 
ity of  life,  health  is  important,  too.  I  try 
to  appreciate  what  I  have  now— what  I 
can  do  now.  No,  it  doesn't  always  work. 
I  wish  that  I  could  back  up  and  start  all 
over  again.  I  mean  appreciating  things. 

I  can't  get  bogged  down  in  self-pity.  I 
know  that  other  people  get  tired  of  listen- 
ing to  complaints.  I  need  to  be  aware  of 
the  good  as  well  as  the  bad— the  dew- 
drops  as  well  as  the  raindrops.  That 
means  living  one  day  at  a  time  and 
enjoying  what  is  happening  right  now. 
This  isn't  easy  because  I  often  feel  anx- 
ious and  frightened. 

When  I  think  about  appreciating  what  I 
have  and  can  do,  the  things  I  think  about 
may  seem  very  small  and  insignificant  to 
you.  Anything  in  nature  is  exciting  to 
me:  a  sunrise,  a  sunset,  lightning  during 
a  storm,  a  newborn  baby,  the  changing 
colors  of  the  seasons.  A  loving  pet  would 
be  nice.  I  have  some  happy  memories. 
The  past  is  important,  too.  Being  able  to 
paint  a  picture  or  something  that  some- 


one else  admires  makes  me  feel  so  good. 
I  like  to  laugh,  to  sing,  to  be  with  others, 
to  be  able  to  say  Yes  or  No  to  something. 

It  worries  me  sometimes  that  I  don't 
know  whether  I  have  enough  money  or 
even  whether  I  have  any  money.  Most  of 
the  time  when  I  want  something,  I  have 
to  ask  someone  else  about  it.  I'd  like  to 
think  that  I  have  enough  for  my  basic 
needs.  The  nicest  thing  about  having 
money  is  being  able  to  say,  "It's  my 
treat!"  once  in  a  while. 

"No  man  is  an  island."  I  like  that;  for 
me,  having  quality  of  life  means  not 
being  an  island.  Does  my  answer  differ 
from  yours? 


David  Bailey 

WPI  '71 

Santa  Rosa,  Cal. 


n   August  6,    1982,   my 


wife  and  I  were  invited  by  our  family 
physician  to  see  a  film  called  "The  Last 
Epidemic."  It  was  about  the  medical  con- 
sequences of  nuclear  war.  When  it  was 
over  I  thought,  "My  God,  what  have  I 
been  doing?" 

As  a  child  it  was  great  fun  to  play  in 
the  attic  with  an  old  rifle  and  my  father's 
World  War  II  uniform  with  all  the 
medals.  As  I  grew  older  it  was  fun  to 
play  army  and  to  build  models  of  mis- 
siles and  ships.  In  college,  playing  army 
meant  learning  how  to  polish  my  brass 
and  spit-shine  my  shoes  for  Saturday 
ROTC  drill  and  how  to  take  an  M 1  rifle 
apart  without  catching  my  thumb. 

My  first  job  was  more  fun  than  build- 
ing models.  I  was  part  of  a  team  design- 
ing missile  systems  for  the  Navy.  Elec- 
tronic warfare  was  my  next  challenge.  It 
required  a  constant  effort  to  keep  up  with 
technology,  and  it  was  fun!  But  then 
watching  that  film  changed  my  life.  Pre- 
paring for  war  did  not  seem  so  very 
right,  not  so  much  fun  any  more.  Watch- 
ing that  film  made  me  realize  that  war 
today  means  the  possible  destruction  of 
all  life. 


X       ALUMNI  MAGAZINE  CONSORTIUM 


I  had  been  living  with  the  illusion  that 
if  there  were  a  war  between  the  super 
powers,  it  would  happen  somewhere  else 
and  my  family  and  I  would  survive.  I  had 
also  lived  with  the  illusion  that  the  lead- 
ers of  the  world  would  never  use  nuclear 
weapons  even  if  there  were  a  war.  The 
third  illusion  was  that,  as  only  one  in  a 
population  of  millions,  I  don't  make  a 
difference.  I  have  discovered  that  the 
individual  does  make  a  difference  and 
that  makes  my  life  worthwhile. 

The  basis  for  hope  is  in  changing  the 
way  we  think  about  war.  That  same  crea- 
tive energy  I  used  to  design  weapons  I 
now  use  to  work  to  end  war.  What  makes 
my  life  worthwhile  is  working  with  thou- 
sands of  others  in  the  Beyond  War  Move- 
ment, educating  others  to  the  reality  and 
challenging  them  to  change  the  way  they 
think  about  war.  I  have  changed,  and  my 
life  is  now  consistent  with  the  truth  that 
we  are  all  one  family. 

Rita  Schumann 

Villanova 

Warminster,  Penn. 

hen  I  was  a  child  in  grade 
school,  I  thought  I  would  make  Joan  of 
Arc  look  like  a  wimp.  I  would  save  the 
world.  I  started  to  mellow  by  high  school 
and  thought  maybe  I'd  just  work  on  my 
city.  The  years  passed  and  I  married  and 
settled  into  my  role  as  wife  and  mother.  I 
would  make  my  difference  by  raising  a 
caring,  productive  family.  Before  I  was 
ready,  my  children  were  grown,  and  a 
hollow,  empty  feeling  set  in.  The  chil- 
dren all  chose  professions  to  serve  others 
and  I  was  proud  of  them,  but  their 
achievements  were  theirs. 

Now,  I  had  to  find  a  new  challenge  in 
my  life.  I  saw  an  ad  in  the  newspaper  for 


volunteers.  I  called  our  local  hospital  and 
volunteered  one  day  a  week.  Those  days 
were  so  rewarding;  the  smallest  kindness 
was  so  greatly  appreciated.  My  friend 
asked  me  if  I  was  paid  for  working  there, 
and  I  told  her  truthfully,  "many  times 
each  day."  I  then  volunteered  at  our  local 
prison.  I  was  impressed  by  the  caring 
staff  and  the  rehabilitation  opportunities. 
I  was  truly  affected  by  the  warmth  and 
respect  shown  me  by  some  inmates. 

I  learned  that  alcohol  and  drugs  played 
a  big  part  in  their  lives  and  took  away 
their  choice  of  living  "the  good  life."  I'm 
going  to  school  now  for  dependency 
counseling.  I  won't  save  the  world  but— 
my  world  is  getting  better. 


William  H.  Thornton 


T 

d  here  is  a  fat,  red  book  in  the 
library  listing  the  tribes  that  once  peopled 
this  continent.  Some  we  massacred,  like 
the  Sauk  and  the  Fox  under  Black  Hawk. 
Most,  however,  perished  with  their  habi- 
tat—human precursors  of  today's  endan- 
gered species. 

Natural  habitat  means  more  than  virgin 
forests  and  unfenced  prairies,  and  ecol- 
ogy means  more  than  biological  under- 
standing. Fundamentally,  it  is  an  attitude 
toward  our  fellow  occupants  on  a  shrink- 
ing Earth.  It  first  asks  the  question, 
"What  makes  life  worthwhile  for  them!" 
and  only  then  proceeds  to  "What  makes 
life  worthwhile  for  me!"  The  Indians 
who  disappeared  from  North  America 
forever,  taking  with  them  priceless  cul- 
tures that  are  only  dimly  suggested  by 
the  artifacts  my  wife  and  I  find  along  the 
Chesapeake  shore,  sometimes  expired 
because  life  was  made  literally  impos- 
sible for  them.  Far  more  commonly  they 
simply  lost  the  will  to  live.  The  great 
Christian  hordes  took  away  their  human 
dignity  as  well  as  their  habitat.  We're  left 
with  little  but  the  names  of  rivers,  reach- 
ing across  America  like  the  outstretched 


fingers  of  a  corpse:  the  Rappahannock, 
the  Tensaw,  the  Chattahoochee,  the 
Patapsco,  the  Kissimmee,  the  Mononga- 
hela,  the  Winooski,  the  Susquehanna, 
the  Attawapiskat,  the  Chowan,  the 
Patuxent,  the  Wissahickon,  the  Suwan- 
nee, the  Potomac,  the  Apalachicola,  the 
Umpqua,  the  Chicoutimi,  the  Ocmulgee, 
the  Aroostook,  the  Wabash,  the  Sas- 
katchewan, the  Watauga,  the  Atchafa- 
laya,  the  Withlacoochee,  the  Caloosa- 
hatchee,  the  Chippewa,  the  Owyhee,  the 
Muskogee,  the  Hiwassee,  the 
Tallapoosa  .... 

Not  that  long  ago  those  names  were 
part  of  the  Indian  Reason  for  Living.  It 
got  in  our  way,  but  we  showed  our  mag- 
nanimity by  keeping  the  names.  What 
worthy  Reason  for  Living  replaced 
theirs? 

The  mere  fact  that  I'm  putting  the 
question  to  the  question  indicates  my  sta- 
tus: I  too  am  on  the  endangered  list. 
Something  that  is  natural  to  me,  and  irre- 
placeable, is  being  bulldozed.  Hiking 
through  a  beautiful  tract  of  woods 
marked  "lots  for  sale,"  it  occurs  to  me 
that  I  might  be  the  last  person  to  view 
and  appreciate  this  habitat  as  the  Piscata- 
way  and  Yaocomaco  knew  it.  Surely  it 
was  an  integral  part  of  their  Reason  for 
Living.  In  a  way  I  feel  blessed  to  have 
this  privilege.  Meanwhile,  in  my  clumsi- 
ness, I  disturb  a  great  horned  owl.  It 
swoops  just  a  few  feet  overhead.  His 
Reason  for  Living,  too,  will  have  to 
move  on,  and  there  aren't  many  places 
left  to  move. 

Having  come  to  know  a  small  part  of 
what  life  means,  or  once  meant,  to  the 
men  and  creatures  of  these  woods,  I'll 
venture  just  one  Reason  for  Living  that 
by  historical  accident  is  my  own:  there's 
a  job  that  really  must  be  done.  Here 
among  the  lots  for  sale,  someone  has  to 
look  one  last  time.  Someone  has  to  give 
the  last  rites  to  a  genuine  Reason  for  Liv- 
ing. 


FEBRUARY  1986       XI 


Ralph  Allen 

Villanova  '83 

Philadelphia,  Penn. 


he  other  night  I  called  my 


prep  school  football  coach  to  invite  him 
to  my  class's  25th  reunion.  Feeling  fool- 
ish, I  blundered  into  the  call.  "Hello,  Al 
Switzer?  This  is  Bucky  Allen.  .  .  ." 

"Bucky  .  .  .  Allen  .  .  .  Wait  a 
minute  .  .  .  Bucky  Allen.  Hebron  Acad- 
emy, right?" 

My  ear  quickened  to  the  husky  timbre 
of  that  voice.  For  four  years  it  had  been 
like  grace,  urging,  teaching  and,  most 
importantly  in  my  case,  forgiving. 

Now,  as  he  sorted  out  who  I  was  and 
what  I  wanted  and  answered  questions 
about  his  family  and  his  swim  team,  his 
voice  set  up  resonances  that  had  me  all 
but  tearful  by  the  time  I  hung  up. 

"Okay,  Buck,"  he  said,  "I'll  give  it 
my  best  shot." 

When  I  entered  Hebron  Academy,  I 
was  badly  in  need  of  adults  I  could 
admire.  Al  Switzer  was  one  of  many 
who  fulfilled  this  need  so  well  during 
school  and  college  that  I  became  an 
English  teacher.  Talking  with  him,  I  dis- 
covered that  what  I'd  thought  was  a  dead 
relationship  was  not  only  alive  but  time- 
less, that  if  he  were  alive  three  million 
years  from  now,  he'd  still  be  willing  to 
give  it  his  best  shot  to  help  an  old  friend 
get  a  reunion  off  the  ground.  I'd  do  the 
same  for  many  of  my  students.  You  can't 
be  involved  in  teaching  long  without 
becoming  aware  of  a  mysterious  sense  of 
vocation  which,  borrowed  from  all  your 
previous  teachers  and  tailored  for  your 
own  use,  you  pass  on  willy-nilly. 

Mentors  may  carry  you  through  the 
novitiate  vows  of  honesty,  unselfishness 
and  restraint,  but  the  best  trials  throw 
you  back  on  your  soul.  Some  years  ago 
during  a  particularly  demoralizing 
administrative  shift,  I  had  a  dream:  I  was 
headed  down  a  dirt  road  to  go  fishing  in  a 
pond  a  mile  or  so  behind  my  grandmoth- 
er's house.  On  the  way  I  met  the  football 
coach  from  my  present  school  with  a 


Austin  E.  Gisriel 

Western  Maryland  79 

Frederick,  Md. 


string  of  fish  like  silver  rainbows.  He 
pointed  off  the  road  to  a  tree  dazzling 
with  fish  among  the  leaves,  each  fish 
marked  with  a  rainbow.  It  was  a  glori- 
ous, frightening  image,  at  once  threat 
and  challenge,  because  I  knew  instinc- 
tively that,  though  every  rainbow  was  a 
sacrifice,  avoiding  the  tree  was  danger- 
ous. I  came  to  see  the  fish-filled  tree  of 
my  dream  as  tree  of  knowledge,  tree  of 
life  and  cross,  the  fish  as  daily  sacrifices 
stamped  with  the  rainbow  sign  of  Christ, 
the  covenant  fulfilled. 

Intimations  of  the  eternal  have 
enriched  my  life,  given  it  meaning, 
showed  me  the  way.  Al  Switzer's  care, 
the  poets'  vision,  and  all  the  untold  influ- 
ences of  God's  love  have  woven  from 
things  of  this  world  an  eternal  realm  that 
makes  my  life  worthwhile. 

A._... 

great  athlete.  The  one  drawback  was  that 
I  had  no  talent.  Then  I  chose  to  be  a  great 
philosopher  and  amaze  people  with  my 
deep  understanding  of  the  human  condi- 
tion. Finally,  I  decided  that  I  would 
become  a  great  writer.  I  would  get  a  job 
and  write  in  my  spare  time,  and  eventu- 
ally I  would  become  great.  This  plan  hit 
a  snag.  I  now  find  that  I  don't  have  time 
to  change  the  sheets,  much  less  the 
world. 

I  began  to  realize  that  there  are  several 
practical  impediments  to  achieving 
greatness:  First,  one  must  be  well  rested 
in  order  to  pursue  it— sleeping  takes  up 
one-third  of  my  24-hour  day.  One  must 
also  support  oneself  while  waiting  for 
greatness  to  descend,  so  there  goes  the 
second  third  of  the  day.  Preparing,  eat- 
ing, and  cleaning  up  after  three  meals  per 
day  takes  another  three  hours.  Thirty 
minutes  per  day  to  read  the  paper.  Dress- 
ing and  shaving  and  showering  and 
brushing  my  teeth  requires  about  an 
hour.  A  couple  of  hours  out  of  the  24 


XII       ALUMNI  MAGAZINE  CONSORTIUM 


interacting  with  my  wife.  Various  tasks 
such  as  folding  the  laundry  and  taking 
out  the  trash  and  making  the  bed  and 
balancing  the  checkbook  require  an  aver- 
age of  20  minutes  per  day.  By  the  time  I 
exercise  a  little  and  relax  a  little  (you 
can't  achieve  greatness  if  you  are  tense), 
I'm  left  with  about  10  minutes  per  day  to 
devote  to  ensuring  my  immortality. 

As  I  mulled  over  this  daily  schedule,  I 
drew  two  inevitable  conclusions.  The 
first  is  the  simple  fact  that  99  percent  of 
one's  life  is  taken  up  with  the  mundane. 
The  second:  Greatness  is  fleeting.  These 
conclusions  lead  to  one  big  conclusion. 
If  life  consists  almost  entirely  of  the 
mundane,  and  greatness  is  such  a  tempo- 
rary condition,  then  pursuing  greatness 
isn't  such  a  great  idea  after  all. 

The  real  joy  of  life  comes  from  the 
commonplace.  A  very  wise  philosopher 
(in  fact,  I  think  it  was  my  father)  once 
said  that  it's  the  little  things  in  life  that 
count.  Little  things,  like  watching  the 
seasons  come  and  go  or  listening  to  the 
ball  game  on  a  summer  evening  or  shar- 
ing a  laugh  with  my  wife  as  we  discuss 
some  trivial  matter  at  the  dinner  table, 
mean  nothing  to  the  world  at  large,  but 
they  mean  everything  to  this  one  member 
of  the  world.  I'm  not  always  obnox- 
iously happy,  and  I  don't  go  around  tell- 
ing folks  to  look  on  the  bright  side, 
because  many  times  there  isn't  one.  But  I 
am  content  with  life,  and  I  suspect  that's 
a  claim  not  many  people  can  make. 


(A 


Wayne  G.  Hupfer 

Villanova  '66 

Richmond,  Va. 

ntil  recently,  I  would  have 
said  that  we  should  act  in  our  own  inter- 
est, toward  the  achievement  of  well- 
defined  goals,  and  based  upon  a  knowl- 
edge of  ourselves.  Two  years  ago, 
however,  I  married  for  the  first  time  at 
the  ripe  old  age  of  39.  Having  been  sin- 
gle all  my  life,  I  had  let  my  lifestyle 
become  extremely  ordered,  predictable. 


and,  increasingly,  unsatisfying.  I  had 
allowed  myself  to  become  bored,  lone- 
some, and,  like  many  single  men, 
incredibly  selfish.  I  had  difficulty  under- 
standing the  reasons  for  my  dissatisfac- 
tion— I  had,  after  all,  gotten  most  of  the 
"things"  I  thought  I  wanted  in  life.  What 
was  missing  was  simply  a  sense  of 
belonging  to  something— and  someone — 
beyond  myself. 

Ultimately,  this  is  the  most  enduring 
achievement  in  my  life,  the  gradual  real- 
ization that  all  of  our  lives,  particularly 
the  lives  of  those  closest  to  us,  are  inex- 
tricably bound  together,  and  that  each  of 
us  has  the  ability  to  contribute  to  and 
enrich  the  lives  of  others.  It  is  as  though 
the  sum  total  of  all  of  our  lives  represents 
one  huge  canvas,  too  vast  for  the  human 
eye  to  see,  too  complex  for  the  human 
mind  to  comprehend,  yet  capable  of 
change  through  the  positive  acts  of  indi- 
viduals. It  is  this  understanding  that  for 
me  makes  life  worthwhile. 


A.  Zoland  Leishear 

Hopkins  '84 

Lutherville,  Md. 


\S  Unequivocally,  the  answer 
is  blue  shirts.  What  feels  better  than 
pima  cotton?  When  it's  blue,  it  picks  up  a 
luxuriousness  and  richness  unparalleled 
in  natural  fabrics.  Line  dried  and 
starched,  what  scent  delights  the  senses 
more?  And  blue  becomes  most  people:  it 
enhances  a  tan  and  mitigates  a  winter 
pallor.  It  looks  good,  feels  good,  smells 
good;  it  is  a  little  treasure. 

But  I  think  that  the  meaning  comes  as 
much  from  the  blue  as  from  the  shirt. 

As  a  small  child,  I  was  dedicated  to  the 
Blessed  Mother.  All  it  entailed  was  wear- 
ing blue  and  white  until  the  age  of  seven. 
But  those  colors  represented  the  possibil- 
ities of  this  life,  of  what  a  woman  could 
be.  Mary  seemed  to  me  a  woman  of  wis- 
dom, courage  and  strength.  She  took  life 


head  on  and  tempered  it  with  gentleness 
and  kindness.  I  should  do  so  well. 

When  I  was  seven,  my  mother  asked 
me  what  color  coat  I  would  like  now  that 
I  was  no  longer  required  to  wear  blue. 
But  it  was  too  late.  By  then  I  was  a  hope- 
less academic  and  blue  was  the  color  of 
the  September  sky.  It  was  the  excitement 
of  learning,  the  thrill  of  a  challenge,  the 
pleasure  of  a  fresh  start. 

When  I  was  25,  a  friend  gave  me  a 
blue  ratcatcher  upon  which  she  had 
embroidered  a  small  white  fox.  Many 
years  later  when  my  life  had  changed 
dramatically  and  was  marked  with  finan- 
cial reversals,  serious  illness  and  the  loss 
of  a  loved  one,  I  had  occasion  to  have 
lunch  with  that  friend.  We  brown-bagged 
it  and  sat  on  a  bench  unable  to  hide  the 
sadness  that  had  crept  into  both  of  our 
lives.  That  morning  in  a  fit  of  disgust  at 
not  having  anything  new  to  wear,  I  had 
rummaged  through  my  closets,  discov- 
ered that  old  shirt  and  resurrected  it  with 
soap  and  starch.  I  saw  my  friend  notice 
the  shirt  and  break  into  a  laugh  that  I 
should  have  that  old  relic.  From  there  we 
went  into  a  review  of  the  20  or  so  years 
we  had  known  each  other,  all  the  stupid 
things  we  had  done  and  all  the  fun  we 
had  had.  We  left  each  other  feeling  that 
as  long  as  there  were  moments  like  this, 
we  could  survive  anything. 

I  wore  a  blue  shirt  when  I  got  my  first 
car.  signed  my  first  contract,  took  my  first 
and  then  my  last  exam  at  college.  I  wore 
them  through  my  mother's  operations 
(which  she  survived),  and  through  IRS 
interviews  (which  I  survived).  The  diffi- 
cult times  are  behind  me  now  but  the  blue 
shirts  are  not.  A  couple  of  months  ago, 
my  washing  machine  broke  and  I  was  too 
busy  to  get  it  fixed.  A  friend  of  mine, 
noticing  my  less  than  fresh  appearance, 
suggested  that  I  use  hers.  My  clothes 
hung  on  the  line  to  dry:  "My  God,"  she 
said,  "don't  you  own  anything  but  blue 
shirts?"  I  looked  at  the  line  and  smiled. 
They  moved  in  the  breeze  like  the  winged 
creatures  of  memory  they  are. 


FEBRUARY  1986       XIII 


Christopher  Beyers 
Western  Maryland  '84 
Washington,  D.C. 


T 

^  here  are  two  things  which 
make  life  worth  the  trouble:  wonder  and 
possibility.  Wonder  comes  from  simply 
keeping  my  eyes  open,  experiencing  the 
constant  mix  of  the  logical  and  irrational, 
the  surprising  and  the  mundane. 

Since  I  see  no  certainty  of  events, 
there  are  always  possibilities.  Because  of 
these  possibilities,  no  matter  how  rotten 
things  are  right  now,  I  can  always  imag- 
ine that  soon  things  will  be  better.  In 
fact,  I  can  easily  imagine  that  soon  they 
will  be  great,  even  greater  than  I  can 
imagine.  Everybody  knows  some 
schlepp  who,  through  sheer  chance,  is 
doing  the  very  thing  you  think  you 
should  be  doing.  Furthermore,  there  is 
no  reason  that  the  same  dumb  luck  that 
struck  him  shouldn't  strike  you. 


Milton  J.  Dinhofer 

RPI  45 

Roslyn  Heights,  N.Y. 


y  goal  is  to  main- 


tain through  the  rest  of  my  life  the  same 
physical,  mental  and  social  activity  that  I 
maintained  when  I  was  30  years  old. 
Now  you  can  start  laughing. 

Twenty  years  ago,  I  was  visiting  a 
friend  who  had  just  put  in  a  new  swim- 
ming pool.  He  was  a  doctor  and  several 
of  his  doctor  friends  were  there  with  their 
children.  One  of  the  sons  dove  in  and 
started  swimming  laps.  I  dove  in  next  to 
him  and  we  stayed  together  for  50  laps  at 
a  fairly  good  pace.  When  I  got  out  of  the 
pool,  the  doctors  pounced  on  me  with 
ridicule:  "Don't  you  know  you  are  over 
40?  When  you're  over  40  you  shouldn't 


even  walk  up  a  flight  of  stairs." 

The  pendulum  has  swung  a  long  way 
since  then,  but  I  still  get  a  lot  of  flak.  I 
have  been  racing  high  performance  cata- 
marans for  the  past  10  years.  When  I 
attend  the  regattas  and  race  there  is 
always  someone  who  will  chirp,  "Aren't 
you  a  little  too  old  for  that?"  This  year  I 
finished  seventh  out  of  60  entrants  in  my 
division  for  the  northeastern  champion- 
ships. The  competition  ranged  in  age 
from  16  to  62. 

If  your  body  is  sound  your  mind  will 
have  little  trouble  keeping  up  with  it.  I 
intend  to  maintain  very  close  to  the  same 
working  pace  that  I  did  30  years  ago  with 
one  exception.  I  will  no  longer  worry 
about  putting  away  for  my  old  age. 


I 


Sondra  Markim 

F&M 

Woodcliff  Lake,  N.J. 


f  onlys"  postpone  life.  This— 
this  very  this— is  all  there  is. 

Yet  most  of  us  live  for  the  future  all  the 
time,  illustrated  in  so  minor  an  example 
as  what  I  call  the  five-pound  syndrome.  I 
know  that  I  am  not  the  only  woman  who 
has  spent  her  life  believing  that,  "If  only 
I'd  lose  five  pounds,  I'd  be  happy."  I  am 
a  reasonably  intelligent,  mature  person, 
yet  somewhere  in  the  back  of  my  brain 
exists  this  niggling  certainty  that  once  I 
achieve  a  weight  goal,  some  vague, 
wonderful  part  of  life  will  commence. 

When  I  was  a  child,  my  grandmother 
kept  all  her  furniture  under  plastic.  When 
I  asked  her  why,  she  replied  that  she  was 
saving  her  furniture  "for  good."  My 
grandmother  was  76. 

This  is  not  to  advocate  a  life  of  squan- 
dering or  instant  gratification.  I  adhere  to 
policies  of  preparation  and  deliberate 
care.  But  I  also  maintain  that  we  all  over- 
look the  "now."  To  embrace  the  gratifi- 
cations inherent  in  the  little  everyday 
moments,  be  they  walking  in  the  brisk. 


XIV       ALUMNI  MAGAZINE  CONSORTIUM 


fresh,  autumn  air,  conversing  with  a 
friend,  laughing  with  a  child,  solving  a 
problem,  doing  a  small  job  well,  easing 
down  into  a  soothing  bath,  laying  your 
head  on  a  pillow  or  reading  this.  Of 
course  I  still  have  dreams.  I  imagine  cra- 
dling future  grandchildren,  traveling  to 
Timbuktoo  ...  but  I  know  that  it  is  this 
moment  that  is  mine,  writing  this  now, 
enjoying  communicating. 

There  are  no  plastic  covers  on  my  fur- 
niture. And  that's  fine. 


I 


Tom  Lashnits 

F&M  71 

Mt.  Kisco,  N.Y. 


get  a  rush  of  satisfaction  when  I 
realize  I've  accomplished  something. 
And  the  sense  of  accomplishment  is  in 
direct  proportion  to  my  ownership  of  the 
project.  Something  I've  done  by  myself, 
or  with  a  small  group  of  friends  or  col- 
leagues, is  much  more  soul-satisfying 
than  any  large  project  in  which  I've  only 
played  a  bit  part.  The  job  can  be  as  trivial 
as  sweeping  a  floor  or  vacuuming  a  rug: 
before  it  was  dirty,  now  it  is  clean.  Very 
simple,  very  direct,  very  understandable. 

When  I  see  my  name  on  top  of  an  arti- 
cle I've  written,  I  can  say  to  myself: 
There's  a  piece  of  work  I've  done,  and  it 
is  printed  in  a  real  newspaper  or  maga- 
zine for  real  people  to  see— to  read, 
judge,  admire  or  criticize.  In  a  way  it 
doesn't  matter  whether  they  like  it  or 
not.  The  important  thing  is  that  it  exists 
as  a  unique  entity.  It's  concrete,  and  I  can 
point  to  it  and  say:  "Look  at  that. 
There's  something  I  alone  made.  Before, 
there  was  nothing;  now  there  is  some- 
thing." 

Another  peak  moment  occurs  when  I 
hit  a  perfect  golf  shot.  A  "sweet"  shot. 
After  all  the  practice,  all  the  bearing 
down,  all  the  self-criticism,  it's  sud- 
denly, magically,  so  effortless.  There's  a 
perfect  sound  to  it,  just  a  click,  and  the 
resistance  of  the  ball  is  so  negligible  you 
can  barely  feel  it.  And  you  look  up  into 
the  sky  and  the  arc  of  the  ball  is  a  beauti- 


ful thing  to  behold,  as  the  white  dot 
heads  exactly  where  you'd  envisioned  it 
would  go.  For  as  long  as  that  ball  is  in 
the  air— perhaps  as  long  as  five  sec- 
onds—all is  right  with  the  world. 

The  question,  "What  makes  your  life 
worthwhile?"  prompted  The  Rev. 
Stephen  W.  Tucker  to  preach  the  fol- 
lowing sermon  at  the  First  Congrega- 
tional Church  of  Otsego,  Michigan: 

Stephen  W.  Tucker 

RPI  '58 

Otsego,  Mich. 

answer  has 
changed  over  the  years.  It  perhaps 
changes  every  so  often.  When  I  gradu- 
ated from  college  some  27  years  ago, 
what  made  my  life  worthwhile  was  a 
whole  exciting  future— a  new  job, 
money  coming  in,  dreams  of  marriage  to 
Marie,  traveling  around  the  country- 
most  of  those  dreams  intensely  personal. 
I  believe  that  is  probably  true  of  most 
younger  folks  right  out  of  college— 
"Watch  out  world,  here  I  come." 

In  the  1960s  we  began  to  get  extremely 
active  in  the  First  Congregational 
Church  of  Cheyenne,  Wyoming.  Teach- 
ing Sunday  School,  serving  on  the 
church  boards,  taking  our  turns  in  the 
nursery  as  parents  with  that  age  children. 
I  don't  know  that  I  ever  asked  myself  the 
direct  question,  "What  makes  my  life 
worthwhile?"  But,  as  the  ripe  old  age  of 
30  crept  closer  I  began  to  look  at  some  of 
my  fellow  engineers.  What  made  life 
worthwhile  for  them  was  the  possession 
of  things  (bigger  and  better  homes  and 
cars).  Or  sports— one  of  my  friends  was 
in  three  or  four  bowling  leagues  each 
week— his  wife  was  upset  at  his  being 
gone  all  the  time  and  she  was  stuck  home 
alone  at  night  with  their  children.  (Come 
to  think  of  it,  maybe  that  was  why  he 
was  bowling  so  much.)  Most  enjoyed 
partying  and  liquor  and  their  idea  of  a 


good  time  was  getting  pie-eyed  on  week- 
ends. Few  attended  church. 

And  perhaps  subconsciously  I  began  to 
think,  "Is  that  where  I  am  going?"  "Is 
that  all  there  is?"— as  a  popular  song 
went  a  few  years  ago. 

Then,  the  Lord  tapped  me.  Goodbye 
engineering  and  Cheyenne.  Hello  semi- 
nary, study,  work,  Massachusetts.  It 
amazed  me  that  many  of  the  younger  stu- 
dents in  seminary  had  no  idea  what  they 
wanted  to  do  when  they  graduated. 

After  seminary  came  the  first  church  I 
served.  Right  here  in  Allegan  County— 
The  First  Congregational  Church  of 
Saugatuck.  "What  made  my  life  worth- 
while?" My  answer  was  changing.  Oh, 
it  was  somewhat  personal;  could  I  hack  it 
as  a  pastor?  Put  up  with  the  church 
boards?  But  I  began  to  see  that  people 
needed  an  anchor,  something  to  hold 
onto  in  the  everyday  struggles  of  life. 
Was  there  any  hope  in  this  mad  world's 
race— often  ended  by  accidents  with  their 
sudden  deaths,  or  bodies  racked  by  dis- 
ease? Was  what  made  life  worthwhile 
just  looking  out  for  No.  1? 

My  answer  was  changing.  The  scrip- 
tures became  more  and  more  real  to  me. 
"Hey  folks"— I  wanted  to  shake  them— 
"Don't  you  see?  Don't  you  hear?  The 
stories  of  the  Bible  are  true!  The  hymns 
we  sing  are  the  truth!  Don't  just  mouth 
the  words  on  Sunday  and  then  go  out  and 
cheat  in  business.  Don't  give  less  than 
your  best.  God  loves  you!  He  has  called 
you!  lesus  really  did  live,  suffer,  die,  rise 
again  for  you  and  me! " 

And  trying  to  tell  and  show  the  people 
of  our  Sister  Church  in  Saugatuck  made 
life  worthwhile  and  challenging.  The 
dear  folks  of  Saugatuck  responded— they 
chipped  back  at  several  of  the  rough 
edges  I  have.  Some  began  to  dream 
dreams  they  hadn't  before.  Some 
changed  their  lifestyles  and  felt  also  the 
pull  of  God  on  them.  Those  were,  in 
some  ways,  frustrating  years— hard 
years.  But  I  am  glad  a  tenth  of  my  life  or 
so  was  spent  there  in  that  effort. 

What    makes    my    life    worthwhile 


FEBRUARY  1986       XV 


today?  It  is  to  give  you  hope  that  God 
loves  you;  that  there  is  life  after  death: 
that  God  wants  us  to  do  our  best:  that  ue 
can  lift  our  eyes  higher  and  look  outside 
of  ourselves;  that  there  is  more  to  life 
than  winning  the  Michigan  Lotto,  or 
booze,  or  self-gratification.  To  see  you 
caring  for  one  another,  laughing,  play- 
ing, crying,  encouraging,  comforting. 
hugging  one  another— makes  life  worth- 
while for  me!  To  be  able  to  tell  you.  with 
absolute  sincerity  and  no  doubt  of  its 
truth.  God's  word  from  scripture  and  to 
see  and  hear  you  asking  and  searching 
and  praying  about  the  future  and  dream- 
ing and  hoping  about  what  God  wants 
>ou  to  do  with  your  life— makes  life 
worthwhile  for  me.  To  be  an  encour- 
ager— to  be  able  to  laugh  with  you  and 
cry  with  you — to  hug  you  in  joy  and  sor- 
row—makes life  worthwhile  for  me. 


Morris  Moshe  Cotel 

Peabody  Conservatory 

New  York,  N.Y. 


lme  is  the  commodity  that 
musicians  deal  in.  We  also  live  in  it.  of 
course,  like  everyone  else,  and  there 
never  seems  to  be  enough  time  available 
to  accomplish  all  the  things  that  cry  out 
for  our  attention.  Our  activities  push  us 
onward  and  we  find  ourselves  lunching 
on  the  run.  glancing  at  watches,  hurtling 
through  time,  racing  from  task  to  task. 
whirling  from  here  to  there,  pushed, 
pulled,  jolted,  spun  around  and  around 
b\  family,  career,  ego.  muse.  God. 

Stop  the  clock! 

Actually.  I  stop  the  clock  even  week. 
On  Frida\  evening,  in  my  mind's  eye.  I 
always  see  a  silver  fermata  rising  in  the 
sky.  It's  Shabbat— the  Sabbath— and  for 
the  next  24  hours  the  world  is  on  hold 
while  there  is  release  from  the  prison- 
house  of  time.  I  do  not  perform  on  Fri- 
day nights.  I  am  freed  from  the  struggle 
for  existence.  Life  becomes  filled  with 
the  presence  of  wife  and  children  and 
friends,  prayer  and  meditation,  walks  in 
the  park,  and  quiet  listening  to  the  inner 
sounds  of  living. 

To  those  w  ho  say  that  a  musician  must 
be  professionally  available  at  all  times.  I 
can  only  respond  that  music  is  not  a  reli- 
gion, and  that  for  all  that  it  enhances  life 
it  cannot  teach  one  how  to  live.  But 
music  and  religion  together—  these  sup- 
port a  worthw hile  human  life. 

Every  day.  in  m\  central  prayer— 
"Hear.  O  Israel  .  .  . "— I  strain  to  hear  the 


Voice.  E\ery  day  I  listen  for  it  in  the 
words  of  the  prophets.  Every  da\  I  listen 
for  it  in  the  fugues  of  J.S.  Bach.  (He 
said.  "The  aim  and  final  reason  of  all 
music  should  be  nothing  else  but  the 
glory  of  God  and  the  refreshment  of  the 
spirit")  The  sound  waves  are  earning 
the  message  right  now  that  will  open  the 
doors  of  perception,  that  w  ill  lift  up  the 
gates  of  the  world. 

What.  then,  makes  life  worthwhile? 
Lots  of  things,  but  they  all  come  from 
the  same  root:  music,  religion,  self- 
knowledge,  a  devoted  mate,  precious 
children,  true  friends,  good  deeds,  acts 
of  kindness,  justice/mercy/humility  (the 
big  three),  hard  work,  good  times,  heart- 
felt performances,  and  also  solitude. 
meditation,  slow  practice  (it's  good  for 
you!),  not  giving  up.  and  forbearance. 

It  seems  strange  that  some  or  even 
much  of  this  grows  naturally  out  of  the 
process  of  developing  a  well-trained  and 
disciplined  inner  ear.  But  such  an  ear  can 
pick  up  and  lock  in  on  that  soundless 
sound.  It  can  cause  you  to  turn  again  and 
asain  in  the  direction  of  the  Voice. 


I 


Edward  S.  Collins 

Hartwick  70 

Niskayuna,  N.Y. 


cannot  count  the  number  of  ques- 
tions that  I  get  every  day  from  m\  4- 
year-old  daughter.  Briana.  and  my  7- 
year-old  daughter.  Amanda.  They  are  so 
\ery  curious,  as  children  should  be.  For 
them  discovery  is  exciting. 

We  should  all  feel  that  way.  but  many 
of  us  forget  how  much  the  act  of  being 
curious  adds  to  the  quality  of  our  lives. 
As  adults  we  are  supposed  to  have 
answers.  We  "'advance"  in  our 
"careers'"  by  virtue  of  our  ability  to 
"tackle"  problems,  to  find  "solutions" 
or  "answers."  No  one  gets  "any- 
where"—wherever  it  may  be— by  virtue 
of  having  a  basket  full  of  questions  to 
distribute,  like  a  little  girl  giving  away  a 
basket  full  of  wild  flowers.  I've  yet  to 
hear  anyone  say.  "Gosh,  he's  really  bril- 
liant. Listen  to  the  questions  he  asks!"  or 
"We've  got  to  have  her  on  board.  J. P. 
That  woman  has  all  the  right  questions." 

We  have  forgotten  what  it's  like  to  see 
our  own  world— as  different  as  it  is  for 
each  of  us— as  a  child  sees  it:  with  a 
hundred  zillion  things  that  are  bigger 
than  we  are  and  every  one  of  them 
uniquely  amazing. 

The  quality  of  our  lives  can  be  mea- 


sured even  day  by  how  we  approach  our 
lives:  from  a  self-assured  position  of  illu- 
sory omniscience  or  with  a  child-like 
posture  of  curiosity.  After  all.  whatever 
we  know  at  am  given  moment  pales  next 
to  the  secrets  that  life  still  holds. 


Ann  Weinstock  Joseloff 

Western  Maryland  '65 

Silver  Spring,  Md. 


ecause  of  the  intense  work  I 
do  as  a  professional  member  of  a  hospice 
home  care  team.  I  find  m\  view  of  the 
quality  of  life  very  different  from  when  I 
was  a  college  student.  Then  my  reasons 
for  living  were  being  an  "A"  student, 
achieving,  planning  a  future,  succeed- 
ing, working  for  tomorrow. 

Today,  quality  of  life  for  me  equals 
time.  Whatever  we  possess  can  be  taken 
from  us— including  our  beloved  family 
and  friends.  The  one  thing  we  can  pos- 
sess until  death  is  the  time  allotted  to  us. 

I  value  the  time  I  spend  watching  my 
children  smile  and  my  husband  sing.  The 
precious  time  reading  in  the  late  night 
hours,  after  busy  days  of  constant 
errands  and  demands.  Time  spent  being 
with  a  treasured  friend,  hearing  the  tone 
of  voice  and  watching  the  dancing  hands 
as  we  share  minutia  of  our  lives.  Time  to 
smell  the  air.  feel  the  sun.  and  watch  the 
trees  bend  gently  in  a  breeze.  And  laugh- 
ter. When  I  laugh  from  inside  out.  I  am 
refreshed,  revitalized,  and  strong. 

I  value  the  time  I  spend  with  the  hos- 
pice team.  The  terminally  ill  patients 
have  taught  me  so  much  about  time. 
They  review  their  lives,  sorting  through, 
finding  the  valued,  and  completing  the 
business  of  living.  They  have  taught  me 
never  to  forget  to  say.  "I  love  you." 
"thank  you."  or  "you  are  special."  I  do 
not  waste  time  putting  off  telling  people 
how  important  they  are  to  me. 

I  do  not  leave  parts  of  my  life 
undone— I  use  my  time  to  complete  the 
areas  of  living  I  have  begun.  Life  is  frag- 
ile—I take  no  chances  that  I  may  not 
return  to  finish  a  task. 

I  think  about  tomorrow  only  in  how 
my  time  can  best  be  spent.  Those  who 
are  dying  do  not  worry  about  another 
day.  and  I  have  learned  that  we  are  all 
dying. 

Time  must  be  spent  really  living— tast- 
ing, feeling,  smelling,  seeing,  hearing. 
The  day  does  not  have  to  hold  a  unique 
event  to  be  special.  It  is  special  because  I 
have  the  privilege  of  being  here. 


XYI       ALUMNI  MAGAZINE  CONSORTIUM 


More  than  a  little 

something  for 

everyone! 


Alfred  Barry,  Jr.  '77  (far  left),  with  son 
Matthew;  melting  into  the  crowd  (cen- 
ter), President  Jon  C.  and  Jean  Strauss 
could  almost  be  seasoned  WPI  sports 
fans;  Alumni  Association  Paul  Bayliss 
'60  (below)  and  wife  Joyce  greet  a 
friend  at  the  Alumni  Fund  reception. 


President  Jon  C.  Strauss  (R.)  with 
Richard  B.  Kennedy  '65  (L.),  Citations 
Committee  chairman,  and  Washburn 
Award  winners  Judy  Nitsch  '75  and 
PaulS.  Varadian  '75.  The  award  is 
given  for  outstanding  professional 
achievement  by  young  alumni. 

Nitsch  is  vice  president  of  Allen  & 
Demurjian,  a  Boston  consulting  civil 
and  structural  engineering  firm.  A  reg- 
istered Professional  Engineer  in  12 
states,  Judy  is  president  of  the  Society 
of  Women  Engineers,  Boston  Section, 
the  1984  recipient  of  the  ASCE 
Edmund  Friedman  Young  Engineer 
Award,  as  well  as  vice  chairman  of 
WPI's  Alumni  Publications  Committee. 

Varadian  is  president  of  Trans- 
Continental  Development  Corp.,  a  Bos- 
ton real  estate  firm  specializing  in  revi- 
talization  of  historic  properties  and 
inner-city  renovation  projects.  He  is 
also  founding  director  of  both  Summit 
Group,  a  Boston  financial  planning 
company,  and  RETEC  Associates,  a 
real  estate  consulting  firm.  Paul  is  past 
vice  president  of  the  Boston  Alumni 
club. 


HOMECOMING  1985 


Photos  by  Michael  Carroll 


FEBRUARY  1986       41 


Homecoming  '85  had  its  share  of 
receptions.  Above,  C.  John  Lindegren, 
Jr.  '39  (far  right)  offers  congratulations 
and  thanks  at  a  reception  for  Alumni 
Fund  volunteers,  who  helped  push 
the  Fund  to  an  all-time  record  of 
$1,063,017.  Below  right:  John 
Greenstreet  '75. 


At  Alumni  Field  (above),  Sterling  Junc- 
tion 's  (MA)  Dan  Coakley  '85  tore  up 
the  Tufts  line  all  day— with  a  little  help 
from  his  friends.  Below,  help  from 
some  other  friends:  Class  of  1975  fami- 
lies and  President  Jon  C.  Strauss 
(standing,  left)  gather  for  the  camera 
during  the  presentation  of  the  class  gift 
to  the  college. 


Above:  Sext year,  victory  at  Institute 
Park  might  just  turn  to  defeat  for  these 
eager  freshmen. 


WPI  JOURNAL 


A  relaxed  Bar-B-Que  on  the  Quad.  The 
weather  couldn  't  have  been  better  for 
this  Homecoming  event. 


Inductees  to  the  WPI  Athletic  Hall  of 
Fame  before  a  capacity  Homecoming 
Day  crowd  on  Alumni  Field.  (L.  to  R.) 
John  J.  Korzick  '68,  Charles  F.  Schmit 
'46,  Richard  D.  Ferrari  '51,  Mrs. 
Percy  Carpenter,  widow  of  WPI's first 
athletic  director,  Fred  I.  Dipippo  '60, 
and  Victor  A.  Kolesh  '41,  who  accepted 
the  award  posthumously  for  classmate 
Elmer  T.  Scott. 

The  inductees '  scholastic  credentials 
are  remarkable,  their  naming  to  the 
Hall  most  deserved: 

KORZICK.  Winner  of  seven  varsity 
letters  in  three  sports: 

•  Football,  one  of  our  greatest  quarter- 
backs ever,  earning  three  letters. 

•  Three-year  letterman  in  lacrosse. 

•  Letter  in  wrestling. 

•  Lives  in  San  Ramon,  CA. 

SCHMIT.  Seven  letters  in  three  sports: 

•  Three  in  football  as  both  an  offensive 
and  defensive  back. 

•  Three  in  basketball,  captain  of  the 
1945  team. 

•  One  in  baseball. 

•  Member  of  Skull,  Phi  Gamma  Delta, 
the  Athletic  Council. 

•  Lives  in  Westfield,  NJ. 

FERRARI.  Eight  letters  in  two  sports: 

•  Running  back  in  football,  earned 
All-New  England  honors  in  1950,  co- 
captain  as  a  junior. 

•  One  of  the  best  outfielders  in  New 
England. 


•  Class  president  as  a  junior  and  a 
senior. 

•  Member  of  Skull,  Pi  Delta  Epsilon, 
the  journalism  honor  society,  sports 
editor  of  Tech  News. 

•  Lives  in  Wilmington,  DE. 

CARPENTER.  WPI's  first  athletic 
director,  from  1916-52. 

•  Established  physical  education  as  a 
required  course  of  study,  a  practice  that 
exists  to  this  day. 

•  Advocated  the  importance  of  team 
athletics  as  a  means  of  developing 
sportsmanship,  fostering  college  spirit, 
and  nurturing  the  competitive  drive. 

•  Died  in  1960. 

DIPIPPO.  Winner  of  four  varsity  let- 
ters in  basketball. 

•  First  WPI  player  to  reach  the  1,000 
point  plateau. 

•  Co-captain  in  the  1959-60  season. 

•  Infielder  on  the  baseball  diamond. 

•  Member  of  Skull,  Athletic  Council, 
Varsity  Club. 

•  Class  president  for  three  years. 

•  Lives  in  Enfield,  CT. 

SCOTT.  Eight  letters  in  football  and 
baseball. 

•  Center  and  linebacker  in  football, 
played  a  vital  role  in  the  undefeated 
1938  season. 

•  Four  letters  in  baseball. 

•  Member  of  Skull,  Athletic  Council. 

•  Senior  class  vice  president. 

•  Died  in  1966. 


FEBRUARY  N86       43 


WPI  CIASS  NOTES 


WPI  Alumni  Association 

President,  Paul  W.  Bayliss  '60 
Senior  Vice  President. 

Richard  B.  Kennedy  '65 
Vice  President.  Alex  C.  Papianou  '57 

Past  President,  Harry  W.  Tenney.  Jr.  '56 
Executive  Committee 

Members-at-Large 
Henry  P.  Allessio,  '61 
Walter  J.  Bank,  '46 
William  J.  Firla,  Jr..  "60 
Patricia  A.  Graham  Flaherty.  '75 

Alumni  Fund  Board 

Allen  H.  Levesque.  '59,  Chairman 
Edwin  B.  Coghlin.  Jr..  '56 
David  B.  Denniston  '58 
Michael  A.  DiPierro,  '68 
William  A.  Kerr  "60 
Bruce  A.  MacPhetres  '60 
Francis  W.  Madigan.  Jr.,  '53 
Stanley  P.  Negus,  Jr.  '54 


1914 


Arthur  Torrey  writes  that  he  is  94.  a  Mason, 
and  a  World  War  I  veteran.  Currently,  he 
resides  at  Elim  Covenant  Home  in  La  Cres- 
centa.  CA. 


1926 


Reunion 


June  5-8, 1986 


1929 

Hal  Pierce  may  be  officially  retired,  but 
unofficially,  he's  more  active  than  ever.  For 
instance,  he  is  vice  president  of  a  family-help 
group  called  Adopt-a-Family  of  Manatee 
County,  FL,  president  of  the  Florida  Fellow- 
ship of  Community  Churches,  budget  man- 
ager of  his  Anna  Maria  church,  and  a  member 
of  the  board  of  directors  for  Manatee  Reli- 
gious Services.  He  is  also  on  the  missions 
commission  of  the  International  Council  of 
Community  Churches  and  a  four-year  mem- 
ber of  the  Anna  Maria  planning  commission. 
Previously  he  was  involved  in  the  mission 
activities  of  Roser  Memorial  Community 
Church. 

During  his  professional  career.  Pierce  was 
responsible  for  creating  planning  systems  at 


New  England  Electric  System  that  will  be  in 
use  through  the  year  2000.  After  retirement  in 
1972.  he  continued  to  do  consulting  work  for 
New  England  Electric  for  five  years. 


1931 


Reunion 


June  5-8,  1986 


1933 

Barbara  and  Allen  Brownlee  left  the  experi- 
ence of  October's  Hurricane  Gloria,  which 
felled  several  large  trees  on  their  property, 
barely  missing  the  house,  only  to  feel  the 
results  of  another  one.  Waldo,  off  the  Mexi- 
can coast  during  a  cruise  from  Acapulco  to 
San  Francisco.  Waves  up  to  30  feet  high 
caused  more  than  a  few  people,  including 
Barbara,  to  miss  dinner  that  night.  The 
weather  was  better  during  their  exciting  stay 
in  Frisco,  where  it  was  "Fleet  Weekend" 
with  the  Blue  Angels  doing  their  stuff  over  the 
Golden  Gate  Bridge. 

Those  who  go  back  to  WPI  for  Old-Timers' 
meetings  often  see  John  Dwyer,  who  as  com- 
mitteeman for  our  50th  reunion  did  such  a 
good  job  with  refreshments  at  our  hospitality 
suite.  Some  may  not  know  that  John  worked 
for  the  Worcester  School  Department  for 
many  years,  and  that  he  was  director  of  Voca- 
tional Tech  High  when  he  retired.  He  and  his 
wife,  Grace,  live  in  Shrewsbury,  where  John 
helps  Grace  with  her  antiques  business,  which 
she  has  ran  for  many  years. 

Since  Robert  Fulton's  wife,  the  former 
Ruth  Coan,  published  a  book  on  her  family 
genealogy,  she  has  been  besieged  with  letters 
and  calls  from  other  descendants  of  ancestors 
bearing  the  Coan  name.  Consequently  she  is 
writing  a  supplement.  She  is  also  researching 
her  husband's  ancestry.  We  hope  your  name- 
sake, the  inventor  of  the  steamboat,  is  among 
them,  Bob! 

Gil  Gustafson,  who  is  confined  to  the 
Brookfield  Health  Care  Facility  in  West  Hart- 
ford, CT,  is  visited  regularly  by  his  fraternity 
brother  and  former  roommate,  Ed  Johnson. 
Al  Brownlee,  a  close  friend  of  both  from 
Sanford  Riley  days,  recently  visited  him  with 
Ed  and  is  happy  to  report  that  Gil  is  physically 
in  good  health  and  thoroughly  enjoyed  talking 
about  the  good  times  they  had  at  WPI. 

After  the  Blue  Jays  were  defeated  in  the 
American  League  Playoffs,  it  seemed  an 
appropriate  time  to  contact  and  console  Ed 
Perry,  who  lives  with  his  wife,  Jean,  near 
Toronto.  Many  Blue  Jays  rooters  were  disap- 


I  pointed,  but  Ed  said  their  fans  would  remain 
loyal  even  though  he  knew  of  no  genuine 
Canadians  on  the  team.  Ed  received  his  post- 
graduate degree  from  the  University  of 
Toronto,  and  recently  was  on  the  committee 
for  his  50th  reunion  there.  In  1962  he  left  as 
manager  of  a  gold  mining  company  in  Tim- 
mins  to  become  managing  director  of  the 
Ontario  Mining  Engineers'  Association.  He 
finally  retired  in  1972. 

We  have  learned  that  Bob  Saltmarsh.  who 
is  the  son  of  our  classmate.  Warren  Salt- 
marsh,  has  been  named  treasurer  of  Apple 
Computer.  Warren  and  his  wife.  Gail.  Ii\e  in 
Avon.  CT.  but  spend  most  of  their  summers  at 
their  place  in  New  Hampshire. 

Bill  Slagle  and  his  wife.  Harriet,  have 
returned  from  a  two-week  tour  of  the  West 
Coast,  including  San  Francisco,  Yosemite. 
the  Hearst  Castle,  Hollywood,  San  Diego, 
Las  Vegas,  the  Grand  Canyon  and  Boulder 
Dam. 

Bill  says  he's  still  enjoying  retirement,  but 
agrees  with  a  number  of  his  classmates  who 
feel  that  they're  busier  now  than  when  they 
were  working  for  a  living! 

Chester  Spielvogel,  superintendent  and 
treasurer  for  the  Southbridge  (MA)  Water 
Supply  Co.,  says  he's  getting  a  lot  of  razzing 
these  days.  He  can't  find  water  on  the  lot 
where  he  plans  to  build  a  new  home,  not  even 
after  burrowing  865  feet  into  the  ground  and 
using  21  sticks  of  dynamite.  He  laughs. 
"Here  I've  been  in  the  water  business  for  50 
years  and  I  can't  get  water  for  myself."  He's 
decided  the  best  solution  may  be  to  hook  up 
with  the  town  water  system! 

Gene  Teir  continues  as  engineer  for  Athol 
and  Gardner,  MA,  a  post  he  has  held  for  32 
years.  He  makes  use  of  his  experience  by  tak- 
ing on  design  jobs  related  to  town  services 
and  regulations  for  housing  projects,  shop- 
ping malls,  etc.  Gene  would  like  to  hear  from 
Art  Glow  and  Jack  Keefe. 

Ralph  Voigt  and  his  wife,  Jan,  report  they 
are  in  good  health,  and  were  happily  involved 
in  the  recent  marriage  of  their  only  daughter. 
Her  wedding  and  honeymoon  were  in  New 
England,  but  a  second  ceremony  was  per- 
formed in  Hawaii,  where  she  resides.  The 
second  ceremony  was  attended  by  her 
parents— their  fifth  visit  to  that  beautiful  state! 
The  Voigts  have  two  married  sons  and  one 
grandchild. 

The  Gordon  "Buck"  Whittums  were  pro- 
filed in  a  recent  issue  of  their  church  bulletin, 
"The  Parish  Visitor,"  in  Orleans.  MA.  It 
notes  that  Buck's  first  job  was  with  the  New 
Hampshire  Highway  Department,  working  on 
the  design  and  construction  of  bridges.  Later, 
at  American  Steel  and  Wire  Company,  among 
other  things,  he  was  involved  with  the  con- 


44       WPI  JOURNAL 


struction  of  the  famous  passenger  tramway  at 
Cannon  Mountain  in  Franconia  Notch.  NH. 
During  World  War  II,  he  was  transferred  to 
the  company  plant  in  Trenton,  NJ.  which 
made  steel  and  steel  products,  including 
arresting  gear  cable  for  aircraft  carriers.  In 
1971  he  retired  as  chief  engineer  from  U.S. 
Steel  Corporation  (formerly  American  Steel 
and  Wire)  in  Worcester.  Both  Buck  and  his 
wife,  Kay,  are  active  in  community  affairs. 
For  the  past  ten  years  Kay  has  been  a  volun- 
teer worker  with  the  Association  for  the  Pres- 
ervation of  Cape  Cod. 

Al  Brownlee,  Class  Secretary' 


1935 


Harold  Vickery  of  Gloucester,  MA,  has  been 
director  and  vice  president  of  Winning  Hoff 
Boats  Inc.  since  1976.  For  36  years  he  was  an 
industrial  engineer  with  Norton  Co.,  Worces- 
ter, from  which  he  is  retired.  He  has  been  a 
local  selectman,  fire  engineer,  planning  board 
member  and  personnel  board  member.  He  has 
also  served  as  an  officer  in  the  Worcester 
Engineering  Society  and  the  Worcester  chap- 
ter of  the  American  Institute  of  Industrial 
Engineers.  Interests  include  boating,  rock 
hunting  and  bird  watching. 

Max  Voigt  underwent  open  heart  surgery 
for  aortic  valve  replacement  and  a  by-pass  in 
1983.  He  was  a  senior  engineer  for  American 
Bosch  Corp.  prior  to  his  retirement.  His 
hobby  is  amateur  radio. 

Douglas  Watkins's  main  hobby  is  painting 
watercolor  landscapes.  He  belongs  to  the 
Northern  Vermont  Artist  Association.  In 
1936  he  joined  U.S.  Steel  in  the  Electrical 
Cable  Works  Engineering  Department.  In 
1972  he  retired  as  chief  cable  engineer.  Dur- 
ing his  career,  he  was  a  registered  profes- 
sional engineer,  a  member  of  the  IEEE,  a  vice 
president  of  the  Insulated  Power  Cable  Engi- 
neers' Association,  a  member  of  the  Ameri- 
can Iron  and  Steel  Institute's  Committee  on 
Steel  Electrical  Raceways,  a  member  of  the 
American  Society  for  Testing  Materials' 
Committee  on  Electrical  Insulating  Materials 
and  a  member  of  The  Engineers'  Club  of  New 
York  City. 

Harvey  White  of  Charlotte,  NC,  is  a 
former  city  councilman,  past  president  of  the 
Charlotte  Sales  Executives'  Club,  church  dea- 
con and  Boy  Scout  commissioner.  He  con- 
tinues to  be  active  in  church  and  community 
work,  as  well  as  consulting  work.  During  his 
career  he  has  been  a  risk  consultant  and  risk 
manager  in  the  fire  insurance  industry. 
Employers  have  included  Kemper  Insurance 
and  Factory  Insurance  Association. 


Surprise  Knowlton  Memorial  Gift 
to  Fund  Scholarships 


Bernard  Knowlton  never  attended 
college,  but  when  he  died  last  Febru- 
ary, his  widow,  Mrs.  Marie 
Knowlton  of  Worcester,  gave  WPI  a 
$10,000  gift  as  a  memorial. 

"My  brother,  Ernest  Bloss 
[deceased],  was  an  electrical  engi- 
neering graduate  with  the  Class  of 
1918,"  says  Mrs.  Knowlton.  "He  was 
our  closest  connection  with  WPI,  and 
he  always  spoke  highly  of  the  college. 
My  husband  also  held  the  school  in 
high  regard.  It  was  his  intention  to 
remember  WPI  in  his  will." 

In  accordance  with  Mrs. 
Knowlton 's  wishes,  the  $10,000  gift 
will  be  used  for  scholarships  (The 
Bernard  N.  Knowlton  and  Marie 
Bloss  Knowlton  Scholarship  Fund). 
"Bernard  liked  young  people,"  she 
reports.  "He  spent  many  years  lectur- 
ing to  school  groups." 

Roger  N.  Perry,  Jr.,  '45,  director  of 
public  relations  at  WPI,  recalls  that 
when  he  was  a  high  school  participant 
in  a  youth  news  radio  program,  he 
interviewed  Bernard  Knowlton,  who 
at  the  time  was  an  inspector  for  the 
State  Registry  of  Motor  Vehicles. 
"He  was  very  knowledgeable  about 
highway  safety,"  says  Roger.  "And 
he  had  a  fine  rapport  with  students." 

When  Mr.  Knowlton  retired  from 
teaching  highway  safety  in  1955,  he 
and  Mrs.  Knowlton  traveled  and 
remained  active  with  a  number  of 
clubs,  including  the  AARP  and  the 
Grange.  They  also  enjoyed  their  big 
old  house  on  Brattle  St.,  where  Mrs. 
Knowlton  had  lived  for  nearly  80 
years. 

"We  planted  evergreens  and  tended 


In  1980  WPI  gave  "Plum"  Wiley  the  Her- 
bert F.  Taylor  Award  for  distinguished  service 
to  the  college.  For  many  years  he  was 
involved  with  Alumni  Fund  drives,  student 
recruiting,  the  Alumni  Council,  and  local 
alumni  chapter  activities  (officer).  He  and  his 
wife,  Jean,  travel  extensively,  then  give  travel 
talks  illustrated  with  their  professional-type 
slides.  They  collect  American  Indian  arti- 
facts, automobile  license  plates,  coins  and 
stamps.  For  nearly  40  years  Plum  was  with 
the  Chesapeake  and  Potomac  Telephone 
Company  in  Baltimore,  MD.  In  1975  he 
retired  as  traffic  engineer  of  Central  Office 
Equipment. 

William  Wyman  retired  as  a  general  report 
writer  with  the  Office  of  the  Secretary  of 
Defense  in  1973.  Earlier  posts  had  been  tech- 
nical report  writer  in  the  same  office,  civilian 
engineer  with  the  Navy  Bureau  of  Ordnance, 
and  claims  adjuster  for  Fidelity  &  Casualty 


Marie  Bloss  Knowlton 


the  vegetable  garden,"  she  says.  "In 
the  summer  we'd  sit  out  front  under 
the  maple  tree." 

Roger  Perry  reports  that  in  later 
years  when  he  was  a  guest  speaker  at 
various  local  clubs,  he'd  occasionally 
run  into  Bernard  Knowlton.  "He  was 
interested  that  I  worked  at  WPI  and 
mentioned  that  he  thought  it  was  a 
fine  college.  I  had  no  idea  that  he 
might  one  day  fund  a  scholarship." 

Last  winter,  carrying  out  her  hus- 
band's long-standing  wishes,  Marie 
Knowlton  established  the  scholarship 
memorial.  "Bernard  would  be 
pleased  to  know  that  his  money  was 
helping  to  further  the  education  of 
young  people,"  she  says. 


Co.  He  received  the  Secretary  of  Defense 
Meritorious  Civilian  Service  Award.  For 
many  years  he  was  active  with  organizations 
in  the  Washington,  DC,  area,  including  the 
WPI  alumni  chapter  (officer).  Other  interests 
were  Scouting,  Red  Cross  and  the  United 
Fund.  "Have  served  as  a  guinea  pig  for  the 
Gerontology  Research  Center,  National  Insti- 
tutes of  Health,  Baltimore,  for  20  years."  He 
recently  "unloaded"  most  of  the  coins  he's 
collected  since  he  was  a  child,  but  still  has 
about  10,000  old  postcards  on  hand. 


1936 


Reunion 


June  5-8,  1986 


The  Jack   Brands   recently   moved   from 
Wilmington  to  Hockessin,  DE. 


FEBRUARY  1986       45 


1939 


Leo  Doinille,  who  retired  three  years  ago 
from  Du  Pont.  says  that  during  the  winter  he 
still  works  for  the  firm  on  a  pan-time  basis. 
"In  the  summer  we  ha\e  our  home  at  the  sea- 
shore." His  wife  is  acti\e  with  senior  citizen 
programs. 

Warren  Hard},  now  retired  as  the  owner 
of  Hardy  Home  Engineering.  Scituate.  MA. 
currentU  resides  in  Tucson.  AZ. 


1940 


Rolfe  Johnson   is   an   engineer-at-large   in 
Jamaica.  VT. 

P.  Warren  Keating  has  been  named  chair- 
man of  the  board  of  directors  of  Safety  Fund 
Bank.  Fitchburg.  MA.  He  is  chairman  of  the 
board  of  P.J.  Keating  Co..  Lunenburg,  and  is 
a  member  of  the  board  of  Fitchburg  State  Col- 
lege, the  Fitchburg  Public  Library.  Fitchburg 
Mutual  Fire  Insurance  Co.  Inc..  Burbank 
Hospital  and  Catholic  Social  Services. 


1941 


Reunion 


1945 


June  5-8.  1986 


1942 

James  Sheeny  of  Rutland.  VT.  is  a  consultant 
in  the  field  of  statistical  process  control. 


1944 

Newt  Burr  continues  as  a  management  con- 
sultant w  ith  Profit  Management  Development 
Inc..  Barrington.  IL 

Douglas  Noiles  has  been  presented  w  ith  the 
Eli  Whiine>  Award  for  1985  by  the  Connecti- 
cut Patent  Law  Association.  The  award  is 
presented  annually  to  a  person  having  an 
association  with  Connecticut  who  has  made  a 
significant  contribution  to  law  or  science. 
Noiles  is  co-founder  of  Joint  Medical  Prod- 
ucts Inc.  of  Stamford.  CT.  where  he  is  vice 
president  for  technology .  The  former  \  ice 
president  of  engineering  at  Lnited  States  Sur- 
gical Corp..  Norwalk.  he  was  instrumental  in 
that  firm's  development  and  marketing  of  sur- 
gical staplers.  He  has  been  issued  45  U.S. 
patents  in  such  dherse  fields  as  medical  prod- 
ucts, automatic  production  equipment  and 
electronics,  more  than  half  of  which  have 
been  developed  commercially. 


Philip  Tarr.  general  manager  of  Thermet 
Inc..  Rockport.  MA.  recently  received  the 
Distinguished  Sen  ice  to  Powder  Metallurgy 
Award  from  the  Metal  Powder  Industries  Fed- 
eration during  the  1985  Annual  Powder  Met- 
allursv  Conference  &.  Exhibition  in  San  Fran- 


cisco. CA.  The  award  is  presented  to 
individuals  who  ha\e  de\oted  more  than  25 
years  of  their  careers  to  powder  metallurgy 
Before  joining  Thermet  in  1981.  Tarr  had 
been  associated  w  ith  the  PresMet  Corporation 
and  Kwikset  Powder  Metallurgy  Products.  He 
was  a  founder  of  Midwest  Sintered  Products. 
He  is  a  former  president  of  the  Chicago  sec- 
tion of  the  American  Powder  Metallurgy 
Institute,  the  Powder  Metallurgy  Parts  Asso- 
ciation and  the  Metal  Powder  Industries 
Federation.  In  addition,  he  is  a  member  of  the 
American  Powder  Metallurgy  Institute  and 
the  American  Society  for  Testing  and 
Materials. 


speaks  nationally  conducting  seminars  on  self 
esteem,  stress  control  and  getting  what  you 
want  out  of  life  by  using  universal  principles. 


1946 


Reunion 


June  5-8,  1986 


1949 

Sidney  Madwed  has  begun  a  new  career  as  a 
public  speaker  and  a  seminar  leader.   He 


R.  J.  Ventres  Named 
President  of  Borden 


Romeo  Ventres  '48  CHE  has  been 
named  president  and  a  director  of 
Borden  Inc. .  a  consumer  products  and 
chemical  company  with  annual  sales 
of  S4.6  billion.  He  was  also  elected 
chief  operating  officer  of  the  firm, 
which  has  had  no  COO  since  1979. 

Ventres  joined  Borden's  chemical 
division  in  1957  as  assistant  chief 
engineer  at  its  PVC  operation  in 
Leominster.  MA.  The  next  year  he 
was  promoted  to  chief  engineer.  In 
1966  he  became  general  manager, 
and  in  1968  he  was  appointed  vice 
president  in  charge  of  the  division's 
PVC  operations.  He  was  made  a  divi- 
sion group  vice  president  with  addi- 
tional responsibility  for  petrochemi- 


1950 


Carl  Ackerman.  polymer  composites  prod- 
uct specialist  at  Rogers  Corporation.  Rogers. 
CT.  has  been  named  the  recipient  of  the 
annual  Arnold  H.  Scott  Award  by  the  Ameri- 
can Society  for  Testing  and  Materials.  He  w  as 
honored  for  outstanding  achievement  in  the 
science  of  electrical  insulation  by  the  ASTM 
Committee  on  Electrical  Insulating  Materials 
at  ceremonies  held  in  Norfolk.  VA.  Prior  to 
joining  the  Rogers  Corporation  in  1980.  he 
worked  for  the  Keene  Corporation  and  Supe- 
rior Poly  mers  Company .  His  career  in  dielec- 
tric materials  has  emphasized  paper,  mica, 
resins  and  laminates  for  power  apparatus, 
including  wire,  cable,  generators  and  trans- 
formers. Ackerman  is  a  member  of  the  IEEE 
and  the  Technical  Association  of  the  Pulp 
Paper  Industry . 

John  Converse  is  a  professional  engineer 
with  the  Florida  Department  of  Health  and 


calsin  1972. 

In  1974  Ventres  left  Borden  to 
become  executive  vice  president  of 
Haven  Industries,  a  specialty  chemi- 
cals company  located  in  Philadelphia. 
When  the  company  was  sold  in  1979, 
he  returned  to  Borden  as  a  group  vice 
president  of  the  chemical  division  in 
charge  of  adhesives.  energy  resources 
and  Canadian  operations.  He  was 
named  president  of  the  division  and 
elected  a  corporate  executive  vice 
president  in  July  1983. 

For  six  years  Ventres  was  based  in 
Borden's  administrative  offices  in 
Columbus.  OH.  He  transferred  to  the 
firm's  executive  offices  in  New  York 
City  last  summer. 

Borden  plants  in  Massachusetts 
include,  in  addition  to  the  Leominster 
plant,  an  ice  cream  branch  in  Worces- 
ter, a  plastic  packaging  film  operation 
in  North  Andover.  a  vinyl  fabric  oper- 
ation in  Haverford  and  Deran  Confec- 
tionery Co.,  a  unit  of  the  Consumer 
Products  Division,  in  Cambridge. 

During  his  sophomore  year  at  WPI. 
Ventre's  education  was  interrupted 
when  he  served  two  years  as  an  avia- 
tion electronic  technician's  mate  in 
the  U.S.  Navy.  After  graduating  in 
1948.  he  worked  as  a  petroleum  engi- 
neer for  Atlantic  Richfield  Co.  in 
Philadelphia  until  1955. 

Before  joining  Borden  he  spent  two 
years  in  Baghdad.  Iraq,  as  one  of  50 
temporary  U.S.  employees  assigned 
to  train  Iraqis  to  operate  their  oil 
refineries. 


46       V»Ti  JOURNAL 


Rehabilitation  in  Jacksonville. 

Donald  Giles  continues  as  a  township  plan- 
ner in  Wayne.  NJ.  where  he  has  been 
employed  since  1961.  Earlier  he  had  been  a 
private  consultant  with  a  leading  New  York 
firm  for  ten  years  while  the  field  of  planning 
was  still  new. 


1951 


Reunion 


June  5-8, 1986 


Bill  Baker  serves  as  an  intermediary    with 
Geneva  Business  Services  in  Santa  Ana.  CA. 


1952 


tion.  he  is  responsible  for  the  upgrade  to  the 
Ballistic  Missile  Earlv  Warnine  S\stem 
(BMEWS).  the  PAVE  PAWS  system  for 
detection  of  submarine-launched  ballistic 
missiles,  and  other  space  surveillance 
projects. 

He  went  to  MITRE  in  1974  as  a  member  of 
the  technical  staff.  Later  he  was  promoted  to 
group  leader,  division  staff  member  and  an 
associate  department  head.  Before  joining 
MITRE,  he  was  with  Raytheon  for  15  years. 
One  of  his  Raytheon  projects  was  providing 
the  basic  system  architecture  for  Cobra  Dane, 
a  phased-array  radar  for  intelligence-data 
gathering  located  in  the  Aleutian  Islands.  He 
holds  an  MSEE  from  Northeastern. 


1954 


Leo  Lutz  continues  as  a  group  leader  at 
Nashua  Corp..  Nashua.  NH. 

Warren  Palmer,  Jr.,  was  recent!)  trans- 
ferred as  a  senior  staff  engineer  from  San 
Diego.  CA.  to  Raleigh.  NC.  by  Millidyne 
Inc..  a  data  communications  company.  The 
firms  principal  product  is  an  alphanumeric 
display  pager. 

George  Randig  has  been  named  head  of 
the  Strategic  Surveillance  Systems  Depart- 
ment at  the  MITRE  Corp..  Bedford.  MA.  He 
provides  technical  support  to  the  U.S.  Air 
Force  on  the  North  Warning  System,  a 
replacement  for  the  Distant  Early  Warning 
Line  to  detect  aircaft  and  cruise  missiles 
threatening  the  U.S.  from  the  north.  In  addi- 


Walter  Reibling  has  been  named  general 
manager  of  the  Louisville  (KY)  manufactur- 
ing facility  of  Corhart  Refractories  Corpora- 
tion, a  division  of  Corning  Glass  Works.  For- 
merly he  was  Louisville  plant  manager.  He 
has  been  affiliated  with  Corning  since  1964  in 
various  posts,  including  chief  engineer  of 
equipment  (process  and  industrial),  produc- 
tion superintendent,  and  plant  manager  of  the 
general  machine  shop. 


1956 


Reunion 


June  5-8,  1986 


Homecoming  '85  iclockwise  from  top 
left):  A  post-game  get-together  at  Hig- 
gins  House;  Bette  and  Ted  Cole  '35; 
Julius  A.  Palley  and  August  C.  Keller- 
mann,  '46  classmates;  William  F. 
Trask,  Director  of  Graduate  and  Career 
Planning,  with  Joseph  Slocik  '67  and 
son  Michael;  Joseph  Coghill  '30  and 
wife  Edith  on  a  sunny  football  after- 
noon; Albert  B.  Glenn,  '33,  a  familiar 
face  on  campus,  fills  in  an  alumni  fam- 
ily on  recent  changes  on  the  Hill. 


FEBRUARY  19S6 


1957 


John  Daly  has  been  appointed  head  of 
Columbia  Gas  S\  stem's  pipeline  subsidiary  in 
Charleston.  WV  He  joined  the  firm  in  1957 
as  a  junior  engineer  at  the  Marble  Cliff  sub- 
sidiary. In  I960  he  was  promoted  to  engineer 
and  the  following  year  became  assistant 
supervisory  engineer  at  system  headquarters, 
then  located  in  New  York.  He  received  his  JD 
from  Seton  Hall  Uni\ersit>  in  1967.  In  1971 
he  was  named  a  senior  attorney  for  Columbia 
Gas  Transmission  at  new  headquarters  in 
Wilmington.  DE.  He  was  transferred  to 
Charleston  in  1973  and  in  1976  became  gen- 
eral counsel  and  secretary.  In  1979  he  was 
elected  president  and  chief  administrative 
officer  of  Columbia  Gas  Distribution  Compa- 
nies in  Columbus.  WV. 

James  Duff  continues  as  a  manager  with 
Lever  Bros. .  New  York  Cit\ . 


1958 


William  Zavatkay  has  been  promoted  to 
senior  project  engineer  for  the  PW1120 
engine  program  by  Pratt  &  Whitne\  Aircraft 
Co.,  Palm  Beach  Gardens.  FL.  He  joined 
Pratt  &  Whitney  in  1959.  and  holds  an 
advanced  degree  from  RPI. 


1959 


Council,   the  Chamber  of  Commerce  and 
Rotary . 

William   Hees   recently   started  his  own 
manufacturers'  representative  company. 


Robert  Berg  holds  the  post  of  president  and 
chief  executive  officer  of  Wesley  Corporation 
in  Scottdale.  GA.  He  is  also  active  with  the 
Private   Industry    Council.    Atlanta    Export 


1961 


Reunion 


June  5-8,  1986 


Paul  Nordborg  has  been  promoted  to  sys- 
tems development  officer  at  Conifer  Com- 
puter Services  Inc..  a  subsidiary  of  The  Coni- 
fer Group  of  Worcester.  He  has  two  master's 
degrees  from  Northeastern. 

Wayne  Taylor  recently  left  Ford  Aero- 
space to  become  product  development  man- 
ager w  ith  Olin  Corporation's  ball  powder  pro- 
pellant  facility  in  Florida.  Even  though  he  has 
worked  in  the  ordnance,  ammunition  and  bal- 
listics field  with  both  industry  and  the  govern- 
ment, this  is  his  first  direct  exposure  to  actual 
propellant  manufacturing.  "The  cultural 
shock  when  first  leaving  fast-paced  California 
and  moving  to  the  northern  Florida  very  slow 
lifestyle  took  some  getting  used  to.  howe\er. 
my  wife  and  I.  along  with  our  three  Lhasa 
Apsos.  are  quickly  becoming  acclimated." 
Their  children  are  living  on  the  West  Coast. 


1962 


John  Lukens  is  an  associate  professor  at  the 
Asian  Institute  of  Technology  in  Bangkok. 
Thailand.  He  holds  a  PhD  from  Cornell  Uni- 
\ersity. 

Frank  Maher.  a  senior  planning  engineer 
of  generation  for  the  United  Illuminating  Co.. 
spoke  about  generation  and  distribution  of 


electricity  at  a  recent  meeting  held  at  the 
Museum  of  Art.  Science  and  Industry  in 
Bridgeport.  CT.  He  belongs  to  the  IEEE  and 
senes  on  the  Load  Management  Committee 
of  the  Electrical  Council  of  New  England  and 
the  New  England  Power  Pool  Generation 
Task  Force. 

Richard  Sharkansky  has  been  promoted 
to  patent  counsel  for  Raytheon  Company.  He 
will  be  responsible  for  protecting  the  diversi- 
fied electronics  company's  intellectual  prop- 
em  through  patent  and  trademark  registration 
and  enforcement.  He  will  also  direct  licensing 
of  products  and  processes  to  other  manufac- 
turers. He  holds  a  BSEE  from  Southeastern 
Massachusetts  University,  an  MSEE  from 
WPI  and  a  law  degree  from  Suffolk  Univer- 
sity Following  graduation  from  WPI.  he 
joined  Raytheon  as  an  engineer  in  the  Missile 
S> stems  Division.  In  1969  he  was  named 
division  patent  engineer.  He  became  a  mem- 
ber of  the  corporate  patent  staff  in  1970.  Since 
1979  he  has  served  as  managing  patent  attor- 
ne> .  A  member  of  the  IEEE  and  the  Boston 
Patent  Law  Association,  he  is  admitted  to  the 
Massachusetts  Bar  and  is  registered  to  prac- 
tice before  the  U.S.  Patent  and  Trademark 
Office. 

David  Smith  serves  as  project  manager  for 
Montgomery  Engineers  in  Pasadena.  CA. 


1963 


Ken  Backer  holds  the  post  of  vice  president 
of  marketing  and  sales  at  Dorman  Bogdonoff , 
Andover.  MA. 

Robert  Behn  has  joined  The  Center  for 
Excellence  in  Government  in  Washington. 
DC.  where  he  is  a  scholar  in  residence.  He 
continues  as  the  director  of  the  Governors' 
Center  at  Duke  University. 


Homecoming  '85:  President  Jon  C.  Strauss  and  wife  Jean 
with  Gertrude  Carpenter,  whose  late  husband,  Percy,  was 
that  day  honored  with  induction  to  the  WPI  Hall  of  Fame. 
Top  left:  John  Korzick  '68,  Cary  Palulis  '68  and  William 
Shields  '65;  bottom  left:  Sam  Mencow  '37,  William  J.  Firla, 
Jr.  '60  and  Francis  S.  Haney  '37. 


1965 


MARRIED:  Roy  Cornelius,  Jr.,  and  Sharon 
Craig  in  New  York  on  May  4.  1985.  Sharon, 
the  food  service  director  for  Dennis- 
Yarmouth  (MA)  schools,  holds  a  BS  from 
Cornell  and  an  MS  from  Simmons  College. 
Roy  has  an  MBA  from  BU  and  is  employed 
by  the  Newton  Public  School  System. 

Nicholas  Gallinaro  has  been  elected  vice 
president  of  operations  at  Badger  Engineers 
Inc.,  a  subsidiary  of  Raytheon  Company  in 
Andover,  MA.  He  will  be  responsible  for 
overall  engineering,  procurement,  project 
administration  and  client  liaison  on  Badger 
projects  in  petroleum,  petrochemical  and 
related  fields.  Since  starting  with  Badger  in 
1969,  he  has  held  several  engineering  man- 
agement posts,  including  three  years  as 
project  engineer  at  Badger  B.V.  in  The 
Hague.  Before  joining  Badger,  he  was  with 
Esso  Research  &  Engineering  Company.  He 
has  a  BSME  from  Tufts  and  an  MSME  from 
WPI. 

Richard  Rice  is  a  research  scientist  at 
Holcomb  Research  Institute.  Butler  Univer- 
sity, Indianapolis.  IN.  He  has  a  PhD  from 
Michigan  State  University. 

Philip  Ryan  of  Bow.  NH.  a  partner  in  the 
management-consulting  firm  of  Bigelow 
Company  Inc..  of  Manchester.  Boston  and 
Philadelphia,  was  recently  elected  to  the 
board  of  trustees  of  The  Derry field  School. 
He  has  served  as  chairman  of  the  board  of 
trustees  of  Elliot  Hospital  and  is  a  past  vice 
president  and  board  member  of  the  Greater 
Manchester  United  Way. 


1966 


Reunion 


June  5-8, 1986 


Ahmet  Atakan  is  a  physics  professor  at 
Knoxville  (TN)  College.  He  has  a  PhD  from 
the  University  of  Tennessee. 

Tod  Wicker  serves  as  manager  of  financial 
projects  at  Public  Service  Co.  of  New  Hamp- 
shire in  Manchester. 


1967 


Ron  Gordon,  now  home  after  a  three-year 
overseas  assignment,  is  currently  manager  of 
office  systems  planning  for  IBM  in  Irving. 
TX. 

Wayne  Miller  serves  as  manager  of  prod- 
ucts research  at  Unocal  Corp.,  Brea.  CA.  He 
has  a  PhD  from  Caltech. 

James  O'Rourke  continues  as  a  consultant 
in  electronic  engineering  at  WPI. 

Bob  Shen  is  network  design  manager  for 
Burroughs  Corp..  San  Diego,  CA. 


1968 


William  McCarthy  has  been  elected  assis- 
tant vice  president,  portfolio  management,  at 
State  Mutual  in  Worcester.  He  received  his 
master's  in  actuarial  science  from  Northeast- 
ern and  holds  the  fellow.  Society  of  Actuaries 


Visage  Vice  President  Is  Active  Volunteer 


"When  you  want  something  done  and 
done  right,"  the  old  saying  goes, 
"give  it  to  the  busiest  person  you 
know."  Marvin  Berger  '65  EE,  the 
busy,  recently  elected  vice  president 
for  sales  at  Visage  Inc.,  Natick,  MA, 
still  finds  time  to  participate  in  a  num- 
ber of  volunteer  activities. 

For  example,  he  has  served  as 
director  of  the  Manchester,  NH, 
Chamber  of  Commerce,  and  as  state 
chairman  of  the  New  Hampshire 
Muscular  Dystrophy  Association. 
"Currently.  I'm  consultant  for  the 
Active  Corps  of  Executives  Organiza- 
tion for  the  Small  Business  Adminis- 
tration," he  says.  At  one  time,  he 
wrote  a  monthly  column  on  business 
management  for  the  New  Hampshire 
Business  Review. 

In  his  newly  created  post  at  Visage, 
a  developer  and  marketer  of  interac- 
tive video  disc  systems.  Berger  is 
responsible  for  the  company 's  sales  in 
its  major  markets,  including  industrial 
training,   point-of-purchase  advertis- 


(FSA)  professional  designation.  In  1971  he 
joined  State  Mutual  as  actuarial  associate.  In 

1973  he  was  promoted  to  senior  actuarial 
associate.  He  was  named  assistant  actuary  in 

1974  and  associate  actuary  in  1978. 
Stephen   Pvtka.   vice  president  of  CA. 

Pesko  Associates  Inc..  has  been  listed  in 
Who 's  Who  in  Finance  and  Industry.  He  has  a 
broad  background  in  the  information  process- 
ing and  automation   industry   and  has  had 


ing.  video  archiving  and  government. 

Prior  to  joining  the  firm,  Berger 
served  as  branch  sales  manager  for 
Data  General's  Northeast  region.  He 
had  charge  of  sales  for  the  complete 
minicomputer  and  microcomputer 
software  and  hardware  lines  used  in 
industrial  automation  and  office  auto- 
mation. During  his  tenure,  he  raised 
the  branch  from  49th  to  10th  in  sales. 

Until  1983.  Berger  was  president  of 
Adelphi  Management  Group,  which 
he  founded  in  1981,  a  management 
consulting  firm  specializing  in  indus- 
trial marketing  and  sales.  He  was 
with  Chancellor  Corporation  from 
1979  to  1981,  where  he  was  vice 
president  of  sales  and  managed  the 
Chancellor  Equipment  Company. 

Berger,  who  holds  an  MBA  from 
Amos  Tuck  School  at  Dartmouth  Col- 
lege, received  the  Edward  Tuck 
Scholar  Award  for  scholastic  achieve- 
ment in  1970.  He  and  his  wife.  Dina. 
reside  in  Bedford,  NH.  with  their 
sons  Jonathan  and  Daniel. 


experience  in  corporate  strategic  planning,  all 
aspects  of  product  development  and  product 
marketing.  Pesko  Associates  is  a  market 
research  and  consulting  firm  located  in 
Marshfield.  MA.  It  specializes  in  the  infor- 
mation processing  and  graphic  arts  markets 
and  services  the  major  participants  in  the 
information  processing  industry  worldwide. 
Pytka  is  also  director  of  the  company's  Intelli- 
gent  Copier/Printer   Market   Requirements 


FEBRUARY  1986       4^ 


Service,  which  analyzes  all  aspects  of  the  on- 
impact  printer  marketplace.  He  was  previ- 
ously with  Xerox  Corporation  and  Wang  Lab- 
oratories. He  has  an  MBA  from  Amos  Tuck 
School  of  Business  at  Dartmouth  College. 

Terry  Sullivan  continues  with  Boston  Bay 
Capital  Inc.,  Boston. 

John  Trudeau  is  now  with  Industrial  Net- 
working Inc.,  Santa  Clara,  CA. 

Mario  Zampieri  holds  the  post  of  project 
engineer  at  Stone  &  Webster  in  Denver,  CO. 


1969 


David  Lieberman  is  regional  sales  manager 
for  Syntactics  Corp.,  Santa  Clara,  CA. 

Bob  Seldon  is  a  partner  in  the  Los  Angeles 
law  firm  of  Romney  Golant  Martin  Seldon  & 
Ashen,  which  specializes  in  patents,  trade- 
marks, copyrights  and  unfair-competition 
matters. 

David  ZIotek  is  the  owner-president  of  Cir- 
rus Technology  Inc.,  Nashua,  NH. 


1970 


Richard  Abrams  is  manager  of  engineering 
and  development  for  Koch  Process  Systems 
Inc.,  Westboro,  MA.  He  manages  a  group  of 
chemical,  mechanical  and  electrical  engineers 
and  drafting  personnel  in  the  sales,  design  and 
manufacture  of  radioactive-waste  treatment 
systems  and  solid-fuel  combustion  systems. 
Previously  he  had  been  with  Artisan  Indus- 
tries and  W.R.  Grace. 

Paul  Akscyn  has  been  appointed  district 
sales  manager  of  the  Houston  office  for 
process  systems  sales  covering  the  Gulf  Coast 
and  Central  Southwest  Region  for  Forney 
Engineering  Company,  Addison,  TX.  With 
the  firm  since  May,  his  district  includes 
Texas,  Colorado  and  New  Mexico.  He  is  a 
member  of  the  Houston  chapter  of  the  Instru- 
mentation Society  of  America  (ISA).  In  1975 
he  presented  a  technical  paper  for  the  ISA  at 
San  Jacinto  College.  In  1982  he  delivered  a 
technical  paper  in  Midland/Odessa  at  a 
regional  meeting  of  the  Gas  Processors'  Asso- 
ciation. Prior  to  joining  Forney  Engineering, 
Akscyn  was  an  advanced  control  systems  spe- 
cialist with  Crawford  &  Russell/John  Brown 
of  Houston  and  the  Netherlands.  Forney 
products  include  the  AFS-IOOO(TM)  analog 
and  digital  microprocessor-based  logic  con- 
trol system  and  the  Mini  AFS-1000  control 
system,  to  name  a  few.  It  also  supplies  burn- 
ers, flame  detectors  and  other  boiler-related 
hardware. 

Richard  Bergeron  continues  as  vice  presi- 
dent of  sales  and  marketing  at  Industrial  Sys- 
tems Design  Inc.,  Exton,  PA.  He  is  responsi- 
ble for  all  sales  and  marketing,  including  the 
opening  of  new  sales  offices  every  year. 
Before  joining  his  present  firm  in  1974,  he 
had  served  with  the  U.S.  Navy  and  had  been 
employed  at  a  nuclear  power  plant.  He 
belongs  to  ISA  and  IEEE,  and  he  enjoys  golf, 
baseball  and  swimming. 

Stephen  Bernacki  continues  as  principal 
engineer  at  Raytheon  in  Sudbury,  MA,  where 
he  is  concerned  with  semiconductor  fabrica- 
tion. He  holds  a  PhD  from  Harvard  and  has 
done  research  at  MIT  Lincoln  Labs  and 


50       WPI  JOURNAL 


Homecoming  '85  was  enjoyed  by  one 
and  all.  Faces  in  the  crowd  at  the  game 
against  Tufts;  father  and  son  face  the 
camera  (above  left);  at  the  Alumni 
Fund  reception,  Bob  Hart  (L)  and  Jon 
Anderson,  '75  classmates,  catch  up  on 
the  news;  mother  and  child  enjoy  the 
fine  weather  (left);  Bob  Morin  '75,  lat- 
est in  a  long  line  ofMorins  to  attend 
WPI,  with  son  Kyle. 


Sperry  Research  Center.  A  Youth  Soccer 
coach,  he  also  jogs  about  20  miles  a  week. 

Bradford  Bjorklund  is  manager  of  engi- 
neering at  UOP  Inc.,  Riverside,  IL.  In  addi- 
tion, he  is  administrative  assistant  for  UOP's 
experimental  development  department.  He 
joined  the  company  in  1970,  and  previously 
served  as  development  engineer,  technical 
service  engineer,  senior  design  engineer,  mar- 
keting liaison  engineer  in  Europe,  and  engi- 
neering process  manager. 

Peter  Blackford  holds  the  position  of  chief 
engineer  for  Astro  Wire  &  Cable  Company  in 
Worcester.  He  is  involved  with  product 
design  and  development,  technical  resources 
and  systems  management.  A  member  of  the 
Wire  Association,  he  is  also  active  with  the 
International  Municipal  Signal  Association, 
the  Worcester  Engineering  Society  and  the 
IEEE. 

Henry  Block  serves  as  broker,  office  man- 
ager and  property  manager  at  Jack  Thomas 
Inc.,  Realtors,  in  Miami,  FL.  Part  of  his 
responsibility  is  the  management  of  investor- 
owned  commercial  real  estate  in  Dade  and 
Monroe  Counties.  Previously  he  was  with  the 
Susquehanna  Steam  Electric  Station  project 
team,  and  a  student  in  the  master's  program 
(nuclear  engineering)  at  Penn  State.  He  is  a 
member  of  the  Miami  Board  of  Realtors  and 
enjoys  sailing  and  fishing. 

John  Boyd  is  a  financial  planner  with  Boyd 
Financial  Strategies,  Worcester.  He  provides 
individual  analysis  and  planning  services  in 
financial  matters  and  brokers  various  financial 
products  to  assist  in  implementing  financial 
goals.  Previously  he  was  a  product  manager 
for  Hewlett-Packard,  Waltham,  MA,  and  a 
biomedical  engineer  at  St.  Vincent  Hospital, 
Worcester. 

Daniel  Breen  holds  the  post  of  sales  engi- 
neer at  Thorson  Company  Northwest  in 
Beaverton,  OR.  He  sells  electronic  and 
electro-mechanical  products  to  original  equip- 
ment manufacturers  in  Oregon  and  southwest- 
ern Washington.  He  writes  that  he  likes  to 
hike  and  "follow  the  Red  Sox  and  the  Celt- 
ics." 

Alan  Breitman  is  the  principal  at  William 
M.  Mercer-Meidinger  Inc.,  Boston,  which  he 
serves  as  employee  benefits  and  compensa- 
tion consultant.  His  previous  employers 
include  Boston  Mutual,  State  Mutual  and 
John  Hancock.  He  is  a  member  of  the  Town 
of  Sharon  (MA)  Personnel  Board. 

Oliver  Briggs,  Jr.,  is  manager  of  special 
facilities  and  technical  services  at  Riley- 
Stoker  (Research)  in  Worcester.  He  is  respon- 
sible for  construction  of  R&D  projects,  test- 
ing, physical  facilities  and  Riley 
Laboratories.  During  his  spare  time  he  enjoys 
fishing,  golf  and  old  car  restoration.  He 
belongs  to  the  ASME  and  the  Campfire  orga- 
nization. 

Dave  Brown  is  now  manager  of  the  value 
improvement  program  at  AVCO  Systems 
Division-Textron  in  Wilmington,  MA. 
Besides  his  BSME,  he  holds  a  master's  from 
WPI  and  an  AS  from  Wentworth  Institute.  He 
has  been  in  charge  of  managing  manufactur- 
ing engineering  departments,  but  is  currently 
managing  division-wide  cost  reduction  and 
productivity  programs  (4000  employees — 
$260  million  sales).  He  is  vice  president  of 
the  Worcester  Fresh  Air  Fund,  which  operates 
Camp  Putnam  for  underprivileged  children. 


Larry  Cohen  holds  the  post  of  technical 
vice  president  at  Cavedon  Chemical  Co.  Inc., 
Woonsocket,  RI.  He  is  involved  with  the 
planning  and  execution  of  internal  R&D 
efforts.  Previously  he  was  with  Kendall  Co. 
and  Union  Carbide.  From  1973  to  1976  he 
was  a  faculty  member  in  general  chemistry 
instruction  at  BU.  He  belongs  to  several  pro- 
fessional societies  and  likes  reading  history, 
bicycling  and  travel. 

Donald  Colangelo  is  an  account  executive 
(investment  broker)  with  Janney  Montgomery 
Scott  in  Brooklyn,  NY.  Previously  he  was  a 
stockbroker,  manager/business  consultant, 
and  transportation  planner.  He  and  his  wife, 
Sarah,  have  three  children  and  reside  in 
Brooklyn. 

Robert  Cournoyer  continues  as  associate 
professor  of  mathematics  at  Wentworth  Insti- 
tute of  Technology  in  Boston.  He  is  active 
with  the  local  softball  league. 

Kenneth  Cram  holds  the  post  of  support 
program  manager  at  GE  in  Lynn,  MA,  pro- 
viding prime  interface  between  GE  and  cus- 
tomers in  support  of  the  TF34  jet  engine.  He 
identifies  problems  encountered  in  the  field 
and  helps  assure  resolution  within  GE.  For 
seven  years  he  was  a  test  engineer  for  Pratt  & 
Whitney  Aircraft. 

Douglas  Dayton  works  as  a  sales  engineer 
for  GE  at  Thompson's  Point  in  Portland,  ME. 

Dwight  Dickerman  serves  as  product  man- 
ager for  Cryogenic  Associates/Sybron  Corp. 
He  is  located  in  Brownsburg,  IN. 

Ralph  Di  Iorio  is  director  of  operations  for 
Contel  Service  Corporation-Data,  in  Atlanta, 
GA.  In  his  headquarters  staff  position,  he  pro- 
vides computer  operations  support  to  regional 
and  local  data  centers.  Before  joining  Contel, 
he  had  been  with  AMS,  Digital,  New 
England  Telephone  Co.  and  AT&T. 

John  Ducimo  is  a  full-time  dental  student 
at  Boston  University.  He  plans  to  open  up 
general  dental  practice  with  a  special  interest 
in  children.  The  president  of  his  local  PTA, 
he  is  also  eucharistic  minister  of  St.  Margaret 
Mary  Parish  in  Worcester. 

Jack  Gale  continues  as  a  golf  professional 
at  Tatnuck  Country  Club  in  Worcester,  where 
he  also  owns  and  operates  a  pro  shop.  Previ- 
ously he  was  head  golf  pro  at  Rochester  (NH) 
Country  Club.  Others  posts  have  been  with 
Holden  Hills  and  Green  Hill  (Worcester).  He 
is  a  member  of  the  executive  committee  of  the 
New  England  PGA  and  former  president  of 
the  New  Hampshire  PGA. 

Francis  Gardner  is  a  project  engineer  for 
Duquesne  Light  Company,  Pittsburgh,  PA. 
Involved  with  nuclear  engineering  design  and 
procurement,  since  1973  he's  worked  in 
nuclear-related  fields.  He  is  active  as  a  hospi- 
tal volunteer  (youth  care)  and  is  concerned 
with  political  action. 

Mark  Gemborys  serves  as  a  research 
chemist  with  McNeil  Consumer  Products  in 
Ft.  Washington,  PA.  He  is  involved  with 
R&D  and  analytical  organic  chemistry.  Activ- 
ities include  the  North  Penn  Beagle  Club  and 
the  BSA  (cubmaster),  as  well  as  woodwork- 
ing, gardening  and  hunting. 

Richard  Goff  is  a  staff  computer  systems 
engineer  for  IBM  in  Cambridge,  VT.  He  and 
his  wife,  Marilyn,  have  two  daughters,  Mary, 
4,  and  Emily,  1. 

Dr.  Frederick  Golec,  Jr.,  continues  as  sec- 
tion head/process  chemistry  R&D  at  Revlon 


Inc./Revlon  Health  Care  in  Tuckahoe,  NY. 
He  heads  scientific  management  in  the  area  of 
pharmaceutical  chemical  research  and  devel- 
opment. Previously  he  was  a  group  leader  and 
senior  chemist. 

Bob  Goodness  holds  the  post  of  project 
engineer  in  endoscopic  product  development 
at  Codman  &  Shurtleff/Johnson  &  Johnson  in 
Southbridge,  MA.  He  is  helping  to  develop  a 
line  of  endoscopes  to  enable  Johnson  &  John- 
son to  enter  the  least  invasive  surgery  market. 
Previously  he  had  been  a  manufacturing  engi- 
neer in  the  fiber  optics  industry,  a  tool  manu- 
facturing engineer,  and  a  self-employed  man- 
ufacturer and  marketer  of  hang  gliders.  He  is 
vice  president  of  the  Lake  Quinsigamond 
Watershed  Association,  has  made  short  films 
which  have  won  international  honors  and 
been  aired  on  national  TV,  and  has  raced  cata- 
marans. Currently  he's  building  a  passive 
solar  house  designed  with  the  aid  of  IQPs 
from  nine  WPI  students. 

Robert  Grillo  serves  as  assistant  city  engi- 
neer for  the  City  of  Nashua,  NH.  He  is  in 
charge  of  site  approval  for  a  rapidly  growing 
city  of  75,000.  Earlier  he  had  been  with  the 
Willimantic,  CT,  engineering  office  and  the 
Nashua  Regional  Planning  Commission,  as 
well  as  a  participant  in  the  Federal  Transpor- 
tation Agency  training  program. 

Bill  Hakkinen  serves  as  assistant  depart- 
ment manager  at  Pfizer  Inc.,  Groton,  CT, 
where  he  is  concerned  with  the  manufacture 
of  citric  acid.  With  Pfizer  since  graduation, 
he  has  held  progressively  responsible  posts. 
He  is  president  of  his  local  homeowners' 
assocation  and  is  a  member  of  the  WPI  Ath- 
letic Hall  of  Fame  Committee. 

Dr.  James  Hannoosh  holds  the  post  of 
director  of  new  business  development  at  Nor- 
ton Co.,  Worcester.  He  creates  new  busi- 
nesses in  the  area  of  advanced  ceramic  mate- 
rials, (for  example,  silicon  nitride  bearings). 
He  holds  an  MSME  and  a  PhD  from  MIT. 
Besides  serving  as  a  planning  board  member 
in  Sudbury,  MA,  he  enjoys  furniture  making, 
cars  and  photography. 

William  Heald  is  a  self-employed  realtor 
in  Phoenix,  AZ. 

Thomas  Heinold  serves  as  manager  of 
manufacturing  engineering  at  Morgan  Con- 
struction Co.,  Worcester.  He  is  responsible 
for  processes,  standards,  numerial  control, 
CAD/CAM  systems,  computer  integrated 
manufacturing  projects,  capital  procurements 
and  tool  design.  A  member  of  the1  Holden 
(MA)  finance  committee,  he  has  also  coached 
the  Youth  Soccer  League.  He  belongs  to  the 
Chaffins  Recreation  Association  and  the 
Holden  Historical  Society. 

Roger  Henze  is  senior  planner  for  transpor- 
tation services  at  Chatham-Savannah  Metro- 
politan Planning  Commission,  Savannah, 
GA.  He  is  concerned  with  highway  and  tran- 
sit planning  in  the  Savannah  urbanized  area. 
Previously  he  was  transportation  planner  in 
Albany.  NY,  a  VISTA  volunteer,  and  a  plan- 
ner with  CE  Maguire  Inc.,  Wethersfield,  CT. 
Currently  he  belongs  to  the  Georgia  Planning 
Association  board  of  directors  and  the 
Baldwin  Park  Neighborhood  Association.  He 
is  a  head  agent  for  the  WPI  Alumni  Fund 
drive. 

Neil  Hodes  holds  the  post  of  senior  associ- 
ate for  Heery  Program  Management  in  Bala 
Cynwyd,  PA.  He  writes,  "I  am  the  Philadel- 


FEBRUARY  1986       51 


phia  area  manager  for  Heery.  We  are  a  con- 
struction program  management  company 
which  manages  large  construction  programs 
for  those  who  do  not  have  the  proper  expertise 
on  their  own  staffs."  He  has  been  attending 
law  school  at  night. 

Stuart  Hurd  works  as  assistant  town  man- 
ager for  the  Town  of  Bennington,  VT.  He  is 
project  manager  for  wastewater  facilities, 
upgrade  purchasing  agent,  business  manager 
for  town  liaison  and  supervisor  for  six  town 
departments.  Outside  interests  include  basket- 
ball (year-round  industrial  leagues),  water- 
color  painting,  physical  fitness  and  politics. 

Raymond  Janus  is  a  staff  manager  for 
NYNEX  Service  Co.,  White  Plains.  NY.  He 
is  concerned  with  the  analysis  and  resolution 
of  regulatory/political  issues  relating  to  tele- 
communications services  and  general  staff 
duties.  Earlier  he  was  involved  with  long- 
range  telecommunications  planning  and  tele- 
communications equipment  engineering. 

Philip  Johnson  is  president  of  Transept 
Inc.,  Lebanon,  NH.  The  company  supplies 
computer  software  systems  for  the  transporta- 
tion industry  throughout  the  U.S.  and  Can- 
ada. 

Stephen  Johnson  serves  as  manager  of 
coal  technology  for  Physical  Sciences  Inc.  in 
Andover,  MA.  He  leads  contract  research  in 
the  areas  of  coal  combustion,  coal  gasification 
and  air  pollution  control.  Before  joining  Phys- 
ical Sciences  in  1983,  he  had  been  with  Sci- 
ence Applications  Inc.,  Babcock  and  Wilcox 
Co.,  Riley  Stoker,  and  H.F.  Laurence  Mfg. 
Co.  He  belongs  to  the  A.I.Ch.E.  and  the 
Combustion  Institute.  Interests  include  ten- 
nis, gardening  and  camping. 

Stephen  Joyce  holds  the  position  of  branch 
manager  for  Peerless  Pumps  Co.,  Norwalk, 
CT,  where  he  manages  direct  and  distributor 
sales  of  centrifugal  pumps  and  pump  systems 
for  the  New  England  territory. 

Jack  Kaferle,  Jr.,  process  manager  for 
John  Brown  Engineers  &  Constructors  in  The 
Netherlands,  is  responsible  for  preparation  of 
design  for  chemical  plants,  including  heat  and 
material  balances  and  equipment  specifica- 
tions. He  writes,  "Newly  relocated  to  The 
Netherlands  for  design  and  construction  of  a 
major  grass-roots  facility  for  a  large  U.S.- 
based  chemical  company."  While,  in  the  U.S. 
he  was  active  with  the  Appalachian  Mountain 
Club.  He  and  his  wife,  Marcia,  have  climbed 
46  White  Mountain  peaks  exceeding  4000 
feet. 

Robert  Kelley  is  corporate  vice  president 
of  Ducci  Electrical  Contractors,  Torrington, 
CT. 

Robert  Killion,  Jr.,  holds  the  post  of  chief 
executive  officer  at  Applied  Molding  in 
Leominster,  MA.  He  oversees  all  functions  at 
the  company,  but  focuses  mainly  on  financial 
matters.  He  also  directs  daily  operations 
through  the  company  president.  A  member  of 
the  East  Princeton  (MA)  Improvement  Soci- 
ety, he  also  likes  skiing,  carpentry  and  basket- 
ball. 

Lothar  Kleiner  serves  as  a  senior  develop- 
ment engineer  for  Raychem  in  Menlo  Park, 
CA.  He  is  involved  with  the  formulation  and 
compounding  of  conductive  polymers.  The 
conductive  compounds  are  fabricated  into 
devices  which  provide  circuit  protection  for 
the  telecommunications  and  battery  market. 
Kleiner  has  a  PhD  in  polymer  science  and 


engineering  from  UMass.  Before  joining 
Raychem,  he  spent  six  years  at  Diamond 
Shamrock,  where  he  invented  polymer  for- 
mulations for  electromagnetic  interference 
shielding  and  electrostatic  dissipation  result- 
ing in  four  patents  and  acceptance  in  the  elec- 
tronics marketplace.  At  Raychem  he  recently 
invented  a  compound  which  yields  high- 
voltage  circuit  protections  in  telecommunica- 
tions. He  is  active  with  SPE  and  ACS,  and  he 
has  taught  polymer  science  and  rheology  at  a 
local  community  college.  His  wife.  Donna,  is 
a  senior  information  specialist  for  SRI  Inter- 
national in  Menlo  Park. 

Donald  Kremer  is  manufacturing  manager 
at  Merck  &  Co.  Inc.,  Danville,  PA.  He  is 
responsible  for  the  manufacturing  function  at 
a  company  mid-size  bulk  pharmaceutical  pro- 
duction plant.  With  the  company  since  1970, 
he  has  worked  in  the  technical  services 
department  and  has  held  increasingly  respon- 
sible posts  in  the  manufacturing  department 
since  1972.  He  belongs  to  the  A.I.Ch.E.,  the 
Danville  Chamber  of  Commerce  and  the 
United  Way  Board  of  Directors.  Hobbies 
include  golf.  Youth  Soccer  (coach)  and  rac- 
quet sports. 

Kent  Lawson,  who  has  been  15  years  with 
Polaroid,  serves  as  principal  manufacturing 
engineer  for  the  corporation  in  Norwood. 
MA.  He  is  the  lead  technical  support  engineer 
for  all  hardbody,  amateur  camera  products, 
overseeing  five  engineers  and  three  techni- 
cians. He  is  responsible  for  the  product, 
process  and  equipment,  including  design 
changes,  cost  reductions  and  quality  and 
product  improvements.  Currently  he  is  work- 
ing with  a  group  to  computerize  the  engineer- 
ing group  and  process.  An  incorporator  of  his 
local  housing  association,  he  is  also  active 
with  the  American  Society  for  Quality  Con- 
trol, the  ASME,  the  Federation  of  New 
England  Housing  Cooperatives  (director)  and 
the  Polaroid  golf  and  bowling  leagues. 

Jonathan  Leavitt  holds  the  post  of  supervi- 
sor of  pump  testing  at  Combustion  Engineer- 
ing in  Newington,  NH.  He  is  trustee  of  the 
Exeter  (NH)  Public  Library  and  an  officer  in 
the  local  chapter  of  the  ASME.  He  enjoys 
genealogical  research  and  collecting  old 
books.  He  and  his  wife,  Fran,  have  two  chil- 
dren, Julie,  13,  and  Jonathan,  10. 

Thaddeus  Lelek  is  business  manager  for 
SteuberCo.  Inc.,  Greenwich,  CT,  a  chemical 
distribution  business.  Formerly  he  was  with 
Gill  &  Duffus  Chemicals  and  Gulf  Oil  Chem- 
icals. 

James  Lockwood  serves  as  director  of 
marketing  at  Petrolite-Specialty  Polymers 
Group  in  Tulsa,  OK.  He  is  responsible  for 
marketing  worldwide  for  the  firm,  and  is 
involved  with  business  analysis,  new  product 
development,  pricing,  market  research,  prep- 
aration of  promotional  material,  literature  and 
advertising. 

Robert  Mulcahy  serves  as  director  of  MIS 
and  office  systems  at  NYNEX  in  Burlington. 
MA.  He  is  responsible  for  data  processing 
systems  development,  operations,  and  prod- 
uct planning  and  development.  His  outside 
interests  include  skiing,  tennis,  golf  and  run- 
ning. 

David  Rockwell  owns  1 1  businesses 
(insurance,  pizza,  jewelry,  etc.),  which  he 
serves  as  buyer  and  manager.  Residing  in 
West  Springfield,  MA,  he  has  served  as  presi- 


dent of  the  local  Kiwanis  Club  and  of  the 
Western  Massachusetts  Muscular  Dystrophy 
Society,  as  well  as  district  director  for  the  Boy 
Scouts. 

E.  Richard  Scholz  serves  as  manager  of 
technical  planning  for  NYNEX  Service  Com- 
pany in  Boston.  He  does  strategic  network 
planning  for  the  New  England  and  New  York 
Telephone  Companies — interoffice  transmis- 
sion facilities  and  digital  services. 

Wine-making  is  a  hobby.  He  is  a  charter 
member  of  the  Medway  (MA)  Lions  Club  and 
a  local  cubmaster  for  the  Boy  Scouts. 

Richard  Schwartz,  a  contract  negotiator 
for  major  accounts  at  Data  General,  West- 
boro,  MA,  also  invests  in  real  estate  in  the 
Boston  area.  He  owns  condominiums  in  the 
Back  Bay,  Brighton  and  Allston.  He  and  his 
wife,  Jean,  have  two  children,  Michael  and 
Jared. 

Leon  Scruton  is  owner  and  president  of 
Professional  Service  Packaging,  Los 
Angeles,  CA,  a  firm  which  packages  vitamins 
and  nutritional  products.  Previously  he 
worked  for  Clairol  for  11  years.  In  1981  he 
started  his  own  company.  He  has  been 
involved  with  the  local  United  Way  and  the 
WPI  Alumni  Fund. 

Joseph  Toce  holds  the  post  of  director  of 
research  and  development  at  Reliable  Chemi- 
cal Co.,  St.  Louis,  MO.  He  has  a  PhD  from 
the  University  of  Wisconsin. 

Dr.  Paul  Wilson,  general  manager  of 
Arwood  Corp.,  Tilton,  NH,  manages  two 
manufacturing  plants.  He  has  an  MS  from 
WPI  and  a  PhD  from  UConn,  and  he  has  seen 
service  with  the  local  school  board. 

Frank  Zone,  Jr. ,  works  as  a  staff  engineer 
at  Riley-Stoker  in  Worcester.  He  is  concerned 
with  heat  transfer  analysis  related  to  the 
development  of  standards  for  mass-fired 
municipal  refuse  incinerators  and  boilers. 
With  Riley-Stoker  since  1971,  he  holds  a 
BSME  from  Rose  Polytechnic  Institute,  and 
an  MSME  and  MSCE  from  WPI.  From  1962 
to  1967  he  was  a  navigator  and  captain  with 
the  U.S.  Air  Force  (SAC). 


1971 


Reunion 


September  20,  1986 


Frederic  Mulligan  has  been  named  president 
of  Cutler  Associates  Inc.,  an  engineering  and 
contracting  firm  in  Worcester.  He  will  super- 
vise all  engineering  and  construction  opera- 
tions as  well  as  a  staff  of  150.  He  was  the 
company's  first  employee  when  it  opened  in 
Worcester  in  1973.  Besides  Massachusetts, 
the  firm  has  projects  in  Texas,  Florida,  Geor- 
gia and  Maine.  In  1979  Mulligan  was  pro- 
moted to  vice  president.  He  holds  an  MBA 
from  WPI,  where  he  lectures  part  time.  A 
member  of  the  ASCE,  he  belongs  to  the  Mas- 
sachusetts Society  of  Professional  Engineers 
and  the  Business  and  Education  Committee  of 
the  Worcester  Chamber  of  Commerce. 

Robert  Wright,  who  has  an  MBA  and  a 
DBA  from  BU,  is  an  assistant  professor  at 
Boston  College,  Chestnut  Hill,  MA. 

Tony  Yankauskas  has  a  new  post  within 
Continental  Can  (Hong  Kong  Ltd.)  heading 
up  their  Hong  Kong  operations,  as  well  as 
their  activities  in  China. 


52       WPI  JOURNAL 


Homecoming  '85:  Skull 
freshman  service  award 
recipient  Susan  Morena 
'88  (2nd  from  R.)  gets  a 
pat  on  the  back  from  the 
Homecoming  crowd  and 
senior  Skull  members. 
Top  right:  Alumni  and 
faculty  at  the  Mechani- 
cal Engineering  Depart- 
ment continental  break- 
fast, one  of  four  such 
departmental  events. 
The  Parade  of  Floats 
featured  WPI  traditions, 
such  as  the  freshman- 
sophomore  Rope  Pull 
and  the  Two  Towers. 


1972 


BORN:  to  Lorraine  and  Richard  Logan  a 

son,  James  Maxfield.  on  August  12,  1985. 

Bill  O'Rourke  continues  as  president  with 
James  J.  O'Rourke  Inc.,  Warwick,  RI. 

LCDR  Marce  Ranalli,  USN,  is  currently 
stationed  at  Kings  Bay,  GA. 

Thomas  Reynolds  is  concerned  with  cor- 
porate internal  audit  at  Occidental  Petroleum 
Corporation,  Tulsa,  OK. 


1973 


MARRIED:  Russell  Smith,  Jr.,  and  June 
Borth  on  July  6,  1985,  in  Holyoke,  MA.  June 
graduated  from  Springfield  College  and 
teaches  at  Sullivan  School  in  Holyoke.  Rus- 
sell is  a  chemical  engineer. 

Steve  Baum  has  been  promoted  to  supervi- 
sor of  engineering  for  Computer  Methods 
Development  at  General  Dynamics-Electric 


Boat  Division  in  Groton,  CT.  Steve  also 
serves  as  WPI's  corporate  contacts  chairman 
for  the  company  and  team  captain  for  college 
recruiting  at  WPI.  Steve  and  his  wife,  Liz 
Keegan  Baum  '75,  who  reside  in  Waterford, 
CT,  are  both  registered  professional  engineers 
and  run  Select  Systems  Engineering,  a  micro- 
computer consulting  business.  They  have 
three  children:  Michael,  6,  Colleen,  3,  and 
Caitlin,  1 .  Steve  is  an  officer  of  his  local  PTA 
and  serves  on  the  Superintendent's  Liaison 
Council.  Liz  is  an  appointed  member  of  the 
Waterford  Energy  Conservation  Commission. 
The  Baums  recently  renovated  a  200-year-old 
house  over  an  eight-year  period. 

Diane  Drew  holds  the  post  of  senior  design 
engineer  at  Hamilton  Standard  in  Windsor 
Locks,  CT.  She  has  a  six-year-old  son, 
Michael,  and  a  three-year-old  daughter,  Jes- 
sica. 

Brian  Guptill  serves  as  a  program  manager 
for  Raytheon  in  Bristol,  TN.  He  holds  an 
MBA  from  BU. 

Stephen  Martin,  M.D.,  is  a  retina  fellow 


at  Hagler  Jarrett  in  Atlanta,  GA. 

Bruce  Olsen  holds  the  post  of  president  at 
Aaron  Scott  Corporation  in  San  Mateo,  CA. 

Having  sold  Pizza  Transit  Authority,  Mark 
Richards  is  currently  a  cycle  count  analyst  at 
Allied  Corp.,  Amphenol  Products  Division, 
Durham,  NC.  He  writes,  "Am  gearing  up  to 
pursue  my  ambition  of  becoming  a  photogra- 
pher." His  wife,  Chris,  works  with  a  local 
commercial  property  developer. 

Thomas  Savage  is  a  field  market  develop- 
ment manager  for  GE  in  Selkirk,  NY.  He  has 
an  MBA  from  the  University  of  New  Haven. 

Doug  Tarble  is  now  a  plant  manager  for 
Nabisco  in  Mansfield,  MA. 

James  Viveiros  continues  as  product  mar- 
keting engineer  with  Logic  Systems  Divi- 
sions, Colorado  Springs,  CO. 

Kathryn  Zawislak  now  works  as  a  soft- 
ware engineer  and  project  leader  at  Northwest 
Instrument  Systems  Inc.,  a  maker  of  logic 
analysis  and  software  performance  analysis 
plug-ins  for  IBM  PC  ATs.  She  is  located  in 
Aloha,  OR. 


FEBRUARY  1986       53 


1974 


John  Chipman  has  been  appointed  vice  pres- 
ident of  marketing  and  sales  at  Intelco.  a  new 
West  Acton.  MA.  company  in  the  fiber  optic 
and  digital  telecommunications  field.  Previ- 
ously he  had  been  with  Tautron  Inc..  (product 
manager  of  fiber  optic  instrumentation)  West- 
ford,  and  GTE  Sylvania.  Needham  (business 
development  manager  for  fiber  optic  s\  s- 
tems.)  He  has  an  MS  in  engineering  manage- 
ment from  Northeastern  and  has  written  seven 
technical  papers  on  fiber  optics  and  articles  on 
personal  computing.  He  belongs  to  the  Opti- 
cal Society  of  America  and  SPIE.  the  Interna- 
tional Society  for  Optical  Engineering. 

Last  May  Edward  Dlugosz  resigned  as 
waste  management  engineer  with  the  State  of 
California  Department  of  Health  Services. 
Toxic  Substances  Division.  Currently  he  is 
chief  of  the  Office  of  Environmental  Engi- 
neering and  Energy  for  the  Goppingen  mili- 
tary community  in  the  Schwabisch  Alb  sec- 
tion of  Bundesrepublik.  Deutschland.  He  is 
responsible  for  the  planning.  design-re\  iew 
and  construction  management  of  utility 
projects  for  the  military  in  southern  Germany. 
He  monitors  all  military  construction 
projects,  while  maintaining  liaison  with  Ger- 
man governmental  offices . 

Air  Force  Capt.  Richard  Dykas  has  been 
assigned  to  the  Space  and  Missile  Test  Center 
at  Vandenberg  AFB.  CA.  Previously  he  was 
stationed  at  Loring  AFB  in  Maine. 

Ronald  Fargnoli  has  been  promoted  to  the 
post  of  estimating  executive  in  Gilbane  Build- 
ing Company's  New  England  regional  office 
in  Providence.  RI.  With  the  firm  since  1977. 
he  has  served  as  project  superintendent, 
project  engineer  and  project  manager.  Before 
his  latest  promotion,  he  was  a  design  phase 
manager  for  several  New  England  projects, 
including  the  St.  Joseph  Hospital  boiler  plant 
in  Lowell.  MA.  and  the  Rhode  Island  School 
of  Design  in  Providence. 

Suresh  Masand  is  a  senior  engineering 
manager  with  DEC.  Merrimack.  NH. 

Roy  Pelletier  has  been  named  district  man- 
ager for  55  7-Eleven  stores  in  Connecticut. 
With  the  firm  since  1978.  he  has  served  as  a 
field  representative,  area  training  manager 
and  franchise  coordinator.  Earlier  he  was  a 
district  manager  for  House  of  Fabrics. 
Besides  WPI.  he  attended  the  University  of 
Southern  Maine  in  Portland. 

Rick  Peterson's  work  at  RCA  Labs.  Prin- 
ceton, NJ.  currently  involves  artificial  intelli- 
gence and  human-computer  interfaces.  He 
writes.  "My  boss's  boss  is  Curt  Carlson 
'67  ." 

Ron  Sarver  continues  as  president  of  cor- 
porate food  service  at  New  England  Party 
Supply  Inc..  Randolph.  MA.  He  operates  caf- 
eterias and  vending  machines  for  high-tech 
companies  and  is  involved  with  professional 
meeting  planning.  He  and  his  wife.  Rhoda. 
have  a  daughter.  Lauren.  3. 


1975 


Robert  Byron  serves  as  superintendent  of 
chemicals  for  UOP  in  McCook.  IL. 
Paula  Delaney  has  been  named  registrar  at 


Nichols  College.  Dudley.  MA.  She  had  been 
director  of  advising  services  at  the  college 
since  1981.  Earlier  she  was  the  registrar  at 
Daniel  Webster  College.  Nashua.  NH.  In  her 
new  post  she  will  be  responsible  for  the 
records  of  all  of  the  students  at  Nichols.  Cur- 
rently she  is  studying  for  her  master  of  educa- 
tion degree  at  Worcester  State  College  where 
she  is  specializing  in  leadership  and  educa- 
tional administration. 

Bob  Fried  was  recently  promoted  to  prod- 
uct engineering  manager  in  the  Discrete 
Semiconductor  Division  of  General  Instru- 
ment Corp..  Hicksville.  NY. 

Kevin  Kelly  now  works  as  a  software  engi- 
neer for  Norden  S\  stems  United  Technolo- 
gies in  Norwalk.  CT.  He  is  concerned  with 
the  field  of  avionics,  real-time  software 
involving  signal  processing  for  advanced 
radar  systems.  Pre\iousl\  he  was  with  Project 
Software  &  Development  Inc..  Cambridee. 
MA. 

Alan  Madden  was  recently  promoted  to 
systems  officer  in  the  planning  and  develop- 
ment department  of  the  Correspondent  Serv- 
ices Division  at  State  Street  Bank  and  Trust 
Co..  Boston.  He  has  a  bachelor's  degree  from 
Hiram  College  and  a  master's  from  WPI.  In 
1983  he  joined  the  bank  as  senior  systems 
analyst.  Earlier  he  was  with  Shawmut  Bank 
and  the  Investment  Companies  Services 
Corp. 

Penn  Pixley  has  joined  Garden  State  Paper 
Company  Inc..  Garfield.  NJ.  as  a  project 
engineer.  Previously  he  was  an  assistant 
superintendent  at  Jefferson  Smurfit  in  Cincin- 
nati, plant  engineer  at  Celotix  Corp..  Quincv. 
IL.  and  project  engineer  at  the  U.S.  Gypsum 
Co..  Oakfield.  NY.  Garden  State  is  the 
world's  largest  manufacturer  of  newsprint 
made  entirely  from  recycled  newspapers. 


1976 


Reunion 


September  20,  1986 


MARRIED:  Joseph  Lucchesi  to  Lorraine 
Francoeur  in  Holyoke.  MA.  on  August  3. 
1985.  Lorraine  graduated  from  Berkshire 
Community  College  and  Westfield  State.  She 
is  a  variable  annuities  technician  at  the  Mas- 
sachusetts Mutual  Life  Insurance  Co.  in 
Springfield.  He  is  a  senior  chemist  at  Fisons 
Corp.  in  Bedford.  MA. 

Jeremy  Brown  has  been  elected  second 
vice  president  of  group  pension  product 
development  at  State  Mutual  in  Worcester.  In 
1980  he  received  the  fellow  Society  of  Actu- 
aries (FSA)  designation.  He  joined  State 
Mutual  in  1976.  After  several  earlier  promo- 
tions, he  was  elected  assistant  vice  president, 
pension  product  development,  in  1984.  The 
Browns  reside  in  Paxton,  MA.  and  are  the 
parents  of  Scott.  1 .  Emily,  7.  and  twin  daugh- 
ters. Melissa  and  Glenna.  5. 

Industrial  Risk  Insurers.  Hartford.  CT.  has 
appointed  Peter  DiPietro  as  district  manager 
of  the  Seattle  office.  Since  joining  IRI  in 
1976.  he  has  received  several  promotions.  In 
1979  he  was  named  special  agent  and  in 
1981.  special  representative. 

Walter  Hoskins  was  recently  promoted  to 
senior  planning  and  research  associate,  indi- 
vidual operational  planning,  at  State  Mutual 


in  Worcester.  While  still  a  student  at  WPI.  he 
started  work  at  State  Mutual.  In  1975  he  was 
named  actuarial  assistant,  actuarial  research. 
In  1978  he  was  promoted  to  actuarial  associ- 
ate and  earned  the  Associate.  Society  of  Actu- 
aries (ASA)  professional  designation.  In  1984 
he  was  named  planning  and  research  associ- 
ate, individual  operational  planning. 

Duncan  Macintosh  has  been  promoted  to 
supervisor  of  secondary  operations  at 
Beswick  Engineering  in  Ipswich.  MA.  He 
joined  Beswick  last  January  as  a  production 
engineer. 

Thomas  Pelis.  with  O'Brien  &  Gere  Engi- 
neers. Syracuse.  NY.  since  1976.  has  been 
advanced  to  managing  engineer  in  the  Sys- 
tems Engineering  Division.  Previously  he  had 
worked  on  design  and  construction  manage- 
ment projects,  including  combined  sewer 
overflow  studies  and  design  for  the  cities  of 
Utica  and  Schenectady.  NY.  and  Washington. 
DC.  In  his  new  post,  he  will  primarily  over- 
see industrial  facilities  engineering  and  envi- 
ronmental projects. 

Karen  Swanson  serves  as  a  senior  geolo- 
gist for  the  New  Jersey  Department  of  Envi- 
ronmental Protection  in  Trenton. 

Pete  Tordo  is  a  senior  loss  prevention  con- 
sultant for  Liberty  Mutual  Insurance.  Rose- 
land.  NJ. 

David  Vogt  has  been  promoted  to  director 


Father  and  Son  Guide 
A.D.  Technologies 


54       WPI  JOURNAL 


of  reserves  and  special  studies  in  the  actuarial 
department  at  American  Universal  Insurance 
Group  (AUI  Group),  Providence,  RI.  A  fel- 
low of  the  Casualty  Actuarial  Society,  he 
joined  the  company  two  years  ago. 

Tom  Zarrilli  holds  the  post  of  vice  presi- 
dent at  Sonnenblick  Goldman  in  New  York 
City. 


1977 


MARRIED:  Mark  Kerrigan  to  Joanne 
Henrickson  in  Worcester  on  June  2.  1985. 
Joanne  graduated  from  Westfield  State  Col- 
lege, is  studying  for  her  master's  degree  at 
Anna  Maria  College  and  is  employed  by  the 
State  of  Massachusetts.  Mark  serves  as  a 
senior  marketing  specialist  at  Prime  Com- 
puter, Natick,  MA.  .  .  .  Kathy  Molony  and 
Kim  Shea  in  Orleans.  MA,  on  August  31, 
1985.  Kathy  is  manager  of  industrial  engi- 
neering at  Clairol  Inc.,  Stamford,  CT.  Kim 
graduated  from  Westfield  State  College  and  is 
a  special  needs  teacher  at  Masuk  High  School 
in  Monroe,  CT. 

BORN:  to  Evelyne  and  Hanspeter 
Ruefenacht  a  daughter,  Magali,  on  July  4, 
1985.  Hanspeter  is  a  project  manager  for  SGL 
Consulting  Engineers  in  Switzerland.  ...  to 


Gordon  "Bucky"  Walters  '54  and  his 
son,  Glenn  Walters  '76,  have  a  good 
thing  going— their  own  firm, 
Advanced  Dielectric  Technologies 
Inc.,  an  up-and-coming,  micro-thin 
metalized  film  manufacturing  busi- 
ness located  in  a  new  plant  in  the 
Miles  Standish  Industrial  Park  in 
Taunton,  MA. 

While  some  big-name  (Route  128), 
high-tech  firms  are  in  a  slump,  A.D. 
TECH  is  currently  one  of  several 
start-up  companies  emerging  success- 
fully in  southeastern  Massachusetts. 
Part  of  the  reason  for  the  company's 
success  is  that  father  and  son  have  40 
years  of  combined  electronics  experi- 
ence between  them. 

"We  will  be  vacuum  metalizing 
thin  films  used  in  capacitors,  com- 
puters, liquid  crystal  displays,  flexi- 
ble circuits,  and  audio  and  video 
tapes,"  says  Glenn,  founder  and  com- 
pany president.  "The  film  is  used  by 
telecommunications,  industrial,  con- 
sumer and  defense-related  firms. 
Customers  include  GE,  Wes- 
tinghouse,  TRW,  Union  Carbide, 
Western  Electric  and  Sprague  Elec- 
tric." 

Advanced  Dielectric  Technologies 
is  part  of  an  S800  million-a-year 
industry  in  the  U.S.  using  thin  dielec- 
tric films  which  are  metalized  using 
custom-built  vacuum  evaporation 
equipment.  (A  common  example 
would  be  the  metallic  coating  applied 


Tae-Hyun  Moon  and  Gregory  Tietbohl  their 
first  child,  a  daughter,  Stephanie  Kim,  on 
June  15,  1985.  Gregory  is  employed  as  a  laser 
fusion  engineer  at  Lawrence  Livermore 
National  Laboratory  in  Livermore,  CA. 

Gary  Babin,  former  acting  superintendent 
of  the  Electric  Division  (Wellesley,  MA),  has 
been  named  superintendent.  Previously  he 
was  assistant  superintendent.  Earlier  he  was 
with  the  United  Illuminating  Co.,  New 
Haven,  CT,  and  the  Office  of  Facilities  at  the 
University  of  Connecticut.  He  holds  an  MBA 
from  the  University  of  New  Haven. 

Robert  Cundall  was  recently  promoted  to 
administrative  and  controls  manager  at  Mobil 
Oil  Corporation's  U.S.  Marine  Sales  Division 
in  Scarsdale,  NY. 

Asta  Dabrila  continues  as  a  naval  architect 
at  Portsmouth  (NH)  Naval  Shipyard. 

Terry  Heinold.  who  holds  an  MBA  from 
Anna  Maria  College,  is  with  Ground  Control 
Corporation.  Sterling.  MA. 

Dennis  Metrick  serves  as  a  research  engi- 
neer at  Kendall  Co.  in  Rhode  Island.  He 
writes,  "I  recently  received  my  MS  in  chemi- 
cal engineering  from  Northeastern  University 
and  my  first  patent  for  a  scrub  wipe  fabric." 

Marc  Meunier  holds  the  post  of  manager 
of  district  loss  prevention  at  Industrial  Risk 
Insurers  in  West  Hartford,  CT. 

Donald  Statile  is  currently  studying  for  his 


to  Christmas  tree  tinsel.)  At  A.D. 
TECH  similar  processes  are  used  for 
applying  metallic  coatings  to  ultra- 
thin  dielectric  films,  which  are  wound 
onto  reels  and  packaged. 

Glenn  and  Gordon  Walters  are  both 
natives  of  Newburyport.  MA,  reside 
in  Duxbury,  MA,  and  have  ME 
degrees  from  WPI.  Glenn  has  also 
had  training  in  management  engineer- 
ing. In  spite  of  their  shared  interests, 
Glenn  says  his  father  never  pushed 
him  into  attending  WPI  or  into  the 
high-tech  business. 

"Dad  worked  nine  years  each  for 
Du  Pont  and  Sprague,  then  set  up  a 
U.S.  distributorship  to  sell  capacitor 
films  made  in  West  Germany  and  Ire- 
land," he  says.  "I  had  intended  to  be 
an  oceanographer,  but  I  found  the 
family  business  challenging."  After 
graduating  from  WPI,  he  marketed 
the  film  on  the  West  Coast  and  later 
traveled  to  West  Germany  to  study 
vacuum  metalizing. 

In  1971  Gordon  Walters  founded 
Steinerfilm,  and  in  1978  son  Glenn 
set  up  the  manufacturing  process  in 
the  U.S.  In  1983  Gordon  sold  his 
interest  in  Steinerfilm.  The  following 
year  he  assisted  Glenn  in  establishing 
A.D.  TECH. 

Now  the  CEO  of  A.D.  TECH, 
Gordon  will  focus  his  primary  efforts 
towards  technical  marketing,  while 
Glenn  will  be  responsible  for  manu- 
facturing. 


MS  at  the  Graduate  School  of  Industrial 
Administration  at  Carnegie-Mellon  Univer- 
sity, Pittsburgh. 

Christopher  Thomas  has  received  his 
MBA  from  the  University  of  Michigan.  He 
works  as  an  account  manager  with  The  Tor- 
rington  Bearing  Co..  Detroit. 


1978 


MARRIED:  Richard  Bielen  to  Laura  Cogan 
in  Maynard.  MA.  on  May  25.  1985.  A  gradu- 
ate of  St.  Vincent's  Hospital  School  of  Nurs- 
ing in  Worcester.  Laura  is  currently  employed 
at  Children's  Hospital  in  Boston.  Richard  is 
with  the  National  Fire  Protection  Association 
in  Quincy.  MA.  .  .  .  Jerry  Marcotte  and 
Kathy  Papalia  recently  in  San  Francisco.  CA. 
Kathv  attended  the  University  of  California  at 
Berkeley  and  works  for  the  EPA  as  an  envi- 
ronmental specialist  in  the  Pesticide  Enforce- 
ment Unit.  Jerry  currently  serves  as  an  envi- 
ronmental engineer  and  team  leader  managing 
four  environmental  scientists  for  California's 
Hazardous  Waste  Superfund  Program. 

BORN:  to  Donna  and  Ronald  Fish  a  son. 
Nathaniel  Phillip,  on  May  4.  1985.  ...  to 
Kathy  and  Bob  Lavieri  a  son.  Robert  Ray- 
mond, on  April  5.  1985. 

Anthony  Allis  continues  as  president  of 
Microwave  Systems  Inc.  in  Woodside,  NY. 

Dean  Giacopassi  works  for  Newport  News 
Shipbuilding  in  Virginia. 

Rick  Schonning  is  now  an  engineer  for  the 
City  of  Worcester. 


1979 


MARRIED:  Robert  DeMarco  to  Leslie 
Harris  on  June  15,  1985.  in  Worcester.  Les- 
lie, a  flight  attendant  with  U.S.  Airlines.  Bos- 
ton, attended  San  Antonio  Community  Col- 
lege and  Onondaga  Community  College. 
Syracuse.  NY.  Robert  attended  the  master's 
program  at  Syracuse  University  and  is  a  sales 
engineer  at  Marconi  Instruments/ Automatic 
Test  Equipment  Division.  Marlboro. 
MA.  .  .  .  David  Gardiner  to  Cheryl  Ripsom 
in  Chelmsford.  MA.  She  received  her  bache- 
lor's and  master's  degrees  from  the  University 
of  Maine  at  Orono.  An  engineer  for  Support 
Systems  Inc..  Lexington.  MA.  she  is  cur- 
rently working  for  her  second  master's  degree 
at  the  University  of  Southern  California.  He 
is  an  engineer  for  Horizons  Technology  Inc., 
Lexington.  MA.  .  .  .  John  Morrison  and 
Deborah  Martin  in  Manchester,  CT.  on  July 
13,  1985.  She  graduated  from  Central  Con- 
necticut State  University  and  was  formerly 
employed  by  Viola.  Chrabascz  and  Reynolds. 
Enfield.  CT.  He  is  with  Norton  Co.  of  Jack- 
sonville, FL. 

John  Hopkins,  Jr.  holds  the  post  of  vice 
president  at  Alger  Corporation  in  Abinaton. 
MA. 

Since  1983.  James  Miller  has  been  pursu- 
ing a  PhD  in  ocean  engineering  at  MIT  and 
Woods  Hole  Oceanographic  Institution.  His 
wife.  Linda,  graduated  from  Worcester  State 
with  a  BS  in  health  education  and  teaches  in 
Cambridge.  MA. 

David  Peterson  serves  as  a  research  scien- 


FEBRUARY  1986       55 


tist  at  Eastman  Kodak  Research  Labs  in 
Rochester.  NY  He  has  an  MS  and  a  PhD 
from  Purdue  University. 

Michael  Rafa  has  been  promoted  to  senior 
design  engineer  in  GE's  Aircraft  Instrumenta- 
tion Department  in  Wilmington.  MA.  Prior  to 
joining  GE  in  1982.  Michael,  who  holds  an 
MSME  from  Northeastern,  was  a  design  and 
application  engineer  w  ith  Westinghouse. 

Lt.  Robert  Sachuk.  USN.  is  a  resident 
construction  officer  in  Coleville.  CA. 

E.  Charles  Tidman  III  has  been  promoted 
to  assistant  vice  president  at  Mechanics  Bank. 
Worcester.  He  joined  the  bank  in  1981  as  a 
management  trainee  and  was  promoted  to 
assistant  loan  officer  in  1982.  In  1983  he  was 
named  loan  officer.  He  holds  an  MBA  from 
Babson  College. 

Paul  Wrabel  is  a  project  engineer  for  Bab- 
cock  &.  Wilcox.  Barbenon.  OH. 


1980 


MARRIED:  Richard  Forand  and  Stacev 
McMurpb)  in  Keene.  NH.  on  June  22.  1985. 
Stacey,  who  works  for  the  American  Red 
Crc>ss  in  the  public  education  department, 
graduated  from  UNH.  Richard,  a  special  rep- 
resentative with  Industrial  Risk  Insurers,  is  an 
MBA  student  at  Temple  University.  Philadel- 
phia. .  .  .  Gary  Holland  and  Jacqueline 
McGourtv  in  Tacoma.  WA,  on  June  15. 
1985.  Jacqueline  gradu^.ed  from  the  Univer- 
sity of  Puget  Sound  with  a  BS  in  chemistry 
and  holds  a  master's  and  a  doctorate  in  bio- 
chemistry from  Northwestern  University. 
Gary  has  a  master's  and  a  doctorate  in  chemis- 
try from  Northwestern.  Both  are  doing  post- 
graduate research  at  the  University  of  Califor- 
nia. .  .  .  Joseph  LeBlanc.  Jr..  and  Penny 
Holmes  in  Natick.  MA.  on  June  15.  1985. 
Penny  has  a  BA  in  interior  design  from 
UMass.  Amherst.  Joseph,  who  has  completed 
a  doctorate  in  chemical  engineering  at 
UMass.  is  a  scientist  at  Union  Camp  of  New 
Jersey . 

BORN:  to  Francie  and  Brownell  Bailey 
twin  sons.  Spencer  and  Trent,  on  August  18. 
1985.  The  twins  have  an  older  brother. 
Brandy,  age  3.  .  .  .  Patricia  and  Charles 
Dyke  a  son.  Christopher  Alan,  on  May  29. 
1985.  Charles  is  responsible  for  scale-up  and 
downstream  processing  of  new  biological 
products  developed  at  Texaco s  Beacon.  NY. 
research  center.  .  .  .  Liz  and  Robert  Yule  a 
son.  Brandon  Robert,  on  September  12. 
1985.  Robert  was  recently  transferred  from 
Belle.  WV  and  is  now  a  senior  works  supervi- 
sor at  the  Du  Pont  Experimental  Station  in 
Delaware. 

Mark  Andrews  is  a  software  applications 
management  manager  at  Waters  Associates  in 
Milford.  MA. 

Jane  Chapin  has  been  named  a  teacher  of 
mathematics  at  Algonquin  Regional  High 
School.  Southboro.  MA. 

Jill  Fabricant  Corwin  serves  as  a  software 
specialist  at  DEC  in  Marlboro.  MA. 

Garry  Crane  is  w  ith  GE  in  Utica.  NY. 

David  Drevinsky.  who  is  a  research  assis- 
tant for  the  Metropolitan  Area  Planning 
Council  in  Boston,  is  working  on  a  manual  on 
"pavement  management"  to  be  used  by  local 
communities. 


Tom  Fawcett  is  studying  for  his  PhD  in 
computer  science  at  Rutgers. 

Allan  Fish  holds  the  post  of  technical  sup- 
port manager  at  Balston  Inc..  Lexington. 
MA 

Thomas  Horgan.  a  student  at  University  of 
Colorado  School  of  Law  .  works  for  Sheridan. 
Ross  &  Mcintosh.  Denver. 

Kent  Larson  serves  as  a  management  con- 
sultant at  Touche  Ross  &  Co..  Atlanta.  GA. 

Michael  Lombardi  is  operations  manager 
at  New  England  Construction  Co..  Boston. 

John  Noonan  is  a  student  at  Columbia  Uni- 
versity Graduate  School  of  Business.  New 
York  City. 

Jordan  O'Connor  holds  the  post  of 
designer  at  Hovsepian  Associates.  Architects 
&  Engineers  in  Worcester. 

Craig  Reed  serves  as  plant  engineer  for 
Georgia  Power  Co..  Waynesboro.  GA 

Mark  Starr  works  for  Martin  Marietta  in 
Denver.  CO. 

John  Zagorski  is  a  graduate  research  assis- 
tant at  UMass.  Amherst. 


1981 


Reunion 


September  20,  1986 


MARRIED:  David  Barrows  and  Patricia 
Markey  in  Worcester  on  May  18.  1985.  She 
graduated  from  Worcester  State  and  is  an 
assistant  supervisor  at  Thorn  McAn  Shoe. 
Worcester.  She  is  also  studying  for  her  MS  at 
Bentley  College.  He  is  in  the  MBA  program 
at  Nichols  College  and  is  an  assistant  supervi- 
sor (payroll  department)  at  Thorn  McAn.  .  .  . 
Dorian  DiMarco  and  Barbara  MacDonald  in 
Palos  Verdes.  CA.  on  August  10.  1985.  Bar- 
bara graduated  from  Pasadena  City  College. 
She  is  a  client  administrator  with  SEI  Corp.. 
Century  City.  CA.  Dorian  is  a  senior  sales 
executive  with  Computerv ision  Corp.  in  Los 
Angeles.  .  .  .  Ethan  Foster  and  Natalie 
Golden  in  Leverett.  MA.  on  July  6.  1985. 
Natalie  graduated  from  Wellesley  and  is  a 
PhD  candidate  in  psychology  at  the  Univer- 
sity of  New  Hampshire.  Ethan  is  the  lead 
programmer  analyst  for  New  Pathways.  Har- 
vard Medical  School.  .  .  .  Robert  Gormley, 
Jr.,  to  Lori  Spencer  on  June  1.  1985.  in  Attle- 
boro.  MA.  Lori  graduated  from  Fisher  Junior 
Collese.  Robert  is  with  KSI. 

MARRIED:  Douglas  Greenfield.  Jr.,  to 
Julie  Sacks  in  Ocean  City.  NJ.  She  is  a  nurs- 
ing school  student  at  the  University  of  Ver- 
mont. He  is  a  senior  associate  engineer  with 
IBM  in  Essex  Junction,  VT.  .  .  .  Robert 
Hevey,  Jr.,  and  Karen  Sworen  in  Westfield, 
NJ.  on  July  27.  1985.  Karen,  an  electron 
microscopy  technologist  at  Rhode  Island  Hos- 
pital, graduated  from  Chestnut  Hill  College 
in  Philadelphia.  Bob  is  a  project/systems 
engineer  for  General  Dynamics  in  Groton. 
CT.  Michele  Neville  and  Stephen  Kru- 

panszky  in  Hull.  MA.  Michele  is  a  senior 
systems  designer  at  Honeywell.  Stephen 
graduated  from  the  University  of  Waterloo  in 
Ontario.  Canada,  and  is  a  staff  engineer  at 
Honeywell.  Phoenix.  AZ.  .  .  .  John  Ryan. 
Jr.,  and  Beverley  Anne  Kelly  in  Blackstone. 
RI.  on  July  6.  1985.  She  graduated  from 
Brown  with  a  bachelor's  degree  in  applied 
mathematics  and  economics  and  is  an  actuary 


with  the  Hanover  Insurance  Co..  Worcester. 
John  is  a  grad  student  in  engineering  manage- 
ment at  Northeastern  University,  as  well  as  a 
product  support  engineer  at  Compugraphic 
Corp..  Wilmington.  MA 

Douglas  Anderson  is  employed  by  the 
Environmental  Elements  Corporation  in  Bal- 
timore. MD. 

Steven  Burgess  works  as  an  automation 
development  engineer  at  GE  in  Lynn.  MA. 

Katherine  Coghlan-Wurm  has  been  pro- 
moted to  captain  in  the  U.S.  Air  Force.  She  is 
a  communications  and  electronics  engineer 
w  ith  the  Electronic  Systems  Division  at  Hans- 
corn  AFB.  MA. 

Brian  Dumont  serves  as  a  system  engineer 
for  Hughes  Aircraft  in  Anaheim.  CA. 

Paul  Ferrara  is  an  electrical  engineer  at 
Gulton  Industries  Inc..  East  Greenwich.  RI. 

Dana  Foster  is  a  design  engineer  at  Hamil- 
ton Standard.  Farmington.  CT. 

Jorge  Garcia  continues  with  the  Gulf  Oil 
Company  in  Panama. 

Lisa  Kosciuczyk  is  an  associate  project 
engineer  for  The  Irvine  Company  in  Newport 
Beach.  CA 

Ronald  Mann  is  currently  working  for 
Martin  Marietta  Aerospace  and  residing  at  4 
Marv  Lane.  Greenv ale.  NY.  11548. 

Edward  McGrath  now  serves  as  manager 
of  operations  analysis  at  American  Broadcast- 
ing Company.  New  York  City. 

James  Roth  is  an  advance  industrial  engi- 
neer in  industrial  engineering  for  the  Neutron 
Devices  Department  at  GE  in  St.  Petersburg. 
FL. 

Stanley  Siver  continues  as  a  naval  intelli- 
gence analyst  for  the  U.S.  Naval  Intelligence 
Command  in  Washington.  DC. 


1982 


MARRIED:  Dermot  Daley  and  Deborah 
Sessa  in  Hopedale.  MA.  She  graduated  from 
Burden  School  and  is  employed  at  Med-Vale 
Nursing  Home.  He  works  for  RTS-Diebold  in 
Southboro.  MA.  .  .  .  Richard  Ferron  to 
Patricia  Horn  on  August  17,  1985.  in  Worces- 
ter. Patricia  holds  two  degrees  from  Assump- 
tion College,  including  a  master's  in  rehabili- 
tative counseling.  Richard,  who  is  a  research 
engineer  at  Babcock  &  Wilcox.  Alliance,  OH. 
has  his  BSME  and  MSME  from 
WPI  ...  Mark  Geene  and  Tamara  Kelling 
on  August  10.  1985,  in  Ocnomowoc,  WI. 
Tamara  graduated  from  Purdue's  Krannert 
School  of  Business.  Both  she  and  Mark  are 
employed  at  AT&T  in  Lisle.  WI,  she  with  the 
computer  systems  division  in  international 
marketing  and  he  with  the  computer  systems 
division  in  product  management.  .  .  .  Daniel 
Hassett  and  Ellin  Clifford  on  June  16,  1985, 
in  Rochdale.  MA.  Ellin  graduated  from  Quin- 
sigamond  Community  College.  Worcester, 
and  Nichols  College.  Dudley.  MA.  She  is  a 
customer  service  representative  for  Blue 
Cross/Blue  Shield.  Daniel,  who  has  two 
degrees  from  WPI.  is  a  research  engineer  at 
Wyman  Gordon  Co..  Millbury,  MA. 

MARRIED:  Carl  Hefflefmger  and  Robin 
Johnson  in  Merrimack.  NH.  in  July.  Robin, 
an  MBA  student  at  Rivier  College,  Nashua, 
graduated  from  the  University  of  New  Hamp- 
shire. She  is  employed  as  a  sales  support  rep- 


56       VtPI  JOURNAL 


Homecoming  '85:  This 
day,  Trinity  got  the  bet- 
ter of  the  engineers  in 
the  round  ball  game; 
No.  46,  Joseph  Orciuch 
'85  of  Hampton,  NH, 
holding  nephew  Timo- 
thy Orciuch.  At  right  is 
Joe 's  brother,  Steven, 
and  Timothy 's  sister, 
Kaitlyn.  Simon  (that's 
Bob  Schafer,  on  stage) 
says  you  won 't  soon  for- 
get this  addition  to 
Homecoming  fun  and 
games. 


resentative  at  Teradyne  Connection  Systems, 
Nashua,  where  Carl  serves  as  a  sales  engi- 
neer. .  .  .  Jocelyn  Kent  and  Bruce  Smyth  in 
Winchester.  MA.  on  August  24.  1985.  Joce- 
lyn is  with  I  Teck  Corp.  of  Lexington.  MA. 
Bruce,  who  graduated  from  the  Universit)  of 
Maine  at  Orono  and  who  received  his  master's 
from  Northeastern,  works  for  I  Tran  Corp.  of 
Manchester.  NH.  .  .  .  Joe  Mayer  and  Carol 
Stasior  on  August  24.  1985.  in  Liverpool. 
NY.  Carol  graduated  from  BOCES  and  is  a 
nurse  in  Exeter.  NH.  Joe  is  a  mechanical 
engineer  in  Seabrook. 

MARRIED:  Edward  Mellon  and  Theresa 
Ziegler  in  Lafayette.  IN.  Theresa,  who  has  a 
degree  in  supervision  technology  from  Purdue 
University,  is  manufacturing  engineer  for 
Texas  Instruments  Radar  Division.  Edward  is 
also  with  Texas  Instruments.  .  .  .  Robert 
Mitchell  to  Barbara  Hanscom  in  Brewer. 
ME.  on  July  6.  1985.  Barbara  graduated  from 
the  University  of  Maine  at  Orono.  Both  are 
employees  of  Union  Mutual  Life  Insurance 
Co..  Portland.  ME.  .  .  Chris  Reeve  and 
Gordon  Barr  in  Marlboro.  MA.  on  April  14. 
1985.  Chns  is  a  manufacturing  engineer  with 
ADE  in  Newton.  MA.  a  firm  that  manufac- 
tures non-contact  gaging  equipment,  primar- 
ily for  the  silicon  wafer  industry.  Gordon  is  a 
senior  technician  with  Data  General  in 
Southboro.  .  .  .  Edward  Rizzo  and  Manann 
Grandelski  in  Danielson.  CT.  on  March  30. 
1985.  Maryann  graduated  from  Providence 
College  and  is  an  MBA  student  at  Northeast- 
em  University.  Edward  serves  as  an  engineer- 
analyst  at  Boston  Edison  Company . 

Carl  Cianci  is  self  employed  w  ith  Mayo  & 
Cianci  in  Hartford.  CT. 

Mary  Coyne  is  with  Hamilton  Standard  in 
Windsor  Locks.  CT. 

Stephen  Fontes  is  an  associate  program- 
mer for  IBM  in  Endicott,  NY. 

Lynn  Gustafson  holds  the  post  of  process 
quality  engineer  at  GE  in  Syracuse.  NY.  She 
is  with  the  Military  Electronic  Systems  Divi- 
sion. She  is  also  training  for  her  private  pilot's 
license  in  central  New  York. 

Edward  McGuire.  a  systems  engineer  at 
Charles  Stark  Draper  Laboratory.  Cam- 
bridge, is  enrolled  in  the  MBA  program  at 
Boston  University. 

Lynne  Ondek  is  a  senior  engineer  with 
Honeywell  Information  Systems.  Billerica. 
MA. 

Steven  Oxman  writes,  "I've  left  the  fed- 
eral government  to  launch  Oxko  Corpora- 
tion." 

Brian  Renstrom  serves  as  a  consultant  at 
Arthur  Andersen  &  Co. .  Hartford.  CT. 

John  Ricciardi  was  recently  promoted  to 
lead  technical  engineer,  troubleshooting  a 
nuclear  aircraft  carrier  at  Newport  News 
Shipbuilding  in  Virginia. 

David  Rubinstein  and  a  friend  have  started 
their  own  business.  Innovative  Information 
Systems,  in  Newton,  MA. 

Vincent  Sansevero  III  now  works  as  a  sys- 
tems engineer  for  NASA-Goddard  Space 
Center  in  Greenbelt.  MD. 

Maureen  Seils  holds  the  post  of  senior 
associate  engineer  at  IBM  Endicott.  where 
she  is  involved  with  thermal  work.  She  is 
located  in  Binghamton.  NY. 

Richard  Van  Houten  is  an  experimental 
engineer  at  Hamilton  Standard.  Windsor 
Locks,  CT. 


FEBRUARY  1986       57 


1983 


MARRIED:     Deborah    Biederman    and 

Kevin  Spaulding  on  June  22,  1985.  in  Meri- 
den,  CT.  Deborah  and  Kevin,  a  graduate  of 
RIT.  are  employed  by  Eastman  Kodak.  .  .  . 
R.  Peter  Denkewicz,  Jr.,  and  Carolann 
Goodnow  in  Fitehburg.  MA.  Carolann.  a  reg- 
istered  nurse,  graduated  from  St.  Vincent 
Hospital  School  of  Nursing.  Peter,  a  chemical 
engineer  at  Philadelphia  Quartz  Corp.,  Lafay- 
ette Hill.  PA,  has  been  studying  for  his  mas- 
ter's degree  at  WPI.  .  .  .  Donald  Jacques  and 
Barbara  Olson  on  June  1,  1985,  in  Sutton, 
MA.  She  graduated  from  Quinsigamond 
Community  College,  Worcester.  He  is  with 
Kodak  in  Rochester.  NY.  .  .  .  Robert  Kodr- 
zycki  and  Elizabeth  Womble  in  West  Raleigh, 
NC.  on  August  31.  1985.  Elizabeth  graduated 
from  North  Carolina  State  University.  Robert 
also  holds  a  degree  from  NCSU.  .  .  .  Robert 
Massaroni  to  Bambi  Lynn  Hollenbcck  of 
Schenectady.  NY.  on  June  14,  1985.  Robert 
works  as  a  mechanical  engineer  for  the 
Army  at  Ft.  Belvoir  R&D  Center,  VA. 

MARRIED:  Jeffrey  Moore  and  Hilarie 
Clark  in  Old  Lyme,  CT,  on  June  15.  1985. 
She  graduated  from  the  University  of  Con- 
necticut and  is  currently  enrolled  in  the  gradu- 
ate program  at  Yale.  He  has  an  MS  from 
UConn  and  is  employed  at  International  Fuel 
Cells  of  South  Windsor.  CT.  .  .  .  James 
Petropulos  and  Lynda  Hanson  in  Paxton, 
MA,  on  June  1,  1985.  Lynda,  a  registered 
dental  hygienist.  graduated  from  Quinsiga 
mond  Community  College.  Worcester.  James 
is  a  civil  engineer.  .  .  .  Steven  Rov  and  Jen- 
nifer Udall  '84  in  Worcester  on  Julv  4.  1985. 
She  is  with  MITRE  Corp..  Bedford.  MA.  and 
he  is  with  Sanders  Associates.  Nashua. 
NH.  .  .  .  Thomas  Wester  to  Barbara  Wion- 
cek  in  Salem.  MA.  Barbara  is  a  member  of 
the  technical  staff  at  MITRE  Corp.  Tom  is  a 
semi-conductor  researcher  at  MIT. 

BORN:  to  Stacev  and  Peter  Mott  their  first 
child.  Emily,  on  April  12.  1985.  Peter  is  a 
software  engineer  for  DEC  in  Littleton.  MA. 

Douglas  Acker  is  now  a  product  and 
process  development  engineer  in  an  optical 
waveguide  manufacturing  facility  with  the 
Telecommunications  Products  Division  of 
Corning  Glass  Works.  Wilmington.  NC. 

Gregory  Fitzgerald  works  for  Analog 
Devices.  CTS  Division,  Andover,  MA. 

William  "Fitz"  Fitzgerald  is  with  GE  in 
Lynn,  MA. 

Michael  Gagnon.  a  sales  engineer  for 
Westinghouse.  Albany.  NY.  is  also  attending 
RPI  for  his  MBA. 

John  Gorman  serves  as  supervisor  of  pro- 
duction control  at  GE  in  Plainville.  CT. 

John  Greenup  is  a  research  engineer  for 
RCA.  Burlington.  MA. 

BettyAnn  Gustafson,  no  longer  with  Sci- 
ence Application  Inc..  is  now  a  software  engi- 
neer w  ith  lnframetrics.  Bedford.  MA. 

Roger  Hanley  works  as  a  design  engineer 
at  International  Harvester  in  Melrose  Park. 
IL. 

Bob  Hicks  is  a  junior  engineer  at  Water- 
bur\  Farrel.  Cheshire.  CT. 

Lt.  Timothy  Horan  is  serving  with  the 
U.S.  Army,  64th  Ordnance  Co.,  in  West  Ger- 
mans . 

John  Mar  is  now  employed  as  a  design 


engineer  at  GE  in  Lynn,  MA. 

Lisa  Orfan  works  for  Data  General  in 
Milford.  MA. 

Douglas  Oringer  serves  as  a  water  chemist 
and  chemical  engineer  at  Refuse  Fuels  Inc., 
Lawrence.  MA. 

Michael  Quarrey  has  accepted  a  post  as 
projects  director  at  National  Center  for 
Employee  Ownership,  a  non-profit  research 
group  in  Arlington.  VA. 

Richard  Scott  is  a  process  and  develop- 
ment engineer  for  UNC  Naval  Products  Divi- 
sion. Uncasville.  CT. 

Eric  Schade  continues  as  a  mechanical 
engineer  with  the  Naval  Underwater  Systems 
Center.  New  London,  CT. 

William  Wheaton  III  is  employed  as  a 
package  development  engineer  at  Pfizer  Phar- 
maceuticals in  New  York  City. 

Lt./Jg.  Marshall  Young,  USN.  who  has 
graduated  from  the  Nuclear  Power  School  in 
Florida  and  Submarine  School  in  Groton.  CT, 
is  currently  an  electrical  officer  aboard  the 
submarine  USS  Hyman  Rickover  off  the  East 
Coast. 


1984 


MARRIED:  Loring  Chadwick,  Jr.,  to 
Mary  Beth  Chuplis  '86  on  August  3,  1985. 
Mary  Beth  attends  Assumption  College. 
Loring  is  a  lieutenant  with  the  U.S.  Air  Force 
3rd  Combat  Information  Systems  Group.  Tin- 
ker AFB.  Oklahoma  City.  OK.  .  .  .  George 
Duane  and  Shari-Ann  Harvey  '83  on  Octo- 
ber 26,  1985.  Shari  works  for  Harris  Corp., 
Syosset.   NY.   George  is  with  Grumman- 


Aerospace  Corp..  Bethpage,  NY.  .  .  .  Gerald 
Fredrickson  to  Pamela  Stevens  on  May  26, 
1985.  in  West  Boylston,  MA.  A  console  oper- 
ator, Pamela  graduated  from  Becker.  Gerald 
is  a  chemical  engineer  with  GTE  Sylvania  in 
Danvers,  MA.  .  .  .  Derek  Granquist  and 
Cheryl  Barnes  in  South  China.  ME,  on  July 
20.  1985.  Cheryl  is  a  senior  at  the  University 
of  Maine-Farmington.  Derek  works  for  Ray- 
theon Co..  Portsmouth.  RI.  .  .  .  Shoshanna 
Kaplan  and  Leonard  Eisenberg  in  Brookline, 
MA.  on  June  23.  1985.  She  is  a  software 
engineer  at  Foxboro  (MA)  Company.  He 
graduated  from  Massachusetts  College  of  Art 
and  is  a  free-lance  photographer  in  Auburn- 
dale.  .  .  .  Debbie  Lou  Neff  and  Richard 
Belculfine  in  Worcester  on  May  19,  1985. 
Debbie  is  with  GE  in  Cincinnati  and  Richard, 
a  graduate  of  Worcester  Vocational  Technical 
High  School,  is  a  licensed  electrician  for  Mil- 
waukee Electric  Tool,  also  in  Cincinnati. 

Dick  Anderson  works  for  AVCO  Lycom- 
ing. Stratford,  CT. 

John  Chappell  has  joined  New  Hampshire 
Ball  Bearings  as  a  senior  manufacturing  engi- 
neer. Previously  he  was  employed  by  Eastern 
Tool  Company  and  the  Foxboro  Company. 

Jennifer  Davis  is  a  developmental  chemi- 
cal engineer  for  Chiron  Corp..  Emeryville. 
CA. 

Sheryl  French  serves  as  a  software  engi- 
neer at  DEC  in  Nashua,  NH. 

Tina  Gorski  has  been  appointed  a  college 
representative  at  Thomas  College,  in  Water- 
vffle,  ME.  She  will  represent  Thomas  at  high 
schools,  college  fairs  and  college  nights 
throughout  New  England.  Previously  she 
worked  in  the  WPI  Office  of  Student  Affairs. 
Thomas  College  is  a  small  co-educational 


58       WPI  JOURNAL 


institution  specializing  in  undergraduate  and 
graduate  education  for  business  and  manage- 
ment professions. 

Sue  Haupt  is  a  graduate  research  assistant 
at  the  University  of  Michigan,  Ann  Arbor. 

Christopher  Heyl  works  as  a  professional 
development  associate  at  Colt  Industries- 
Firearms  Division.  Hartford.  CT. 

Gregory  Kelly  is  an  ensign  in  the  U.S. 
Navy. 

Amine  Khechfe  is  a  graduate  student  in  the 
ME  department  at  Stanford  University  in  Cal- 
ifornia. 

Stephen  Lajeunesse.  an  analog  design 
engineer  at  Data  Translation  Inc..  Marlboro. 
MA,  was  co-author  of  "Controller  Boards 
Complement  Process-Control  Bus."  which 
appeared  in  the  August  issue  of  Computer 
Design.  His  professional  responsibilities 
include  design  of  data-acquisition  modules 
and  interface  boards. 

Gregory  Langer  has  been  commissioned  a 
second  lieutenant  in  the  Air  Force  upon  grad- 
uation from  OTS.  Lackland  AFB.  Texas. 
Currently  he  is  assigned  to  Hanscom  AFB. 
MA. 

Edward  Moflltt  continues  as  a  division 
marketing  representative  at  Westinghouse  in 
South  Boston,  VA. 

Mike  Sapack  is  with  Teleco  Oilfield  Serv- 
ices Inc.,  Meriden.  CT. 

Leslie  Schur  is  now  employed  as  a  soft- 
ware engineer  in  VS  development  at  Wang 
Laboratories,  Lowell,  MA. 

Michael  Schwinn  works  for  Automatix  in 
Billerica.  MA.  He  resides  in  Lexington. 

Gordon  Young  has  accepted  a  post  with 
Rockwell  International.  North  American  Air- 
craft Operations.  Palmdale,  CA. 


1985 


MARRIED:  David  Creem  to  Mary  Beth 
Baker  in  Springfield,  MA,  on  June  22,  1985. 
Mary  Beth  graduated  from  St.  Vincent  Hospi- 
tal School  of  Nursing  and  attends  Assumption 
College.  Worcester.  She  is  employed  in  the 
intensive  care  unit  at  St.  Vincent's.  David, 
who  has  his  MBA  from  WPI  and  a  degree 
from  UConn.  is  a  production  planner  for 
Wright-Line  Inc.,  Worcester.  .  .  .Alan  Denko 
and  Deborah  Gillis  on  June  15.  1985.  in 
Barre,  VT.  Deborah  recently  graduated  from 
URI  with  a  BS  in  pharmacy.  Alan  has  been 
commissioned  an  ensign  in  the  U.S. 
Navy.  .  .  .Stephen  Hooley  to  Nancv  Irwin  in 
Wayland.  MA,  on  July  13.  1985.  She 
received  her  degree  in  business  education 
from  Salem  State  College.  He  is  with  Texas 
Instruments. 

Susan  Abramson  serves  as  an  applications 
programmer  in  the  Department  of  Physiology 
at  UMass  Medical  Center.  Worcester. 

Ron  Achin  has  accepted  a  post  at  Spectran 
Corporation.  Sturbridge.  MA. 

Christopher  Alley  has  been  employed  by 
the  Army  Corps  of  Engineers. 

Thomas  Arseneault  holds  the  post  of  asso- 
ciate member  of  the  technical  staff  at  RCA 
Government  Systems.  Burlington.  MA. 

William  Astore  is  a  second  lieutenant  with 
the  USAF  Space  Command  in  Colorado 
Springs.  CO. 

Dennis  Aves  has  joined  IBM  Corporation. 

Dean  Ayotte  works  for  Harry  J.  Ayotte 
Plumbing  and  Heating. 

Kurt  Bahnsen  is  with  Westinghouse  Elec- 
tric. 


Orville  Bailey  is  now  with  General  Elec- 
tric. 

Raymond  Baker  serves  as  associate  engi- 
neer for  the  United  Technologies-Hamilton 
Standard  Division  in  Windsor  Locks.  CT. 

Ben  Bakker  teaches  physics  in  the  Peace 
Corps  in  Tanzania.  East  Africa. 

James  Ball  is  with  the  U.S.  Army. 

Joyce  Barker  has  joined  Du  Pont. 

Patrick  Barry  is  a  graduate  student  at  the 
University  of  Connecticut  Health  Center. 

James  Barsanti  works  for  Guerriere  & 
Halnon  in  Milford.  MA. 

Jonathan  Baskin.  who  is  with  Mitsubishi 
Semiconductor  of  Durham.  NC.  is  currently 
taking  training  courses  in  Osaka.  Japan. 

Homecoming  '85:  Alumni  Field's  new 
Omniturf  surface  (opposite  page)  was 
no  help  at  all  to  Tufts  this  day.  This 
page,  bottom  left:  Kicker  Steve  Mano 
'88  combines  with  Steve  Solan  '87 
against  Tufts.  Bottom  right:  Offensive 
coordinator  and  line  coach  Cliff 
Schwenke  discussing  battle  plans  with 
the  men  in  the  trenches.  Final  score 
was  21-13,  in  WPI's  come-from-behind 
victory. 


FEBRUARY  1986       59 


Robert  Bauchiero  works  for  Hamilton 
Standard. 

Monte  Becker  works  tor  Digital  Equip- 
ment Corporation. 

Gil  Benatar  is  enrolled  in  the  graduate  pro- 
gram at  Georgia  Institute  of  Technology. 

Pamela  Berg  has  accepted  a  post  with  Pratt 
&  Whitney  Aircraft.  East  Hartford.  CT. 

Paul  Bergantino  serves  as  a  hardware 
engineer  for  Data  General.  Westboro.  MA. 

John  Bernard  works  for  Otis  Elevator 
Division. 

Lyford  Beverage,  Jr.,  works  for  Data 
General. 

Sue  Bickford  serves  as  a  software  market- 
ing specialist  at  Digital  Equipment  Corpora- 
tion in  Marlboro.  MA.  She  has  her  MBA 
from  WPI. 

Alan  Bielawski  has  had  his  name  legally 
changed  to  Alan  Beck.  He  is  employed  as  a 
software  engineer  at  Data  General  in  West- 
boro. MA. 

Stephen  Bitar  is  now  with  General  Elec- 
tric. 

Shaun  Bogan  works  for  Nelmore. 

William  Botting  works  at  Pratt  &  Whitney. 

"Boz"  Bozenhard  has  accepted  a  post  with 
General  Dynamics-Electric  Boat  in  Groton, 
CT. 

Sue  Brackett  holds  the  post  of  assistant 
traffic  engineer  at  Storch  Associates.  Boston. 

David  Brannon  is  with  the  U.S.  Navy. 

Jeffrey  Breed  serves  as  an  electrical  engi- 
neer at  GTE-Government  Systems  in  Natick, 
MA. 

David  Breininger  works  for  General 
Dynamics-Electric  Boat. 

Craig  Brodeur  works  for  Bose  Corpora- 
tion. 

Cheryl  Buitenhuys  has  joined  Hasbro 
Inc..  Pawtucket,  RI.  as  a  product  design  engi- 
neer. 

Juliann  Bussell  is  with  GTE. 

Jeff  Butler  works  for  Texas  Instruments. 

Michele  Buzzell  is  an  associate  member  of 
the  technical  staff  at  RCA/ Automated  Sys- 
tems. Burlington,  MA. 

Arthur  Cadilek,  Jr.,  has  joined  Sikorsky 
Aircraft  Division. 

Harold  Caldwell  has  joined  Fairchild. 

Ernie  Capozzi  is  a  staff  consultant  with 
Arthur  Andersen  &  Company,  Hartford,  CT. 

Bruce  Carbone  has  joined  General  Electric 
in  Burlington,  VT. 

Ralph  Casale  III  is  studying  for  his  mas- 
ter's degree  at  Cornell. 

Bill  Cass  is  at  Western  New  England  Col- 
lege School  of  Law. 

Caroline  Cassidy  works  for  Digital  Equip- 
ment Corporation. 

Chris  Cavigioli  is  an  electrical  engineer 
with  M/A-Com  Linkabit  in  Vienna,  Virginia. 

Jeff  Chaplin  has  been  employed  by  IBM  in 
Owego,  NY. 

Andrew  Chapman  has  joined  Camp 
Dresser  &  McKee  Inc. 

Christian  Chapped  works  for  Teradyne 
Inc. 

Kenneth  Chenis  has  joined  Digital  Equip- 
ment Corporation. 

Edward  Cheung  continues  at  Yale. 

Edmund  Chin,  who  has  an  MSEE  from 
WPI,  works  for  Raytheon  Company,  Sud- 
bury, MA.  He  earned  his  BS  at  the  University 
of  Rochester  (NY). 

Paul  Chodak  is  with  the  U.S.  Navy. 


Peter  Chrissanthis  is  an  electrical  engineer 
with  Raytheon. 

Mark  Cincotta  works  for  General 
Dynamics-Electric  Boat. 

Kurt  Cleveland  has  joined  Alpha  Indus- 
tries. 

Patricia  Coghlin  has  been  employed  by 
Alphatech  Inc. 

Matthew  Colbert  holds  the  post  of  fabrica- 
tion engineer  at  R&K  Precision  Machine. 
Middleton,  MA. 

John  Cole  has  accepted  a  post  at  Hamilton 
Standard,  Windsor  Locks,  CT. 

David  Concordia  serves  as  a  software 
engineer  (CAD  systems  engineering)  at  Digi- 
tal Equipment  Corp.,  Andover,  MA. 

Jay  Cormier  is  a  design  engineer  for  Ana- 
log Devices-Microelectronics  Division,  Wil- 
mington. MA. 

Ginia  Coulter  has  been  employed  as  a  pro- 
grammer by  IBM  in  Gaithersburg,  MD. 

Michael  Crimmins  is  an  engineer  for  a 
non-nuclear  submarine  at  Newport  News 
Shipbulding  in  Virginia. 

Gwyn  Crouch  has  joined  Honeywell. 

Don  Crowley  is  now  corporate  fire  safety 
manager  at  Digital  Equipment  Corporation, 
Acton.  MA.  He  has  a  master's  in  fire  protec- 
tion engineering  from  WPI  and  a  BS  from 
Boston  University. 

Thomas  Cucchi  is  with  the  U.S.  Air 
Force . 

Vinnie  Cunningham  has  joined  AT&T 
Communications. 

Thomas  Curatolo  works  for  Raytheon. 

Jovce  Cutting  is  currently  with  MMM 
(3M). 

Aldo  D'Amico  has  joined  Raytheon. 

Louis  D'Angio,  Jr.,  works  for  Upjohn 
Company. 

Steven  Davi  has  joined  Data  General. 

Mark  DeLaurentis  continues  with  Texas 
Instruments. 

Russell  Delude  continues  at  Vanderbilt 
University. 

Stephen  Demers  is  currently  a  second  lieu- 
tenant with  the  USAF  Systems  Command  at 
Wright  Patterson  in  Dayton,  OH. 

Donald  Desaulniers  has  joined  Devon  Pre- 
cision Industries  Inc.,  Wolcott,  CT. 

Michael  Deshaies  is  working  on  his  MS  in 
chemical  engineering  at  the  University  of 
Connecticut,  Storrs. 

Richard  Des  Jardins  works  for  Central 
Hudson  Gas  &  Electric  Corp. 

Richard  Desmarais  has  accepted  a  posi- 
tion as  field  engineer  at  GE  in  Waltham,  MA. 

Richard  Dickey  works  for  Digital  Equip- 
ment Corporation. 

Mark  DiNapoli  has  joined  R.W.  Granger 
&  Sons,  Shrewsbury,  MA,  as  a  field  engineer. 

Denise  Dion  is  a  software  engineer  and  sys- 
tems manager  at  Alphatech  Inc.,  Burlington, 
MA.  She  has  a  BSCS  from  WPI  and  a  BA 
from  Assumption  College. 

Richard  Dipert,  who  has  his  MS  in  fire 
protection  engineering  from  WPI,  is  a 
research  fire  protection  engineer  with  the 
National  Bureau  of  Standards,  Gaithersburg, 
MD. 

Catherine  Dochak  is  currently  with  Stratus 
Computer. 

Daniel  Doe  has  been  employed  by  W.R. 
Grace  &  Company. 

David  Dorocke  works  for  AT&T  Informa- 
tion Systems. 


David  Drab  has  been  employed  by  GTE. 

Timothy  Dray  works  as  a  systems  engineer 
for  GTE  Government  Systems  in  Needham. 
MA. 

Tom  Driscoll,  Jr.,  is  employed  as  a  soft- 
ware engineer  at  Alphatech  Inc.,  Burlington, 
MA. 

Patrick  Duffy  has  joined  GTE. 

James  Dumas  works  for  NYNEX. 

James  Duncan  is  currently  with  Sikorsky 
Aircraft. 

Beth  Dupell  serves  as  an  actuarial  analyst 
at  Northeast  Consolidated  Services  in  Con- 
cord, NH.  She  has  been  taking  an  actuarial 
course  at  John  Hancock. 

Donald  Duwell  II  is  an  ensign  with  the 
U.S.  Navy.  He  and  his  wife,  Ramona,  reside 
in  Windsor  Locks,  CT. 

Jeffrey  Eagle  has  accepted  a  post  with 
Westinghouse. 

Gerard  Earabino  is  enrolled  in  graduate 
school  at  Northeastern  University. 

Christopher  Eckler  works  for  Teradyne 
Inc. 

James  Edwards,  who  has  an  MSEE  from 
WPI,  holds  the  post  of  design  engineer  for 
LFE  Corporation,  Clinton,  MA.  He  has  a  BS 
from  Clarkson. 

William  Eggleston  works  for  General 
Dynamics-Electric  Boat. 

Gary  Elias  is  with  TransAmerica  Occiden- 
tal. 

Paul  Engstrom,  Jr.,  has  joined  Home  Fed- 
eral Savings  Bank,  Worcester. 

Craig  Falkenham  works  for  Raytheon  in 
Bedford.  MA. 

Theodore  Fazioli  works  for  Hewlett- 
Packard. 

Bonnie  Fedele  is  studying  for  her  MS  in 
aero-engineering  at  MIT. 

Gregg  Fiddes  serves  as  a  marketing/sales 
engineer  for  GE  in  Florham  Park,  NJ. 

Karl  Fischer  works  for  RCA  in 
Burlington,  MA. 

James  Fitzer  has  accepted  a  post  with 
Perini  Corporation. 

Richard  Fitzgerald  has  joined  General 
Dynamics-Electric  Boat. 

Robert  Flaherty,  who  has  his  MBA  from 
WPI  and  an  AB  from  Bowdoin,  is  product 
sales  manager  for  Pitney-Bowes  Inc.,  Wal- 
tham, MA. 

William  Fleischer  III  works  for  General 
Dynamics. 

Mari-Agnes  Flynn  is  with  Raytheon  Com- 
pany. 

Douglas  Foglio,  Jr.,  is  with  D.C.  Foglio 
Excavating. 

Donald  Foster  is  a  senior  engineer  for 
Polaroid  in  Cambridge.  He  has  an  MBA  from 
WPI  and  a  BS  from  Southeastern  Massachu- 
setts University. 

Hazel  Fotheringham  is  with  Raytheon. 

Nancy  Frangioso  works  for  GCA. 

Brian  Fraser  works  for  UNC  Naval  Prod- 
ucts, Uncasville,  CT. 

Robert  Frey  has  accepted  a  post  at 
National  Starch  and  Chemical  Corp. 

Richard  Frost  has  joined  Data  General  in 
Westboro,  MA. 

Paul  Furtado  is  currently  with  Raytheon, 
Andover,  MA. 

Shigeharu  Furukawa  is  a  grad  student  at 
Cornell. 

Robert  Galgano  is  employed  as  an  assis- 
tant distribution  engineer  at  Massachusetts 


60       WPI  JOURNAL 


Electric  Company  in  Worcester. 

Steven  Gardner  works  for  Raytheon  Com- 
pany. 

Jodi  Gates  has  joined  GE. 

Stephen  Gilardi  is  studying  at  RPI. 

Sean  Gilland  works  for  Textron/Fafnir 
Bearings  Division,  New  Britain,  CT. 

Leslie  Gloyd  works  for  Digital  Equipment 
Corporation. 

Ferruh  Gocemen  continues  with  DEC. 

Peter  Gosselin  is  with  Procter  &  Gamble 
Company. 

John  Gould  HI  continues  as  a  logistics 
engineer  at  Raytheon  in  Billerica,  MA. 

Vaughn  Grace  is  with  the  U.S.  Air  Force. 

Scott  Greene  is  a  project  acquisitions  offi- 
cer with  the  U.S.  Air  Force  at  Wright- 
Patterson  AFB,  Dayton,  OH. 

Ken  Greenwood  works  as  an  electrical 
engineer  for  Hughes  Aircraft,  Anaheim  Hills, 
CA. 

Linda  Groenewal  is  currently  a  computer 
systems  analyst  with  Power  Technologies 
Inc.,  Schenectady,  NY. 

David  Grusell  is  a  graduate  student  at  Vir- 
ginia Polytechnic  Institute. 

Gerard  Guillemette  is  a  graduate  student 
at  RPI. 

Peter  Gurney,  Jr.,  is  with  the  U.S.  Navy. 

Robert  Gursky  has  been  employed  by 
Perkin-Elmer  Corporation. 

Bruce  Haley  continues  at  Hughes  Aircraft. 

Scott  Hand  is  a  graduate  student  at  Cornell 
University. 

William  Handy  is  with  the  U.S.  Air  Force. 

Robert  Hansen  works  for  Spectran  Corpo- 
ration. 

Timothy  Hardy  is  with  Raytheon  Com- 
pany. 

Christopher  Hatfield  has  been  employed 
by  Boston  Gas,  Maiden,  MA. 

Blair  Hawley  holds  the  post  of  production 
control  manager  at  Waring  Products  in  New 
Hartford,  CT. 

Kelly  Hayes  has  accepted  a  post  at  Ray- 
theon. 

Michael  Healey  is  with  Raytheon. 

Robert  Henderson  has  joined  Norton  Co. 

Scott  Heneveld  works  at  IBM. 

John  Heroux  works  for  General 
Dynamics-Electric  Boat. 

Robert  Hess  is  with  Sanders  Associates. 

Charles  Hickey  is  now  with  General  Elec- 
tric. 

Mary  Ellen  Hickey  is  with  Digital  Equip- 
ment Corporation. 

William  Holland  has  joined  IBM  Corpora- 
tion. 

Charles  Hopkins  holds  the  position  of 
senior  engineer  at  Data  General,  Westboro, 
MA.  Besides  his  MSEE  from  WPI,  he  has 
two  BS  degrees  from  the  University  of  Maine. 

Thomas  A.  Horan  is  now  with  Raytheon. 

Thomas  E.  Horan  works  for  Wes- 
tinghouse  Electric. 

Jeffrey  Horowitz  has  accepted  a  post  at 
Westinghouse. 

John  Howarth  holds  the  post  of  project 
manager  at  Riley  Stoker  Corp.,  Worcester. 
He  has  an  MBA  from  WPI. 

Michael  Hoyt  has  joined  Hewlett-Packard 
Company. 

Gary  Iannone  works  for  The  Travelers 
Insurance  Co. 

Manuel  Irujo  works  for  Du  Pont. 

David  Iwatsuki  serves  as  a  project  leader 


at  Data  General  Corporation  in  Westboro, 
MA.  He  holds  an  MBA  from  WPI. 

Daniel  Jacavanco  is  with  the  U.S.  Air 
Force. 

Steve  Jackson  works  for  Electric  Boat. 
Groton,  CT. 

David  Jalbert  has  accepted  a  post  with 
GE. 

Melinda  Johnson  has  joined  Digital 
Equipment  Corporation. 

Denise  Johnston  is  with  Weyerhaeuser 
Company. 

Mark  Jutras  is  now  a  hardware  engineer 
with  Data  General,  Westboro.  MA. 

Kun  Sok  Kang  works  at  Continental  Bak- 
ing. 

Jonathan  Kaplan  works  for  Camp  Dresser 
&  McKee  Inc. 

Keith  Kasregis  has  joined  Raytheon  Com- 
pany. 

John  Keane,  Jr.,  is  with  Grumman  Aero- 
space Corporation  in  Bethpage,  NY. 

Jean  Kelly  has  joined  General  Electric. 

Stephen  Kestner  serves  as  an  industrial 
engineer  at  Walker  Power  Inc.,  Warner,  NH. 

Sharon  Keyes  has  joined  M/A-Com  Linka- 
bit,  Lexington,  MA. 

William  King  works  for  ITT  Electro  Opti- 
cal Products. 

Cynthia  Klevens  is  employed  as  a  research 
engineer  by  O'Brien  &  Gere  Engineers  Inc.  in 
Syracuse,  NY. 

Enis  Konuk  is  now  with  Miction  Corpora- 
tion. 

James  Krieger  has  been  employed  by  Dig- 
ital Equipment  Corporation. 


Glen  Kuo  is  currently  with  Telco  Systems 
Inc. 

Steven  Kurdziel  works  for  Pratt  &  Whit- 
ney. 

Daniel  LaBella  serves  as  an  electronic 
engineer  at  Naval  Underwater  System  Center, 
Newport,  RI. 

Steven  Labitt  works  at  Raytheon  Com- 
pany. 

David  LaBranche.  a  second  lieutenant 
with  the  U.S.  Army  Corps  of  Engineers,  is 
attending  the  Engineer  Officer  Basic  Course 
at  Ft.  Belvoir  until  March.  He  and  his  wife, 
Donna,  will  then  be  assigned  to  Germany. 

Christopher  Lacev  has  joined  Eastman 
Kodak. 

Steven  Lamb  has  accepted  a  post  at  Ray- 
theon. 

Robert  Laporte,  who  has  an  MBA  from 
WPI,  serves  as  a  program  manager  at  Nuclear 
Metals  in  Concord,  MA.  He  has  a  BSME  and 
MSME  from  UMass,  Amherst. 

Yau-Shing  Lee  is  a  graduate  student  at 
Columbia  University,  New  York  City. 

William  Lees  is  a  graduate  student  at 
Brown  University. 

Craig  Lemmler  serves  as  an  associate 
engineer  for  Raytheon  in  Wayland.  MA. 

Jeff  Lenard  is  at  Syracuse. 

John  Lepore  is  enrolled  in  the  graduate 
program  at  Rutgers  University. 

Lawrence  Leung  has  been  employed  at 
IBM. 

Susanne  L'Hommedieu  has  joined  Ray- 
theon. 

Mark  Libby  is  studying  for  his  master's 


FEBRUARY  1986       61 


degree  at  MIT. 

Charlene  Linehan  works  for  The  Trav- 
elers Insurance  Co. 

Brian  Lingard  is  now  associate  engineer  at 
Raytheon  in  Marlboro,  MA. 

Timothy  Loftus  has  been  named  as  a 
health  underwriter  by  The  Paul  Revere  Life 
Insurance  Co.,  Worcester. 

Suzanne  Logcher  is  now  with  Digital 
Equipment  Corporation,  Merrimack,  NH, 
where  she  serves  as  a  software  engineer  I. 

Christopher  Logothetis  continues  at  Tufts 
University,  where  he  is  studying  for  his  mas- 
ter's degree. 

Paul  Lubin  holds  the  post  of  technical  sup- 
port manager  at  Polaroid  in  Cambridge.  He 
has  an  MBA  from  WPI  and  a  BS  from  MIT. 


School  of 

Industrial  Management 

Charles  Adams  '55,  director  of  procurement 
for  Wright  Line  Inc.,  has  been  elected  presi- 
dent of  the  Purchasing  Management  Associa- 
tion of  Worcester.  A  certified  purchasing 
manager,  he  is  the  62nd  president  of  the  275- 
member  local  association,  an  affiliate  of  the 
30,000-member  National  Association  of  Pur- 
chasing Management.  Adams  has  worked  for 
Wright  Line  for  30  years,  spending  eight 
years  in  production  and  inventory  control  and 
21  years  in  purchasing.  Prior  to  becoming 
president  of  the  PM  AW,  he  had  served  as  vice 


president  and  director  of  the  organization,  and 
as  chairman  of  several  of  its  committees. 

Kenneth  Banfill  '85  continues  with  Cop- 
pus  Engineering,  Worcester.  .  .  .  James 
Bates  is  with  Bay  State  Abrasives,  Westboro, 
MA.  ...  J.  Alan  Bill  works  for  Reed  Plastics 
in  Holden,  MA.  .  .  .  Rodney  Breton  is  with 
Plainville  (MA)  Machine.  .  .  .  Kim  Burdon 
continues  with  Bytex  Corp.,  Framingham, 
MA.  .  .  .  Gilbert  Cahill  works  for  Massa- 
chusetts Electric  in  Worcester.  .  .  .  Robert 
Campbell  is  employed  by  Norton  Company, 
Worcester.  .  .  .  Richard  Cloutier  is  with 
Hyde  Manufacturing  in  Southbridge,  MA. 


Natural  Science  Program 

Mark  Ryan  '70,  a  science  teacher  at  Med- 
ford  (MA)  High  School,  recently  completed  a 
six-week  chemistry  course  sponsored  by  the 
Institute  of  Chemical  Education  at  the  Uni- 
versity of  California  at  Berkeley.  He  was  one 
of  50  teachers  from  18  states  chosen  from  140 
applicants  for  the  program.  The  Berkeley 
workshop,  primarily  financed  by  a  grant  from 
the  National  Science  Foundation,  with  addi- 
tional local  support  from  the  Medford  School 
Department,  is  part  of  a  national  effort  to 
improve  and  influence  the  quality  of  science 
instruction.  Among  those  addressing  the 
group  were  W.T.  Lippincott,  director  of  the 
American  Chemical  Society,  and  Nobel  Lau- 
reate Glenn  T.  Seaborg. 


COMPLETED  CAREERS 


Harry  P.  Storke,  tenth  president  of  WPI, 
died  December4,  1985,  in  Maguire  Veterans' 
Administration   Hospital,    Richmond,    VA, 
after  a  long  illness.  He 
^0  was  80  and  a  native  of 

'  Baltimore,  MD. 

^P^  <»  Storke   was   named 

J  WPI  president  in  1962 

^^QL~  following   his   retire - 

^^|^^^^  ment     as     lieutenant 

^k  ifl  general   from  a   long. 

Al  II  distinguished  Army 
career.  When  he 
retired  from  WPI  in  1969,  The  Worcester  Tel- 
egram commented  editorially,  "He  showed  a 
remarkably  sophisticated  comprehension  of 
what  higher  education  is  all  about." 

President  Storke  contributed  much  to  WPI 
and  to  higher  education  in  general.  Many  at 
WPI  recall  him  as  a  builder.  During  his  ten- 
ure, Goddard  Hall,  Gordon  Library,  Har- 
rington Auditorium,  the  administrative  center 
at  Alden  Research  Laboratory  and  the  Stod- 
dard Residence  Center  were  built.  A  strong 
believer  in  cooperation,  he  was  the  founder  of 
the  Worcester  Consortium  for  Higher  Educa- 
tion. He  was  also  a  founder  and  first  vice 
president  of  the  Association  of  Independent 
Colleges  and  Universities  in  Massachusetts. 

In  the  late  1960s,  during  a  time  of  tremen- 
dous upheaval  in  higher  education,  Harry 
Storke  had  already  established  a  practice  of 
meeting  regularly  with  student  leaders  to 


share  views  on  matters  of  common  concern. 
He  encouraged  student  self-government.  Dur- 
ing his  tenure,  the  first  two  women  under- 
graduates were  admitted. 

During  his  presidency,  enrollment 
increased  by  35  percent,  and  the  college 
endowment  increased  by  $25  million.  Presi- 
dent Storke  appointed  the  original  planning 
committee  whose  efforts  led  to  the  develop- 
ment of  the  WPI  Plan.  When  the  effort  was 
well  under  way,  he  retired  so  that  his  succes- 
sor, Dr.  Edmund  T.  Cranch,  would  have  the 
opportunity  to  share  in  the  final  enactment  of 
the  Plan. 

Roger  Perry  '45,  director  of  Public  Rela- 
tions at  WPI,  remembers  vividly  a  meeting 
with  Stroke  in  1968.  According  to  Perry, 
President  Storke  leaned  back  in  his  chair  and 
said,  "I'm  afraid  I  didn't  make  many  friends 
today." 

"Now  what  did  you  do?"  Perry  asked- 

"I've  just  appointed  a  committee  of  bright 
young  faculty  to  conduct  a  study  and  tell  me 
what  this  college  should  be  ten  years  from 
now."  That  appointment  would  become  the 
genesis  of  the  Plan. 

David  Lloyd,  vice  president  of  business 
affairs  and  treasurer  of  WPI,  remembers  Pres- 
ident Storke  as  a  person  dedicated  to  provid- 
ing strong  yet  compassionate  leadership.  His 
favorite  Storkeism  is,  "When  a  decision, 
great  or  small,  has  to  be  made  you  have  two 
options:   1.  Study  it  so  thoroughly  that  you 


become  so  confused  with  all  the  information 
that  you  likely  will  end  up  making  the  wrong 
decision,  or  worse,  no  decision.  2.  Assemble 
all  the  facts  available  in  a  reasonable  length  of 
time  and  make  a  decision,  at  least  in  concept. 

"The  odds  are  that  the  second  option  will 
make  you  right  at  least  51  percent  of  the 
time." 

Says  Lloyd,  "I  believe  his  commitment  to 
the  WPI  Plan  was  the  greatest  of  his  correct 
decisions."  In  fact,  in  a  recent  issue  of  U.S. 
News  &  World  Report,  WPI,  in  a  nationwide 
survey  of  college  presidents,  ranked  fourth 
out  of  129  in  the  East  among  "larger  schools 
granting  more  than  half  their  bachelor's 
degrees  in  occupations." 

William  R.  Grogan  '46,  dean  of  undergrad- 
uate studies,  remarked  recently  that  President 
Storke  was  widely  recognized  as  an  outstand- 
ing "bricks  and  mortar"  president.  "But  from 
my  perspective,  his  greatest  contribution  was 
in  the  academic  field.  When  he  arrived  at 
WPI  the  undergraduate  program  was  almost 
dead  in  the  water.  Working  with  Dean  Price 
he  inspired  a  new  wave  of  curriculum  vitality 
and  the  emergence  of  faculty  participation  in 
its  own  governance." 

Prior  to  joining  WPI  in  1962,  Storke  served 
in  the  Army  for  35  years.  He  taught  ROTC 
classes  for  four  years  at  the  University  of 
Iowa  and  also  taught  English  for  four  years  at 
West  Point.  He  was  an  originator  and  the  first 
editor  of  Assembly,  the  West  Point  alumni 
magazine. 

A  veteran  of  World  War  II,  he  served  as 
assistant  commander  for  the  II  Corps,  field 
artillery  in  Italy,  and  saw  action  in  the  five 
major  battles  of  the  Italian  campaign.  He  was 
then  head  of  the  military  government  in 
Vienna.  He  was  a  veteran  of  the  Korean  War, 
serving  as  commanding  general  of  the  I 
Corps,  field  artillery.  In  that  war,  he  com- 
manded 1 14,000  American,  Turkish,  Korean 
and  Thai  troops.  He  was  also  Army  chief  of 
information  and  chief  of  Army  logistics  for 
Europe  in  Washington,  DC,  and  rose  to  com- 
mander of  allied  forces  of  NATO  in  southeast 
Europe. 

Storke  received  numerous  service  awards, 
including  the  Bronze  Star,  the  Distinguished 
Service  Medal,  the  Legion  of  Merit  and  the 
French  Croix  de  Guerre. 

He  graduated  from  West  Point  in  1926, 
attended  Columbia  University  and  was  gradu- 
ated from  the  National  War  College  in  Wash- 
ington, DC.  He  was  awarded  honorary  doc- 
torates from  American  International  College 
in  Springfield,  MA,  WPI  and  College  of  the 
Holy  Cross. 

While  at  WPI,  he  was  a  director  of  Worces- 
ter County  National  Bank,  the  local  American 
Red  Cross,  the  Worcester  Area  Chamber  of 
Commerce,  State  Mutual  Life  Assurance 
Co.,  and  the  Worcester  Orchestral  Society. 
He  was  a  corporator  and  trustee  of  Mechanics 
Savings  Bank,  and  a  corporator  of  the  Wor- 
cester Boys'  Club  and  Higgins  Armory. 

A  trustee  of  Worcester  Academy,  he  was 
also  vice  president  of  the  Worcester  Eco- 
nomic Club,  and  served  on  the  Massachusetts 
Higher  Education  Facilities  Commission.  He 
belonged  to  the  American  Society  for  Engi- 
neering Education,  the  Worcester  Committee 
on  Foreign  Relations,  the  Newcomen  Society, 
the  advisory  committee  of  Faith  Inc.,  the 
Worcester  Club,  Tatnuck  Country  Club,  Wor- 


62       WPI  JOURNAL 


cester  Rotary,  the  St.  Wulstan  Society  and  the 
Worcester  Fire  Society.  Later,  other  member- 
ships were  with  the  Bruton  Parish  Church  and 
the  Middle  Plantation  Club. 

He  is  survived  by  his  wife,  Elizabeth,  of 
Williamsburg,  VA;  a  daughter,  Carolyn 
Mueser  of  Boulder,  CO;  two  stepsons, 
Douglas  Benson  of  Clarksburg,  MD,  and 
Stephen  Benson,  of  Wilmington,  DE;  a  step- 
daughter, Susan,  wife  of  Kenneth  Nelson  of 
North  Attleboro,  MA;  four  grandchildren, 
five  step-grandchildren,  two  great-grandchil- 
dren and  two  nephews. 

His  first  wife,  Lois  Sawyer  Storke,  died  in 
1974.  Another  daughter,  Lois,  wife  of 
Thomas  Davenport  of  Cleveland,  OH,  died  in 
1983. 

Ruth  R.  Taylor,  widow  of  Herbert  F.  Tay- 
lor '12,  a  former  alumni  secretary  and  profes- 
sor at  WPI,  died  August  28,  1985,  in  Hahne- 
mann Hospital,  Worcester.  A  native  of 
Springfield,  MO,  she  was  92. 

Mrs.  Taylor  was  a  1915  honors  graduate  of 
Drury  College  in  Springfield,  MO,  and  a 
member  of  Pi  Beta  Phi  Sorority.  Prior  to  her 
marriage,  she  taught  English  in  an  Arkansas 
high  school. 

She  belonged  to  the  First  Baptist  Church 
and  First  Baptist  Church  Graduates.  For 
many  years  she  had  been  a  Red  Cross  blood- 
mobile  volunteer,  a  Welcome  Wagon  hostess 
and  a  member  of  the  WPI  Alumni  Wives. 

The  Herbert  F.  Taylor  Award  for  distin- 
guished alumni  service  to  WPI  was  estab- 
lished in  her  husband's  name. 

Dr.  Leonard  Sand,  a  professor  of  chemical 
engineering  at  WPI  for  18  years,  died  Sep- 
tember 20,  1985,  in  Worcester.  He  was  born 
in  Eveleth,  MN,  on  Oct.  5,  1922. 

On  April  29  he  received  the  Outstanding 
Creative  Scholarship  Award  from  WPI  at  the 
annual  faculty  dinner  for  his  research  in  the 
field  of  catalysts  and  the  production  of  uni- 
form synthetic  zeolites. 

A  member  of  the  WPI  teaching  staff  since 
1967,  Dr.  Sand  had  previously  served  as  chief 
of  the  zeolon  unit,  research  and  development, 
of  the  Refractory  Division  of  Norton  Co., 
Worcester.  He  was  instrumental  in  developing 
a  synthetic  zeolite,  a  mineral  used  in  the  pro- 
duction of  petroleum  products.  He  had  also 
been  associated  with  Tem-Pres  Inc.,  the  Uni- 
versity of  Utah  (associate  professor).  Stan- 
dard Oil  and  Penn  State  (research  associate). 

Dr.  Sand  received  his  BA  and  MA  in  geol- 
ogy from  the  University  of  Minnesota,  and 
his  PhD  in  mineralogy  from  Penn  State.  He 
was  a  fellow  of  the  Mineralogical  Society  of 
America  and  a  member  of  the  Geological 
Society  of  America,  the  Geochemical  Soci- 
ety, the  Worcester  Engineering  Society, 
Sigma  Xi,  A.I.Ch.E.,  the  American  Associa- 
tion of  Crystal  Growers,  International  Zeolite 
Association  (executive  committee).  Interna- 
tional Natural  Zeolite  Association  (executive 
committee),  and  the  Catalyst  Club  of  New 
England.  An  expert  in  his  field,  he  had 
numerous  articles  published  in  professional 
society  journals.  He  had  served  as  a  consul- 
tant for  Norton  Co.,  Chemetron,  Elektre- 
chemiska  and  Du  Pont. 

During  World  War  II,  Dr.  Sand  served  with 
the  U.S.  Army  Signal  Corps.  He  belonged  to 
Immanuel  Lutheran  Church. 


Stanton  M.  Ferguson  '18  of  Holden,  MA, 
passed  away  on  September  13,  1985.  He  was 
born  in  Pittsfield,  ME,  on  July  4,  1895,  and 
he  received  his  BSCE  from  WPI. 

From  1925  to  1958  Mr.  Ferguson  was  a 
project  and  structural  engineer  with  Lynn 
(MA)  Gas  &  Electric  Co.  For  two  years  prior 
to  his  retirement  in  1960,  he  served  the  firm 
as  gas  distribution  engineer.  He  then  joined 
Valts  &  Kimberley  Inc..  Maiden,  MA,  as 
structural  engineer,  before  his  final  retire- 
ment. 

Mr.  Ferguson  belonged  to  the  Congrega- 
tional Church  and  the  Masons.  He  was  the 
father  of  Robert  G.  Ferguson  '48. 

Benjamin  Luther  '18,  a  retired  38-year 
employee  of  General  Electric,  passed  away 
recently.  He  was  born  on  October  27,  1896, 
in  Fairhaven,  MA.  and  graduated  as  an  elec- 
trical engineer  from  WPI  in  1918. 

He  joined  GE  in  1919.  Concerned  with 
motor  design,  he  retired  as  requisition  engi- 
neer on  locomotive  controls  in  1957.  His 
memberships  included  SAE,  Tau  Beta  Pi, 
Sigma  Xi,  the  Masons  (32nd  degree)  and  the 
Shrine.  He  did  volunteer  work  for  the  Ameri- 
can Cancer  Society.  A  former  officer  with  the 
Schenectady  (NY)  chapter  of  the  Alumni 
Association,  he  was  also  a  lifetime  member  of 
the  President's  Advisory  Council  at  WPI. 

Harold  G.  Hunt  '20  of  East  Aurora,  NY, 
died  on  July  10,  1985.  A  Rutland  (MA) 
native,  he  was  born  on  Dec.  12,  1897.  He 
was  a  graduate  civil  engineer  and  held  an 
MSCE  from  Cornell. 

During  his  career  he  was  with  Groveton 
Paper  Co.,  New  England  Power  Co.,  St. 
Lawrence  Valley  Power  Corp.  Niagara  Hud- 
son Power  Co.  and  Niagara  Mohawk  Power 
Corp..  from  which  he  retired  as  chief  civil 
engineer  in  1963.  A  professional  engineer,  he 
was  a  member  of  the  ASCE,  SPE  and  Skull. 

Joseph  P.  Harris  '27,  class  president,  and  a 
longtime  employee  of  Worthington  Pump  and 
Machinery  Corp.,  died  of  a  heart  attack  in 
Whittier,  CA,  on  July  26,  1985.  He  was  80. 

The  Worcester  native  was  a  graduate 
mechanical  engineer.  He  worked  as  a  sales 
engineer  for  Worthington  Pump  and  Machin- 
ery Corp.,  Los  Angeles  office,  for  44  years, 
retiring  in  1970. 

Mr.  Harris  belonged  to  the  Poly  Club,  Phi 
Sigma  Kappa  and  Skull.  His  father,  Clifford 
R.  Harris  (deceased),  graduated  from  WPI  in 
1896. 

George  W.  Stratton  '30  of  Rochester.  NY. 
passed  away  on  June  21,  1985,  at  the  age  of 
78. 

He  was  born  in  Framingham.  MA,  and 
received  his  BSME  from  WPI.  For  four  years 
following  graduation,  he  workedyas  a  civil 
engineer  for  the  town  of  Framingham.  His 
career  with  the  New  York  Central  Railroad 
began  in  1936  when  he  became  a  trainee  for 
the  post  of  engine  house  foreman  in  Buffalo. 

During  World  War  II,  he  transferred  from 
the  Navy  Reserve  to  the  rank  of  captain  in  the 
701st  Engineers  of  the  U.S.  Army  Reserve. 
He  organized  the  transportation  of  American 
soldiers  by  train  from  the  military  bases  to 
New  York  City  where  they  would  be  sent 
overseas. 


After  the  war,  Mr.  Stratton  worked  for  New 
York  Central  as  a  terminal  foreman,  a  statisti- 
cian and  in  other  management  positions.  He 
retired  in  Rochester  in  1964. 

A  master  chef,  he  enjoyed  cooking  and 
spent  many  hours  catering  dinners  for  several 
large  churches.  He  was  also  a  licensed  electri- 
cian and  surveyor,  as  well  as  a  skilled  uphol- 
sterer. Both  he  and  his  wife,  Eleanor,  did  vol- 
unteer work  at  Asbury  Methodist  Church.  He 
was  a  member  of  Lambda  Chi  Alpha. 

R.  Lincoln  Stone  '34  died  April  19,  1985.  in 
Worcester  following  a  short  illness.  He  was 
72  and  a  native  of  Otter  River,  MA. 

After  studying  electrical  engineering  at 
WPI,  he  joined  L.S.  StarrettCo.,  Athol,  MA. 
He  worked  at  the  company  from  1937  to 
1977,  when  he  retired  as  head  of  the  experi- 
mental department. 

From  1942  to  1966  he  was  town  moderator 
in  Templeton,  MA.  He  was  a  past  chairman 
of  the  Templeton  Bicentennial  Committee  and 
was  instrumental  in  creating  the  Otter  River 
Recreational  Association.  He  also  served  on 
the  Massachusetts  Industrial  Finance  Associa- 
tion and  was  director  of  the  Elizabeth  W. 
Lord  Scholarship  Fund. 

His  memberships  included  the  Masons  and 
Lambda  Chi  Alpha.  He  served  as  moderator, 
deacon,  soloist  and  director  of  the  choir  for 
the  First  Church  of  Templeton.  For  35  years 
he  played  string  bass  in  dance  bands.  Other 
interests  included  boating,  the  U.S.  Coast 
Guard  Auxiliary  and  ski  patroling. 

Wesley  A.  Proctor  '35  died  on  June  19, 
1985,  in  Bradenton,  FL,  after  a  long  illness. 
The  Saugus,  MA,  native  was  73. 

A  structural  engineer,  he  retired  in  1970 
from  Stafford  Iron  Works  Inc.,  Worcester, 
where  he  served  as  president  and  general 
manager  for  many  years. 

During  the  1960s,  he  served  on  the  Leices- 
ter, MA,  board  of  selectmen,  two  years  as 
chairman.  He  was  also  on  the  town  advisory 
board  and  the  chairman  of  the  town's  first 
planning  board. 

Mr.  Proctor  was  past  commander  of  the 
Blue  Water  Flotilla,  Coast  Guard  Auxiliary, 
in  Worcester  and  the  Nauset  Flotilla,  CGA,  in 
Orleans,  MA. 

Norman  M.  Gamache  '38.  for  many  years 
an  employee  of  Norton  Co.,  passed  away  at 
his  home  in  Worcester  on  September  3,  1985. 
He  was  born  in  Leominster,  MA,  on  Aug.  3, 
1915. 

After  studying  at  WPI,  Mr.  Gamache 
joined  Norton  Company's  Grinding  Machine 
Tool  Division  in  the  experimental  depart- 
ment. In  1957  he  was  named  a  product  engi- 
neer in  the  product  engineering  department  of 
the  Grinding  Wheel  Division.  After  retiring 
from  Norton,  he  was  a  consulting  abrasives 
specialist  at  Ramsdell  Industrial  Supply  Co. 

Mr.  Gamache  belonged  to  SAE,  the 
Blessed  Sacrament  Church,  the  Massachu- 
setts Professional  Engineers'  Association,  the 
Tech  Old-Timers  and  the  Poly  Club.  He  had 
served  as  a  coach  for  the  West  Side  Ruth 
League  and  as  a  Worcester  representative  on 
the  WPI  Alumni  Council. 

Malcolm  R.  Chandler  '39,  the  retired  build- 
ing manager  of  One  Thousand  Corp.  of  Hart- 


FEBRUARY  1986       63 


ford,  CT.  passed  away  at  his  home  in  Canton, 
CT,  on  May  15,  1985.  He  was  67  years  old 
and  a  graduate  civil  engineer. 

The  Haverhill,  MA.  native,  who  worked 
for  a  year  with  the  TVA  in  Knoxville,  TN, 
was  a  Marine  veteran  of  World  War  II.  For  28 
years  he  was  with  the  former  A.F.  Peaslee 
Corp.  (estimator)  in  South  Windsor,  CT.  For 
three  years  before  retiring  in  1982,  he  was 
building  manager  at  One  Thousand  Corp.  For 
16  years  he  was  with  the  Canton  Town  Plan- 
ning Commission. 

Mr.  Chandler  belonged  to  Phi  Gamma 
Delta,  the  Poly  Club.  Skull  and  Tau  Beta  Pi. 
He  was  the  father  of  Alan  Chandler  '75. 

William  J.  Sexton,  Jr.,  '39,  died  at  his  home 
in  South  Wellfleet,  MA,  on  August  1.  1985. 
He  was  born  in  Hartford,  CT.  on  June  1 1 , 
1916. 

He  spent  three  years  as  a  Coast  Guard  com- 
mander in  the  South  Pacific  during  World 
War  II,  and  remained  active  in  the  Coast 
Guard  Reserve  until  1975. 

Prior  to  the  war,  he  worked  for  Aetna  Life 
Insurance  Co.  as  a  special  agent.  After  the 
war,  he  joined  Kelly  Trucking  Co.,  Tor- 
rington,  CT.  where  he  was  employed  until  his 
retirement  ten  years  ago. 

After  retirement,  he  and  his  wife  moved  to 
South  Wellfleet,  where  he  became  active  in 
community  affairs.  He  served  on  the 
Wellfleet  Personnel  Board.  Board  of  Appeals, 
and  with  the  Civil  Defense  group.  He  was  the 
Wellfleet  representative  on  the  Cape  Cod 
Regional  Transit  Authority  Board  and  was 
involved  with  the  Coastal  Zone  Management 
program.  For  several  years,  he  did  volunteer 
work  for  the  FISH  organization. 

George  H.  Loewenthal,  Jr.,  '41,  of  Middle 
Haddam,  CT,  died  suddenly  of  a  heart  attack 
on  June  24,  1985.  He  was  67,  a  native  of 
Middletown,  CT,  and  a  graduate  mechanical 
engineer. 

For  many  years  he  served  as  president  and 
treasurer  of  Loewenthal  Lumber  Company, 
Middletown.  He  was  an  Air  Force  veteran  of 
World  War  II.  An  incorporator  of  Farmers 
and  Mechanics  Savings  Bank  and  Middlesex 
Memorial  Hospital,  he  also  was  a  former 
member  of  the  advisory  board  of  Connecticut 
Bank  &  Trust  Co.  He  belonged  to  the 
B.P.O.E.  and  the  Methodist  Church,  as  well 
as  to  Phi  Sigma  Kappa. 

Ralph  G.  Fritch  '42,  former  business  man- 
ager of  the  North  Reading  (MA)  Public 
Schools,  died  September  13,  1985,  in 
Melrose,  MA,  at  the  age  of  65.  A  graduate 
mechanical  engineer,  he  was  born  in  Somer- 
ville,  MA. 

Last  June  Mr.  Fritch  retired  after  12  years 
of  distinguished  service  as  the  chief  financial 
officer  of  the  school  department.  Prior  to  join- 
ing the  North  Reading  schools,  he  was 
employed  as  a  supervisor  by  the  Boston  and 
Maine  Railroad,  and  had  headed  his  own 
firm,  Hawkes  Grinding  and  Tool  Corp.  He 
had  also  been  director  of  exhibit  productions 
at  the  Boston  Museum  of  Science. 

His  memberships  included  ATO,  the  WPI 
Alumni  Council,  the  board  of  governors  of 
the  Sandy  Bay  Yacht  Club  and  the  Rockport 
South  End  Association  (president).  He  was 
also  active  with  his  local  Congregational 


Church  and  Wyoming  Lodge,  as  well  as  the 
Melrose  (MA)  Boy  Scouts  (council  vice 
chairman).  Interested  in  the  history  of  rail- 
roads, he  belonged  to  the  New  England  Rail- 
road Club  and  the  Association  of  Railroad 
Superintendents. 

Herbert  M.  Goodman  '42  and  his  wife, 
Phyllis  R.  (Prenn)  Goodman,  were  killed  in  a 
single-engine  plane  crash  on  Interstate  Route 
95  in  Warwick,  RI.  on  September  21,  1985. 
Mr.  Goodman,  a  graduate  mechanical  engi- 
neer, was  64  and  a  native  of  Worcester. 

The  founder,  owner  and  president  of  Her- 
bert Engineering  Inc.,  Worcester,  Mr.  Good- 
man was  a  prominent  commercial  and  indus- 
trial developer.  In  addition,  he  served  as 
manager  of  Herbert  Management  Group.  In 
1973  he  received  a  professional  manager  cita- 
tion from  the  Society  for  Advancement  of 
Management. 

He  was  a  past  president  of  the  Worcester 
chapter  of  the  Society  for  Advancement  of 
Management,  and  a  member  of  Shaarai  Torah 
Sons  of  Abraham  Synagogue  West  and  its 
Brotherhood,  Beth  Israel  Synagogue  and 
Worcester  Lodge  600.  B'nai  B'rith,  Sigma  Xi 
and  AEPi.  Also,  Mount  Pleasant  Country 
Club  in  Boylston,  the  American  Bonanza 
Society,  Probus  Club,  and  the  Aircraft  Pilots 
and  Owners'  Association.  In  World  War  II  he 
served  with  the  U.S.  Navy. 

Mrs.  Goodman  graduated  from  the  Univer- 
sity of  California  at  Los  Angeles,  where  she 
majored  in  music.  She  was  a  lyric  soprano 
and  sang  at  Carnegie  Hall  in  New  York  City 
and  at  the  Hollywood  Bowl  in  Los  Angeles. 
Active  with  synagogue  activities,  she  also 
recently  spearheaded  a  drive  for  passage  of 
state  legislation  granting  grandparents  visita- 
tion rights  with  their  grandchildren  in  case  of 
divorce  or  death  of  the  parents. 

Charles  H.  Parker  '42  of  Laguna  Niguel, 
CA,  passed  away  last  February.  He  was  born 
in  Akron,  OH,  on  July  12,  1920,  and  gradu- 
ated as  a  chemical  engineer.  In  addition,  he 
held  an  LLB  from  George  Washington  Uni- 
versity. 

In  World  War  II  he  was  an  ordnance  spe- 
cialist with  the  U.S.  Navy.  He  served  in  the 
Navy   again    from    1951    to    1957.    Other 


employment  was  with  Food  Machinery  & 
Chemical  Corp.  and  Robert  U.  Geib  (law 
firm).  In  1957  he  joined  Aerojet-General 
Corp.,  Sacramento,  CA,  where  he  was  a 
quality  engineering  department  supervisor. 
He  was  a  retired  industrial  consultant  for  the 
U.S.  Naval  Weapons  Station  and  a  member  of 
ThetaChi. 

Joseph  S.  Marcus  '44,  who  recently  retired 
as  associate  dean  of  engineering  at  the  Uni- 
versity of  Massachusetts-Amherst,  died 
November  1,  1985,  at  his  home  in  Amherst, 
MA.  The  64-year-old  Worcester  native  grad- 
uated with  a  BS  in  chemical  engineering  from 
WPI,  later  receiving  his  MSCE  from  the  Uni- 
versity of  Massachusetts. 

He  taught  civil  engineering  at  the  Univer- 
sity for  37  years.  Last  January  he  retired.  He 
was  a  former  adviser  to  many  student  organi- 
zations at  UMass,  a  past  national  officer  of 
the  American  Society  for  Engineering  Educa- 
tion and  a  member  of  Tau  Beta  Pi.  The  presi- 
dent of  the  National  Yiddish  Book  Center,  he 
was  also  past  president  of  Congregation  B'nai 
Israel  in  Northampton. 

As  associate  dean  of  the  School  of  Engi- 
neering, Prof.  Marcus  took  a  leading  role  in 
expanding  undergraduate  opportunities, 
including  the  women's  engineering  program. 
He  instituted  projects  that  fostered  greater 
cooperation  between  the  university  and  high 
schools  and  community  colleges,  and  was 
instrumental  in  establishing  the  Smith 
College-UMass  Dual  Degree  Program  in 
Engineering. 

George  Marston  '30,  the  first  dean  of  the 
School  of  Engineering  at  UMass,  hired  Mar- 
cus as  an  instructor  in  civil  engineering  in 
1948.  Over  the  years  they  became  close 
friends.  "I  always  thought  highly  of  Joe  Mar- 
cus," he  says.  "He  was  a  gifted  administrator, 
and  above  all,  a  respected  counselor  of  stu- 
dents and  associates.  His  greatest  recognition 
came  from  the  many  students  and  alumni  who 
counted  on  him  as  a  friend  and  advisor.  He 
was  a  loyal  alumnus  of  WPI,  yet  he  made  a 
major  contribution  to  his  profession  through 
education  at  a  neighboring  institution.  At  the 
university,  he  served  under  five  different 
deans  of  engineering,  and  I  was  most  fortu- 
nate to  have  been  one  of  them.  One  of  them 


STATEMENT  OF  OWNERSHIP,  MANAGEMENT,  AND  CIRCULATION 

Title  of  Publication:  WPI  JOURNAL  (ISSN  0148-6128) 

Frequency  of  Issue:  Four  times  a  year 

Location  of  Known  Office  of  Publication:  Worcester  Polytechnic  Institute,  100  Institute 

Road,  Worcester,  MA  01609 
Headquarters  of  the  Publishers:  Worcester  Polytechnic  Institute,  100  Institute  Road, 

Worcester,  MA  01609 
Publisher:  Worcester  Polytechnic  Institute,  Worcester,  MA  01609 
Editor:  Kenneth  McDonnell,  100  Institute  Road,  Worcester,  MA  01609 
Owner:  Worcester  Polytechnic  Institute,  100  Institute  Road,  Worcester,  MA  01609 


Total  number  printed 
Paid  circulation 
Free  distribution 
Total  distribution 
Office  use,  etc. 
Total 


Average  Each  Issue 

Preceding  12  Months 

22,000 

21,600 

21,600 

400 

22,000 


Actual  Number,  Issue  Nearest 

Filing  Date 

22,500 

22,100 

22,100 

400 

22,500 


64       WPI  JOURNAL 


said  to  me,  'Joe  Marcus  was  a  most  unique 
person,  admired  by  all  who  knew  him.  He 
will  be  missed.' 

During  his  career,  Prof.  Marcus  received 
three  awards  from  UMass,  including  the 
Chancellor's  Medal  for  his  service  to  the  uni- 
versity, the  Metawampe  Award  from  the  stu- 
dents and  the  Distinguished  Teaching  Award. 
In  October  the  university  designated  the 
former  Engineering  East  Building  as  Joseph 
S.  Marcus  Hall.  It  also  created  the  Joseph  S. 
Marcus  Yiddish  Book  Collection  at  the  uni- 
versity library. 

Harry  F.  Ray  '60,  manager  of  the  Trenton 
(MI)  plant  of  the  Monsanto  Industrial  Chemi- 
cals Co.,  died  suddenly  on  September  20, 
1985,  after  suffering  a  heart  attack  at  his 
home  in  Grosse  He,  MI. 

He  was  born  in  West  Palm  Beach,  FL,  on 
Dec.  14,  1938,  and  received  his  BS  in  chemi- 
cal engineering  from  WPI.  He  also  earned  a 
master's  degree  in  chemical  engineering  from 
Washington  University  in  St.  Louis,  MO. 

After  joining  Monsanto  at  the  W.  G. 
Kummrich  plant  in  1960,  Harry  received  pro- 
gressively more  responsible  assignments.  In 
1979  he  was  named  plant  manager  at  Trenton. 
Colleagues,  shocked  at  his  unexpected  death, 
were  saddened  by  the  loss  of  his  leadership, 
but  noted  that  he  has  left  a  legacy  of  confi- 
dence in  the  Trenton  plant's  ability  to  per- 
form. 

Paul  Bayliss,  president  of  the  Alumni  Asso- 
ciation, said,  "We  will  remember  Harry  for 
his  quick  wit  and  good  humor.  He  was  always 
ready  with  a  joke  and  a  smile.  He  was  active 
in  alumni  affairs  and  was  a  key  member  of 
our  25th-reunion  class  gift  solicitation  team. 
Harry  maintained  close  ties  with  WPI  and 
many  of  our  alumni.  We  have  all  lost  a  very 
dear  friend." 

Harry  belonged  to  Phi  Sigma  Kappa,  PDE, 
Skull  and  the  Poly  Club.  Other  memberships 
included  the  Downriver  Community  Confer- 
ence Growth  Alliance,  the  American  Theater 
Organ  Society  and  Rotary  International.  He  is 
survived  by  his  wife,  Thyra,  and  three  chil- 
dren, Tim,  Kevin  and  Susan. 

Donald  A.  Taylor  '60  died  October  12, 
1985,  at  his  home  in  Perrysburg,  OH.  He  was 
51,  a  graduate  civil  engineer,  and  a  native  of 
Brattleboro,  VT. 

He  had  been  employed  as  a  project  superin- 
tendent at  Sterns  Catalytic  Inc.  in  Toledo, 
OH,  for  25  years.  Earlier  he  was  briefly  with 
Du  Pont.  A  past  president  of  his  local  school 
board,  he  also  belonged  to  the  Presbyterian 
Church.  He  was  a  member  of  Sigma  Phi  Epsi- 
lon  and  the  Poly  Club. 

Stephen  T.  Harrington  '66  died  at  Hartford 
(CT)  Hospital  on  June  23,  1985,  following  a 
four-year  illness.  He  was  41. 

He  was  born  in  Providence,  RI,  and 
received  his  BSEE  from  WPI.  For  a  number 
of  years  he  was  with  Pratt  &  Whitney 
Aircraft-United  Technologies,  East  Hartford, 
CT.  He  had  an  MBA  from  the  University  of 
Connecticut. 

Thomas  D.  Craig,  Jr.,  '67SIM,  a  longtime 
employee  of  Crompton  &  Knowles,  died  in 
Charleston,  SC,  on  May  25,  1985,  at  the  age 
of  63. 


While  with  Crompton  &  Knowles  in  Char- 
lotte, NC,  he  served  as  manager  of  special 
projects.  Previously  he  had  been  with  the  firm 
in  Worcester.  In  1983  he  formed  his  own  tex- 
tile machine  company,  the  Thomas  Craig  Co. 

Mr.  Craig  graduated  from  Norwich  Univer- 
sity. He  belonged  to  the  Narrow  Fabric  Insti- 
tute and  the  American  Textile  Machinery 
Institute.  Also,  he  was  a  former  member  of 
the  Northern  Textile  Association,  the  Char- 
lotte Textile  Association  and  the  Southern 
Textile  Club. 

Thomas  J.  McGinn,  Jr.,  '68MNS,  a  math 
and  science  teacher  at  Woodward  School  in 
Southboro,  MA,  for  24  years,  died  July  20, 
1985,  in  Worcester  following  a  long  illness. 
He  was  born  in  Worcester  on  June  16,  1938. 

Besides  his  degree  from  WPI,  he  held  two 
degrees  from  Holy  Cross.  He  was  a  retired 
officer  from  the  U.S.  Navy.  A  member  of  the 
National  Education  Association,  he  was  a 
member  and  past  president  of  the  Southboro 
Teachers'  Association.  He  also  belonged  to 
the  Westboro  Firefighters'  Volunteer  Depart- 
ment and  St.  Luke's  Church,  as  well  as  to  the 
Jaycees  and  the  Knights  of  Columbus. 

Ralph  M.  Banwell,  Jr.,  '80SIM,  vice  presi- 
dent of  sales  for  CPC  Engineering  Co.  of 
Sturbridge,  MA,  died  May  8,  1985,  in 
Southbridge,  MA.  He  was  60  and  a  native  of 
Woburn,  MA. 

He  joined  CPC  in  1955  as  a  sales  manager 
and  in  1960  was  named  manager  of  sales.  In 
1964  he  was  promoted  to  vice  president.  A 
graduate  of  Tufts  University,  he  was  a  Marine 
veteran  of  World  War  II. 

Mr.  Banwell  was  a  past  president  and  Paul 
Harris  Fellow  of  the  Sturbridge  Rotary  Club. 
In  addition,  he  was  a  member  of  the  Brook- 
field  Congregational  Church  and  the  Elm  St. 
Congregational  Church  in  Southbridge.  He 
was  a  Royal  Arch  Mason  and  active  in  the 
Boy  Scouts  of  America  (Eagle  Scout). 

David  L.  Thompson  '81,  a  molecular  biolo- 
gist and  laboratory  technician  at  Genetics 
Research  Institute  in  Cambridge,  MA,  was 
killed  in  a  motorcycle  accident  on  July  26, 
1985,  in  Waltham,  MA.  He  was  born  in  Cam- 
bridge on  March  1,  1959,  and  received  his  BS 
in  life  sciences  from  WPI. 

Prior  to  joining  Genetics  Research  Institute, 
David  had  worked  for  another  Cambridge 
firm,  Biogen.  He  belonged  to  Tau  Beta  Pi. 


FEEDBACK 


Editor: 

I  was  delighted  to  see  that  Elmer  Scott 
['41,  deceased]  and  Charlie  Schmit  ['46] 
were  elected  to  the  Athletic  Hall  of 
Fame.  I  was  playing  freshman  baseball 
when  Elmer  had  his  lung  punctured 
while  blocking  home  plate.  What  a  tough 
guy  he  was! 
Charlie    and    I    played    basketball 


together  for  two  years.  He  was  a  tremen- 
dous ball  handler  and  defensive  player.  I 
remember  so  well  the  last  few  minutes  of 
games  we  were  winning — we'd  just  give 
the  ball  to  Charlie  and  he'd  dribble  the 
time  away.  In  football,  my  clearest  mem- 
ory of  him  was  on  fourth  down,  when  he 
would  drop  back  to  punt  and  invariably 
run  for  the  first  down. 

My  congratulations  to  Charlie  and 
posthumously  to  Elmer.  It's  hard  to 
appreciate  the  kind  of  athletes  they  were 
unless  you've  played  with  them. 

William  E.  Stone  '44 
North  Falmouth,  MA 

Editor's  note:  Bill  Stone  was  quite  an 
athlete  himself  while  at  WPI,  competing 
in  basketball,  baseball,  track  and  swim- 
ming. 

Editor: 

Since  I  am  an  admirer  of  the  Art  Deco, 
Art  Moderne  and  early  International 
styles,  I  enjoyed  Robert  Kanigel's  "The 
Garage  War"  (August  1985).  I  especially 
took  delight  with  the  Shell  station  that  lit 
up  all  its  walls. 

However,  I  think  it  is  misleading  to 
say  that  architecture  was  influenced  by 
automobile  design,  or  even  that  the  style 
of  design  of  automobiles  of  that  era  con- 
tained original  elements  inspired  by  the 
particular  design  requirements  of  motor- 
ized transportation.  In  fact,  the  winds  of 
fashion  blow  equally  on  all  sails,  and  so 
the  "streamline  era"  was  an  expression 
of  society's  ever  quickening  pace  which 
was  applied  concurrently  to  architecture, 
appliances,  furniture  and  the  different 
modes  of  transportation:  cars,  trains, 
planes  and  even  boats.  The  GM  pavilion 
pictured  in  the  article  plainly  showed  the 
form  of  a  massive  railroad  locomotive, 
so  it  could  hardly  be  said  that  the  build- 
ing's design  was  inspired  solely  in  the 
image  of  automobiles.  If  any  one  mode 
of  transportation  could  claim  to  be  the 
originator  of  streamlined  design,  it 
would  be  airplanes,  since  they  alone  at 
that  time  stood  to  benefit  materially  from 
reduced  aerodynamic  drag. 

While  the  automobile  has  indeed,  as 
Mr.  Kanigel  has  amply  demonstrated, 
had  a  profound  effect  on  the  architectural 
configuration  of  homes  and  other  struc- 
tures that  involve  use  of  autos,  origina- 
tion of  the  "streamline  era"  of  design  is 
not  something  the  automobile  can 
uniquely  claim. 

Jeffrey  English 
Troy,  NY 


MARK  YOUR  CALENDAR 


Classes  of  1926,  '31,  '36,  '41,  '46,  '51,  '56,  '61,  '66. 


WORCESTER  POLYTECHNIC  *^  INSTITUTE 


MAY  1986 


Ctnako 


RP  SOO 


■ 


k 


/ 


«  3 


.<&&* 


Biotechnology:  The  New  Frontier 
Higher  Education  in  Japan  •  WPPs  Expert  Witnesses 


A  MESSAGE 


From  Dr.  Jon  C.  Strauss 
President 


A* 


s  you  read 
^this  message, 
Richard 
Gallagher,  dean  of 
the  faculty,  Don- 
ald Berth,  vice 
president  for  uni- 
versity relations, 
and  I  will  have 
completed  cross- 
country pre-inaugural  tours  that  enabled 
us  to  meet  with  hundreds  of  alumni  and 
friends.  The  fundamental  message  we 
carried  to  those  groups  was  one  of  our 
excitement  for  WPI  and  for  the  chal- 
lenges ahead. 

In  1935,  Ralph  Earle,  WPI's  sixth 
president,  captured  the  essence  of  our 
message  when  he  noted:  "The  state  of 
the  college  is  excellent,  but  if  we  stop  pro- 
gressing or  changing,  we  will  atrophy." 
As  in  1935,  the  state  of  the  college  is 
indeed  excellent: 

•  The  WPI  Plan  is  widely  recognized  as 
one  of  the  most  innovative  and  appropri- 
ate curricula  of  any  college  or  university. 

•  Our  students  come  to  us  with  out- 
standing quality  indicators  and  leave 
with  excellent  problem-solving  and  com- 
munication skills. 

•  Our  faculty  is  first-rate,  demonstrating 
excellence  in  teaching,  and  improving  in 
peer  recognition  for  its  scholarship  and 
research. 

•  Our  staff  members  are  loyal  and  hard- 
working. 

•  Our  alumni  are  generous  of  both  their 
time  and  their  financial  support  and  are 
justifiably  proud  of  their  alma  mater. 

•  Our  trustees  are  excellent  stewards  of 
the  college  both  as  a  corporation  and  as  a 
living  institution. 

•  Local  and  national  foundations  and 
corporations  as  well  as  many  individual 
benefactors  are  increasingly  generous  in 
their  support  of  the  college. 

•  Our  physical  plant  is  exceptional. 
Many  of  our  buildings  are  old,  but  nearly 
all  have  been  renovated  and  maintained 
to  the  most  modern  standards. 

•  Our  finances  are  in  excellent  shape: 


We  borrow  little,  and  our  endowment  of 
almost  $68  million  is  quite  respectable 
for  a  college  of  our  size. 

However,  with  the  half-life  of  engi- 
neering knowledge  now  estimated  to  be 
less  than  five  years,  it  is  today  even  more 
imperative  than  it  was  in  the  days  of 
President  Earle  that  we  not  for  a  minute 
stop  moving  forward  with  ever  greater 
momentum. 

Dick  Gallagher  and  I  are  working  with 
the  deans,  department  heads,  and  faculty 
to  develop  WPI's  strategy  for  excellence. 
The  key  elements  of  our  plans  for  mov- 
ing WPI  toward  the  21st  century  are 
based  on  five  integrated  steps: 

1.  Identify  existing  strengths. 

In  every  department,  we  have  specific 
areas  of  strength:  gene  structure  and 
function  in  biology;  noninvasive  sensors 
and  physiological  modeling  in  biomedi- 
cal engineering;  catalysis  and  biochemis- 
try in  chemical  engineering;  photochem- 
istry; computational  mechanics  and 
construction  management  in  civil  engi- 
neering; artificial  intelligence  in  com- 
puter science;  image  processing  and 
power  systems  in  electrical  engineering; 
music  and  history  in  humanities;  manu- 
facturing technologies  in  management; 
fluid  dynamics,  laser  holography,  and 
robotics  in  mechanical  engineering; 
spectroscopy  in  physics;  and  fire  protec- 
tion engineering.  The  list  goes  on. 

2.  Reinforce  existing  strengths  with 
additional  resources. 

Stanford  University  refers  to  its  most 
outstanding  disciplines  as  "steeples  of 
excellence."  Stanford's  move  to  pre- 
eminence in  the  1950s  was  based  on  a 
strategy  of  identifying  these  steeples, 
reinforcing  them  with  faculty  and 
resources,  and  then  filling  in  the  "val- 
leys" starting  where  the  synergy  was 
greatest.  This  strategy  will  work  for  WPI 
as  well. 

3.  Encourage  faculty  members  to 
improve  their  personal  scholarship. 
At  WPI,  every  faculty  member  in  our 
areas  of  strength  is  involved  in  personal 
scholarship  oriented  toward  research. 


Many  other  faculty  members,  perhaps 
not  as  well  known  for  their  research,  are 
also  active  in  scholarship  focused  in 
many  instances  on  education.  We  all 
may  not  be  researchers  in  the  traditional 
sense,  but  as  members  of  the  academic 
community  we  all  should  be  "scholars." 
We  should  be  developing  new  ideas  and 
approaches,  presenting  them  to  our  col- 
leagues, and  defending  them  before  our 
peers.  Scholarship  is  our  common 
ground.  It  is  what  unites  us. 

4.  Improve  student  recruiting. 

WPI  offers  an  excellent  "product"  at  a 
competitive  price.  We  must,  however, 
do  a  better  job  of  apprising  outstanding 
prospective  students  of  this  quality  and 
encouraging  their  matriculation.  The 
number  of  secondary  school  graduates 
will  drop  by  more  than  40  percent  in  the 
next  decade  in  the  Northeast,  and  by 
more  than  20  percent  nationwide.  Conse- 
quently, WPI  must  increase  its  market 
share  in  order  to  maintain  enrollment  and 
enhance  quality. 

5.  Improve  our  recognition. 

WPI,  like  Worcester  itself,  is  not  as  well 
known  as  an  institution  of  its  quality 
deserves  to  be.  To  enhance  our  reputa- 
tion, we  must  secure  the  resources  neces- 
sary to  develop  programs  and  recruit  fac- 
ulty and  students.  But  to  accomplish  this, 
we  must  be  better  recognized.  It's  a 
chicken  and  egg  situation. 
With  your  help  and  the  proper  imple- 
mentation of  the  strategies  outlined  here, 
we  can  break  what  appears  to  be  a  closed 
loop  and  turn  it  into  an  expanding  spiral 
of  greater  quality,  leading  to  greater  rec- 
ognition, leading  to  greater  resources. 

As  Albert  Camus,  the  Nobel  laureate 
noted,  "An  achievement  is  a  bondage:  it 
binds  one  to  greater  achievement." 

WPI  is  in  bondage  to  its  past  achieve- 
ments, and  they  challenge  us  for  the 
future.  We  are  about  to  embark  on  a 
major  effort  to  raise  the  resources  neces- 
sary for  WPI  to  rise  to  these  challenges. 
We  hope  and  expect  that  each  member  of 
the  WPI  family  will  join  us  in  making 
WPI  all  that  it  can  be. 


WPI  Journal 

WORCESTER  POLYTECHNIC^INSTITUTE 


VOLUME  89,  NUMBER  4 


Staff  of  The  WPI  JOURNAL 

Editor,  Kenneth  L.  McDonnell 

Alumni  Information  Editor,  Ruth  S.  Trask 

Sports  Editor,  Roger  Crimmins 

Alumni  Publications  Committee:  William  J. 
Firla,  Jr.  '60,  chairman;  Judith  Nitsch,  '75, 
vice  chairman;  Paul  J.  Cleary  '71;  Carl  A. 
Keyser  '39;  Robert  C  Labonte  '54;  Samuel 
Mencow  '37;  Maureen  Sexton  '83. 

The  WPI  Journal  (ISSN  0148-6128)  is  pub- 
lished quarterly  for  the  WPI  Alumni  Associa- 
tion by  Worcester  Polytechnic  Institute  in 
cooperation  with  the  Alumni  Magazine  Con- 
sortium, with  editorial  offices  at  the  Johns 
Hopkins  University,  Baltimore,  MD  21218. 
Pages  I-XVI  are  published  for  the  Alumni 
Magazine  Consortium  (Franklin  and  Marshall 
College,  Hartwick  College,  Johns  Hopkins 
University,  Villanova  University,  Western 
Maryland  College,  Worcester  Polytechnic 
Institute)  and  appear  in  the  respective  alumni 
magazines  of  those  institutions.  Second  class 
postage  paid  at  Worcester,  MA,  and  addi- 
tional mailing  offices.  Pages  1-22,  39-60 
1986,  Worcester  Polytechnic  Institute.  Pages 
I-XVI  ©  1986,  Johns  Hopkins  University. 

Staff  of  the  Alumni  Magazine  Consortium: 

Editor,  Mary  Ruth  Yoe;  Wrap  Designer  and 
Production  Coordinator,  Amy  Doudiken; 
Assistant  Editor,  Leslie  Brunetta;  Core 
Designer,  Allen  Carroll. 

Advisory  Board  of  the  Alumni  Magazine 
Consortium:  Franklin  and  Marshall  College, 
Bruce  Holran  and  Linda  Whipple;  Hartwick 
College,  Merrilee  Gomillion;  Johns  Hopkins 
University,  B.J.  Norris  and  Elise  Hancock; 
Villanova  University,  Eugene  J.  Ruane  and 
Joan  DelCollo;  Western  Maryland  College, 
Joyce  Muller  and  Pat  Donohoe;  Worcester 
Polytechnic  Institute,  Donald  F.  Berth  and 
Kenneth  L.  McDonnell. 

Acknowledgments: 

Typesetting,  BG  Composition,  Inc.;  Printing, 
American  Press,  Inc. 

Diverse  views  on  subjects  of  public  interest 
are  presented  in  the  magazine.  These  views 
do  not  necessarily  reflect  the  opinions  of  the 
editors  or  official  policies  of  WPI.  Address 
correspondence  to  the  Editor,  The  WPI  Jour- 
nal, Worcester  Polytechnic  Institute,  Worces- 
ter, MA  01609.  Telephone  (617)  793-5609. 
Postmaster:  If  undeliverable  please  send  form 
3579  to  the  address  above.  Do  not  return  pub- 
lication. 


MAY  1986 


CONTENTS 


6  Life's  Little  Secrets 

WPI's  plunge  into  biotechnology. 
Paul  Susca 

12  Ted  Coghlin '56  EE 

WPI's  most  electrifying  alumnus. 
Ruth  Trask 

14  Architect  for  a  Growing  Worcester: 
Stephen  C.  Earle  (1839-1913) 

Curtis  Dahl 

20  The  Numbers  in  his  Head 

David  Lloyd  looks  back  on  30  years 
of  WPI  growth. 
Rachel  Faugno 

22  Teaching  Refugees  to  Swim 

A  day  in  Somalia  with  Dennis  Hattem  '74  CE. 
Ruth  Trask 

I  How  to  Succeed  in  College 
Without  Really  Trying 

In  Japan,  flunking  out  of  college  is  hard  to  do. 
Leslie  Brunetta 

IV  Panic 

AIDS,  terrorism,  earthquakes — how  and  why  we  panic. 
Marshall  Ledger 

XII  Pomp  and  its  Circumstances 

Traditional  graduation  garb  isn't  so  traditional. 
Leslie  Brunetta 

39  And  Nothing  but  the  Truth 

WPI  faculty  and  alumni  are  expert  witnesses. 
Linda  Blackmar  '86 

Departments 

News  from  the  Hill        2 

Class  Notes       45 

Completed  Careers        58 

The  Last  Word        Inside  back  cover 


N0»L.. 


Page  6 


v? 


Page  14 


i  i   jZ 


Page  I 


Cover:  In  a  molecular  biology  laboratory,  Russell  Brierly  '86  M.S.,  who  is 
now  employed  by  Upjohn  Company,  uses  agarose  gel  electrophoresis 
to  analyze  recombinant  DNA  molecules.  Photo  by  Michael  Carroll. 


MAY  1986        1 


NEWS  FROM  THE  HILL 


Joaquim  (Joe)  S.S.  Ribeiro  '58  ME 

WPI  Names  Alumnus 
V.P.  for  Business  Affairs 

Joaquim  (Joe)  S.S.  Ribeiro  '58  ME  has 
been  named  vice  president  for  business 
affairs.  Ribeiro  is  former  vice  president 
and  chief  financial  officer  for  Infocom, 
Inc.,  a  developer  and  marketer  of  inter- 
active software  for  personal  computers  in 
Cambridge,  MA. 

Ribeiro  began  work  in  January,  suc- 
ceeding David  E.  Lloyd,  who  is  retiring 
after  32  years  of  service  to  WPI.  (A  pro- 
file of  David  Lloyd  begins  on  page  20.) 

In  his  new  post,  Ribeiro  is  responsible 
for  all  of  WPI's  business  and  financial 
operations,  including  budget  preparation 
and  control,  together  with  investment 
administration. 

Before  assuming  his  post  at  Infocom, 
Ribeiro  was  vice  president  and  chief 
financial  officer  for  Jamesbury  Corpora- 
tion, a  Worcester-based  manufacturer  of 
industrial  valves  and  controls,  which  was 
acquired  by  Combustion  Engineering  in 
1984. 

Howard  G.  Freeman  '40  ME,  founder 
and  president  of  Jamesbury  and  chair- 
man of  the  WPI  Board  of  Trustees,  calls 
Ribeiro  "an  exemplary  individual,  enor- 
mously  competent    in   the    world   of 


finance  .  .  .  he's  just  a  great  guy." 

President  Jon  C.  Strauss  echoed  these 
sentiments,  saying  of  the  announcement, 
"Joe  brings  excellent  financial  skills, 
enthusiasm  and  community  contacts  to 
WPI.  We'll  miss  Dave  Lloyd's  leader- 
ship, but  we  know  the  financial  health  of 
the  Institute  continues  in  good  hands." 

Ribeiro  serves  on  the  boards  of  direc- 
tors of  several  local  educational,  banking 
and  hospital  organizations.  He,  his  wife, 
Sarah,  and  five  children  reside  in  Jeffer- 
son, MA. 


Institute  Appoints 
Graduate  Dean  and 
Research  Administrator 

The  Institute  has  announced  the  appoint- 
ment of  a  new  full-time  dean  of  graduate 
studies  and  research  and  the  creation  of  a 
new  administrative  post,  director  of 
research  administration,  according  to  Dr. 
Richard  H.  Gallagher,  vice  president  and 
dean  of  the  faculty. 

William  H.  Taft,  a  geologist  by  train- 
ing and  an  environmental  consultant, 
became  WPI's  full-time  dean  of  graduate 
studies  and  research  in  April.  He  suc- 
ceeds Dr.  Wilmer  L.  Kranich,  who 
■■■■■■ 


retired  in  June  1985  after  37  years  of 
service  to  WPI. 

With  the  appointment  of  Taft,  WPI  is 
expanding  the  position  of  graduate  dean 
from  its  traditional  half-time  status  to  a 
full-time  post,  according  to  Gallagher. 

"Graduate  education  is  playing  an 
increasingly  vital  role  at  WPI,"  says  Gal- 
lagher. "Our  graduate  programs  are  rig- 
orous and  well-respected  on  their  own. 
By  expanding  this  position  to  full-time 
we  are  recognizing  the  growing  task  of 
managing  the  widening  scope,  and  size, 
of  the  WPI  graduate  program." 

Taft,  a  native  of  San  Francisco, 
received  both  his  B.S.  and  Ph.D.  degrees 
from  Stanford  University  and  his  M.S. 
from  the  University  of  South  Dakota.  He 
taught  geology  at  the  University  of  South 
Florida  in  Tampa  from  1963  until  1978. 
During  that  time,  he  also  held  several 
administrative  positions  at  the  Univer- 
sity, including  director  of  research  and 
director  of  graduate  studies. 

There  he  established  the  Research  and 
Development  Center,  designed  to  facili- 
tate the  creation  of  multidisciplinary 
research  endeavors,  as  well  as  a  research 
group  focusing  on  exceptional  children 
and  adults. 

To  complement  the  growth  of  graduate 
activity  at  WPI,  Andrew  W.  Shepard  has 


Andrew  W.  Shepard 


William  H.  Taft 


WPI  JOURNAL 


been  named  to  fill  the  post  of  director  of 
research  administration.  A  1975  grad- 
uate of  Tufts  University,  Shepard  was 
supervisor  of  sponsored  programs 
accounting  for  Tufts  until  1983.  In  that 
position  he  oversaw  the  cost  accounting 
and  control  of  more  than  $25  million  in 
federal  and  private  research  grants  and 
contracts  annually.  In  1983,  he  joined 
the  staff  of  the  Dana-Farber  Cancer  Insti- 
tute in  Boston  as  manager  of  research 
administration. 

At  WPI,  Shepard's  role  will  include 
supervising  funded  faculty  research.  In 
1985,  sponsored  and  contract  research 
revenues  for  WPI  and  the  WPI  Alden 
Research  Laboratory  totaled  nearly  $4 
million.  Shepard  will  also  assist  faculty 
with  the  preparation  and  submission  of 
research  proposals  to  various  agencies, 
administer  WPI's  patent  and  copyright 
programs,  publish  research  reports  and 
inform  faculty  of  new  sources  of  fund- 
ing. 


Questions  Linger  on 
Future  of  Space  Shuttle 
Projects 

In  the  wake  of  the  tragic  flight  of  the 
space  shuttle  Challenger  on  January  28, 
questions  have  surfaced  on  campus  and 
off  surrounding  the  future  of  WPI's  joint 

A  reception  for  Jon  and  Jean  Strauss  at 
Boston 's  Computer  Museum  was  the 
fifth  stop  on  a  national  tour  that  will 
carry  Dr.  Strauss '  message  for  the 
Institute's  future  to  alumni  in  21  cities. 
The  tour  will  culminate  with  Dr. 
Strauss'  inauguration  on  May  10 — the 
121st  anniversary  of  the  signing  of 
WPI's  charter  by  the  Commonwealth  of 
Massachusetts.  Left  to  right:  Jon  C. 
Strauss,  Robert  ('85  M.B.A.)  and 
Patricia  ('75)  Flaherty,  Judy  Nitsch  '75 
and  Jean  Strauss. 


venture  with  MITRE  Corporation,  of 
Bedford,  MA.  Prior  to  the  Challenger 
catastrophe,  WPI  students  had  been 
busily  preparing  experiments  for  liftoff 
aboard  a  space  shuttle  flight  originally 
scheduled  for  late  1986. 

Now,  several  months  later,  the  ques- 
tions linger.  But  according  to  EE  Profes- 
sor Fred  J.  Looft  III,  a  member  of  the 
program's  Technical  Steering  Commit- 
tee, "NASA  has  instructed  us  to  proceed 
at  full  speed  to  prepare  our  GASCAN 
[Get  Away  Special  Canister].  Still, 
there's  no  way  to  predict  when  our  canis- 
ter will  be  launched." 

MITRE  Corporation,  a  non-profit  gov- 
ernment contractor,  supplied  the  canister 
hardware  necessary  to  house  and  protect 
the  five  experiments  planned  for  the 
flight,  experiments  ranging  from  a  solid- 
state  earth  imaging  system,  to  a  space- 
based  energy  generation  device. 

However,  Looft  notes,  according  to 
his  contact  person  at  NASA,  it  is  likely 
that,  once  shuttle  flights  begin  again, 
WPI's  GASCAN  will  be  among  the  first 
of  many  to  go  aloft.  He  adds  that  up  to 
30  canisters  can  be  loaded  into  the  shut- 
tle's 60- foot-long  cargo  bay.  And  with 
the  backlog  of  flight-ready  GASCANs 
reported  to  number  about  50,  WPI's  stu- 
dents and  faculty  advisors  may  well  see 
their  experiments  tested  relatively  soon. 

One  more  element  enters  the  equation, 
he  says.  "The  early  flights  of  the  shuttles 
will  carry  non-commercial  payloads— no 
commercial  satellites  or  experiments 
because  of  insurance  companies'  reluc- 
tance to  underwrite  potentially  devastat- 
ing losses. 

"These  flights  will  be  essentially  engi- 
neering and  evaluation  flights,"  he  adds, 
"leaving  lots  of  room  on  board  for  GAS- 
CANs." 

In  another  recent  development, 
MITRE  has  offered  WPI  a  second  GAS- 
CAN. Preparation  of  GASCAN  II  exper- 
iments, according  to  Looft,  is  also  pro- 
ceeding at  full  speed,  in  one  of  the 
Institute's  most  challenging  and  reward- 
ing project  programs. 


MAY  1986 


Winter  Sports  Wrap'iip 

Senior  guard  Kimberly  Fay  set  a  new 
standard  for  women's  basketball  at  WPI. 
as  she  completed  her  career  with  1 ,475 
points.  The  four-year  starter  and  All- 
New  England  performer  surpassed  the 
mark  set  by  Terese  Kwiatkowski  *83 
who  had  1 .454  career  points.  Fay  led  the 
Engineers  to  a  13-10  record  and  an 
appearance  in  the  MAIAW  Tournament. 
Her  play  also  helped  first-year  head 
coach  Naomi  Graves  get  her  collegiate 
coaching  career  started  on  the  winning 
road. 

The  men's  basketball  team  also  com- 
piled a  13-10  record,  marking  the  Engi- 
neers' fifth  straight  winning  season,  a 
feat  accomplished  only  once  before  at 
WPI.  Junior  guard  William  McCullen 
helped  ease  the  loss  of  Greg  Fiddes  and 
Orville  Bailey,  both  '85  graduates,  as  he 
averaged  19.4  points  per  game  in  his  first 
starting  season.  With  almost  everyone 
back  next  year.  WPI  should  once  again 
contend. 

WPI  wrestling  continued  its  domi- 
nance in  New  England  as  the  Engineers 
posted  a  15-1  dual  meet  season  and  cap- 
tured second  place  in  the  NECCWA 
Championships.  Senior  Nickolas  Trian- 
tafell  was  undefeated  in  dual  meets.  He 
and  two  other  NECCWA  WPI  champs 
advanced  to  the  NCAA  Division  III 
Nationals. 

Men's  swimming  turned  in  a  winning 
season  and  a  strong  showing  at  the  New 
Englands.  Freshman  Andrew  Owen 
beached  many  opponents  this  season  and 
could  own  the  WPI  record  books  before 
he's  through. 

Women's  swimming  came  on  strong  at 
the  end  of  the  season  and  showed  prom- 
ise for  the  future. 

Two  men's  tracksters  placed  in  the 
Indoor  New  Englands,  but  all  efforts  are 
directed  toward  the  spring  season  and 
competition  on  WPI's  new  all-weather 
track. 

In  early  March,  WPI  was  notified  that 
the  new  running  track,  made  of  multi- 
colored Action  Track  400T.  received  the 
Goddard  Award  for  Aesthetic  Excellence 
presented  by  the  U.S.  Tennis  Court  and 
Track  Builders  Association  at  its  annual 
convention.  The  installers,  American 
Surfacing  Company  of  Baltimore.  MD, 
received  the  actual  award,  and  WPI  will 
receive  a  plaque. 

As  part  of  renovations  to  its  outdoor 
recreational     facilities,     the    college 


installed  the  track  last  fall  as  well  as  the 
Omniturf  multi-purpose  field,  lighting 
systems  and  scoreboards,  and  other 
improvements. 


Tuition  and  Fees 
Up  for  1986-87 

Worcester  Polytechnic  Institute  has 
announced  that  tuition  and  fees  for  the 
1986-87  college  year  will  be  $9,820,  an 
8.2  percent  increase  over  the  previous 
year.  Total  estimated  cost  for  a  typical 
resident  student  for  room,  board,  tuition 
and  fees  will  be  $13,315. 

In  addition,  the  Office  of  Residential 
Life  announced  increases  to  campus 
housing  costs  ranging  from  $200  to  $300 
for  next  year,  depending  on  the  particular 
residence  and  whether  the  arrangement  is 
for  single,  double,  triple  or  quadruple 
housing. 

The  WPI  Undergraduate  Catalog  for 
the  current  year  lists  tuition  and  fees  at 
$9,008  with  an  estimated  average  room 
and  board  charge  of  $3,410. 

Nationwide,  total  college  costs  are 
expected  to  rise  an  average  of  5-6  per- 
cent next  year,  according  to  an  American 
Council  on  Education  report  released  in 
March. 

In  his  letter  to  parents  announcing  the 
tuition  increase.  President  Jon  C.  Strauss 
wrote,  "WPI  tuition  and  fees  are  set  so 
that  the  resulting  predicted  revenue  from 
all  sources  will  cover  the  total  costs 
required  to  maintain  the  quality  of  a  WPI 
education. 

"Additional  support  from  philan- 
thropic foundations,  from  industry,  and 
from  our  alumni,  parents  and  other 
friends  of  WPI  is  a  gratifying  response  to 
our  efforts  to  provide  a  quality  education 
and  setting,"  continued  Dr.  Strauss. 
"Further,  this  support  covers  almost  half 
the  total  real  cost  of  a  WPI  education." 


Richard  W.  Lyman  to 
Deliver  Commencement 
Address 

Richard  W.  Lyman,  president  of  the 
Rockefeller  Foundation  since  1980  and 
president  emeritus  of  Stanford  Univer- 
sity, will  deliver  the  commencement 
address  at  WPI's  1 18th  graduation  exer- 
cises on  May  24. 

The  Rockefeller  Foundation  is  one  of 
the  most  distinguished  philanthropic 
organizations  in  the  United  States  with  a 
record  of  outstanding  achievement  in 
agricultural,  population  and  health  sci- 
ences; international  relations;  and  the 
arts  and  humanities. 

Before  being  named  to  head  the  Rock- 
efeller Foundation,  Lyman  had  served 
for  10  years  as  the  president  of  Stanford 
University.  A  New  York  Times  profile 
written  at  the  time  Lyman  was  named  to 
head  the  Rockefeller  Foundation  com- 
mented that  he  had  "acquired  a  national 
reputation  as  one  of  the  country's  most 
prominent  educator-administrators,  pro- 
viding firm  leadership  during  the  time 
when  the  university,  like  many  others, 
was  torn  by  student  demonstrations 
against  the  war  in  Vietnam." 

Lyman  was  born  in  Philadelphia  in 
1923.  He  is  the  son  of  the  late  Charles 
M.  Lyman,  a  1921  graduate  in  chemistry 
from  WPI,  and  Aglae  Lyman,  who  now 
resides  in  Palo  Alto,  California. 

After  serving  with  the  U.S.  Army  Air 
Force  for  three  years  during  World  War 
II,  Lyman  graduated  from  Swarthmore 
College  in  1947.  He  earned  an  M.A.  in 
1948  and  a  Ph.D.  in  1954  from  Harvard 
University. 

During  his  academic  career,  Lyman 
distinguished  himself  as  a  historian. 
Among  his  numerous  publications  are 
Major  Crises  In  Western  Civilization 
(with  Lewis  W.  Spitz),  published  in 
1965,  and  The  First  Labour  Govern- 
ment, 1957.  Lyman  was  also  a  special 
correspondent  for  The  Economist 
between  1953  and  1966. 


Sigma  Phi  Epsilon  To 
Reopen 

According  to  Bernard  H.  Brown,  vice 
president  for  student  affairs,  Massachu- 
setts Beta  chapter  of  Sigma  Phi  Epilson 
will  reopen  in  the  fall  of  1986.   This 


WPI  JOURNAL 


action  concludes  months  of  collaboration 
between  the  fraternity  leadership  and  the 
Institute's  administration. 

During  the  summer  of  1985  the  Sig  Ep 
chapter  was  closed  by  a  decision  of  the 
fraternity's  alumni  board.  Reasons  cited 
for  the  closing  included  noncompliance 
with  WPI  hazing  and  Interfraternity 
Council  (IFC)  guidelines. 

Originally,  the  fraternity  was  to  reopen 
no  sooner  than  the  fall  of  1988.  But  since 
the  decision  to  close  was  made  by  the 
fraternity  alumni,  and  not  the  WPI 
administration,  the  option  existed  for 
reopening  earlier. 

WPI  and  the  alumni  board  of  Sig  Ep 
have  approved  the  plan.  In  conjunction 
with  the  national  office  of  Sigma  Phi 
Epsilon,  the  WPI  Sig  Ep  alumni  and  the 
college  have  issued  several  guidelines  to 
be  followed  during  the  first  year  of  rein- 
statement. According  to  IFC  President 
Michael  Gonsor  '86,  those  guidelines 
include  having  a  member  of  the  national 
fraternity  staff  based  at  WPI  from  Sep- 
tember to  December  1986  and  insuring 
that  the  alumni  take  an  "active  role"  in 
house  activities. 

In  addition.  Sig  Ep  will  remain  on  aca- 
demic probation  for  the  1986-87  aca- 
demic year. 

During  the  1984-85  school  year, 
approximately  48  members  lived  in  Sig 
Ep's  two  houses,  located  adjacent  to  one 
another  on  Boynton  Street  at  Institute 
Road. 

All  of  the  Sig  Ep  brothers  removed 
from  the  house  last  May  are  presently 
recognized  as  suspended  members, 
though  upon  graduation  they  will  be 
given  full  privileges  as  alumni  members. 


In  March,  106  area  high  school  stu- 
dents participated  in  the  31st  annual 
Worcester  Regional  Science  and  Engi- 
neering Fair,  held  in  Alden  Hall.  The 
winners  were  John  Butare,  for  his 
project  "How  Effectively  Can  a  Robot 
Define,  Operate  in,  and  Adapt  to 
Diverse  Environments?  "  and  Athena 
Demetry  for  "The  Bending  Strength  of 
Turkey  Leg  Bones."  Athena  is  the 
daughter  of  Electrical  Engineering 
Professor  and  Mrs.  James  S.  Demetry. 

If  the  reopening  does  take  place  as 
scheduled,  all  remaining  suspended 
members  (who  will  be  members  of  the 
class  of  either  1987  or  1988).  may  be 
fully  reinstated. 

Brown  also  announced  that  Sig  Ep  will 
be  the  first  fraternity  at  WPI  to  have  a 
dry  rush,  in  the  fall  of  1986.  This  has 
become  a  widespread  trend  across  the 
nation,  though  the  IFC  has  yet  to  adopt 
this  policy  campuswide.  A  representa- 
tive of  the  fraternity's  national  organiza- 
tion will  assist  in  function  planning  for 
the  coming  year,   says  Gonsor. 

Commenting  on  the  planned  reopen- 
ing, Brown  indicates  that  he  is  "very 
interested"  in  seeing  the  chapter  reopen. 
Parents  of  the  brothers,  he  says,  "played 
an  important  role  in  the  process." 

"There  was  a  history  of  problems 
associated  with  the  fraternity."  he  says. 
and  adds  that  he  believes  these  problems 
have  been  resolved.  On  the  subject  of  Sig 
Ep's  dry  rush.  Brown  indicates  that  the 
Dean  of  Students  staff  has  been  "encour- 
aging a  dry  rush."  and  that  he  hopes  "the 
IFC  will  adopt  this  policy  for  all  Greek 
organizations  on  campus." 


Richardson  Appointed 
Dean  of  Students 

Janet  Begin  Richardson  has  been 
appointed  Dean  of  Students,  according 
to  Bernard  H.  Brown,  vice  president  for 
student  affairs  at  WPI.  Richardson  was 
formerly  associate  dean  of  students. 

"Janet's  qualifications  as  a  profes- 
sional educator,  her  goals  for  the  dean  of 
students'  office  and  her  proactive 
approach  to  student  life  issues  should 
bring  an  exciting  dimension  to  the  stu- 
dent affairs  division."  Brown  says. 

Dean  Richardson  will  oversee  areas  of 
student  affairs  such  as  residential  life, 
fraternities  and  sororities,  student  activi- 
ties, and  the  international  student  pro- 
gram. 

Before  coming  to  WPI,  Richardson, 
who  received  her  B.A.  from  Salem  State 
College  and  her  M.S.  and  Ed.S.  from  the 
State  University  of  New  York  (SUNY)  at 
Albany,  was  an  administrator  at  Pennsyl- 
vania State  University.  Among  the  posi- 
tions she  held  there  were  area  coordina- 
tor in  the  residential  life  program  and 
coordinator  of  the  Interest  House  pro- 
gram. 

Prior  to  that,  she  was  residence  hall 
director  at  State  University  College  of 
New  York  in  Oneonta.  admissions  coun- 
selor at  SUNY-Albany  and  resident 
assistant  at  Salem  State  College. 

She  is  married  to  Donald  G.  Richard- 
son, technical  reports  librarian  in  Gordon 
Library.  They  live  in  Worcester  and  are 
the  parents  of  one  son.  Matthew. 


Janet  Begin  Richardson 


MAY  1986       5 


By  Paul  Susca 


W"  hen  the  lilacs  are  in 
bloom  on  Cape  Cod, 
the  horseshoe  crabs 
come  home  to  spawn.  And 
every  day  at  sunrise  during 
May  and  June,  fishermen 
walk  along  the  shores  and 
shallows  of  Cape  Cod's 
Pleasant  Bay  scooping  hun- 
dreds of  the  largest  egg-laden 
females  into  plastic  buckets. 
Then  they  haul  the  buckets 
off  to  a  factory  in  nearby  Fal- 
mouth, where  workers  use 
hypodermic  needles  to  drain 
off  a  third  of  each  crab's 
cloudy  blue  blood.  On  an 
average  day,  the  Falmouth 


plant  processes  about  1,200 
horseshoe  crabs.  The  harvest 
continues  until  October, 
when  the  crabs  go  out  to  sea. 

All  of  this  has  Professor 
Daniel  G.  Gibson  III  and 
junior  Maureen  O'Leary 
worried.  O'Leary,  herself 
from  Falmouth,  did  her 
IQP— Interactive  Qualifying 
Project— on  the  impact  of 
harvesting  on  horseshoe  crab 
populations  in  Pleasant  Bay 
and  other  nearby  areas.  The 
object  of  O'Leary 's  work, 
which  was  done  last  year 
under  Gibson's  direction, 
was  to  study  the  interaction 


between  a  biological  phe- 
nomenon and  society. 
O'Leary  concluded  that  the 
current  practice  of  removing 
crabs— predominantly 
females  ready  to  lay  eggs— 
and  taking  a  third  of  their 
blood  before  returning  them 
to  the  Bay  is  likely  to  disrupt 
the  life  cycle  of  the  armored 
arthropods. 

Bleeding  horseshoe  crabs 
is  a  lucrative  business 
because  a  substance  called 
LAL  (Limulus  amebocyte 
lysate)  is  stored  in  ameba- 
like  cells  in  the  crabs'  blood. 
LAL,  a  highly  potent  mixture 


As  WPI  crosses 
the  new  frontiers 
of  biotechnology, 
faculty  members 
and  students 
are  uncovering 
mechanisms 
of  life  itself.  And  to 
find  solutions  to 
human  problems, 
they're  exploring  the 
worlds  of  everything 
from  brine  shrimp 
to  slime  molds. 


6       WPI  JOURNAL 


ff 


of  proteins  which  serves  a 
defensive  blood-clotting 
function  in  the  crabs,  is  cur- 
rently used  in  the  only  FDA- 
approved  procedure  for 
screening  intravenously- 
administered  drugs  for  bacte- 
rial contamination. 

Before  LAL's  unique  prop- 
erties were  discovered,  a 
drug  sample  was  found  to  be 
contaminated  if  a  rabbit 
injected  with  the  sample 
developed  a  fever.  With  the 
LAL  test,  pharmaceutical 
companies  have  eliminated 
the  expense  and  waiting 
involved  in  the  rabbit  test, 
but  their  actions  have  also  put 
a  high  price  tag  on  horseshoe 
crabs. 

Gibson  and  O'Leary  are 
worried  about  what  is  hap- 
pening to  Limulus  popula- 
tions in  the  meantime.  If  a 
crab  is  taken,  bled  and 
returned  to  another  part  of  its 
native  bay  days  later,  what 
becomes  of  it?  "Will  they 
spawn  that  year?  Will  they 
ever  spawn  again?  These  are 
questions  that  I  don't  think 
we'll  ever  know  the  answers 
to  until  someone  does  a  20- 
year  study,"  says  Gibson. 
"Meanwhile,  bleeding  the 
crabs  may  not  be  necessary  at 
all  if  the  cells  can  be  grown 
in  culture." 

Although  others  have  tried 


In  WPI's  first-of-its-kind 
course  on  large-scale  bio- 
process  engineering,  Profes- 
sor Pamela  Weathers  looks 
on  as  William  Skea  ofMilli- 
pore  Corporation,  which 
provided  equipment  for  the 
course,  instructs  Jeffrey 
Kelly  '86  in  use  of  a  high- 
pressure  liquid  chromato- 
graph. 


and  failed,  Gibson  and  two  of 
his  students,  seniors 
Geraldine  Farley  and  Jeffrey 
Winick,  are  currently  trying 
to  find  a  way  to  grow  the 
LAL-producing  cells  in  cul- 
ture. 

Horseshoe  crabs  harbor 
another  biological  mystery 
that  fascinates  Gibson.  In  his 
human  physiology  course, 
Gibson  uses  the  horseshoe 
crab  heart  as  a  model  for  neu- 
rophysiology. 

Limulus  hearts  fascinate 
Dan  Gibson  because  for 
many  years  scientists 
believed  that  the  horseshoe 
crab  acquires  cardiac  nerves 
only  as  it  matures.  Gibson's 
work  showed  that  the  nerves 
are  there  all  along.  He  first 
found  that  heart  nerves  in  the 
larval  crab  became  visible 
under  an  electron  micro- 
scope, and  his  recent  experi- 
ments with  various  dyes  have 
shown  there  is  not  just  one, 
but  two  kinds  of  nerves  in  a 
crab's  heart. 

Now,  together  with  Ph.D. 
student  Arthur  Meuse,  Gib- 
son wants  to  find  out  how 
new  nerve  cells  are  put  to 
work  in  the  crab's  existing 
nervous  circuit  without  dis- 
rupting the  regular  beating  of 
the  heart.  "It's  a  hardy  and 
accessible  model  of  how  neu- 
rons are  recruited  into  a  func- 
tioning circuit,"  Gibson  says, 
adding  that  this  work  should 
contribute  to  an  understand- 
ing of  the  process  of  circuitry 
development  in  human  brain 
tissue. 

Horseshoe  crabs  may  seem 
an  unlikely  place  to  look  for 
answers  to  modern  medical 
questions,  but  biologists  are 
increasingly  looking  to  lower 
forms  of  life  to  find  clues 
about  basic  biological  pro- 


cesses that  they  have  in  com- 
mon with  humans.  Since 
uncovering  some  of  the 
secrets  of  life  on  the  cellular 
level— the  structure  and  role 
of  DNA,  the  decoding  of 
genes,  and  the  manipulation 
of  genetic  material,  for 
instance— biologists  have 
delved  more  and  more  deeply 
into  aspects  of  cell  biology 
that  hold  promise  for  even- 
tual breakthroughs  in  under- 
standing, preventing  and 
treating  medical,  agricultural 
and  industrial  problems. 

Salisbury  Laboratories  is 
the  rethought,  rede- 
signed and  remodeled 
home  of  WPI's  Department 
of  Biology  and  Biotechnol- 
ogy. The  B&B  Department, 
like  the  building,  has  under- 
gone dramatic  change  in  the 
last  few  years  as  the  life  sci- 
ences have  enjoyed  a  renais- 
sance in  interest  in  the  media, 
in  industry  and  among  stu- 
dents. 

"Students  are  suddenly 
seeing  that  biology  isn't  just 
memorizing  the  names  of 
butterflies  and  leaves,"  Pro- 
fessor Ronald  D.  Cheetham 
says.  "They  are  recognizing 
that  biology  enables  them  to 
produce  industrial  products 
of  great  economic  value."  As 
a  result,  the  jump  in  the  pop- 
ularity of  this  new  biology 
has  been  so  dramatic  that, 
according  to  department  head 
Joseph  C.  Bagshaw,  the 
number  of  B&B  majors  has 
grown  threefold  in  the  last 
four  years. 

WPI  has  been  quick  to 
respond  to  the  increased 
interest  in  biotechnology.  In 
addition  to  providing  a  strong 
foundation  of  courses  in 
biology— especially  cell  and 


molecular  biology— WPI's 
Biology  and  Biotechnology 
Department  is  providing 
unparalleled  training  for  the 
next  generation  of  biotechno- 
logists,  emphasizing  both 
research  techniques  and 
industrial  biotechnology 
skills. 

Industrial  development  of 
biotechnology  will  require 
several  groups  of  technical 
personnel,  says  Bagshaw, 
such  as  molecular  biologists, 
immunologists  and  bio- 
process  engineers.  It's  the  lat- 
ter group— the  limited  num- 
ber of  experts  now  engaged 
in  bioprocess  engineering— 
that  is  of  particular  concern 
to  WPI. 

"We're  working  to  prevent 
a  critical  shortage  of  trained 
people  for  jobs  which  didn't 
exist  two  years  ago,"  he  says. 
"All  predictions  point  to  a 
rapid  rise  in  the  need  for 
these  specialists." 

Massachusetts,  which 
takes  pride  in  its  thriving 
high  technology  industries, 
recognizes  that  this  shortage 
could  dampen  the  rapid 
development  of  its  fledgling 
biotechnology  businesses. 
Companies  that  will  locate  in 
Worcester's  new  75-acre, 
$165-million  Biotechnology 
Research  Park,  says  Bag- 
shaw, will  need  such  experts. 

The  first  of  its  kind  in  the 
country,  WPI's  new  course  in 
bioprocess  technology,  which 
focuses  on  exploiting 
industrial  scale  biological 
processes  developed  in  the 
laboratory,  emphasizes  what 
has  always  been  a  hallmark 
of  WPI  education— hands-on 
experience. 

Funded  through  a  partner- 
ship with  local  industry  and 
the  quasi-public  Bay  State 


Life's  Little  Secrets 


MAY  1986       7 


Skills  Corporation  (BSSC), 
the  bioprocess  course  trains 
WPI  students  in  the  tricky 
business  of  bioprocess  scale- 
up,  or  the  design  of 
commercial-scale  processes 
based  on  laboratory-scale 
experience.  The  course  also 
includes  a  session  on  labora- 
tory robotics  and  hands-on 
experience  running  large- 
scale  bioprocess  equipment  at 
Norton  Company  in  Worces- 
ter. 

BSSC  has  committed 
nearly  $86,000  to  the  WPI 
effort  over  a  two-year  period. 
Seven  Massachusetts  firms 
have  together  pledged 
another  $1 18,000.  A  major 
part  of  the  industry  support, 
says  Professor  Pamela 
Weathers,  who  is  teaching 
the  course,  is  in  equipment 
given  by  Millipore  Corpora- 
tion, of  Bedford.  Included  in 
the  gift  is  a  high-pressure  liq- 
uid chromatograph  with  scal- 
ing columns,  computer  soft- 
ware and  membrane 
processing  equipment  for 
both  laboratory  and  pilot- 
scale  operations.  In  addition, 
Zymark  Corporation  is  pro- 
viding three  robots  to  per- 
form routine  laboratory  pro- 
cedures. 

A  blue-ribbon  advisory 
board  consisting  of  industry 
experts  is  assisting  the  WPI 
faculty  in  developing  future 
directions  for  this  vital 
course. 

In  the  course's  first  year, 
half  of  the  students  will  have 
worked  on  separation  prob- 
lems on-site  with  local  com- 
panies, according  to  Weath- 
ers. "Students  completing  the 
course  will  have  a  unique 
edge  in  the  job  market.  This 
kind  of  training  is  not  avail- 
able at  any  other  college  in 
the  country,"  Weathers  says. 

One  of  two  biology  profes- 
sors concentrating  on  bio- 
process technology,  Weathers 
has  also  been  developing  a 
novel  method  for  culturing 
hybridoma  cells.  Already 
widely  used  in  the  production 
of  monoclonal  antibodies  (a 


new  class  of  bioengineered 
substances  used  primarily  in 
medical  diagnostics),  hybri- 
domas  are  hybrid  cells 
formed  by  fusing  two  differ- 
ent cell  types— such  as 
human  tumor  cells  and 
antibody-producing  spleen 
cells  from  mice. 

Weathers  recently  started 
work  on  a  new  method  of 
growing  animal  and  hybrid- 
oma cells  in  cultures  based 
on  a  technique  that  she  and  a 
colleague  have  already  per- 
fected for  plant  cells.  She 
asserts,  "We  believe  it  will 
revolutionize  the  tissue  cul- 
ture industry." 

Professor  Judith  E.  Miller 
is  the  Department's  other  bio- 
process specialist.  Just  back 
from  sabbatical  managing 
fermentation  processes  for  a 
biotechnology  firm  in  Cam- 
bridge, MA,  Miller  teaches  a 
course  in  fermentation.  Her 
current  research  focuses  on  a 
basic  problem  in  bioprocess 
technology:  cell  immobiliza- 
tion. 

Currently  used  in  a  wide 
variety  of  bioprocesses, 
including  those  that  yield 
amino  acids  for  food  supple- 
ments, steroids  for  birth  con- 
trol pills,  and  sweeteners  and 
antibiotics,  cell  immobiliza- 
tion encompasses  an  assort- 
ment of  techniques  for  get- 
ting cells  to  stay  put  while 
they  make  a  useful  product. 
In  a  wastewater  treatment 
process,  for  example,  immo- 
bilization may  be  as  simple 
as  coating  a  bed  of  gravel 
with  bacteria,  Miller 
explains.  At  the  opposite  end 
of  the  spectrum,  some  scien- 
tists propose  injecting 
insulin-producing  cells 
immobilized  in  microscopic 
capsules  into  the  blood- 
streams of  diabetics. 

Under  Miller's  direction, 
master's  degree  student  Fran- 
cis McConville  '76  is  mathe- 
matically modeling  the  pro- 
ductivity of  yeast  cells 
immobilized  in  gel  beads. 
Miller  and  McConville  hope 
that  the  information  they  are 


collecting  will  prove  useful 
in  the  design  of  other  bio- 
process systems. 

In  Miller's  laboratory,  gel 
beads  whirl  around  in  bench- 
scale  fermentors  resembling 
jars  of  barley  soup.  The 
bench  fermentors  are  a  criti- 
cal part  of  WPI's  biotechnol- 
ogy program,  Miller  points 
out,  because  laboratory  work 
is  what  sets  B&B  apart.  "We 
have  a  higher  proportion  of 
lab  courses  in  our  curriculum 
by  far  than  any  other  depart- 
ment at  WPI,"  Miller  says. 

She  also  points  out  that  the 
Department  badly  needs  a 
fourth  teaching  laboratory  to 
keep  up  with  the  dramatic 
growth  in  the  number  of 
B&B  students.  She  notes  that 
soon  the  Department  expects 
to  be  handling  20-25  majors 
in  each  class,  which  contrasts 
dramatically  with  the  late 
'70s,  when  Miller  recalls  the 
Department  having  fewer 
graduating  seniors  than  fac- 
ulty members. 

Students  have  serious 
career  goals  in  mind, 
and  they  see  biotech  as 
an  up-and-coming  field," 
asserts  Professor  David  S. 
Adams,  who  introduces 
nearly  all  of  the  Department's 
majors  to  the  brave  new 
world  of  biology  through  his 
courses  in  cell  biology  and 
molecular  genetics.  Adams  is 
also  one  of  the  Department's 
"gene  jockeys,"  practitioners 
of  recombinant  DNA 
research  techniques. 

In  the  laboratory,  Adams' 
students  use  modern  molecu- 
lar and  immunoassay  meth- 
ods to  coax  orange  slime 
molds,  which  normally  make 
their  living  off  decaying 
wood,  into  revealing  secrets 
about  human  blood  diseases. 
The  blood  comes  from  hospi- 
tals in  New  York  City  and 
Worcester,  where  it  is 
removed  from  patients  with 
lupus  erythematosus,  a  dis- 
ease in  which  blood-borne 
antibodies  attack  the  patients' 
vital  organs  and  tissues. 


In  her  course  on  fermenta- 
tion, Professor  Judy  Miller 
confers  with  graduate  student 
and  teaching  assistant  Fran- 
cis McConville ,  while  senior 
Pasquale  Sacco  works  on  his 
Major  Qualifying  Project, 
growing  the  yeast  Saccharo- 
myces  cerevisiae,  commonly 
used  for  bread,  beer  and 
wine  making. 


Adams,  together  with 
graduate  students  Henry 
Skinner  and  Timothy  Burn,  is 
using  lupus  antibodies  in  an 
investigation  into  the  struc- 
ture and  function  of  mole- 
cules called  small  nuclear 
RNAs  or  snRNAs.  SnRNAs 
are  known  to  perform  a  role 
in  controlling  gene  expres- 
sion, information  about 
which  is  central  to  under- 
standing cancer  and  auto- 
immune diseases  such  as 
lupus.  This  work  also  gives 
Adams'  advanced  cell  biol- 
ogy students  hands-on  expe- 
rience with  biomolecular 
methods. 

But  why  slime  mold? 
"What  makes  this  system  so 
interesting  is  you  can  grow  it 
in  a  culture  ten  centimeters  in 
diameter— and  that's  all  one 
cell,"  Adams  says,  "It  has 
millions  and  millions  of 
nuclei  not  surrounded  by  cell 
walls,  and  they're  all  divid- 
ing in  synchrony  throughout 
the  cell  cycle.  So  it's  an  ideal 
organism  for  analyzing  the 
cell  cycle  and  what  controls 
it." 

When  the  lupus  anti- 
bodies encounter  specific 
slime  mold  snRNAs  in 
Dave  Adams'  lab,  they 
stick  to  each  other  and  fall 
out  of  solution.  This 
technique,  called  "immuno- 
precipitation,"  has  enabled 
Adams  and  his  students  to 
collect  samples  of  different 
snRNAs  from  slime  mold 
cells  in  various  stages  of  their 
life  cycle. 

Having  thus  laid  the 
groundwork  by  studying  the 


8       WPI  JOURNAL 


presence  and  relative  abun- 
dance of  snRNAs  in  slime 
molds  at  different  times, 
Adams'  group  now  intends  to 
take  a  closer  look  at  the  role 
of  various  snRNAs  in  regu- 
lating genes  during  cell  dif- 
ferentiation. 

Differentiation,  which 
occurs  when  a  cell  ceases  to 
divide  and  begins  to  special- 
ize, can  be  a  turning  point  in 
the  development  of  cancer 
cells.  And  while  slime  molds 
may  seem  a  strange  place  to 
look  for  a  solution  to  cancer, 


the  differentiation  process- 
common  to  all  known  com- 
plex life  forms— is  the  focus 
of  a  great  deal  of  current  bio- 
logical research. 

Molecular  biology  has 
made  tremendous  strides  in 
the  three  decades  since  the 
discovery  of  the  helical  struc- 
ture of  DNA— the  material 
that  contains  the  genetic  code 
of  living  things.  The  next 
challenge  has  been  to  under- 
stand the  forces  that  affect 
which  genes  are  "expressed," 
or  converted  from  instruc- 


tions to  action.  A  better 
understanding  of  the  control 
of  genes  is  central  to 
understanding— and 
conquering— many  of  the 
major  health  problems  of  the 
day,  from  cancer,  to  AIDS, 
to  aging. 

Another  of  the  Depart- 
ment's gene  jockeys.  Profes- 
sor Rene  J.  Herrera,  hopes  to 
use  the  DNA  probes  pro- 
duced in  his  lab  by  graduate 
student  Jin  Wang  and  Steven 
Mann  '86  to  analyze  the 
abundance  and  the  rate  of 
transcription  (a  step  in  read- 
ing the  genetic  code  to  pro- 
duce proteins)  of  key  RNA 
molecules  in  order  to  shed 
light  on  the  process  of  human 
aging.  These  molecules 
include  snRNAs,  which  are 
central  to  the  regulation  of 
gene  expression,  and  colla- 
gen and  fibronectin  RNAs, 
whose  proteins  form  impor- 
tant cellular  structures  and 
are  known  to  decrease  with 
aging. 

"This  is  a  relatively  new 
area,"  Herrera  says  in  a  quiet 
but  intense  manner,  "which 
so  far  has  been  ignored  by 
science."  Studies  on  aging 
have  previously  focused  on 
symptoms  such  as  anatomic 
or  blood  composition 
changes,  rather  than  phenom- 
ena on  the  cellular  and 
molecular  levels,  he 
explains. 

So  far,  Herrera  and  his  stu- 
dents have  been  collecting 
tissue  samples  from  individ- 
uals of  various  ages,  with  the 
help  of  the  University  of 
Massachusetts  Medical  Cen- 
ter's Department  of  Surgery 
and  St.  Vincent  Hospital's 
Department  of  Pathology. 
Herrera  plans  to  use  these  tis- 
sue samples — along  with  his 
DNA  probes— to  study  cell 
aging  in  people  as  well  as  in 
cells  growing  in  test  tubes  in 
terms  of  specific  RNAs 
linked  to  aging  phenomena. 
Improved  understanding  of 
the  correlation  between  aging 
processes  on  the  cellular  and 
molecular  levels  and  on  the 


individual  level  should  even- 
tually lead  to  ways  of  con- 
trolling some  factors  that 
contribute  to  premature  aging 
and  health  problems  of  the 
aged. 

Herrera 's  other  work 
includes  the  development  of 
a  new  mutagenicity  assay,  a 
technique  that  assesses  the 
tendency  of  specific  chemi- 
cals to  cause  changes  in  the 
genetic  material  of  cells — 
changes  that  could  lead  to 
cancer  and  birth  defects.  Pre- 
viously, mutagenicity  tests 
have  depended  on  changes  in 
the  genetic  material  of  mam- 
malian cells.  Herrera 's  tech- 
nique relies  on  larger-scale 
exchanges  of  genetic  material 
referred  to  as  SCEs  (sister 
chromatid  exchanges)  in 
mosquito  cells,  which  he 
says  are  easier  to  study. 

Students  get  hands-on 
experience  with  the  tech- 
niques used  by  Herrera  and 
B&B's  other  gene  jockeys  in 
a  course  in  recombinant 
DNA  methods  taught  by  Joe 
Bagshaw.  One  of  the  sources 
of  genetic  material  for  the 
course's  laboratories  is  Bag- 
shaw's  current  studies  of  the 
mechanisms  of  gene  regula- 
tion in  brine  shrimp  {Ane- 
mia). 

Bagshaw  uses  brine  shrimp 
because  they  are  easy  to 
obtain  (they're  sold  over  the 
counter  anyplace  that  sells 
fish  food),  and  because  their 
"eggs"  are  not  really  eggs, 
but  encysted  gastrulae,  a 
much  later  stage  in  the  organ- 
ism's development.  The  gas- 
trulae exist  in  a  state  of  sus- 
pended animation— some- 
times for  as  long  as  70 
years— before  being  brought 
to  life,  according  to  Bag- 
shaw. Thus,  the  eggs  repre- 
sent a  form  of  stored 
information— all  of  the  infor- 
mation needed  to  grow  a  liv- 
ing brine  shrimp,  complete 
with  specialized  nervous, 
digestive  and  muscular 
tissue. 

Bagshaw  explains  why  the 
brine  shrimp  genes  are 


MAY  1986 


important:  "Most  of  the  dis 
cases  now  facing  mankind  in 
the  developed  world  are 
problems  ol  gene  regula 
tion,"  he  says.  "Specific 
genes  function  at  specific 
tunes.  A  gene  gets  turned  on, 
it  does  its  job,  and  it  gets 
turned  off."  As  a  result,  the 
control  of  gene  expression  is 
now  "the  fundamental  issue 
a\  molecular  biology," 
according  to  Bagshaw.  Brine 
shrimp  are  dialled  lor  this 
work  because  gene  regulation 

processes  are  thought  to  he 
Similar  across  all  organisms 

and  because,  as  Bagshaw 
points  out.  "It  would  take 
50.000  pregnant  mice  to  pro 
duce  the  same  number  of 
embryos  produced  by  -i/7<'- 
mia  in  a  hall  liter  o\  brine." 

To  study  gene  regulation  in 

brine  shrimp,  Bagshaw  looks 

at  the  presence  Of  messenger 
RNA.  ormRNA.  which 
pla\  s  a  role  m  carrying 
genetic  information  from 

genes  to  polysomes,  where 
eell  proteins  aiv  nunufac 

tured  according  to  the  specifi 
cations  of  the  mRNA. 
Bagshaw,  with  help  from 

Oai)  Denton  'So.  who  is 
completing  his  Mann  Quali 
tying  Project  (MOP)  in  this 
specialty,  takes  brine  shrimp 
mRNA.  uses  enzymes  to 
convert  the  information  into 
l  >N  \  (the  form  in  which 
genetic  information  is  stored 
and  transferred  to  other 

organisms),  clones  the  HNA 
in  another  organism,  and 
then  takes  a  close  look  at  the 
resulting  ON  A.  This  tells 
him  what  kinds  of  mRNA 
arc  present  at  various  stages 

iii  the  shrimp's  develop- 
ment. 
Bagshaw  is  using  tins 


Professor  David  Adams  (left) 
and  graduate  student  Vimo- 
thy  Burn  examine  t-rayfiim 
of  ribonucleic  acid  i/\\  i 
bands  fallowing  electropho- 
resis, m  determine  what 
genetic  information  tin-  R\  t 
carrii  i 


method  to  test  tor  two  possi- 
ble mechanisms  of  turning  on 
the  inactive  brine  shrimp 
genes,  lather  the  genes  arc 
newly  transcribed  (copied 
onto  mRNA)  or  the  mRNA 
exists,  sequestered  some- 
where in  the  cell,  and  later 
comes  out  of  hiding.  Hag 
Shaw  hopes  his  work  will  add 
another  piece  to  the  gene  reg- 
ulation puzzle,  and  to  the 
larger  picture  ot"  understand- 
ing cancer  and  other  dis- 
eases. 

Professor  Theodore  C. 
Crusberg,  who  teaches 
molecular  biology  with  Bag- 
shaw, also  works  on  the  can- 
cer puzzle,  but  rather  than 
concentrating  on  events  lead- 
ing to  the  formation  ol  cancer 
cells.  Crusberg  studies  the 

human  body's  natural  process 
of  attacking  tumors. 

lor  the  past  five  or  six 
years,  he  has  been  stud)  mg 
how  monocytes,  a  type  o( 
human  white  blood  cell. 


identify  and  destroy  tumors. 
Normally,  when  monocytes 
detect  a  tumor,  they  stick  to 
the  walls  of  nearby  blood 
vessels,  squeeze  through  the 
chinks  in  the  walls,  and  then 
attack  the  tumor  cells.  Cnis- 
berg's  work  involves  using 
digital  imaging  techniques  to 
microscopically  study  the 
monocytes'  sticking,  spread 
ing  and  moving  behavior. 

He  explains  why  it  is 
important  to  see  how  the 
killer  cells  move:  "On  occa- 
sion the  tumors  avoid  the 
monocytes-  -maybe  just  by 
luck.  The  other  possibility  is 
that  one  o\'  these  tumor  cells 
could  develop  the  ability  to 
produce  a  product  that  could 
inhibit  monocyte  migration 
into  the  tumor."  And  when 
that  happens,  tumors  can 
grow  beyond  the  point  where 
monocytes  can  kill  them.  To 
find  out  how  the  tumors  ward 
o\'i  monocytes,  Crusberg, 
who  has  his  Ph.D.  in  chemis- 


try, is  testing  the  effects  of 
various  proteins  on  monocyte 
behavior. 

Crusberg 's  work  also 
involves  pre-monocytic  cells. 
which  are  supposed  to  differ- 
entiate and  become  tumor- 
stalking  monocytes.  The  pre- 
monocytes  were  taken  from  a 
leukemia  patient  whose  cells 
failed  to  develop  the  tumor- 
hunting  behavior.  Initially. 
Crusberg  obtained  pre- 
monocytes  because  he 
wanted  to  produce  a  line  of 
monocytes  to  use  in  his  other 
work.  Crusberg 's  own  blood 
is  still  the  only  source  of  dif- 
ferentiated monocytes  for  his 
work;  he  explains.  "I  basi- 
cally  wanted  to  remove  my 
name  from  the  list  of  mono- 
cyte blood  donors." 

But  now  Ted  Crusberg. 
along  w  ith  MQP  student 
Patricia  Campie.  is  studying 
the  differentiation  process 
itself.  "What  we're  doing  is 
using  vitamin  A  derivatives 


10       WT1  IOURNA1 


and  vitamin  D-3  derivatives 
to  induce  the  cells  to  differ- 
entiate."' he  says,  "From  this 
we  hope  to  learn  *  hieh  pro- 
teins arc  s\  Dthesized  during 
differentiation  and  identity 
which  genes  are  turned  on  by 
these  chemicals." 

Campie's  prciject  focuses 
on  morphological  changes 
brought  on  by  treatment  w  ith 
chemicals.  In  addition  to 
show  ing  w  hich  genes  are 
responsible  for  the  mono- 
cytes' ability  to  attack 
tumors,  this  work  has  impli- 
cations for  understanding 
tumor  formation,  since,  as 
Crusberg  points  out.  "Get- 
ting an  undifferentiated  cell 
ty  pe  to  differentiate  is  a  very 
important  problem  in  under- 
standing cancer." 

Wr  hile  modern  medi- 
cine still  needs  to 
enhance  its  under- 
standing of  the  minutiae  of 
cells,  their  genetic  material. 


and  why  they  sometimes  go 
haywire,  some  already  very 
well-understood  bacteria 
have  still  found  refuge,  even 
in  the  industrialized  world. 
Professor  Ronald  D.  Chee- 
tham.  one  of  the  Depart- 
ment's ecologists.  is  teaching 
students  to  seek  out  how  and 
why  these  bacteria  can  sus- 
tain themselves. 

Over  the  past  five  years. 
Cheetham  and  his  students 
ha\  e  been  tracking  dow  n 
bacterial  contamination  in 
Worcester's  water  distribu- 
tion system,  where  100-year- 
old  pipes  harbor  colonies  oi 
bacteria.  Cheetham's  work 
has  shown  that  amphipods— 
tiny,  almost  microscopic  ani- 
mals resembling  crayfish- 
play  an  important  role  in 
protecting  bacteria  from 
death  by  chlorination.  The 
amphipods.  sheltering  large 
numbers  oi  bacteria  in  and 
around  their  bodies,  easily 
survive  the  chlorination  that 
kills  unprotected  bacteria, 
and  later  release  the  sheltered 
bacteria  when  their  bodies 
are  split  open  at  the  kitchen 
tap. 

As  a  result  of  the  work  of 
Ron  Cheetham  and  his  col- 
leagues and  students,  the 
City  oi  Worcester  has 
installed  secondary  ehlorina- 
tors,  has  begun  an  active  pipe 
relining  program,  and  is 
planning  a  new  filtration 
plant. 

Cheetham's  next  attack  on 
waterbome  pathogens1  Right 
now,  he  and  master's  degree 
students  Jane  Haselton  and 
Lynda  Laine  arc  testing  the 
adequacy  oi  disinfection 
techniques  used  at  children's 
play  pools  at  hospitals. 
schools  and  other  public 
facilities.  "We're  looking  for 
an  environment  where  these 
waterborne  pathogens  might 
po^c  a  public  health  risk." 
Cheetham  explains,  "and  we 
thought  that  hospital  environ- 
ments, where  there  arc  likely 
to  be  antibiotic-resistant 
strains  of  bacteria,  deserve 
some  looking  into." 


In  the  late  '70s  and  during 
the  earl)  pan  of  this  dec- 
ade, when  environmental 
protection  was  a  higher 
national  priority.  Cheetham 
and  his  students  focused  on 
the  effects  of  acid  rain  on  fish 
and  on  the  plankton  that  fish 
depend  on  for  food.  They 
found  that  the  reproduction 
oi  both  fish  and  the  water  flea 
Daphnio  were  halted  by  acid 
rain  levels  of  pH  5,  "which  is 
not  uncommon  in  poorly  buf- 
fered soils."  according  to 
Cheetham. 

They  also  showed  that 
algae,  which  serve  a  crucial 
rc>le  in  the  food  chain,  are 
among  the  first  victims  of 
acid  rain.  It  is  now  well 
known  that  acid  rain,  seeping 
thrc>ugh  acid-vulnerable  soils 
and  bedrock  characteristic  oi 
much  of  New  England, 
leaches  out  aluminum  and 
other  metals,  carry  ing  them 
into  streams,  rivers  and 
lakes.  There,  in  acquatie 
environments,  a  w  ide  range 
of  organisms  including  fish 
can  be  directly  poisoned  by 
the  dissolved  metals. 

A  few  years  ago.  Cheet- 
ham and  his  students  studied 
aluminum  poisoning  of  vari- 
ous algae:  greens,  diatoms 
and  blue-greens.  The  find- 
ings0 Ron  Cheetham  answers 
w  ith  a  hint  oi  resignation,  "It 
doesn't  take  a  lot  of  acid  rain 
in  unbuffered  soils  to  reach 
aluminum  levels  toxic  to 
diatoms  and  green  algae." 

Now  that  the  environmen- 
tal effects  of  acid  rain  are 
well  demonstrated  and  ecolo- 
gists wait  for  the  federal  go\  - 
eminent  to  act,  Ron  Chee- 
tham is  working  with 
Professor  Pamela  Weathers 
and  seniors  John  Niedzielski. 
Jeffrey  Blanchard  and 
Edward  Nowak  on  a  waste- 
water processing  problem  for 
a  nearby  electronics  producer. 

Weathers  explains.  "What 
we're  working  on  is  a  feasi- 
bility study  for  a  bioprocess. 
Can  we  use  an  organism  to 
accumulate  copper  and  then 
release  it  from  the  organism 


in  a  concentrated  form?"  The 
results  so  far  are  promising. 
Weathers  reports:  "We  can 
see  that  under  certain  circum- 
stances the  organism  w  ill 
absorb  a  lot  of  metal  and  it 
w  ill  do  it  w  ithin  five  min- 
utes." The  next  step  in  the 
project  is  to  design  a  process 
around  the  organism.  Mas- 
ter's student  Xiaojun  Zhang 
will  try  to  find  a  w  ay  to 
immobilize  the  organism,  but 
the  trick  here  is  to  find  a 
medium  that  can  w  ithstand 
the  corrosive  wastewater  and 
high  flow  rates  of  the  pro- 
cess, according  to  Weathers. 

The  wastewater  project  is 
an  interdisciplinary  one.  and 
as  such  it  exemplifies  the  new 
biology  and  biotechnology 
program,  which  goes  far 
beyond  traditional  biology  to 
prepare  graduates  for  leader- 
ship roles  in  the  ongoing  bio- 
logical revolution.  The  teach- 
ing of  computer  techniques 
for  image  processing.  DNA 
sequencing  analysis,  eco- 
nomic analysis  of  bioprocess 
designs,  and  a  strong  empha- 
sis on  recombinant  DNA  and 
other  new  research  tech- 
niques are  all  part  of  this  pro- 
gram. All  ensure  that  B&B 
will  deliver  the  education  that 
students  and  faculty  arc  com- 
mitted to. 

As  Joe  Bagshaw  says.  "We 
don't  want  to  crank  out  lab 
technicians.  We  view  the 
program  as  producing  the 
research  scientists  of  the 
future." 

Ted  Crusberg  offers 
another  view  .  "All  this 
research  activity  might  indi- 
cate that  faculty  members  are 
usually  off  in  their  labs  doing 
their  own  thing.  Actually. 
about  SO  percent  of  our  time 
is  spent  \\  ith  students— in 
class,  working  on  projects, 
integrating  the  findings  of  our 
research  into  the  educational 
process.  There's  a  lot  going 
on  here,  and  it  all  ultimately 
benefits  our  students." 

Paul  Susca  is  a  freelance 
writer  living  in  Rindge,  Ml. 


MAY   1986       11 


TED  COGHLIN  '56: 

Looking  Ahead  to  The  Second  Century 


By  Ruth  Trask 


Edwin  "Ted"  Coghlin,  Jr.,  '56 
ME,  well  known  Worcester  busi- 
nessman, not  only  likes  to  build 
on  the  past;  he  also  likes  to  look  to  the 
future.  As  president  of  Coghlin 's,  Inc., 
and  treasurer  of  Coghlin  Electric,  which 
recently  celebrated  its  100th  anniversary, 
he  is  in  a  perfect  position  to  do  both. 

Ted  and  his  brother,  Jim,  are  the  third 
generation  to  stand  at  the  helm  of 
Coghlin's.  Says  Ted,  "Jim  does  the  sell- 
ing and  I  worry  about  internal  things, 
like  engineering  and  construction 
details." 

John  P.  Coghlin  '93,  Ted's  grandfa- 
ther, was  an  inventor  and  true  entre- 
preneur—well before  the  word  was 
coined!  He  purchased  Page  Electric, 
founded  in  1885,  after  establishing  him- 
self by  inventing  a  dynamo  (in  the 
Washburn  Shops),  the  most  efficient  of 
its  time.  He  founded  Columbia  Electric 
and  Central  Electric,  and  then  Coghlin 
Electric. 

Coghlin  Electric  has  always  had  WPI 
family  ties.  For  a  time,  one  of  John's 
younger  brothers,  Peter  '97  EE,  was 
with  the  firm.  In  1919,  "J.P.,"  as  John 
was  known,  was  joined  in  the  business 
by  his  sons,  John  W.  Coghlin  '19,  and 
Edwin  "Ted"  Coghlin  '23.  Other  WPI 
family  members  besides  Ted  Jr. ,  include 
Frank  Harding  '49,  John  P.  Coghlin  '63, 
Joe  Ratte  '84  and  Tricia  Coghlin  Wil- 
liams '85,  a  total  of  nine  to  date,  through 
four  generations. 

Today,  Coghlin  Electric  Company 
consists  of  three  segments:  elec- 
trical construction,  electric  and 
electronic  wholesaling,  and  interior 
design  with  furniture. 

Over  the  years,  Coghlin's  has  suc- 
ceeded primarily  because  of  its  willing- 
ness to  change.  It  took  advantage  of 
timely  opportunities  and  was  quick  to 
move  out  of  unprofitable  ventures. 


At  the  turn  of  the  century,  Coghlin's 
provided  electrical  contracting  work  in 
the  mills  up  and  down  the  Blackstone 
Valley.  It  followed  a  specific  clientele- 
even  to  the  point  of  going  south  with  the 
textile  mills  to  help  them  get  started  in 
their  new  locations,  or  west  to  Niagara 
Falls  to  wire  Nabisco's  corporate 
headquarters— a  contract  J. P.  won,  in 
part,  thanks  to  the  influence  of  one  of  his 
WPI  professors. 

At  the  helm  at  Coghlin's: 
Jim  (left)  and  Ted  56  (right). 


Coghlin's  doors  have  always  been 
open  to  new  ideas.  As  the  fortunes  of 
some  industries  waned,  other  industries 
sprang  up  to  take  their  place  in  the  roster 
of  companies  with  which  Coghlin's  has 
done  business.  John  W.  and  Ted  learned 
many  valued  lessons  from  their  father. 

As  an  electrical  contractor,  Coghlin's 
has  been  linked  for  100  years  with  Wor- 
cester area  businesses.  A  map  of  down- 
town Worcester  or  central  New  England 
is  a  veritable  checkerboard  of  Coghlin's 
electrical  installations.  Included  are 
work  for  the  Worcester  Art  Museum, 


12       WPI  JOURNAL 


Lincoln  Square  Boys  Club,  Worcester 
Center,  YWCA,  Commerce  Building, 
AT&T,  Shawmut  Worcester  County 
Bank,  Holy  Cross,  Assumption,  Clark, 
Anna  Maria,  Norton,  Wyman  Gordon, 
Cincinnati-Milicron,  G.F.  Wright  Steel 
&  Wire,  American  Optical,  Raytheon, 
Digital  Equipment  Corporation, 
Sanders,  Simplex,  Polysar,  Astra  and 
Foxboro  Company.  The  list  goes  on. 
WPI  is  in  there,  too. 

According  to  a  recent  article  in  Busi- 
ness Digest,  the  success  of  Coghlin's  has 
been  due  to  "hard  work,  foresight,  a 
willingness  to  take  risks  and  learn  from 
mistakes,  teamwork,  commitment  and 
civic  duty." 

Ted,  Jr.  is  carrying  on  the  tradition 
molded  by  earlier  generations  of 
Coghlins.  He  started  his  career  on  the 
run.  The  day  after  his  graduation  from 
WPI  in  June  1956,  he  began  work  on 
State  Mutual  Life  Assurance  Company's 
500,000  square  foot  headquarters  in 
Worcester. 

The  $1.5  million  project  was  a  turning 
point  for  the  company,  Ted  notes.  "The 
job  consumed  the  most  manhours  in  our 
history— more  than  100  workers  were  on 
the  job  payroll." 

State  Mutual  was  the  largest  electrical 
contract  ever  awarded  in  central  New 
England  up  to  that  time.  The  building 
was  the  biggest  office  complex  in  central 
Massachusetts. 

With  the  State  Mutual  project  success- 
fully concluded,  Coghlin's  reputation 
grew,  placing  it  on  a  footing  with  New 
England's  best  companies.  Soon  after, 
when  Norton  Company  began  expansion 
plans,  Coghlin's  was  named  to  engineer 
and  install  the  facilities. 

In  the  1960s,  Coghlin's  young  electri- 
cal construction  team  stretched  its  wings. 
When  Ted,  Sr.  returned  from  a  vacation, 
he  was  greeted  with  the  news  that 
Coghlin's  was  the  successful  low  bidder 
on  the  new  Raytheon  manufacturing 
facility  in  Andover,  MA. 

True  to  form,  the  senior  Coghlin 
responded,  "How  low?" 


At  the  time,  the  Raytheon  facility  was 
the  largest  all-electric  manufacturing 
plant  constructed  in  New  England  and 
one  of  the  largest  in  the  country.  Every- 
thing about  the  job  was  big  says  Ted 
today— the  quantities  of  materials,  the 
specialized  requirements,  and  the  added 
challenge  of  working  with  regulated  gov- 
ernment agencies.  Material  shortages 
and  persistent  labor  problems  added 
greater  challenges  to  the  project. 

Managing  these  complexities  seasoned 
Ted  and  his  associates  into  a  smooth- 
working  unit.  In  the  end,  though,  the 
project  made  only  a  modest  profit  for 
Coghlin's.  Still,  the  members  of  the  team 
had  proved  themselves  and  went  on  to 
other  projects,  further  establishing  a  rep- 
utation for  completing  work  on  time — 
and  within  budget. 

Ted,  Jr.'s  ability  to  get  things  done 
has  carried  over  into  his  commu- 
nity associations,  as  well.  "If 
I'm  going  to  get  involved,"  he  says,  "I 
like  to  get  involved  all  the  way." 

As  a  Coghlin,  he  closely  follows  the 
example  of  his  dad,  who  won  numerous 
civic  awards,  including  the  Isaiah 
Thomas  Award  from  the  Worcester 
Advertising  Club  in  recognition  of  his 
distinguished  community  service.  Ted's 
uncle,  John,  was  a  WPI  trustee  and  civic 
leader. 

Also  active  with  WPI,  Ted,  Jr.  serves 
on  the  Alumni  Fund  Board  (Leadership 
Gifts  Committee  chairman)  and  has  held 
the  post  of  president  for  the  Poly  Club 
and  for  the  Worcester  Chapter  of  the 
Alumni  Association.  In  1981,  the 
Alumni  Association  presented  him  with 
the  Herbert  F  Taylor  Award  for  out- 
standing alumni  service  to  the  college. 

Ted's  list  of  community  involvements 
is  nearly  as  long  as  his  client  ledger.  Cur- 
rently president  of  the  Central  Massachu- 
setts Chapter  of  the  National  Electrical 
Contractors  Association,  he  is  a  past 
president  of  the  Mohegan  Council  Boy 
Scouts  of  America,  and  of  the  Worcester 
Young  Businessmen's  Association.   He 


has  served  as  chairman  of  two  school 
building  committees  in  Shrewsbury,  and 
on  the  boards  of  the  Worcester  Boys' 
Club,  Worcester  Science  Center, 
Mechanics  Bank,  Anna  Maria,  and  Cen- 
tral New  England  colleges. 

Active  in  Rotary,  he  is  a  Eucharistic 
minister  of  St.  Mary's  Church  as  well. 
Other  posts  include  advisory  board  mem- 
ber to  the  electrical  department  of  Wor- 
cester Vocational  Schools  and  a  Shrews- 
bury town  meeting  member. 

"I've  primarily  centered  my  activities 
on  youth  and  education,"  says  Ted.  "I'm 
just  a  big  kid  at  heart." 

Ted's  enthusiasm  carries  over  into  his 
Coghlin  post.  He  cites  changes  and 
growth  in  the  company,  such  as  the 
reshaping  of  the  Main  Street  store  from 
appliances  into  a  much-talked-about 
interior  design  and  high-fashion  furniture 
store. 

The  store  has  come  a  long  way  from 
the  days  of  original  Tiffany  shades.  Says 
Ted,  "Boy,  do  I  wish  we  had  some  still 
available  at  $5  to  $10."  Today,  he  says 
Tiffany  shades  are  worth  $1,000  or 
more. 

He  also  recalls  the  years  when  "a 
young,  enterprising  member  of  the 
Coghlin  family"  ran  electric  trains  in  the 
store  window. 

More  recently,  the  firm  acquired  RM 
Electronics  to  bring  both  electrical  and 
electronics  products  to  the  marketplace 
in  a  single,  computerized  inventory  pro- 
gram. 

In  the  future,  according  to  Ted, 
Coghlin's  plans  more  specialized  serv- 
ices for  wholesale  customers,  expanded 
interior  design  to  more  executive  office 
furnishings,  and,  in  construction,  expan- 
sion into  data  wiring,  fibre  optics,  clean 
power  systems  for  computers  and  "turn 
key"  programmable  control  for  indus- 
trial applications. 

Still,  says  Ted,  "The  key  to  Coghlin's 
second  hundred  years  is  our  family  of 
employees— 175  strong.  You  can't  run  a 
business  of  this  size  successfully  without 
dedicated  people  at  every  level." 


MAY  1986       13 


Architect  for  a 
Growing  Worcester: 

Stephen  C.  Earle 

(1839-1913) 


By  Curtis  Dahl 


Reprinted,  with  changes,  from  the  Worces- 
ter Art  Museum  Journal,  volume  6,  pages 
2-17,  with  permission  of  the  author  and 
publisher.  Copyright  1984  by  the  Worcester 
Art  Museum. 

Curtis  Dahl  is  Samuel  Valentine  Cole  Pro- 
fessor of  English  Literature  at  Wheaton  Col- 
lege, Norton,  MA. 


Stephen  C.  Earle 


Stephen  Carpenter  Earle  was  lucky.  His  was  a  wonderful  era  to  be  an  archi- 
tect in  Worcester.  From  1853,  when  he  came  down  from  the  hills  of  his 
native  Leicester  to  complete  his  education  and  begin  his  architectural 
career,  to  the  time  of  his  death  in  1913,  Worcester  grew  from  a  moderate- 
sized  town  of  about  17,000  to  a  great  city  of  over  100,000.  As  the  city 
grew,  and  grew  so  quickly,  it  desperately  needed  new  buildings  of  all  kinds.  Stephen 
Earle  was  there  to  design  them.  Indeed,  no  man  by  his  artistry  more  profoundly 
shaped  nineteenth-century  Worcester  than  he.  It  would  have  been  hard  to  look  any- 
where in  the  city  without  seeing  his  work. 

But  Earle  was  not  only  lucky;  he  was  also  able,  hard  working,  well  trained,  with 
highly  developed  skills  and  taste— a  man  excellently  qualified  to  take  best  advantage 
of  the  architectural  opportunity  that  the  phenomenal  growth  of  Worcester  presented. 
He  was  a  member  of  an  astonishingly  talented  and  influential  Quaker  elite  who  in  the 
1 840s  and  1 850s  left  their  ancestral  homes  in  Leicester  and  other  surrounding  hill 
towns  to  play  leading  roles  in  the  burgeoning  city.  Throughout  his  life,  Earle  had 
close  contacts  with  many  of  the  city's  most  important  men.  After  his  father's  death 
and  his  mother's  move  to  the  West,  he  lived  in  the  fine  Summer  Street  home  of 
his  cousin  Edward  Earle  (at  various  times  alderman,  congressman  and  mayor  of 
Worcester),  who  became  virtually  a  foster  father  to  him  and  who  was  well  placed  to 
exert  influence  on  his  behalf. 

To  earn  money,  Stephen  worked  in  the  T.K.  Earle  card-manufacturing  company 
owned  by  Edward  and  other  cousins.  He  received  the  best  education  for  an  architect 
of  his  time.  After  two  years  at  the  Friends  Boarding  School  (now  Moses  Brown)  in 
Providence,  RI,  and  graduation  from  Worcester  High  School  (Mrs.  Edward  Earle 
was  on  the  school  board),  he  trained  as  draughtsman  and  apprentice  architect  in  the 
office  of  Calvert  Vaux,  one  of  the  foremost  architects  and  landscape  designers  in 
New  York  City. 

Returning  to  Worcester  late  in  1863,  after  a  stint  as  medical  corpsman  in  the  Civil 
War,  he  worked  briefly  as  a  draughtsman  for  Elbridge  Boyden,  designer  of  Mechan- 
ics Hall  and,  at  the  time,  the  leading  architect  of  Worcester.  Earle  then  signed  on  as 
an  engineering  draughtsman  for  the  Hoosac  Tunnel  railroad  project  before  leaving  in 
1865  on  the  architectural  tour  of  Europe  that  was  then  the  dream  and  virtual  obliga- 
tion of  every  fledgling  American  architect. 

On  his  return  in  1866,  he  already  had  the  commission  to  build  his  cousin  T.K. 
Earle  an  impressive,  Gothic  stone  mansion  high  on  Edward  Street  and  was  in  corre- 
spondence with  a  Quaker  Meeting  in  Brooklyn  about  a  new  meeting  house.  Poised 


14       WPI  JOURNAL 


for  success,  he  hung  out  his  shingle.  Success  came  quickly. 

In  Earle's  day,  an  architect,  especially  an  architect  in  a  smaller  city  like  Worcester 
of  1866,  did  not  specialize  in  any  one  style  or  in  any  one  kind  of  building.  He  built 
anything,  and  he  used  whatever  style  he  and  his  client  felt  fashionable  and  appropri- 
ate. He  was  not  averse  to  mingling  styles  either.  In  Worcester  alone— with  no  consid- 
eration of  abundant  and  important  commissions  elsewhere— Earle  designed  every- 
thing from  the  Public  Bath  House  and  a  bandstand  for  Institute  Park  to  a  huge, 
polychrome,*  granite-and-brownstone  imitation  of  the  Cathedral  of  Notre  Dame  in 
Paris  for  his  Chestnut  Street  Congregational  Church.  He  designed  grand  stone  man- 
sions and  charming  little  frame  cottages.  He  designed  churches  (23  in  Worcester 
alone),  college  buildings  [such  as  WPI's  Boynton  Hall],  the  main  portion  of  the 
Worcester  Public  Library,  an  addition  to  the  American  Antiquarian  Society,  and  the 
first  building  of  the  Worcester  Art  Museum.  He  built  schools,  fire  stations,  mills, 
warehouses,  commercial  buildings,  apartment  houses,  tenements  and  horse  sheds. 
He  also  designed  pergolas,  furniture,  clocks,  sundials  and  drapery.  Nothing  was 
too  big  or  too  small  or  too  unlikely. 

The  diversity  of  Earle's  work  is  one  of  its  main  attractions.  It  also  reflects  the 
many-sidedness  of  the  man  himself.  For  60  years  Stephen  Earle  was  at  the  heart  of 
Worcester's  cultural,  religious  commercial  and  educational  life.  His  early  journals, 
recently  edited  by  his  grandson  Albert  Southwick,  show  that  even  as  a  youth,  he  was 
interested  in  the  myriad  activities  of  the  city.  After  his  conversion  about  1 869  from 
the  Quaker  faith,  he  was  a  leading  Episcopal  layman  and  a  founder  of  Saint  John's 
parish.  He  was  a  member  of  Mechanics  Institute,  a  leader  in  musical  activities,  a 
member  of  the  Board  of  Directors  of  the  YMCA,  a  donor  to  the  American  Antiquar- 
ian Society,  a  charter  member  of  the  Board  of  Directors  of  the  Worcester  Art 
Museum,  and,  in  his  last  years,  an  instructor  in  the  school  department's  Free  Evening 
Drawing  School.  From  its  founding  to  Elbridge  Boyden's  death  in  1898,  he  was  vice- 
president  of  the  Worcester  chapter  of  the  American  Institute  of  Architects;  thereafter, 
he  held  the  office  of  president.  For  30  years,  he  was  president  of  the  Worcester 
Cooperative  Bank.  His  hand  was  everywhere,  always  working  for  the  good  of  the 
city. 

The  well-known  architectural  historian  Henry  Russell  Hitchcock  has  described 
Earle  as  perhaps  the  earliest  and  surely  one  of  the  best  followers,  both  in  Gothic  and 
Romanesque,  of  the  great  Henry  Hobson  Richardson.  But  Earle  should  not  be 
regarded  only  as  Richardsonian.  Like  many  of  the  architects  of  his  generation,  he 
was  extremely  catholic  in  his  choice  of  styles.  He  happily  and  effectively  worked  in 
Gothic  Revival,  Stick  Style,  French  Second  Empire,  Lombardic  and  Richardsonian 
Romanesque,  Queen  Anne,  Shingle  Style,  Colonial  Revival,  Neoclassical,  Italian 
Villa  and  Palazzo  and  many  permutations  and  combinations  of  these.  How  the  styles 
follow  each  other  and  mingle  during  his  long  career  not  only  throws  light  on  his  skill 
as  an  architect,  but  also  reveals  the  changes  in  architectural  taste  that  occurred  from 
when  he  hung  out  his  shingle  in  1866  to  his  death  in  1913. 

Earle's  first  two  outstanding  designs  in  Worcester— those  which  earned  him  and  his 
new  firm,  Earle  and  Fuller,  their  initial  reputation— were  in  heavy,  stone  Gothic  and 
date  from  1865.  One,  the  T.K.  Earle  mansion  already  mentioned,  might,  at  the  time, 
have  been  called  Norman.  Its  large  size,  high  pointed  and  crested  tower,  steep,  slated 
roofs,  arched  windows,  and  cloister-like  porch  and  porte-cochere— all  in  local  Mill- 
stone Hill  granite— made  the  house  an  impressive  example  of  both  the  solid  Gothic 
style  of  the  day  and  the  kind  of  expensive  mansions  with  which  newly  rich  industrial- 

*In  architecture,  the  term  means  executed  in  stone  or  bricks  of  various  colors. 


Boynton  Hall,  Worcester  Polytechnic 
Institute,  1866 

Residence  of  T.K.  Earle,  1866,  Edward 
Street  (demolished)  Courtesy  Worcester 
Historical  Museum 

Original  building  of  the  Worcester  Art 
Museum,  1897,  Salisbury  Street  (now 
surrounded  by  later  additions) 


MAY  1986       15 


Butterick  and  Whipple  Building,  1874 

French  Catholic  Church  of  Notre  Dame, 
1880 


ists  were  beginning  to  ring  the  growing  city.  It  became  one  of  Worcester's  show 
places. 

The  same  industrial  growth  that  enabled  the  mill-owners  to  build  such 
lavish  residences  also  demanded  technical  education.  When  Earle  won 
the  commission  to  design  the  first  building  for  the  Worcester  County 
Free  Institute  of  Industrial  Science  (now  WPI),  he  again  turned  to 
heavy,  stone  Gothic,  even  repeating  the  shape  of  the  tower  and  some  of 
the  detailing  from  the  Earle  mansion.  But  in  this  design  he  pioneered  an  American 
academic  Gothic  that  blended  elements  from  the  ancient  colleges  of  Britain  with  the 
tall,  broad  facade  and  imposing  presence  of  the  new  High  Victorian  Gothic.  The 
mixture  is  an  outstanding  success.  Boynton  Hall's  granite  solidity,  patterned  buttress- 
ing, high,  narrow  gables,  clustered  chimneys,  and  arched  triple  window  in  its  large 
chapel  gable  give  it  power  and  variety.  The  magnificently  staunch  tower  to  the  right, 
with  its  steep,  polychromed,  slated  mansard  roof,  boldly  stated  the  practical  impor- 
tance, yet  also  hinted  at  the  cultural  aspiration  of  the  new  institution. 

In  the  seventies,  Worcester's  churches  doubled  and  redoubled  in  number  and  size, 
necessitating  constant  remodeling  and  new  construction.  In  1870,  for  instance,  Earle 
almost  wholly  rebuilt  the  Salem  Street  Congregational  Church.  And  though  he 
adroitly  used  elements  of  the  old  design,  the  result  was  not  altogether  happy.  The 
new,  up-to-date  Lombardic  Romanesque  facade  and  high,  Georgian-style  tower  built 
in  front  of  the  old,  hexastyle  portico  looked  awkward. 

Ten  years  later,  however,  when  he  rebuilt  the  First  Methodist  building  (1845)  on 
Park  Street  for  the  French  Catholic  Church  of  Notre  Dame,  he  was  more  successful. 
Although  here,  too,  modern  taste  might  prefer  the  original  Georgian  design,  the  new 
facade  was  imposing. 

But  Earle  had  not  given  up  Gothic.  In  1870,  for  the  expensive  new  Trinity  Method- 
ist Church  at  the  corner  of  Main  and  Chandler  Streets,  he  made  a  foray  into  an  unfor- 
tunate kind  of  contemporary  Gothic  that  merely  pasted  thin  Gothic  decoration  onto 
what  was  essentially  a  conventional  Georgian  brick  block.  In  1874,  however,  for  All 
Saints  Episcopal  Church  (then  his  own  church),  he  turned  back  to  an  authentic  stone 
Gothic  ultimately  derived  from  the  ancient  English  parish  church,  but  modified  by 
British  and  American  ecclesiologists  and  other  Gothic  Revival  architects.  Today, 
unfortunately,  only  the  tower  and  one  cloister  survive. 

In  the  seventies  and  for  the  next  two  decades,  Worcester's  commercial  center  con- 
tinued to  grow,  and  Earle  designed  building  after  building.  Ultimately,  he  was 
responsible  for  perhaps  a  third  to  a  half  of  the  most  important  business  structures  on 
Main  and  Front  Streets.  In  the  same  year  (1874)  in  which  he  designed  All  Saints 
Episcopal  Church,  Earle  jumped  abruptly  to  a  tremendously  busy,  stridently  poly- 
chromed High  Victorian  Gothic  for  the  Buttrick  and  Whipple  Building  on  Main 
Street. 

Some  aspects  of  the  building  recalled  the  modulated  orderliness  of  People's  Sav- 
ings Bank  five  years  before:  its  high  ground  floor,  which  rested,  in  part,  on  cast-iron 
columns;  the  graduation  from  floor  to  floor  of  the  arching  of  its  windows;  and  the 
strong  cornice  over  its  fourth  floor.  But  its  much  larger  size,  the  loud  contrasts 
between  its  white  marble  walls  and  strongly  patterned  bluestone  trim,  and  particu- 
larly the  treatment  of  its  fifth  level— part  pyramid-roofed  tower,  part  steep  mansard 
cut  by  an  intrusive,  gabled  dormer— made  it  a  thing  apart.  Here  was  High  Victorian 
Gothic  at  its  extreme. 

In  Earle's  other  downtown  buildings— in  the  Sumner  Pratt  Building  (1877)  on 
Front  Street,  the  brick-with-brownstone-trim  Salisbury  (1877)  and  Dean  (1880) 


16       WPI  JOURNAL 


Buildings  at  Lincoln  Square  and  the  J.G.  Clark  and  Whitcomb  Buildings  (both  1883) 
on  Front  Street— High  Victorian  Gothic  elements  still  appeared,  but  they  were  rela- 
tively sedate  and  were  integrated  into  fairly  conventional  commercial  designs. 

The  only  other  major  building  that  Earle  was  to  build  in  High  Victorian  Gothic 
style— and  here  the  style  may  have  been  chosen  by  the  patron — was  Jonas  G.  Clark 
Hall  of  1887,  the  first,  and  still  the  main,  building  of  Clark  University.  While 
abstaining  from  the  extreme  busyness  of  the  Buttrick  and  Whipple  Building,  he  nev- 
ertheless followed  the  style  in  a  high,  long,  balanced  facade,  strident  poly  chroming, 
mixture  of  rectangular  arched  openings,  and  strongly  projecting  central  tower  bay. 
Although  the  massive  building  was  not  designed,  as  legend  has  it,  for  possible  con- 
version to  a  factory  in  case  the  university  failed,  its  resemblance  in  silhouette  to 
many  of  the  better-designed  Worcester  mills  may  not  be  wholly  coincidental. 

In  the  late  seventies  and  early  eighties,  the  demand  for  fine  dwellings  continued. 
But  now  it  was  not  only  the  very  rich  mill-owners,  but  also  an  increasingly  prosper- 
ous group  of  upper-middle-class  professionals  and  businessmen  who  engaged  Earle. 
He  responded  with  large  houses  that  mingled  High  Victorian  Gothic  with  chateau- 
esque  elements  inspired,  at  least  in  part,  by  Richardsonian  Romanesque. 

How  such  elements  could  be  combined  with  a  basically  Queen  Anne  design  Earle 
magnificently  demonstrated  in  the  G.H.  Whitcomb  mansion  (1879),  his  masterpiece 
of  residential  architecture  in  Worcester.  Built  of  two  shades  of  modestly  contrasting 
Monson  granite— darker  and  rough  in  the  walls,  lighter  and  smooth  in  the  trim— with 
dark  red  stickwork  on  the  dormers  and  porches,  this  superbly  designed  house  was 
meant  to  be  viewed  from  the  corner  of  Harvard  and  Highland  Streets.  The  high,  rela- 
tively slender,  cone-roofed  tower  divides  the  formal  and  carefully  balanced  Harvard 
Street  facade  from  the  more  irregular  and  intricately  patterned  Highland  Street  flank 
with  its  several  porches,  gabled  stickwork  dormers,  and  sharply  projecting  stone 
porte-cochere  (now  removed).  Rich  patterning  is  everywhere  on  the  building:  in  the 
diaper  decoration  under  the  peak  of  the  front  gable,  in  the  wrought-iron  railing  of  the 
balcony  over  the  colonnetted  front  portal,  in  the  woodwork  of  porches  and  gables,  in 
the  powerful  granite  arch  and  transom  of  the  now-demolished  porte-cochere,  in  the 
carefully  planned  irregularity  of  roof  lines  and  fenestration,  even  in  the  way  the 
motifs  of  the  mansion  are  echoed  in  the  adjoining  stable.  Yet  all  is  restrained  by  good 
taste.  This  is  Queen  Anne  at  its  best. 

The  1 880s  and  1 890s  were  still  times  of  great  growth  and  prosperity  for  Worcester. 
Earle  continued  to  build  churches;  indeed,  during  these  years  they  rose  from  his 
drawing  board  in  unprecedented  numbers.  They  were  also  far  larger  and  more  elabo- 
rate than  before.  By  now  he  had  developed  the  Richardsonian  Romanesque  style— 
and  its  permutations— for  which  he  is  best  known. 

In  the  Pleasant  Street  Baptist  Church  (1890),  for  instance,  Earle  made  effective  use 
of  his  favorite  Richardsonian  motifs:  gabled  porch  with  round  arch  supported  on 
polished-granite  colonnettes,  half-conical-roofed  turret  set  against  a  square  main 
tower,  and  rose  window— all  adroitly  compressed  into  a  variegated,  but  extremely 
compact  block.  The  Pilgrim  Congregational  Church  (1887)  on  Main  Street  is  heavier 
and  more  solid,  and  in  the  round  corner  turrets  of  its  lofty,  open  belfry,  as  well  as  in 
the  stubby  Byzantine  columns  supporting  the  heavy,  brownstone  triple  arch  of  its 
Italianate  loggia-porch,  it  refers  more  directly  to  Richardson.  But  again,  Earle 's  own 
special  touch  is  seen  in  the  great  front  rose  window,  gabled  left-flank  portal,  and  odd 
cloister-like  element  on  the  building's  right  flank.  In  both  churches,  he  also  shows  his 
particular  talent  for  designing  interiors:  he  envelops  wonderful  open  spaces  with 
richly  glowing  wood,  open  beaming  and  stained  glass. 

In  later  years,  Earle  carried  on  the  style  in  the  impressive,  but  slightly  chilling, 


;-*.c 


Magnetic  or  Electrical  Laboratory, 
Worcester  Polytechnic  Institute,  1887 

Jonas  G.  Clark  Hall,  Clark  University, 
1887,  Main  Street 

G.H.  Whitcomb  Mansion,  1879, 
Harvard  Street 


MAY  1986       17 


■m 

C'":» 

111  '  \  ' 


Pilgrim  Congregational  Church,  1887, 
Main  Street 

Friends  Meeting  House,  1907,  Oxford 
Street 

Central  Congregational  Church,  1883, 
Salisbury  Street 


gray-granite  South  Unitarian  Church  (now  Armenian  Apostolic  Trinity)  of  1894  on 
Main  Street,  and  in  the  charmingly  modest,  semi-Gothic  brick-and-terra-cotta 
Friends  Meeting  House  (1907)  on  Oxford  Street,  his  last  important  commission.  But 
in  none  of  these  later  Romanesque  designs  did  he  ever  surpass  his  magnificent  Cen- 
tral Congregational  Church  (1883),  just  off  Lincoln  Square  on  Salisbury  Street. 

Here,  each  element  is  finely  delineated,  but  also  worked  into  a  carefully  thought 
out  plan.  The  lofty,  square,  pointed  tower  is  the  central  focus.  Its  triple-arched  portal 
picks  up  both  the  stone-and-timber  gabled  porch  under  the  great  rose  window  on  the 
Salisbury  Street  facade  and  the  simpler,  gabled  round  arch  of  the  Sunday  School 
entrance  on  Institute  Road.  On  Institute  Road,  the  sharp,  pyramidal  point  of  the 
exceedingly  high  tower  to  the  far  right  makes  a  pleasingly  varied  descending 
sequence  with  the  tall,  conical  tourelle  in  the  middle  and  the  half-conical  round  bay 
to  the  far  right.  Pattern,  variation  and  fine  workmanship  are  everywhere;  but  because 
the  whole  structure  is  constructed  of  a  single  color  of  reddish  sandstone,  there  is  no 
sense  of  ostentation  or  busyness.  This  may  be  Stephen  Earle's  finest  creation. 

Like  the  city  itself,  Worcester's  educational  institutions  grew  quickly  in 
size  and  wealth  during  the  eighties  and  nineties.  For  Clark  University, 
Earle  designed  nothing  more  except  for  a  nondescript  brick  Chemistry 
Building  (1880).  For  Worcester  Polytechnic  Institute,  however,  he  served 
as  college  architect  for  nearly  30  years,  designing  a  tiny,  chateauesque 
Magnetic  Laboratory  (1887)— a  bijou  of  Richardsonian  brownstone  and  granite— the 
Salisbury  Laboratories  (1887),  a  large  addition  (1892)  to  Elbridge  Boyden's 
Washburn  Shops,  Stratton  Hall  (1893)  and  the  power  plant  (1894).  Aside  from  the 
superb  little  laboratory,  these  highly  practical,  but  handsome  brick-with-brownstone- 
trim  buildings  have  no  great  architectural  significance.  Far  more  striking— though  it 
looked  more  like  a  chapel  than  the  gymnasium  it  was— was  the  sturdy  Richardsonian 
stone  building  he  designed  in  1895  for  Worcester  State  Normal  School. 

Even  in  these  later  years,  however,  Earle  kept  pace  with  the  architectural  changes 
of  the  times.  Davis  Tower  (1889)  in  Lake  Park,  the  Round  Tower  (1892)  in  Institute 
Park,  and  Bancroft  Tower  (1900)— all  exemplified  his  success  in  designing  the 
craggy,  romantic,  ornamental  towers  then  popular  in  American  parks.  In  the  new, 
semi-vernacular,  yellow-brick-with-limestone-trim  commercial  style,  he  built  the 
Five  Cents  Savings  Bank  (1891)  on  Main  Street,  the  handsome  Lowell  Building  on 
Foster  Street  (1897),  and  the  large  Prentice  apartment  house  further  out  Main  Street 
(1896).  Far  more  important,  however,  was  his  work  in  Colonial  Revival,  which,  at 
the  time,  was  moving  steadily  toward  more  accurate  imitation  of  original  models.  In 
its  irregularity,  multiple  porches,  and  eyelid  dormers,  the  large,  wooden  Colonial 
Revival  house  that  he  designed  in  1894  as  the  residence  for  the  president  of  Worces- 
ter Polytechnic  Institute  (and  in  which  his  son  President  Ralph  Earle  later  lived)  is 
still  close  to  Queen  Anne  and  even  Richardsonian  Shingle  Style.  The  more  intimate 
house  that  Stephen  Salisbury  III  commissioned  in  1898  on  Institute  Road  for  his  close 
woman  friend,  Mrs.  Lawton,  blends  Colonial  Revival  with  then  popular  Tudor  half- 
timbering.  But  the  symmetry,  hipped  roof  and  balanced  chimneys  of  the  grand  Whit- 
tall  mansion  of  the  following  year  on  Southbridge  Street  came  close  to  making  it  a 
reproduction. 

This  same  movement  toward  historical  authenticity  shapes  Earle's  late  Gothic.  In 
1884,  for  Saint  John's  Episcopal  Church  on  Lincoln  Street,  the  church  that  Earle 
helped  found  and  in  which  he  worshipped  until  his  death,  he  made  a  delightful  excur- 
sion away  from  Gothic  Revival  into  a  simple,  but  warm,  wooden-shingle-style 
Gothic,  with  low-sweeping  roof  and  offset,  shingled  tower.  But  when  he  returned  to 


18       WPI  JOURNAL 


stone  Gothic  in  1893  for  Saint  Matthew's  Episcopal,  though  many  of  the  motifs 
intentionally  recalled  those  of  All  Saints  (1874),  much  of  the  earlier  warmth  seems  to 
have  evaporated.  As  in  much  church  architecture  of  the  period,  the  forms  are  authen- 
tic, but  the  spirit  is  not. 

On  a  much  larger  scale— indeed,  on  the  largest  scale  that  Earle  ever  built— the 
huge  Chestnut  Street  Congregational  Church  (1895)  also  has  some  of  this  coldness. 
Although  unwisely  built  in  what  by  then  was  becoming  outdated  pink-granite-and- 
brownstone  polychromy,  the  building  has  imposing  grandeur  with  its  twin  Notre 
Dame  towers,  high  nave  and  the  huge  columns  and  high,  vaulted  roof  of  its  interior. 
He  tried  hard  and  with  some  success  to  reproduce  the  flavor  of  Paris.  Yet,  his  clients' 
wishes  apart,  one  wonders  why  here  and  elsewhere  during  these  late  years  he  turned 
increasingly  toward  pastiche.  Was  it  architectural  fashion?  Was  it  a  sense  that  Wor- 
cester had  finally  attained  the  status  of  a  great  city  and  thus  needed  great  monuments? 
Was  it  his  own,  and  his  time's,  increasing  interest  in  historic  preservation,  as  wit- 
nessed in  the  Trumbull  mansion  restoration?  Or  was  Earle  a  little  tired,  and  was  it 
easier  now  to  imitate  rather  than  create? 

One  other  style  in  which  Earle  worked  in  the  1880s  and  1890s  remains:  the  Renais- 
sance or  Italian  Palazzo  style,  for  it  is  the  style  he  used  when  he  designed  the  first 
building  of  the  Worcester  Art  Museum  in  1897.  Earle  had  begun  his  career  late  for 
the  Italianate  or  Italian  Villa  style,  and  he  seems  to  have  used  it  in  Worcester  for  only 
one  small  building,  the  John  C.  White  house  (1871)  on  Irving  Street.  But  when  he 
built  the  1877  addition  to  the  American  Antiquarian  Society  building  on  Lincoln 
Square,  he  had  followed  with  great  sensitivity  the  fine,  mid-century  Italian  Palazzo 
style  of  the  original  1853  structure.  He  has  also  hinted  at  the  style  in  his  1888  addi- 
tion (which  has  an  art  gallery  on  its  top  floor)  to  the  Worcester  Public  Library. 

In  the  middle  and  late  nineteenth  century,  the  style  was  particularly  associated  with 
learning  and  the  fine  arts.  Although  tradition  was  a  strong  factor,  an  even  more  pow- 
erful influence  on  Earle's  1897  Worcester  Art  Museum  design  was  the  recent  com- 
pletion of  McKim,  Mead  and  White's  Boston  Public  Library  on  Copley  Square 
(1895).  Earle  took  this  famous  structure  as  his  model.  For  his  Roman-brick-and-mar- 
ble  building— which  is  now  almost  completely  concealed  by  later  accretions— he 
gracefully  simplified  and  modified  the  ornate  Boston  design.  Instead  of  the  library's 
long,  impressive  arcade  of  tall,  round-capped  windows  reaching  up  nearly  to  the  cor- 
nice, Earle  set  three  triplets  of  more  modest-sized  windows  fairly  low  over  the 
watertable  that  separated  his  main  structure  from  the  high,  rustic  basement.  He 
joined  the  round,  molded,  marble  caps  of  these  windows  across  the  whole  facade  by 
a  marble  string  course.  Except  for  a  band  of  molded,  marble  wreaths  (simpler  echoes 
of  the  elaborate  medallions  in  Boston),  the  upper  surface  of  the  whitish  brick  wall 
was  left  plain.  The  cornice,  too,  was  far  less  ostentatious;  but,  as  in  Boston,  the  dark 
green  of  the  high  copper  roof  was  contrasted  pleasingly  with  the  lighter  walls. 

If  this  well-planned  building  had  a  fault,  it  was  its  lack  of  a  strong,  ceremonial 
entrance  like  the  three  impressive,  arched  openings  at  Boston.  But  Earle's  failure  to 
provide  one  is  explained  by  the  fact  that  the  building  was  intended  to  be  the  rear  ele- 
ment of  a  quadrangle;  its  front  door,  therefore,  ultimately  was  to  open  only  to  an 
interior  courtyard.  As  always,  Earle  knew  what  he  was  doing.  Indeed,  with  new  con- 
struction recently  completed,  we  may  take  the  opportunity  to  question  whether 
Earle's  quandrangle  plan  might  not  have  been  better  in  the  long  run— and  whether  a 
Renaissance  design  might  not  have  had  more  symbolic  meaning  than  the  Neoclassi- 
cal design  of  the  1933  addition,  which  obscured  Earle's  facade.  In  any  case,  Stephen 
Earle's  fine  work— right  down  to  the  tesselated  floors— appropriately  remains  at  the 
heart  of  the  museum  and  the  cultural  life  of  the  city  to  which  he  contributed  so  much. 


1W1  «Y|  ITj  -«i 


Lowell  Building,  1897,  Foster  Street 

Bancroft  Tower,  1900 

President 's  House,  Worcester 
Polytechnic  Institute,  1894,  Boynton 
Street  (currently  Sigma  Phi  Epsilon 
Fraternity) 


MAY  1986       19 


The 
Numbers 

in  his 

Head 


Three  decades  is  a  long  time. 
Yet  David  E.  Lloyd,  retiring 
after  32  years  of  managing 
WPI's  finances  under  six  presi- 
dents, looks  back  at  the  ex- 
perience with  all  the  vigor  he 
brought  to  the  job. 

By  Rachel  Faugno 


On  a  bright,  warm  morning  in 
May  1954,  a  tall,  wavy-haired 
young  man  made  his  way  across 
the  WPI  campus  to  assume  his  duties  as 
the  Institute's  first  business  manager. 

Thirty-year-old  David  Lloyd  saw  in 
his  new  post  a  chance  to  meld  the  reali- 
ties of  finance  with  the  finer  ideals  of 
education.  But  his  optimism  was  soon  to 
be  tempered  by  the  less  than  auspicious 
greeting  he  received  from  acting  presi- 
dent Francis  Roys. 

"Well,  I  don't  know  what  you're 
going  to  do,"  Roys  told  Lloyd,  "but 
we'll  find  something  for  you." 

Roys,  a  member  of  the  Mechanical 
Engineering  Department  since  1910  and 
one  of  the  most  influential  and  respected 
people  on  campus,  had  not  been 
involved  in  hiring  Lloyd. 

Now,  as  Lloyd  approaches  retirement, 
those  words  seem  to  have  been  a  spectac- 
ular understatement,  for  WPI  did  indeed 
find  "something  for  him." 

In  the  years  that  followed,  Lloyd,  vice 
president  for  business  affairs,  treasurer 
and  assistant  secretary  of  the  corpora- 
tion, would  play  a  key  role  in  WPI's 
greatest  period  of  growth:  Between  1954 
and  1985,  enrollment  would  increase 
from  775  students  to  3,350,  no  fewer 
than  10  buildings  would  be  constructed 
or  renovated;  and  he  would  oversee  an 
annual  budget  that  rose  from  $1.2  mil- 
lion to  $45  million. 

Despite  his  apparent  inclination 
toward  financial  leadership,  Lloyd  has 
never  seen  his  role  as  one  of  just  money 
management.  Rather,  he  has  always  tried 
to  keep  an  overview  of  the  total  educa- 
tional mission  of  WPI. 


"As  education  goes,"  he  says,  "so 
goes  our  society,  and  I  wanted  to  be  a 
part  of  it.  I'm  not  a  teacher,  so  I  do  what 
I  can  do." 

He  has  a  no-nonsense  approach  to  life, 
but  he's  not  above  philosophical  mean- 
derings  or  poking  fun  at  himself. 

"I  came  to  WPI  because  I  figured 
higher  education  was  a  growth  industry," 
he  says.  But  a  stint  with  the  100th  Infan- 
try Division  in  Europe  had  left  him  with 
the  desire  to  make  the  world  a  better 
place. 

A  graduate  of  Cornell  University, 
Lloyd  had  spent  six  years  man- 
aging a  hotel  in  LaPorte,  IN, 
before  coming  to  WPI.  He  rejuvenated 
the  hotel  in  just  two  years  by  adopting,  as 
he  says  today,  management  that  empha- 
sized low  overhead  and  a  dedicated  staff. 

It  was  an  approach  that  would  also 
work  at  WPI,  which  has  always  been 
known  for  careful  management  of  its 
resources. 

Lloyd's  earliest  projects  at  WPI  reflect 
the  "finance  for  services"  philosophy 
that  would  distinguish  most  of  his  career. 
One  of  his  first  duties  was  to  take  care  of 
delinquent  student  loans.  "Oh,  yes,  we 
had  them  even  then,"  he  notes,  but  points 
to  WPI's  better-than-average  perfor- 
mance in  this  arena. 

In  1954  he  helped  plan  a  face-lifting  of 
Sanford  Riley  Hall  and  oversaw  the  first 
renovation  of  Boynton  Hall  in  1955.  By 
1956,  he  was  involved  in  the  planning  of 
Morgan  Hall,  which  was  completed  in 
1958,  and  with  Olin  Hall  in  1958  as  well. 

WPI's  building  boom  was  underway, 
as  the  school  hustled  to  keep  up  with  an 


expanding  enrollment,  which  Anthony  J. 
Ruksnaitis,  college  engineer  since  1956, 
says  was  increasing  by  "leaps  and 
bounds  in  the  1960s.  Dave  was  100  per- 
cent involved  in  this  growth,  helping  to 
select  architects  and  seeing  each  building 
through  to  completion." 

In  1959,  the  Institute  broke  ground  for 
four  renovation  projects:  Atwater  Kent, 
Washburn  Shops'  North  Wing,  Olin 
Hall,  and  an  addition  to  Alumni  Gymna- 
sium. Daniels  Hall,  Goddard  Hall,  Gor- 
don Library  and  the  Stoddard  Residence 
Center  followed  in  quick  succession. 

Ruksnaitis  remembers  those  days  as 
hectic,  but  fun.  "Dave  and  I  would  often 
be  on  campus  at  8  a.m.  and  by  5  we'd 
have  seen  the  architect  in  New  York  City 
and  returned  to  Worcester,"  he  recalls. 
Noting  that  those  were  "different  times," 
he  adds,  "We  weren't  afraid  to  put  in  14- 
hour  days  or  seven-day  weeks." 

More  construction  followed:  the 
Ellsworth  and  Fuller  townhouses,  the 
Wedge,  and  major  renovations  of  Salis- 
bury Laboratories,  Sanford  Riley  Hall, 
Boynton  Hall,  Atwater  Kent  and 
Washburn  Shops. 

But  by  then,  Lloyd  says,  the  Institute's 
finances  were  becoming  increasingly 
complex,  and  by  the  late  1970s,  he  was 
forced  to  concentrate  more  of  his  per- 
sonal energies  on  financial  planning  than 
on  physical  expansion. 

"Budgeting  at  the  college  became 
increasingly  complicated,"  he  says. 
"Our  goal  was  to  adapt  the  business 
organization  to  the  Plan,  with  a  minimal 
increase  in  staff." 

Besides  maximizing  the  effectiveness 
of  every  dollar  spent  by  WPI,  Lloyd  and 


20       WPI  JOURNAL 


a  team  of  financial  planners  began  look- 
ing for  ways  to  obtain  higher  yields  on 
endowment  investment  funds.  The 
endowment  had  grown  from  about  $4 
million  in  1954  to  more  than  $50  million 
in  the  late  '70s,  but  inflation  threatened 
to  erode  that  financial  base. 

In  1976,  he  says,  60  percent  of  the 
endowment  was  placed  in  the  hands  of  a 
money  management  firm.  "In  this  way, 
we  could  meet  the  everyday  cash  flow 
requirements  of  the  college  while  main- 
taining the  purchasing  power  of  the 
endowment."  Over  the  next  several 
years,  the  college  averaged  a  16-percent 
total  return  on  its  investments,  compared 
with  a  Dow  Jones  Industrial  average  of 
1 1  percent  and  a  Standard  &  Poor's  500 
average  of  13.3  percent. 

David  Lloyd  worked  closely  with  WPI 
President  Emeritus  Edmund  T.  Cranch, 
who  says  that  Lloyd  was  able  to  save  the 
Institute  a  substantial  amount  of  money 
over  time.  In  addition,  says  Cranch, 
today  president  of  Wang  Institute  of 
Graduate  Studies,  "Dave  put  funds  in 
reserve  so  that  when  really  important 
projects  came  along,  we  had  the  flexibil- 
ity to  do  those  things.  That's  tremen- 
dously important  to  the  college." 


Owing  largely  to  Lloyd's  finan- 
cial leadership,  the  college  is 
currently  in  "excellent  financial 
condition,"  according  to  Controller  and 
Assistant  Treasurer  Frank  P.  Conti, 
"Dave  has  acted  as  a  watchdog  over  the 
assets  of  the  school  while  building  the 
value  of  its  real  estate,"  he  says.  Under 
Lloyd's  management,  the  plant  fund 
assets  have  increased  from  $2.6  million 
to  $52  million,  while  the  endowment  has 
grown  from  $4  million  to  $65  million. 
And  the  horizon  looks  just  as  bright. 

"WPI  has  a  fantastic  future!"  Lloyd 
says  confidently.  Although  the  Institute, 
like  other  colleges  in  the  Northeast,  faces 
a  dwindling  college-age  population, 
Lloyd  feels  that  WPI  will  be  able  to 
maintain  its  planned  enrollment  of  2,400 
to  2,500  undergraduate  students  without 
sacrificing  quality. 

"Since  WPI  is  an  engineering  and  sci- 
ence college,"  he  maintains,  "we  have  a 
competitive  edge  over  most  liberal  arts 
schools."  But  vital  to  this  institutional 
health,  according  to  Lloyd,  is  sustaining 
what  he  calls  the  WPI  educational  mis- 
sion: "If  we  maintain  the  quality  of  stu- 
dent life,  provide  first-rate  facilities,  and 
keep  the  quality  of  our  faculty  and  staff 


high,  then  we  will  be  able  to  meet  our 
enrollment  goals." 

Although  tuition  has  risen  from  $700 
to  $8,900  during  Lloyd's  career,  he  says 
he  doesn't  feel  that  the  costs  will  become 
prohibitive.  Through  a  host  of  student 
aid  programs  and  other  resources,  he 
adds,  WPI  is  accessible  to  any  student 
who  really  wants  to  come  here.  "More 
and  more,  people  look  on  education  as 
an  investment.  Students  who  earn  WPI 
degrees  can  often  command  better 
employment  prospects  than  those  com- 
ing out  of  other  schools,  where  graduates 
need  advanced  degrees  to  compete  on  the 
same  level.  In  that  sense,  WPI  could  end 
up  costing  less." 

"Tuition  continues  to  make  up  about 
50  percent  of  our  income,"  he  says. 
Other  revenue  sources  are  endowment, 
gifts  and  bequests,  and  miscellaneous 
education-related  revenues.  Still,  he 
admits,  WPI  will  have  to  explore  new 
creative  business  ventures.  "This  is  sim- 
ply a  reality  of  the  financial  milieu  in 
which  all  colleges  find  themselves 
today." 

In  spite  of  his  continuing  enthusiasm 
for  his  life's  work,  Lloyd  seems  to 
feel  no  regret  that  his  WPI  role  in  its 
future  will  be  less  active.  He  says  he's 
looking  forward  not  to  retirement  in 
June,  but  to  pursuing  other  of  his  inter- 
ests more  fully. 

"I  came  to  WPI  planning  to  stay  a  few 
years,"  he  says  with  a  smile.  "It  has 
become  a  home  to  me."  The  people  of 
Worcester  and  the  WPI  community,  he 
says,  are  like  family,  particularly  people 
such  as  Dorothy  Burdulis,  who  has  been 
his  trusted  secretary  since  1956. 

But  the  time  has  come  to  move  on,  he 
admits.  "Ideas  are  very  important.  We 
need  to  find  new  and  viable  ways  to  fund 
them."  He  feels  that  he  can  contribute  to 
the  success  of  other  non-profit  groups  as 
a  consultant  by  making  their  operations 
more  efficient.  "People  will  always 
work  for  the  intrinsic  value  of  some- 
thing," he  says. 

It's  obvious  that  Dave  Lloyd  is  going 
to  enjoy  the  challenges  in  his  future  as 
much  as  he  has  enjoyed  those  of  the  past. 

"Strategies  often  vary  greatly  between 
the  worlds  of  commercial  and  nonprofit 
finance,"  he  maintains.  "It's  the  philoso- 
phy behind  what  we  do  that  makes  it  all 
fun!" 

Rachel  Faugno  is  a  freelance  writer  liv- 
ing in  West  Brookfield,  MA . 


MAY  1986       21 


Teaching  Refugees 
to  "Swim"  in  Somalia 


Sending  money  for  food  or  medicine 
to  refugees  in  stricken  areas  is  like 
throwing  a  drowning  person  a  life 
raft  without  teaching  him  how  to  swim." 
That's  the  opinion  of  Dennis  Hattem 
T4  a  civil  engineer  working  in  a  Save 
the  Children  Federation  (SCF)  refugee 
camp  in  Southern  Somalia.  "Donating 
money  for  emergency  items,  no  matter 
how  helpful  initially,  is  only  a  temporary 
solution."  Dennis,  with  his  engineering 
expertise  and  SCF  guidelines,  is  teach- 
ing a  number  of  the  40.000  refugees  in 
the  camp  how  to  "swim." 

His  main  job  responsibility  is  the 
design  and  construction  of  an  irrigation 
scheme  on  320  hectares  (about  800 
acres)  of  refugee  farm  land.  He  also  pro- 
vides technical  input  to  SCF-assisted 
projects,  many  utilizing  appropriate 
technology  methods. 


Hattem  (I.)  and  helper 
unloading  pumps. 

Most  of  the  refugees  have  lived  in  the 
camp  since  the  war  over  the  Ogaden 
region  in  Ethiopia  in  1977-1978  forced 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  people  to  leave 
their  homelands.  "Since  six  years  is 
obviously  a  long  time  to  receive  hand- 
outs." Dennis  says,  "my  efforts  here,  in 
line  with  SCF's  philosophy,  are  focused 
on  development  rather  than  relief." 

The  majority  of  Somalia's  refugees,  he 
explains,  have  a  nomadic  heritage,  with 
little  or  no  experience  in  agriculture, 
especially  on  irrigated  land.  With  over- 
grazing, recurrent  droughts  and  an  unsta- 
ble political  environment,  the  nomadic 
lifestyle  is  becoming  insecure.  SCF's 
objective  is  to  train  these  people  in  the 
agricultural  skills  necessary  for  their  own 
self-sufficiency. 

"In  order  to  meet  this  goal.  I  work 
with  other  SCF  staffers,  mostly  Somali. 


and  the  refugees  themselves,  in  the 
design  and  construction  of  the  scheme." 
he  continues. 

The  irrigation  scheme  consists  of  one 
main  canal  and  four  pump  stations  each 
supplying  300  liters/sec.  More  than  14 
km.  of  secondary  canals  deliver  almost 
1.500  liters/sec.  to  the  farm.  Except  for 
some  major  earthworks,  the  majorin  of 
the  farm's  structures  have  been  designed 
to  maximize  the  use  of  local  materials 
and  skilled  and  unskilled  refugee  labor. 
Thus,  even  before  completion,  training 
has  begun  in  construction  techniques  and 
irrigation  theory. 

The  recipients,  because  they  have 
helped  with  the  construction,  also  gain  a 
sense  of  ownership.  Hattem  explains. 
With  the  first  irrigation  recently  begun, 
the  farmers  are  also  organizing  to  ensure 
efficient  use  of  the  irrigation  supply  and 
to  improve  yields  and  plant  diversified 
crops. 

Dennis,  a  professional  engineer,  has 
been  with  Save  the  Children  since  Sep- 
tember 1984.  Five  years  prior  to  joining 
SCF.  he  was  with  Metcalf  and  Eddy  in 
New  York  City.  Earlier,  he  had  met 
Frances  Riemer  while  both  were  Peace 
Corps  members  in  Malaysia— they  are 
now  married.  Frances  is  currently  the 
coordinator  of  SCF  community  develop- 
ment projects  in  the  camps  and  surround- 
ing villages. 

In  October.  Frances  and  Dennis 
worked  with  other  SCF  staff  members 
planning  a  luncheon  for  a  VIP  from  back 
home.  They  made  a  party  of  it.  sitting  on 
the  floor  of  a  local  restaurant  (owned  and 
operated  by  a  group  of  refugee  women 
assisted  by  SCF)  and  eating  goat  meat 
and  rice  with  their  fingers— Somali  style. 

"We  told  her  about  our  work."  reports 
Frances,  "all  about  working  with  people 
to  help  them  recognize  and  meet  their 
own  needs,  whether  it  be  to  start  a  small 
business,  to  improve  their  existing  health 
care  services,  or  to  improve  traditional 
farming  techniques." 

Their  guest  became  a  bit  glassy-eyed 
during  the  account,  possibly  because 
she'd  gotten  up  at  5  a.m.  that  day  to 
attend  a  UN-sponsored  women's  confer- 
ence nearby.  The  guest's  name  was  Mau- 
reen Reagan. 


22       WPI  JOURNAL 


HOW  TO  SUCCEED  IN 

COLLEGE  WITHOUT 

REALLY  TRYING 


Flunking  out  of  a 
university  in  Japan 


is  hard  to  do — 


but  for  Japanese 
students,  college  is 
just  a  short  vacation 


in  a  lifetime  of 


learning. 


By  Leslie  Brunetta 


Japan  has  a  joke  university  sys- 
tem." says  John  Zeugner.  profes- 
sor of  history  at  Worcester  Poly- 
technic Institute.  Between  1976 
and  1983,  Zeugner  spent  four 
years  in  Japan  as  a  Fulbright 
Senior  Lecturer  and  visiting  pro- 
fessor of  cultural  history.  At  the  presti- 
gious Osaka.  Kobe,  and  Keio  universi- 
ties, he  was  surprised  to  find  dingy 
buildings  and  infrequently  used  libraries. 
Students  enrolled  in  up  to  30  courses  a 
term,  did  little  or  no  homework,  spoke 
up  only  when  called  on  by  the  professor, 
and  sometimes  made  their  first  appear- 
ances at  final  exams. 

Yet.  joke  university  system  or  no. 
Japan  produces  twice  as  many  engineers 
per  capita  as  the  U.S..  and  its  production 
workers  use  sophisticated  mathematical 
operations  on  the  shop  floor.  And  even 
though  it  has  a  land-mass  the  size  of 
Montana,  the  world's  greatest  population 
density  per  acre  of  arable  land,  and 
nearly  no  natural  resources.  Japan  is  the 
second-greatest  economic  power  on 
earth,  ranking  only  behind  the  U.S. 
Something's  going  right  in  Japan's  edu- 
cational system.  What  is  it? 

The  answer  is  not  as  simple  as 
some  would-be  American  edu- 
cation reformers  would  have 
it.  Just  zeroing  in  on  differ- 
ences in  teaching  techniques, 
government  expenditures,  or  number  of 
hours  spent  in  school  ignores  some  larger 
issues.  "There's  the  open  assumption  in 
Japanese  society  that  age  zero  to  five  is  a 
time  for  you.  university  days  are  a  time 
for  you.  and  late  retirement  is  a  time  for 
you,"  says  Zeugner.  "The  rest  of  the 
time  is  for  Japan."  It's  this  concept— that 
the  successful  individual  belongs  to  the 
group  and  cooperates  with  others  to 


bring  about  the  group's  success— that 
perhaps  most  distinguishes  Japan's  cul- 
tural ethos  from  that  of  the  U  S . 

Most  people  in  Japan  define  them- 
selves by  the  role  they  play  in  the 
workforce — a  person  is  measured  by 
what  he  does  and  where  he  does  it.  And 
the  social  system  is  intensely  hierarchi- 
cal: "It  is  almost  true."  says  Norman 
Taylor.  Charles  A.  Dana  Professor  of 
Economics  and  director  of  Japanese 
Studies  at  Franklin  &  Marshall  College, 
"that  no  two  people  are  on  exactly  the 
same  social  plane." 

But  Japan's  hierarchy  is  not  based  on  a 
Western  notion  of  class  privilege  at  birth: 
96  percent  of  Japanese  people  consider 
themselves  middle  class.  A  Japanese  stu- 
dent has  one  chance,  and  probably  one 
chance  only,  to  stake  a  place  in  society— 
and  that  chance  is  the  university  entrance 
examination. 

"How  you  do  at  university  in  Japan." 
says  Robert  H.  Chambers,  president  of 
Western  Maryland  College,  who  spent  a 
sabbatical  in  Japan,  "is  much  less  impor- 
tant than  which  university  you  go  to." 
Everyone  in  Japan  knows  that  Tokyo 
University,  known  as  Todai.  is  the  coun- 
try's No.  1  university.  It's  not  that  Todai 
is  the  oldest,  or  the  most  socially  exclu- 
sive, or  has  the  strongest  academic 
departments,  it's— simply— No.  1.  If  you 
want  to  enter  the  government  bureau- 
cracy, which  is  the  country's  most  presti- 
gious profession,  then  you  have  to  go  to 
Todai:  The  bureaucracy  recruits  from 
Todai.  and  from  Todai  only. 

Everyone  knows  what  the  second, 
third,  fourth,  and  15th  universities  are. 
too.  And  which  university  feeds  Honda, 
which  feeds  Mitsubishi,  which  feeds 
Hitachi.  Couple  this  with  the  fact  that 
most  of  the  country's  prestigious  jobs 
amount  to  lifetime  affiliations,  and  the 


ALUMNI  MAGAZINE  CONSORTIUM       I 


entrance  exam  suddenly  becomes  just 
about  the  most  important  event  in  life. 
"Once  you  get  a  very  hierarchical  system 
pegged  to  an  entrance  exam  to  a  univer- 
sity system,"  says  Zeugner,  "then  that 
one  shot  is  going  to  take  care  of  your 
career." 

The  employers'  recruitment  sys- 
tem is  so  entrenched  that 
almost  every  student  in 
Japan— 98  percent  attend  high 
school  (which  is  non- 
compulsory),  with  40  percent  going  on 
to  college— understands  from  an  early 
age  that  doing  well  on  the  university 
entrance  exams  is  crucial.  The  exams  are 
grueling  and  they're  the  only  criterion 
for  entrance  to  universities:  It  makes  no 
difference  if  you're  a  good  baseball 
player,  a  good  musician,  or  a  student 
leader.  How  you  stack  up  against  every- 
one else  taking  the  test  is  all  that  counts. 
"The  Japanese  system  is  almost  the 
opposite  of  the  American  system,  where 
the  high  school  is  a  kind  of  socializing 
joke  and  college  is  where  you  knuckle 
down,"  says  Zeugner.  In  Japan,  high 
school  is  the  most  intense  part  of  an  edu- 
cational crescendo  leading  to  the 
university-exam  climax.  From  the  ages 
of  five,  four,  and  sometimes  even  three, 
Japanese  students  are  encouraged  to  take 
their  studies  seriously. 

The  curriculum  studied  by  six-year- 
olds  in  Tokyo  is  the  same  as  that  studied 
by  six-year-olds  in  the  country's  rural 
areas:  The  entire  public  education  sys- 
tem is  controlled  by  a  central  authority, 
which  can  build  a  general,  national  con- 
sensus on  what  and  how  children  should 
learn.  That's  not  the  only  basic  differ- 
ence between  Japan  and  the  U.S.:  In 
Japan,  the  school  year  is  240  days  long, 
children  have  quite  large  amounts  of 
homework  from  the  first  grade  on, 
there's  no  tracking,  and  school  popula- 
tions are  amazingly  homogeneous,  both 
racially  and  economically. 

To  a  large  extent,  rote  learning  is  an 
essential  part  of  Japanese  education  sim- 
ply because  being  able  to  understand  the 
written  language  means  memorizing 
thousands  of  ideographic  characters— it's 
often  not  until  the  twelfth  grade  that  stu- 
dents can  fully  understand  a  daily  news- 
paper. It's  relatively  easy,  then,  to  use 
rote  learning  in  other  subjects,  too.  But 
the  common  Western  stereotype  of  the 
Japanese  child  being  force-fed  history 


dates  and  math  formulae  is  far  from  the 
truth,  according  to  Merry  I.  White, 
director  of  international  education  at 
Harvard's  Graduate  School  of  Education. 
Observing  Japanese  elementary  school 
classes,  White  found  children  to  be 
actively  engaged  in  their  lessons,  enthu- 
siastically shouting  out  questions, 
answers,  and  suggestions  to  their 
teachers. 

In  a  fifth-grade  math  lesson  on  cubing, 
for  instance,  the  teacher  asked  the  stu- 
dents to  write  down  their  feelings  about 
this  new  concept,  and  then  asked  them  to 
think  how  the  surface  and  volume  of  a 
cube  might  be  measured.  The  class  then 
broke  up  into  study  groups:  some  were 
given  cardboard  and  rulers,  while  others 
worked  together  on  problems.  Each 
group  competed  to  finish  first.  Later,  the 
teacher  gave  the  groups  a  problem  whose 
solution  was  beyond  them,  but  did  not 
provide  an  answer  at  the  end  of  the  class 
nor  set  a  deadline  for  finding  the  solu- 
tion. White  discovered  that  the  children 
remained  interested  in  the  problem,  even 
though  they  could  not  answer  it  for  sev- 
eral days. 

There  are  a  few  things  to  notice  here, 
White  says.  One  is  that  the  teacher  was 
more  interested  in  getting  the  kids  into 
the  process  of  learning  than  in  simply 
getting  the  answer  out  of  them.  Another 
is  that  the  major  emphasis  was  placed  on 
group  rather  than  individual  achieve- 
ment. Teachers  are  responsible  for  mak- 
ing up  groups  of  mixed  abilities  and  for 
making  sure  that  everyone  takes  an 
active  part.  "To  the  Japanese,"  says 
White,  "effort  is  much  more  important 
than  ability." 

Where  the  tempo  quickens  is  in 
junior  high  school.  Here,  most  students 
encounter  scholastic  stratification  for  the 
first  time— they  have  to  worry  not  only 
about  the  entrance  examinations  for  uni- 
versities, but  also  about  getting  into  the 
high  schools  with  the  best  university 
entrance  results.  By  this  time,  nearly  60 
percent  of  urban  students  attend  juku— 
the  private  after-school  schools  (paid  for 
by  parents  and  unregulated  by  the  central 
educational  commission)  that  prime  stu- 
dents for  this  series  of  entrance  exams. 

"There's  a  dual  track,"  says  Zeugner. 
"There's  public  or  private  school  from 
8:30  to  3:00  and  on  Saturday  mornings, 
then  there's  juku  for  a  few  hours  every 
day."  Karl  Zimmer,  industrial  professor 
of  Mechanical  Engineering  at  Villanova 


University,  has  stayed  with  families 
while  on  cultural  exchange  trips  to  Japan 
and  says  that  children  aren't  forced  by 
their  parents  to  go  off  to  juku:  "Students 
are  very  anxious  to  go.  The  son  of  the 
family  we  stayed  with  went  to  juku  two 
or  three  days  a  week  even  in  the  summer. 
During  the  summer,  he  only  had  two 
weeks  off." 

"The  relationship  between  the  family 
and  the  school  can  get  very  heavy  in 
junior  high  and  high  school,"  according 
to  Merry  White.  Because  the  politically 
left-of-center  national  teachers'  union 
exerts  pressure  for  reform  of  the  exam 
system,  teachers  in  the  regular  public 
schools  try  to  teach  a  broader  range  of 
topics  and  interpretations  than  that  tested 
by  the  entrance  examiners.  While  par- 
ents may  not  like  the  idea  of  the  more 
narrow  juku  system,  most  find  it  hard  to 
sacrifice  their  child's  future  chances  for 
their  own  ideals. 

Given  this  hard-driving  system,  Japa- 
nese teen-agers  live  considerably  differ- 
ently than  do  their  U.S.  counterparts. 
When  the  hours  spent  by  Japanese  and 
U.S.  students  are  added  up,  the  Japanese 
have  spent  four  more  years  in  school 
over  the  twelve  years  of  elementary  and 
secondary  school  than  have  the  Ameri- 
cans, even  if  juku  is  excluded.  Academic 
students  rarely  take  after-school  or  sum- 
mer jobs,  and  they  spend  relatively  little 
time  with  their  friends.  Almost  all  their 
efforts  are  toward  the  exams.  The  result 
is  that  Japanese  high  school  graduates 
perform  better  on  standardized  tests  than 
their  peers  in  any  other  country,  and  are 
reckoned  to  have  achieved  a  level  of  edu- 
cation equal  to  that  of  average  U.S.  col- 
lege graduates. 

We've  broken  you,  so  now 
you  have  four  years  to  put 
yourself  back  together." 
That's  John  Zeugner's 
interpretation  of  the  univer- 
sity experience  for  most  Japanese  stu- 
dents. Once  students  get  into 
university— and  some  spend  a  year  or 
more  as  rbnin  ("lordless  wandering  sam- 
urai"), studying  independently  to  retake 
the  exams— they  play  sports,  join  clubs, 
and  socialize  with  all  the  energy  once 
reserved  for  their  studies.  A  few  students 
do  take  their  studies  seriously,  says 
Zeugner,  "but  they're  considered  a  bit 
strange,  and  there  isn't  any  support 
mechanism  for  them." 


U       MAY  1986 


Just  because  most  Japanese  students 
slack  off  during  their  college  years 
doesn't  mean  that  age  18  marks  the  end 
of  their  education.  "Obviously,  Japanese 
primary  and  secondary  education  work 
terrifically,"  says  Zeugner,  "but  it's  the 
follow-up  that  works  even  better." 

Once  the  government  or  a  private  com- 
pany picks  up  its  graduates  from  the  uni- 
versities, it  provides  them  with  a  broad 
practical  education  not  only  in  the  spe- 
cifics of  their  own  jobs,  but  also  in  the 
workings  of  the  industry  or  govern- 
ment as  a  whole.  "There's  a  little  shut- 
down period  from  18  to  22,"  observes 
Zeugner,  "but  from  22  to  60  there's 
enormous  pressure  to  get  more  and  more 


knowledge."  Companies  sponsor  in- 
house  study  groups,  seminars,  and  usu- 
ally an  experience  abroad  for  their 
employees.  Perhaps  because  companies 
can  count  on  retaining  employees  over 
the  course  of  a  career,  they  don't  feel 
obliged  to  justify  such  training  with 
short-term  benefits.  "There  may  be 
long-term  payoffs,"  says  Zeugner,  "but 
to  the  Japanese,  the  learning  itself  is  pay- 
off enough." 

In  any  case,  the  Japanese  business- 
man's definition  of  useful  knowledge  is 
much  broader  than  that  of  his  competitor 
in  the  U.S.,  according  to  Leon  Stover,  a 
1950  graduate  of  Western  Maryland  Col- 
lege, professor  of  anthropology  at  the 


Illinois  Institute  of  Technology,  and  the 
first  non-Japanese  to  teach  at  Todai  grad- 
uate school:  "The  Japanese  have  a  very 
practical  approach.  Professionals  say, 
'We  study  literature  in  order  to  under- 
stand human  nature  so  as  to  use  it  in 
business.'  "  Much  of  Japanese  culture  is 
based  on  ancient  Chinese  philosophy, 
says  Merry  White,  and  it  shows  in  mod- 
ern corporate  and  government  policy: 
"The  Japanese  see  education  as  a  life- 
long process.  It's  an  ancient  Chinese  tra- 
dition that  virtue  is  acquired  through 
learning." 

It's  almost  impossible  in  Japan  to  be 
a  self-made  man,"  says  Takeko  K. 
Stover,  senior  lecturer  in  Japanese 
history  at  Roosevelt  University  and 
a  graduate  of  Japanese  Women's 
University,  "so  people  feel  you  can  sac- 
rifice your  younger  years  in  order  to  get 
into  the  best  university."  Karl  Zimmer 
found  this  to  be  a  sobering  aspect  of  Jap- 
anese life:  "The  children  don't  have  any 
opportunity  to  play  or  just  to  do  noth- 
ing." And,  says  Merry  White,  the  system 
can  be  unbearable  for  the  out-of-the- 
ordinary  child:  "There  really  isn't  a 
place  for  the  kid  who's  truly  eccentric  or 
extraordinarily  bright." 

There  are  some  educational  as  well  as 
social  drawbacks  to  the  Japanese  system, 
according  to  American  observers.  "By 
high  school,  their  education  is  very  much 
a  cramming,"  says  Norman  Taylor. 
"They  know  a  lot  more  than  their  U.S. 
counterparts,  but  they  don't  get  much 
training  in  analytical  thinking  until  after 
university."  And  many  Americans  tie 
this  cramming  and  the  slacking  off  dur- 
ing college  years  with  the  Japanese's  rep- 
utation as  copiers,  rather  than  innova- 
tors: "Science  and  math  people  say  the 
critical  moment  for  new  ideas  comes 
between  the  ages  of  18  and  35,"  says 
Zeugner,  "and  the  Japanese  are  throwing 
a  sizable  chunk  of  those  years  out  the 
window." 

But  the  Japanese  recognize  the  weight 
of  these  problems  and  take  them  seri- 
ously as  stumbling-blocks  on  the  path  to 
post-industrial  success.  Education  con- 
sistently shows  up  on  Prime  Minister's 
Office  polls  as  the  nation's  No.  1  con- 
cern, and  education  makes  the  headlines 
nearly  every  day.  Says  Merry  White, 
"Just  the  fact  that  education  can  be  such 
a  high-profile  topic  in  Japan  is  humbling 
for  Americans." 


MAGAZINE  CONSORTIUM       III 


Hijackings,  AIDS,  missing  children, 

international  terrorism,  natural  and 

industrial  disasters— everyone  can  list 

events  with  the  potential  to  ignite 

outbreaks  of  fear.  It's  much  harder 

to  explain  how  panic  works. 


IV       MAY  1986 


The  only  thing  to  fear  is 
fear  itself,  Franklin  Delano 
Roosevelt  told  the  nation  in 
his  first  inaugural  address. 
Today,  fear  seems  inescap- 
able. Forty  percent  of 
Americans  expect  a  nuclear 
war  within  10  years;  the 
same  number  predict 
another  industrial  accident 
on  the  order  of  1979's 
Three  Mile  Island  catastro- 
phe. And  in  the  past  year, 
1.4  million  Americans 
changed  their  travel  plans 
in  the  wake  of  the  hijacking 
of  the  Achille  Lauro. 


By  Marshall  Ledger 

Ater  the  hijacking  of  the  cruise  ship 
Achille  Lauro,  Marilyn  Klinghof- 
i  fer,  widowed  when  the  hijackers 
killed  her  wheelchair-bound  husband, 
Leon,  told  a  subcommittee  of  the  U.S. 
House  of  Representatives:  "My  hus- 
band's death  has  made  a  difference  in  the 
way  people  now  perceive  their  vulnera- 
bility. I  believe  what  happened  to  the 
passengers  on  the  Achille  Lauro  and  to 
my  family  can  happen  to  anyone  at  any 
time  and  at  any  place." 

She  gauged  the  American  pulse  accu- 
rately. Of  6.5  million  Americans  who 
had  arranged  trips  abroad  last  year,  an 
estimated  1.4  million  changed  plans 
because  of  that  hijacking  and  other  inci- 
dents. The  figure  represents  a  massive 
shift  in  reaction  to  activity  that,  as  tolled 
by  the  Vice  President's  Task  Force  on 
Combatting  Terrorism,  claimed  only  23 
American  lives  in  1985. 

Terrorism  is  not  the  only  locus  of  per- 
ceived vulnerability  for  Americans. 
AIDS— Acquired  Immune  Deficiency 
Syndrome— is  causing  fearful  parents  to 
yank  their  children  from  schools  in 
which  a  schoolmate,  or  even  a  sibling  of 
a  classmate,  has  been  diagnosed  as  hav- 
ing the  disease.  At  a  March  conference 
in  Washington,  D.C.,  health-care  offi- 
cials talked  of  colleagues  afraid  to  treat 
AIDS  patients.  Elisabeth  Kubler-Ross, 
known  for  her  work  with  dying  people, 
spoke  of  the  resistance  she  encountered 
in  trying  to  establish  a  hospice  at  her  Vir- 
ginia farm  for  15  children  dying  of 
AIDS;  property  values  would  fall,  her 
neighbors  told  her. 

Approximately  18,500  cases  of  AIDS 
have  been  recorded  in  the  U.S.,  includ- 
ing 9,800  deaths.  Research  is  gaining 
ground.  The  virus  has  been  identified. 
All  in  all,  no  evidence  points  to  conta- 
gion by  casual  contact.  Nonetheless,  as 
Merle  A.  Sande  wrote  recently  in  The 
New  England  Journal  of  Medicine, 
Americans— physicians  among  them— 
are  gripped  by  "an  epidemic  of  fear." 

Americans  are  also  growing  more  fear- 
ful of  atomic  power.  Howard  Ball,  dean 
of  the  College  of  Social  and  Behavioral 
Science  and  professor  of  political  science 
at  the  University  of  Utah,  traced  the 
development  of  one  such  instance  in  Jus- 
tice Downwind,  published  in  February: 
When  the  U.S.  government  conducted 
above-ground  nuclear  tests  in  Nevada  in 
the  1950s,  the  Utah  residents  in  the  path 


MAGAZINE  CONSORTIUM       V 


of  the  fallout  were  assured  of  the  safety 
of  the  blasts.  An  editorial  in  one  local 
newspaper  uas  headlined.  "Spectacular 
Atomic  Explosions  Mean  Progress  in 
Defense.  No  Cause  for  Panic."  Children 
played  in  the  radioactive  dust  as  though  it 
were  snow,  and  the  various  cancers  they 
have  since  developed  are  now  a  cause  for 
lawsuits. 

Industry  is  suspect,  too.  In  the  early 
1960s,  according  to  Roger  E.  Kasper- 
son,  of  Clark  University's  Center  for 
Technology.  Environment,  and  Develop- 
ment, the  public  expressed  confidence 
about  the  disposal  of  radioactive  wastes. 
Since  then,  following  leaks  of  stored 
waste,  not  to  mention  explosions  in 
transporting  such  material,  disposal  has 
led  to  "volatile"  community  reactions  all 
over  the  country.  As  many  as  50.000 
people  fled  their  homes  in  the  wake  of 
the  1979  accident  at  Three  Mile  Island. 
Public  opinion  polls  tell  a  similar  story: 
Some  40  percent  of  Americans  predict  a 
catastrophic  industrial  accident  in  the 
near  future:  the  same  figure  expect  a 
nuclear  war  within  ten  years. 

Officials  now  speak  of  "unscaring" 
the  public,  but  the  task  is  not  easy.  Peo- 
ple overestimate  the  risks  of  dramatic  or 
sensational  causes  of  death  and  underes- 
timate undramatic  causes,  says  Paul 
Slovic  of  Decision  Research,  a  Eugene, 
Oregon-based  risk  assessment  firm.  The 
"imaginability"  of  an  event,  he  says, 
blurs  the  distinction  "between  what  is 
(remotely)  possible  and  what  is  proba- 
ble." 

When  people  are  uncertain,  Slovic 
continues,  they  reduce  the  anxiety  gener- 
ated by  denying  the  uncertainty,  "thus 
making  the  risk  seem  either  so  small  that 
it  can  safely  be  ignored  or  so  large  that  it 
clearly  should  be  avoided."  They  hate 
probabilities:  "they  want  to  know 
exactly  what  w  ill  happen."  Slovic  tells  of 
an  experimenter  who  tried  to  convey  the 
smallness  of  one  part  of  toxic  substance 
per  billion  by  comparing  it  to  a  single 
crouton  in  a  five-ton  salad.  The  compari- 
son made  the  degree  of  contamination  so 
easily  imaginable  that  it  was  grossly  and 
erroneously  magnified.  The  analogy, 
meant  to  reassure,  backfired— adding  to 
the  potential  for  panic. 

Panic— not  necessarily  in  a  medical 
sense,  but  in  the  sense  in  which 
Utahans  and  parents  concerned 
about  AIDS  and  1.4  million  would-be 
overseas  travelers  understand  it— is  a 
possible  result  of  something  mysterious, 


VI       MAY  1986 


perceived  as  unpredictable  in  occur- 
rence, erratic,  dreaded,  and  a  threat  to 
life  and  social  values.  But  what  panic  is. 
is  less  easy  to  say.  (A  list  of  conflicting 
opinions  is  found  on  page  XI.)  Unfortu- 
nately, panic  is  not  detected  simply,  as 
Sophocles  suggested,  by  seeing  whose 
hair  is  standing  on  end. 

"Panic  can  take  many  forms,"  says 
Stewart  Agras,  director  of  behavioral 
medicine  at  Stanford  University  and 
president  of  the  Association  for  the 
Advancement  of  Behavior  Therapy. 
Agras  treats  individuals,  and  describes 
the  obsessiveness  of  afflicted  individuals 
in  Panic:  Facing  Fears,  Phobias,  and 
Anxiety,  but  he  suggests  that  inchoate 
fears  experienced  singly  might  apply  to 
people  in  groups  as  well:  "I  think  the 
feeling  state  is  identical"— wanting  to 
flee  a  situation,  stopped  only  by  consid- 
eration of  what  others  may  think.  "And 
all  the  physiological  changes  would  be 
similar— blood  pressure  and  heart  rate 

Signs  of  fearful  times:  Queens,  N.Y.,  students 
boycotted  their  school  (below),  which  admit- 
ted a  student  with  AIDS;  the  U.S.  embassy  in 
Paris  beefed  up  its  security  after  the  1982 
murder  of  a  military  attache 


going  up.  increase  in  the  hormones  that 
get  these  things  going,  the  muscles  tens- 
ing, ready  for  flight." 

In  clinical  practice,  can  he  separate  the 
biological,  cultural,  psychological,  and 
social  factors  of  panic?  "In  an  individ- 
ual, it's  almost  impossible,"  he  says, 
"and  when  you  come  down  to  it,  it 
doesn't  matter  very  much." 

"There  are  major  problems  of  getting 
back  and  forth  from  psychological  and 
sociological  processes,"  says  Peter  H. 
Knapp.  associate  professor  of  sociology 
at  Villanova  University.  "Everyone  rec- 
ognizes that  it's  important  to  do  so,  but 
how  one  does  so,  and  gets  a  whole  that  is 
more  than  the  sum  of  its  parts  rather  than 
less,  has  proven  to  be  very  difficult." 

Knapp  offers  a  sociological  explana- 
tion for  one  variety  of  panic:  wild 
flight,  the  sort  that  is  discouraged  in 
packed  theaters  and  nightclubs.  "What  is 
involved."  he  says,  "is  a  kind  of  'pris- 
oner's dilemma,'  in  which,  yes,  if  every- 


^o       Ch.lJren 
uith    A,de  ,n 

°~  y  of-  a 


one  walks  to  the  nearest  exit  of  a  burning 
building,  almost  everyone  will  get  out, 
and  if  everyone  stampedes  to  it,  virtually 
nobody  will  get  out. 

"And  so,  in  the  abstract,  it  would  be 
better  for  people  not  to  stampede.  But 
people  in  the  building  are  not  in  the 
abstract— they're  in  the  building,  and  if 
they  see  others  running  to  the  exit,  they 
know  that  anyone  who  walks  there  is 
surely  not  going  to  get  out.  Yet  running 
means  the  likelihood  of  a  jammed  exit. 
Obviously,  powerful  emotions  are 
aroused,  but  they  aren't  the  key  to  the 
thing.  The  key  is  that  the  outcome  for 
you  depends  on  other  people.  The  oojec- 
tive  consequences  of  running  or  not  run- 
ning suddenly  become  very  different." 

Panic,  Knapp  continues,  is  an  unsta- 
ble, self-reinforcing  event.  But  he  feels 
that  it  is  difficult  to  formulate  an 
umbrella  theory  of  panic  because 
responses  to  AIDS  or  terrorism  or  indus- 
trial accidents  might  be  "not  a  set.  but 


sets,  of  different  things."  And  theory 
requires  a  more  systematically  defined 
data-base.  The  alternative  approach  to 
studying  panic,  he  points  out.  is  case  his- 
tory, discrete  events  in  which  a  plausible 
interpretation  is  put  forth  for  each  one. 

Case  histories  are  the  staple  of 
Charles  Mackay's  Extraordinary 
Popular  Delusions  and  the  Mad- 
ness of  Crowds  (the  first  edition  was  pub- 
lished in  1841).  One  of  Mackay's  exam- 
ples of  economic  speculation  involves 
the  tulipomania  that  seized  Holland  in 
the  1630s— when  prices  for  the  bulbs  fell 
abruptly,  there  was  widespread  commer- 
cial ruin.  But  in  the  boom's  heyday,  a 
landowner  went  so  far  as  to  offer  12 
acres  of  land  for  a  single  bulb. 

Mackay  attributed  the  Dutch  infatua- 
tion with  tulips  to  solicitude  for  the 
weakness  of  the  cultivated  plants  ("as  a 
mother  often  loves  her  sick  and  ever- 
ailing  child  better  than  her  more  healthy 


offspring").  He  needed  different  expla- 
nations to  account  for  such  other  mass 
attractions  as  the  Crusc:w  -,c 

alchemy,  beards,  thieve. 
prisoners— a  series  of  what  he  called 
"moral  epidemics."  about  which  he  con- 
cluded that  people  "go  mad  in  herds, 
while  they  only  recover  their  senses 
slowly,  and  one  by  one." 

Recent  research  is  more  precise  and 
intellectually  satisfying,  but  it  has  not 
resolved  the  question  of  how  masses  of 
people  fall  into  panic.  Hadley  Cantril.  a 
public-opinion  expert  based  at  Princeton 
University,  studied  the  famous  overreac- 
tion  to  Orson  Welless  "War  of  the 
Worlds"  radio  play  broadcast  on  Oct. 
30.  1938.  Cantril  and  his  associates  were 
on  the  scene  promptly  (their  book.  The 
Invasion  from  Mars,  appeared  in  1940). 
and  they  ascertained  that  a  panic  actually 
occurred:  Of  an  audience  of  6  million,  an 
estimated  1.2  million  were  taken  in. 

After  interviewing  135  people.  Cantril 


So*/       QiJj  * 


"War  of  the  Worlds,"  a  radio  play  pre- 
sented by  Orson  Welles  on  Oct.  30, 
1938,  didn't  seem  like  fiction  to  an 
estimated  1.2  million  listeners.  Not 
only  did  most  of  the  victims  tune  in  too 
late  to  catch  the  disclaimers,  they 
were  also,  claim  some  researchers, 
susceptible  to  panic  because  of  their 

own  personality  traits— phobias,  lack 
of  self-confidence,  individual  worry. 


A  stranger's  death  in  dramatic  circumstances 
touches  others.  Perhaps  the  "stranger"  has 
already  touched  lives  through  his  work,  as 
Beatle  John  Lennon,  murdered  in  December 
1980,  had  affected  a  generation.  Or  perhaps 
strangeness  is  removed  by  the  event's  horror. 
Aid  poured  into  Mexico  City  from  around  the 
world  after  last  year's  earthquake.  Many 
"victims"  rose  above  the  panic  to  become 
heroes— University  of  Delaware  sociologist 
Enrico  Quarantelli  estimates  that  victims  and 
neighbors  performed  as  much  as  85  percent 
of  the  rescue  work. 


concluded  that  the  victims  failed  in  "crit- 
ical ability,"  by  which  he  meant  that  they 
did  not  correct  their  misperceptions  by 
turning  to  other  stations  or  calling 
friends.  They  accepted  the  prestige  of  the 
radio  and  the  supposed  newscast,  and  of 
the  authorities,  including  the  announcer, 
the  "Secretary  of  the  Interior,"  and  the 
Princeton  astronomer  played  by  Welles. 

The  victims,  Cantril  went  on  to  state, 
were  susceptible  because  of  their  own 
personality  traits— phobias,  lack  of  self- 
confidence,  individual  sources  of  worry. 
They  were  also  influenced  by  having 
tuned  in  late  (thereby  missing  one  of  the 
disclaimers),  by  seeing  others  disturbed, 
and  by  being  separated  from  their  fami- 
lies when  they  were  listening.  He  also 
cited  some  general  conditions:  a  disturb- 
ing sense  that  the  economic,  social,  and 
political  worlds  of  1938  were  changing; 
fear  of  technology;  and  the  war  scare. 

The  day  after  the  broadcast,  The  New 
York  Times  reported,  "Radio  Listeners  in 
Panic,  Taking  War  Drama  as  Fact."  The 
Federal  Communications  Commission 
threatened  an  investigation.  A  congress- 


man wanted  controls  slapped  upon  radio 
broadcasts.  Dorothy  Thompson,  writing 
in  The  New  York  Tribune,  felt  that  the 
panic  did  the  United  States  a  favor.  It 
revealed,  she  claimed,  an  American  sus- 
ceptibility to  demagoguery  and  the  fail- 
ure of  the  educational  system.  In  particu- 
lar, it  uncovered  the  dangers  of  the 
popularization  of  science,  which  "has 
led  to  gullibility  and  new  superstitions, 
rather  than  to  skepticism  and  the  really 
scientific  attitude  of  mind."  She  went  on 
to  argue  for  freedom  of  the  air  waves. 

Howard  Koch,  the  play's  scriptwriter, 
looks  back  on  the  event  with  relief  that 
nobody  died  in  the  panic.  (He  himself 
found  out  about  the  uproar  only  the  next 
day,  at  the  barbershop.)  He  credits 
Thompson  with  turning  around  an  angry 
public  by  her  argument  that  the  nation 
should  strengthen  itself.  A  few  years 
later,  he  notes,  "War  of  the  Worlds," 
translated  into  Spanish,  was  broadcast  in 
Lima,  Peru,  and  resulted  in  a  similar 
panic;  there,  however,  the  duped  and 
angry  audience  turned  on  the  radio  sta- 
tion and  burned  it  down. 


Koch  sees  an  ominous  parallel  in  the 
climate  of  1938  and  that  of  1986.  "We're 
living  in  a  kind  of  dangerous  time, 
anyway — the  nuclear  thing  hanging  over 
us.  People  sometimes  ask  me:  Would  it 
happen  if  the  play  were  done  again?  I 
would  be  unwilling  to  write  it  now 
because  I  think  that  the  state  people  are 
in,  it  could  happen  again."  He  adds, 
"We  learned  from  that  to  be  careful  in 
what  news  we  spread — at  least,  that's 
what  we  should  have  learned." 

The  Salem  witch  trials  are  probably 
the  most  scrutinized  instance  of 
mass  hysteria  in  U.S.  history— "an 
instance  of  something;  I  don't  know  if 
hysteria  is  the  right  word,"  says  Paul 
Boyer,  professor  of  history  at  the  Univer- 
sity of  Wisconsin,  who  co-authored 
Salem  Possessed:  The  Social  Origins  of 
Witchcraft.  That  outbreak  of  fear  in 
1692,  he  notes,  "did  not  simply  explode 
in  a  random,  formless  way."  Rather,  it 
followed  established  lines  of  economic 
and  political  conflict  in  Salem  village 
(where  the  events  occurred),  which  was 


VIII       MAY  1986 


split  in  its  attitude  toward  the  neighbor- 
ing town  of  Salem.  The  panic  was  trig- 
gered by  the  universal  belief  in  witch- 
craft ("It  was  no  more  unrealistic  for 
them  to  be  afraid  of  witchcraft  than  it  is 
for  us  to  be  afraid  of  AIDS,"  he  says)  and 
the  hysteria  of  the  afflicted  girls,  but  the 
hatred  had  been  pent  up  by  decades  of 
factional  tensions. 

In  the  past  10  years,  separate  studies  of 
the  Salem  panic  by  a  psychologist  and  a 
historian  have  argued  that  the  panic  can 
be  traced  to  food  poisoning:  Some  of  the 
villagers  were  eating  bad  rye  bread.  The 
bread,  a  Puritan  staple,  supposedly  was 
contaminated  by  a  fungus  similar  to 
LSD,  called  ergot,  which  thrives  in  cool, 
damp  weather— precisely  the  weather  in 
Salem  in  the  early  1690s. 

Nicholas  Spanos,  professor  of  psy- 
chology at  Carleton  University  in 
Ottawa,  Canada,  dismisses  that  proposi- 
tion by  saying,  among  other  things,  that 
the  symptoms  of  illness  exhibited  by  the 
girls  did  not  sufficiently  fit  those  caused 
by  ergotism — including  permanent  neu- 
rological damage,   even  death— which, 


he  feels,  should  have  occurred  if  the  poi- 
soning lasted  as  long  as  the  events 
demand. 

Instead,  he  returns  to  Boyer's  convic- 
tion about  local  factionalism  and  extends 
it,  arguing  that  authority  figures  must 
legitimate  the  proceedings  that  lead  to 
panic.  Elsewhere  in  New  England,  he 
observes,  ministers  tactfully  steered 
allegedly  possessed  individuals  away 
from  pressing  their  charges.  In  Salem, 
however,  the  minister  encouraged  the 
girls;  one  was  his  own  daughter,  and 
another  lived  in  his  house.  The  courts, 
contrary  to  their  convention,  chose  to 
accept  "spectral"  evidence— hallucina- 
tions or  coincidences— and  the  girls, 
allowed  to  make  unanswerable  accusa- 
tions, were  legitimized  as  genuine  witch- 
finders. 

Because  confession  was  generally  a 
method  to  escape  execution,  most  of  the 
accused  confessed,  adding  to  the  cre- 
dence of  the  charges.  And  this  large 
number  of  confessions  added  to  the  stat- 
ure of  the  "evidence"  while  simultane- 
ously fueling  the  panic. 

Spanos  suggests  that  mass  psycho- 
genic illnesses— a  different  sort  of 
hysteria— have  a  similar  dependence  on 
figures  in  authority.  At  a  football  game  in 
California,  the  public-address  announcer 
warned  spectators  to  throw  away  the 
concessionaire's  soft  drink  because  it 
might  be  tainted.  Hundreds  of  people 
showed  signs  of  food  poisoning,  whether 
they  had  drunk  any  soda  or  not.  Every- 
one recovered  as  soon  as  officials 
announced  that  the  soft  drink  had  passed 
a  health  test.  Typically,  biological 
experts  are  called  in  to  investigate,  and 
typically  they  are  baffled— until  the  inci- 
dent is  stamped  as  a  psychological  epi- 
demic. "That  stops  it,"  Spanos  says. 
"No  one  wants  to  get  labeled  as  crazy." 

Do  Americans  constitute  a  society 
that  is  especially  liable  to  panic? 
Not  according  to  one  psychiatric 
view.  Granville  Tolley,  director  of  the 
Dorothea  Dix  Hospital,  a  state  psychiat- 
ric facility  in  Raleigh,  N.C.,  says, 
"Avoidance  and  fear  in  the  absence  of 
clear  understanding,  or  in  the  presence  of 
what  turns  out  later  to  be  a  misunder- 
standing, is  quite  a  common  reaction." 

On  the  other  hand,  David  Riesman, 
professor  emeritus  of  social  sciences  at 
Harvard  University,  feels  that  the  United 
States  is  threatened,  in  part,  because  it  is 
a  "volatile"  society:  "My  image  is  of  a 
ferryboat  with  a  very  shallow  keel,  in 


which  people  rush  first  to  one  side  and 
then  to  the  other,  and  it's  just  good  luck 
that  it  doesn't  tip  over." 

Americans,  he  continues,  have  an 
"idling  panic-proneness"  that,  once 
shifted  into  gear  (as  in  the  Tylenol 
scares),  quickly  spreads  nationwide.  The 
delayed,  then  overdone  reaction  reminds 
Riesman  of  an  episode  on,  of  all  things, 
"Candid  Camera,"  Allen  Funt's  televi- 
sion program.  Movers,  Riesman  recalls, 
were  called  to  a  particular  address  to 
carry  away  a  trunk  for  shipment.  While 
the  owner  proceeded  to  give  directions 
on  how  to  hold  the  trunk,  noises  emitted 
from  it.  The  owner  talked  on,  as  if  noth- 
ing were  amiss.  The  movers  glanced 
warily  at  the  trunk  but  took  no  action, 
even  as  the  noises  turned  into  groans. 
Only  when  the  voice  in  the  trunk 
screamed  did  the  movers  leap  to  help. 

A  contemporary  illustration  of  Ries- 
man's  idea  of  overreaction  came  recently 
from  Dr.  Benjamin  Spock.  The  famous 
pediatrician  was  criticizing  the  wide  dis- 
tribution of  pictures  of  missing  children, 
especially  the  tactic  of  printing  them  on 
milk  cartons.  Spock  complained  that  it  is 
"scaring  tens  of  millions  of  children"  for 
a  questionable  degree  of  protection  or 
even  aid  in  finding  them.  The  problem, 
in  part,  is  social:  "In  America,  we 
ignore  dangers  for  a  long  time,  then  get 
hysterical  about  them." 

To  which  Riesman  replies,  "That 
sounds  like  the  groaning  trunk." 

In  any  contemporary  potential  panic, 
the  American  media  act  as  a  sort  of  wild 
card.  They  foster  fear  and  calm;  they 
inform  the  public  about  the  incident  and, 
in  the  very  process  of  presenting  it, 
"make  it  a  different  thing,"  as  Villanova 
sociologist  Knapp  puts  it.  There  are 
those  who  feel,  for  example,  that  if  the 
media  could  have  been  persuaded  to  stay 
away  from  the  U.S.  embassy  in  Tehran 
for  three  days,  the  Iranian  hostage  crisis 
would  have  ended  within  that  time. 

In  arguing  in  The  New  England  Jour- 
nal of  Medicine  that  physicians  must 
spread  the  appropriate  word  about  AIDS, 
Sande  indicates  his  own  frustration  when 
he  says  that  "the  new  knowledge  has 
often  produced  more  public  concern  than 
relief."  But  he  does  not  suggest  how  his 
recommendation  will  change  the  way 
even  correct  information  is  received. 

In  some  ways,  Americans  may  be 
steeled  against  panic— or  perhaps  are 
only  set  up  for  a  bigger  fall  in  yet 
another  version  of  the  groaning  trunk.  As 


ALUMNI  MAGAZINE  CONSORTIUM       IX 


Michael  Maccoby,  a  Washington,  D.C.- 
based  psychiatrist,  psychologist,  and 
anthropologist,  puts  it,  Americans  like  to 
take  risks:  "We  have  a  hard  time  getting 
%orkers  to  take  safety  precautions;  we 
don't  like  to  wear  seatbelts.  As  a  coun- 
try, we're  rather  macho  in  this  regard. 
We  don't  like  people  who  are  scared." 

The  trait  is  historically  derived,  he 
points  out,  since  the  United  States  was 
founded  by  people  who  took  incredible 
risks  in  crossing  the  ocean,  then  settling 
the  land.  "You  could  say  it's  part  of  our 
strength.  Look— the  astronauts  are  ready 
to  go  up  again  in  the  shuttle.  The  coun- 
try's spirit  is:  Faint  hearts  never  won 
anything.  But  it  creates  a  tendency  to 
repress  and  deny  fear."  Maccoby,  who 
has  consulted  for  the  State  Department 
on  terrorism,  adds,  "We  might  be  a  little 
better  off  if  we  were  a  little  more  fright- 
ened." 

As  it  happens,  the  State  Department 
tries  to  stave  off  the  worst  aspects  of 
panic  by  teaching  its  foreign-service 
employees  what  to  expect  at  their  over- 
seas posts.  Some  need  their  machismo 
whittled  down,  and  others  need  bolster- 
ing. 

William  Burke,  who  coordinates 
administrative  training  in  the  depart- 
ment, finds  that  those  heading  overseas 
must  learn  to  leave  home  the  American 
work  ethic  of  getting  to  the  job  punctu- 
ally and  regularly  (and  supervisors  must 
learn  to  accept  the  new  arrangement). 
Americans  feel  that  if  they  have  a  com- 
mitment, they  must  always  deliver  on  it, 
he  says,  "and  that's  wrong  now.  You 
have  to  be  more  flexible."  And  so,  if 
they  look  out  their  door  in  the  morning 
and  see  anything  out  of  the  ordinary, 
they  are  told  to  go  back  in— and  make  up 
the  time  on  Saturday  or  in  some  other 
way.  If  they  enter  an  airport  and  sense 
anything  suspicious,  they  are  advised  to 
leave  and  take  a  later  plane. 

Becoming  more  aware  of  your  sur- 
roundings, he  says,  is  a  part  of  the  train- 
ing transferable  to  the  public  at  large.  He 
remembers  reports  that  passengers  on  the 
Achille  Lauro  noticed  the  terrorists  as 
individuals  who  acted  strangely  prior  to 
sailing.  "I  could  see  myself,  two  or  three 
years  ago,  seeing  all  that— and  getting  on 
the  ship,  too!" 

His  course  makes  students  handle 
models  of  explosive  devices,  so  that  they 
will  recognize  them,  and  it  teaches  them 
how  to  examine  a  car  for  a  planted 
bomb.  And  it  advises  students  to  put 
their  papers  in  order  before  they  leave 


the  U.S.,  to  set  up  powers  of  attorney 
and  make  wills;  and  when  they  reach 
their  posts,  to  fill  a  "bug-out  bag"  with 
important  documents  and  a  set  of  cloth- 
ing in  case  of  a  quick  evacuation.  Is  there 
stress  simply  from  the  nature  of  this 
advice?  "It's  less  frightening  to  confront 
the  possibility  of  danger." 

Burke's  view  is  corroborated  by  Mari- 
lyn Holmes,  who  prepares  education 
films  for  the  State  Department.  It  is  hard 
for  the  unprepared  consular  officer  to  go 
to  a  morgue  to  "identify  dusty  fingers," 
she  says.  The  films  warn  the  viewers 
about  bad  dreams  and  depression,  too. 
"We  bring  it  up  front,"  she  says.  "A  lot 
is  sensitization  and  allowing  awareness 
to  come  through,  instead  of  keeping  a 
stiff  upper  lip  and  pretending  you're  the 
only  one  in  the  whole  group  who's  not  a 
coward."  She  adds,  "There  is  no  pana- 
cea, there's  nothing  anybody  can  really 
do,  but  if  you  are  empowered  with 
knowledge,  if  you  can  do  a  little  bit  to 
help  yourself,  you'll  be  a  lot  better  off." 

W'  hen  disaster  does  strike,  Holmes 
has  learned,  the  victims  "be- 
come heroes"— their  adrenalin 
flowing,  they  pitch  in— to  a  fault.  "They 
don't  know  how  to  limit  themselves, 
they  lose  their  potential  for  good  judg- 
ment about  rest  and  food."  A  similar 
reaction  has  been  discovered  and  repeat- 
edly verified  by  Enrico  Quarantelli,  pro- 
fessor of  sociology  and  co-founder  of  the 
Disaster  Research  Center  at  the  Univer- 
sity of  Delaware.  "People  are  not,  con- 
trary to  certain  imagery,  stunned  into 
shock  or  a  state  of  unresponsiveness  or 
passivity,"  he  says.  "They  generally  rise 
to  the  stress  of  a  disaster.  They  act  rea- 
sonably and  responsibly,  as  best  they 
can." 

The  "myth  of  panic,"  suggests 
Quarantelli,  serves  a  function  for  the  vic- 
tims of  a  disaster— it  gives  them  an 
excessively  low  level  of  expectation  that 
they  and  their  neighbors  will  cope  ade- 
quately, a  level  that  makes  them  feel 
good  when  they  notice  how  well  they 
have  actually  performed.  "It  doesn't 
mean  that  everything  is  done  perfectly  or 
that  everything  that  needs  to  be  done  is 
done.  But,  to  overstate  in  order  to  make 
the  point,  if  the  only  problem  we  had  in 
disasters  was  the  attitudes  and  behavior 
of  individual  victims,  we  could  all  go 
home."  For  example,  he  estimates  that  in 
last  year's  Mexican  earthquake,  victims 
and  neighbors  performed  as  much  as  85 
percent  of  the  rescue  work,  even  though 


foreign  teams  received  more  publicity. 

For  hostages,  of  course,  the  panic  also 
takes  place  at  home,  among  their  fami- 
lies, who  often  vent  their  anger  at  the 
Citizens  Emergency  Center,  headed  by 
John  H.  Adams,  Jr.,  at  the  State  Depart- 
ment. His  office  has  a  double  agenda:  to 
provide  families  with  reassurance  and 
assistance  and  also  to  ease  their  frustra- 
tion so  that  they  do  not  carry  their  com- 
plaints to  the  media.  By  denouncing 
either  the  U.S.  or  the  government  of  the 
country  where  the  incident  is  taking 
place,  he  says,  "they  could  negatively 
affect  foreign-policy  interests  in  the  short 
term." 

Some  families  want  the  U.S.  to  send 
Marines  in  right  away;  others  want  nego- 
tiation, nothing  that  might  threaten  lives 
directly.  Whatever  they  might  have  ear- 
lier known  about  the  government's  pol- 
icy toward  terrorists— that  the  U.S.  does 
not  make  concessions  or  pay  ransoms  or 
change  its  policies— "when  it's  their 
own,"  he  says,  "it  takes  a  different  color- 
ation." 

"The  government  is  seen  as  part  of  the 
problem,"  Adams  continues.  "We  refer 
to  it  as  the  families-of-victims  syndrome. 
Initially,  they're  shocked  by  the  news, 
they  need  contact.  Then  they  become 
extremely  frustrated  as  the  incident 
wears  on,  then  they  get  angry  and  lose 
confidence  in  authority  figures,  includ- 
ing this  government.  There's  a  tendency 
on  the  part  of  the  family  to  uncon- 
sciously discount,  even  disregard,  the 
efforts  being  made.  It's  obviously  impos- 
sible, under  the  circumstances,  to  do 
enough  for  a  family." 

Fears  for  the  victims  by  those  beyond 
the  family  is  not  merely  a  matter  of  the 
outsiders  seeing  their  own  skin  saved  in  a 
similar  situation.  "To  the  credit  of 
Americans,"  says  Riesman,  they  show 
"a  certain  empathic  generosity  to  indi- 
viduals," so  that  they  are  touched  by  the 
deaths  of,  say,  Leon  Klinghoffer  or 
teacher-astronaut  Christa  McAuliffe. 

Psychiatrist  Tolley  also  suggests  why  a 
stranger's  death  in  dramatic  circum- 
stances affects  others:  "Death  never 
occurs  in  the  absence  of  a  context,"  he 
says,  and  part  of  that  context,  for  outsid- 
ers, is  "the  conscious  and  unconscious 
freight"  that  they  attribute  to  the  dead 
person.  In  Klinghoffer's  case,  for 
instance,  people  feeling  bad  for  him  may 
not  have  known  that  they  responded 
because  of  his  hometown  or  his  ethnic 
identity  or  his  age  or  his  handicap  or  the 
unjustness  of  losing  one's  life  on  vaca- 


X       MAY  1986 


II  II 

il 
II 


"I  believe  what  happened  to  the  passengers 
on  the  Achille  Lauro  and  to  my  family  can 
happen  to  anyone  at  any  time  and  at  any 
place,"  said  Marilyn  Klinghoffer,  shown 
placing  flowers  on  her  husband's  casket. 

tion  or  the  reminders  of  events  in  the 
Middle  East.  As  for  McAuliffe,  says 
Tolley,  "She  inspired  a  strong  sense  of 
identification  by  offering  qualities  that 
people  place  a  high  value  on." 

Thomas  Paine,  philosopher  of  the 
American  Revolution,  thought  well 
of  panics.  "They  produce  as  much 
good  as  hurt,"  he  wrote  in  The  American 
Crisis.  "Their  duration  is  always  short; 
the  mind  soon  grows  through  them  and 
acquires  a  firmer  habit  than  before.  But 
their  peculiar  advantage  is  that  they  are 
the  touchstone  of  sincerity  and  hypocrisy 
and  bring  things  and  men  to  light,  which 
might  otherwise  have  lain  forever  undis- 
covered." 

Panic  may  be  useful  in  "legitimate 
doses,"  agrees  David  Riesman,  explain- 
ing, "All  of  us  who  are  sensitive  and  not 
boosterish  or  sanguine  must  feel  appre- 
hension about  the  continuity  of  life;  a  bit 
of  group  panic  gives  the  comfort  that  our 
feelings  are,  at  least  in  this  case,  shared. 
We  have  the  fear,  but  we're  not  alone." 
He  compares  the  experience  to  a  roller- 
coaster  ride,  in  which  there  is  some 
apprehension  that  is  not  totally  negative. 
"There's  a  certain  solidarity  when  it  isn't 
too  threatening,"  Riesman  says,  suggest- 
ing that  group  panic  may  serve  as  a  "vac- 
cination." Then  he  adds,  with  concern, 
"A  vaccination  that  can  itself  become  the 
disease." 

Marshall  Ledger,  associate  editor  of 
The  Pennsylvania  Gazette,  is  making  his 
third  appearance  as  a  contributor  to  the 
Alumni  Magazine  Consortium. 


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<               V 

THE  CONTRARITIES  OF  PANIC 


compiled  from  scholars  and  others 


Panic  is  an  individual  psychological 
process;  each  person  runs  individually, 
not  because  others  are  running. 

In  panic,  one  senses  the  futility  to 
stem  the  inevitable,  feels  hopeless. 

Panic  is  an  appropriate  reaction  to 
life-threatening  situations,  a  natural 
reaction. 


Panic  requires  social  interaction  and 
social  cues. 


One  flees,  implying  there  is  a  way  out. 


Panic  is  irrational,  even  pathological. 


Panic  is  seen  in  paralysis  of  activity.      •  //  is  seen  through  wild  flight. 


Panic  situations  have  inherent 
characteristics. 

Panic  is  the  release  of  tension. 


Panic  is  a  "contagion"  that  others 
catch  without  knowing  the  original 
cause  of  fear. 

Panic  is  a  subjective  state  of  mind. 

Panic  is  an  emotional  reaction  that 
results  in  nonfunctional  behavior 
(leaving  by  the  same  exit  as  everyone 
else). 

Panic  is  antisocial— the  self  over 
others. 


Panic  is  physiological— the  mouth  is 
dry,  the  palms  sweat,  the  body 
trembles. 

Panic  is  a  reaction  to  the  unknown. 


Each  panic  situation  must  be  defined 
on  its  own  terms. 

Panic  can  be  instantaneous  and  does 
not  require  time  to  build  up,  as 
"release  "  implies. 

People  are  active  agents  of  their  own 
participation  in  a  panic;  they  select 
what  they  will  respond  to,  after  they 
define  the  situation. 

Panic  is  an  act  of  observable  behavior, 
or  physical  activity. 

Panic  is  an  appropriate  reaction  to  the 
way  a  situation  is  perceived  (fleeing, 
but  not  by  the  same  exit). 

Panic  is  asocial— people  look  out  for 
themselves  without  being  conscious  of 
others. 

Panic  is  psychological  or  emotional. 


Panic  participants  know  what  they  are 
running  from  (although  it  may  be  an 
illusory  threat).  —ML 


ALUMNI  MAGAZINE  CONSORTIUM       XI 


Pomp 


There's  more  to 
academic  caps  and 

gowns  than  the 
history  given  in  most 

Commencement 

Day  programs. 


By  Leslie  Brunetta 

Art  by  Allen  Carroll 


XII       MAY  1986 


its  Circumstances 


Gardner  Cotrell  Leonard,  scion  of 
the  Albany,  N.Y.,  dry-goods  firm 
of  Cotrell  and  Leonard  and  a  Wil- 
liams College  freshman,  was  disap- 
pointed with  the  caps  and  gowns  used  by 
Williams'  graduating  class  of  1883. 
When  it  came  time  for  his  own  gradua- 
tion three  years  later,  he  designed  the 
caps  and  gowns  himself,  and  had  the 
family  firm  make  them  up  for  his  class- 
mates. Not  content  with  such  a  local 
solution  to  the  problem,  he  then  travelled 
to  Europe  to  study  academic  costume 
and  heraldry.  He  returned  with  his  own 
designs,  which  he  sold  to  faculty  at  the 
University  of  Chicago,  Yale,  Princeton, 
and  Columbia.  A  tradition  was  born— or, 
reborn. 

This  May  and  June,  as  graduating  stu- 
dents and  their  fan  clubs  in  the  audience 
flip  through  Commencement  Day  pro- 
grams, they're  unlikely  to 
find  a  mention  of  Leonard. 
Instead  they'll  scan  a  few 
short  paragraphs  explaining 
that  today's  graduates  are 
taking  their  turn  in  a  tradi- 
tion that  has  survived  since 
the  Middle  Ages.  And  to 
symbolize  that  legacy, 
the  programs  will  say, 
graduates  sport  a  rit- 
ual uniform  of  cap, 
gown,  and  hood 
directly  evolved  from 
the  ecclesiastical 


garments  worn  by  medieval  scholars. 

Yet  what  we  today  recognize  as  aca- 
demic dress  did  not  even  appear  on 
American  campuses  until  the  late  19th 
century:  Before  then,  graduating  classes 
wore  either  their  Sunday  best  or  uni- 
forms incorporating  anything  from  sail- 
ors' caps  to  sombreros.  Indeed,  the  first 
seniors  agitating  for  mortarboards 
invoked  faculty  wrath.  Oberlin  College 
students,  for  instance,  fought  to  adopt 
caps  and  gowns  in  the  1880s  and  '90s, 
extolling  their  democratic  effect,  while 
the  faculty  denounced  the  garb  as  divi- 
sive. (Ironically,  in  1970  Oberlin's  grad- 
uating class  elected  to  abandon  the  cos- 
tume as  elitist,  while  "traditionalists" 
among  the  faculty  protested.) 

Students  at  Worcester  Polytechnic 
Institute  started  pushing  to  wear  caps  and 
gowns  in  1910,  but  only  succeeded  in 
instituting  them  at  the  1914  commence- 
ment over  faculty  protests,  according  to 
John  P.  van  Alstyne,  current  dean  of  aca- 
demic advising:  "The  engineering  fac- 
ulty wanted  no  part  of  such  fancy  trap- 
pings." It  wasn't  until  the  Institute's  50th 
anniversary  the  following  year  that  the 
faculty  joined  in,  worried,  perhaps, 
about  being  upstaged. 

But  such  gown  and  gown  infighting  is 
the  heart  of  academic  costume's 
history— just  what  a  cap  and  gown  and 
hood  have  meant  in  the  past  and  should 
mean  in  the  present  have  been  matters  of 
controversy  since  the  beginnings  of  the 
first  universities. 

In  medieval  times,  gowns  and  hoods 
were  the  everyday  clothing  of  men 
and  women  of  all  social  stations- 
including  scholars.  These  men  were  not 
necessarily  monks  or  other  ecclesiasts. 
(It  wasn't  until  the  Reformation  that 
scholars  had  to  take  an  oath  of  allegiance 
to  the  Church  of  England  before  matricu- 
lating at  Oxford  and  Cambridge.) 
Instead,  they  were  "clerks"  who  enjoyed 
clerical  status:  They  answered  to  church 
authorities,  not  to  secular  law  officers. 
This  separation  of  church  and  state  came 


in  handy— clerks  were  a  rowdy  bunch. 
Medieval  town  and  gown  battles  were 
often  brawls  that  left  corpses  in  the 
streets,  and  clerks'  masters  and  bishops 
were  more  likely  than  local  magistrates 
to  be  lenient  with  their  charges. 

With  this  privileged  status  developed 
the  idea  of  a  special  academic  costume. 
Along  with  clerical  status  went  the  con- 
cept of  belonging  to  the  scholars'  guild, 
of  having  a  well-defined  place  in  what 
amounted  to  a  teachers'  union.  (Univer- 
sities were  originally  recognized  simply 
as  guilds  rather  than  as  corporate 
entities— univer$itas  at  first  meant  any 
organization  of  citizens;  it  acquired  its 
present  meaning  later.)  Masters  of  the 
arts— who,  like  masters  in  the  other  trade 
guilds,  wanted  to  be  set  apart  from  their 
underlings — had  begun,  well  before  the 
1350s,  to  wear  the  first  true  academic 
costume:  a  cope  (the  regular  clerical  out- 
erwear) and  hood  bordered  with  a  white 
fur  called  minever. 

Even  so,  for  a  long  time  there  were  no 
strict  dress  codes.  Lecturing  masters  at 
Paris  were  simply  ordered  in  1215  to 
wear  a  "cope,  round  and  black  and 
reaching  to  the  heels— at  least  when  it  is 
new,"  and  the  1264  statutes  of  Oxford's 
Merton  College  specified  only  that  "the 
Scholars  who  are  appointed  to  the  duty 
of  studying  in  the  House  are  to  have 
...  a  dress  as  nearly  alike  as  possible." 

By  the  middle  of  the  14th  century, 
though,  the  question  of  academic  wear 
came  to  be  taken  more  seriously.  At 
Oxford,  the  chancellor  ordained  that  tai- 
lors who  stinted  on  robes  ordered  for 
members  of  the  university  could  be 
imprisoned:  "For  it  is  decent  and  reason- 
able that  those  whom  God  has  distin- 
guished with  inner  qualities  from  laymen 
also  be  different  from  laymen  in  their 
appearance." 

Hoods  also  came  to  be  subject  to 
restrictions  as  ordinary  men  began  to 
phase  them  out  of  their  wardrobes.  Orig- 
inally appendages  of  copes,  hoods  had 
been  transformed  by  the  13th  century 
into  separate  articles  of  clothing,  and 


ALUMNI  MAGAZINE  CONSORTIUM       XIII 


In  a  uniform  sea  of  caps 

and  gowns,  today's 

graduating  students 

distinguish  themselves 

with  corsages,  neon 

socks,  and  messages 

taped  across  their 

mortarboards. 


were  worn  thrown  back  over  the  shoul- 
ders when  not  in  use.  (These  hoods  often 
had  long  tails,  or  liripipes,  which  one 
15th-century  rule  forbade  undergradu- 
ates to  wear  wrapped  around  their 
necks.)  As  the  hood  became  less  com- 
mon among  ordinary  folk,  it  became 
more  useful  as  a  distinctive  badge  among 
scholars:  By  1432,  only  masters,  nobles, 
and  wealthy  students  (who  were  rarely 
denied  any  privileges)  were  allowed  to 
line  their  hoods  with  minever  (or  silk  in 
summer),  while  bachelors  had  to  settle 
for  lamb's  wool  or  rabbit's  fur.  By  the 
end  of  the  16th  century,  undergraduates 
weren't  allowed  to  wear  hoods  at  all. 

It's  not  known  exactly  when  other 
headdresses  first  came  to  be  used,  but  by 
the  middle  of  the  16th  century,  caps  of 
two  main  types  had  become  regular  fea- 
tures of  academic  dress.  At  Oxford  and 
Cambridge,  only  doctors  of  theology, 
canon  law,  or  physic  were  allowed  to 
wear  caps  at  first,  and  they  wore  a 
pileus,  a  round  skullcap  with  a  small 
point  at  the  crown. 

At  Paris,  caps  were  made  up  of  four 
square  pieces  of  material  whose  top 
seams  were  flat-stitched  together  to  form 
a  raised  X.  From  this  design  came  the 
biretta,  or  square  cap,  which  eventually 
developed  into  the  mortarboard, 
equipped  originally  with  a  tuft  rather 
than  a  tassel.  Strange  stories  have  sprung 
up  about  the  mortarboard's  origin— one 
has  it  that  it  mimics  the  shape  of  stu- 
dents' books,  another  that  it  echoes  the 
plans  of  college  quadrangles.  And  one 
story,  stemming  from  a  one-line  joke  in 
Verdant  Green,  a  popular  1854  novel 
about  Oxford  life,  dogs  the  cap  to  this 
day— that  it  evokes  the  mortarboard  of 
the  master  workman,  the  master 
scholar's  equal  in  the  builders'  guild. 

A  lthough  the  basics  of  modern  aca- 
ZJkdemic  dress  were  in  place  by  the 
L  X.end  of  the  16th  century,  the  cos- 
tume was  abused  by  both  students  and 
masters.  The  early  scholars  were  not 
only  rowdies,  they  were  dandies  as  well. 


As  early  as  the  1340s,  rules  chided 
scholars  for  their  "excess  in  apparel," 
and  whenever  any  new  style  of  clothing 
showed  up  on  the  street,  scholars  had  to 
be  warned  about  (and  sometimes  pun- 
ished for)  abandoning  their  robes. 

As  the  Reformation  began  to  sweep 
through  England,  the  reformers  tried  to 
enforce  not  only  a  uniformity  of  religion 
at  Oxford  and  Cambridge,  but  also  a  uni- 
formity of  dress.  (In  fact,  the  Reforma- 
tion accounts  for  the  lack  of  "tradi- 
tional" caps  and  gowns  at  most  German 
v  and  Swiss  universities,  where  Luther  and 
Calvin  held  sway.)  At  Oxford,  the  1636 
statutes  of  William  Laud,  Archbishop  of 
Canterbury  and  Chancellor  of  the  Uni- 
versity, included  an  enactment  that  "all 
the  heads,  fellows  and  scholars  of  col- 
leges, as  well  as  all  persons  in  holy 
orders,  shall  dress  as  becomes  clerks. 
Also  that  all  others  (except  the  sons  of 
barons  having  the  right  of  voting  in  the 
Upper  House  of  Parliament,  and  also  of 
barons  of  the  Scotch  and  Irish  peerages) 
shall  wear  dresses  of  a  black  or  dark  col- 
our, and  shall  not  imitate  anything  beto- 
kening pride  or  luxury,  but  hold  them- 
selves aloof  from  them." 

Seemingly  reactionary  in  its  call  for  a 
return  to  clerical  traditions,  the  statute 
was  actually  radical:  From  medieval 
times,  the  gowns  and  copes  of  scholars 
had  assumed  colors  from  blood-red  to 
green.  But  the  scholars  proved  to  be  tra- 
ditional in  a  way  Laud  and  other 
reformers  hadn't  reckoned  on:  They  had 
flouted  the  rules  before  the  reforms,  and 
they  continued  to  do  so  for  decades  after. 
The  1750  Cambridge  "Orders  and  Regu- 
lations" demanded  that  students  appear 
without  "lace,  fringe,  or  embroidery";  a 
1788  report  entitled  "Remarks  on  the 
Enormous  Expence  in  the  Education  of 
Young  Men"  complained  that  the  dress 
of  the  undergraduates  was  "Indecent, 
Expensive,  and  Effeminate." 

Such  personal  sartorial  rebellions 
allowed  for  the  evolution  of  the  cleric's 
original  gown,  cope,  and  hood  into  the 
amazing  variety  of  costumes  seen  at 


Cambridge  and  Oxford  today.  The  result 
is  that  few  articles  of  present  academic 
uniform  can  truly  be  called  medieval  sur- 
vivals. A  rare  relic  can  be  seen  at 
Cambridge— on  a  degree-day,  the  vice- 
chancellor  wears  a  scarlet,  sleeveless, 
minever-lined  cloak  with  attached  tippet 
and  hood,  a  replica  of  those  worn  by  the 
Oxford  chancellor  in  a  14th-century  min- 
iature. 

In  1636,  the  same  year  that  Laud 
issued  his  Oxford  code,  Harvard  Col- 
lege was  founded  in  Massachusetts 
Colony.  It's  not  known  for  sure  whether 
the  first  students  at  Harvard  wore  aca- 
demic costume  of  any  kind,  but  by  1655, 
the  College  Laws  charged  that  "noe 
scholler  shall  goe  out  of  his  Chamber 
without  Coate,  Gowne,  or  Cloake." 
According  to  one  college  history, 
"coate"  and  "cloake"  probably  refer  to 
the  doublet  (a  tight-fitting  jacket)  and 


XIV       MAY  1986 


cape  favored  by  the  Puritans.  But  as 
"gowne"  is  translated  to  toga  (the  Latin 
word  used  for  the  academic  gown  since 
medieval  times)  in  the  Laws  of  1692,  it 
seems  likely  that  the  gown  was  in  use. 
Probably,  these  gowns  were  like  the 
"mourning  gowns"  then  worn  at  Oxford 
and  Cambridge.  Plain  and  black,  they 
registered  no  academic  status— which 
would  appeal  to  the  Puritans,  who  were 
always  on  the  lookout  for  signs  of  "ves- 
tarianism." 

Academic  dress  rules  at  other  new 
colonial  colleges  varied.  Yale,  founded 
as  the  Collegiate  School  by  Connecticut 
clergymen  in  1701,  preferred  Protestant 
clerical  to  academic  dress  in  its  early 
days,  although  by  1773  all  students 
except  freshmen  wore  gowns.  At  King's 
College  (later  renamed  Columbia),  caps 
and  gowns  were  instituted  as  daily  wear 
by  an  early  president  who  had  worn  aca- 
demic garb  while  at  Oxford. 


Jut  <Jcvadertti5  costume  njfcyer  really 
caught  on  in  the  New  World.  A  few  of 
the  first  schools  modeled  their  dress  on 
the  Oxford-Cambridge  design,  but  at  the 
newer  colleges,  graduates  simply  wore 
their  best  clothes  at  commencement.  By 
the  middle  of  the  19th  century,  even  Har- 
vard had  modified  the  costume  to  the 
point  that  many  English  visitors  found 
American  students'  appearance  ridicu- 
lous. 

Fresh  interest  in  academic  regalia 
sprang  up  after  the  Civil  War  as  universi- 
ties spawned  graduate  schools  and 
Americans  with  European  degrees 
returned  home  with  cap  and  gown  in 
hand.  With  little  thought  given  to  uni- 
formity, a  few  schools  began  to  try  out 
caps  and  gowns  at  commencements.  Or 
rather,  caps  or  gowns— many  ceremonies 
featured  one  without  the  other,  often  in 
combination  with  outrageously  colored 
hoods  and  the  extravagantly  cut  suits 


popular  in  the  late  19th  century. 

A  graduate  of  Oxford  visiting  Harvard 
in  1894  applauded  the  trend  toward 
greater  ceremony,  but  harbored  a  few 
reservations:  "The  Harvard  men  in  their 
imitation  of  the  English  universities  are 
doing  better  in  their  attempt  to  introduce 
the  cap  and  gown.  The  need  for  cere- 
mony is  gradually  becoming  felt.  On 
Commencement  Day,  ...  the  gown  has 
for  some  while  been  commonly  worn  by 
'the  graduating  class.'  The  bright  adorn- 
ment of  the  hood  was  for  the  most  part 
wanting.  The  square  cap  has  been  but 
lately  introduced— not  I  believe  before 
the  summer  of  1892.  Till  then  the  tall 
silk  hat  had  always  been  worn  with  the 
gown." 

He  wasn't  the  only  one  with  reserva- 
tions. Many  American  professors  and 
trustees  saw  the  advent  of  academic  cos- 
tume on  their  campuses  as  an  anti- 
democratic trend,  and  worse,  as  a  symp- 


ALUMNI  MAGAZINE  CONSORTIUM       XV 


Many  American 

professors  viewed  the 

advent  of  academic 

costume  on  their 

campuses  as  an 

anti-democratic  trend 

and,  worse,  as  a  symptom 

of  virulent  anglophilia. 


torn  of  virulent  anglophilia.  At  many 
colleges,  faculties  would  not  accept  the 
garb  until  the  1910s,  when  their  own 
ranks  began  to  fill  with  a  generation  of 
professorial  men  and  women  who  them- 
selves had  worn  the  costumes  as  under- 
graduates. 

Gardner  Cotrell  Leonard,  that 
enterprising  Williams  undergrad- 
uate, had  a  good  idea— and  he 
knew  how  to  market  it.  In  an  1893  arti- 
cle. "The  Cap  and  Gown  in  America," 
Leonard  argued  the  case  for  academic 
dress  in  terms  calculated  to  overcome  the 
worst  fears  of  resistant  faculty.  First,  he 
appealed  to  their  institutional  pride,  say- 
ing that  the  costume  had  been  tried  with 
success  at  "our  leading  centres  of  higher 
education."  And  then,  he  tried  to  allay 
their  fears  of  a  return  to  Old  World  deca- 
dence and  class  distinctions:  "On  the 
[gown's]  democratic  side,  it  subdues  the 
difference  in  dress  arising  from  the  dif- 
ferences in  taste,  fashion,  manners  and 
wealth,  and  clothes  all  with  the  outward 
grace  of  equal  fellowship  which  has  ever 
been  claimed  as  an  inner  fact  in  the 
republic  of  learning." 

Leonard's  argument  must  have  hit  its 
target.  In  1895,  the  president  of  Colum- 
bia, the  chancellor  of  New  York  Univer- 
sity, and  trustees  of  Princeton  and  Yale 
formed  the  Intercollegiate  Commission 
to  discuss  a  code  of  academic  dress. 
They  asked  Leonard  to  be  its  technical 
advisor,  and  designated  Cotrell  and 
Leonard  as  the  sole  repository  of  designs 
and  materials.  The  Academic  Costume 
Code  that  emerged  from  the  Commis- 
sion's meetings  is  still  used  today,  with 
slight  modifications,  at  nearly  all  Ameri- 
can colleges  and  universities. 

The  designs  adopted  by  the  Commis- 
sion are  loosely  based  on  several  Oxford 
gowns.  The  American  bachelor's  gown, 
which  is  long,  black,  closed  at  the  front 
and  has  long,  pointed  sleeves,  is  a  closed 
version  of  the  Oxford  bachelor's  gown. 
Until  1959,  an  American  master  of  arts 
wore  a  near  replica  of  his  Oxford  coun- 


terpart's gown.  Black  and  long,  it  had 
sleeves  with  closed  ends  and  a  slit  for  the 
arms  to  pass  through  at  the  elbows.  After 
1959,  the  opening  for  the  arm  was 
moved  to  the  end  of  the  sleeve.  The  doc- 
tor's gown  is  the  only  trimmed  American 
gown:  Long  and  full  with  bell-shaped 
sleeves,  it's  faced  with  velvet  down  the 
front  and  has  three  velvet  bars  across  the 
sleeves,  either  in  black  or  in  the  color 
designating  the  subject  of  the  degree. 

It's  in  this  coding  of  hood  and  facing 
colors  that  the  American  system  veers 
most  violently  away  from  the  Oxford- 
Cambridge  model.  Although  a  given 
gown  and  cap  at  Oxford  designate  a 
given  degree,  the  system  seems  to  have 
evolved  more  as  a  function  of  increasing 
spectacle  than  as  a  function  of  logic.  At 
Oxford,  a  doctor  of  divinity,  a  doctor  of 
music,  and  a  doctor  of  medicine,  for 
instance,  all  wear  gowns  of  differing 
shape,  material,  and  color,  and  the  doc- 
tor of  divinity  wears  a  mortarboard  while 
the  other  two  wear  velvet  bonnets. 

Once  you've  learned  to  make  those 
distinctions,  you're  only  a  third  of  the 
way  home— those  are  only  the  "full 
dress"  costumes,  worn  at  the  most  for- 
mal of  occasions.  The  holders  of  doc- 
tors' degrees  also  wear  a  special  habit  at 
convocations  (except  for  doctors  of 
music,  who  don't  have  one)  and  an 
"undress"  gown  while  lecturing  and  at 
other  less  formal  occasions.  And  each 
British  university  has  a  different  system. 
To  know  who's  who  at  Encaenia,  when 
honorary  degrees  are  handed  out.  it's  a 
good  idea  to  bring  a  guidebook  with 
color  keys  and  a  pair  of  binoculars. 

Thanks  to  Gardner  Leonard  and  the 
Academic  Code,  the  spectator  can  rest 
easy  at  an  American  graduation.  The 
gown  will  easily  tell  what  degree  the 
wearer  holds,  and  the  hood  will  tell 
where  it's  from  and  what  it's  for.  In  fact, 
all  this  information  can  be  deciphered 
from  the  hood  alone:  A  bachelor's  hood 
is  three  feet  long  with  two-inch-width 
edging;  a  master's  is  three  and  a  half  feet 
long  with  three-inch  edging;  a  doctor's  is 


four  feet  long  with  five-inch  edging.  The 
color  of  the  edging  will  tell  the  subject  of 
the  degree  (copper  is  economics,  purple 
law,  pink  music),  and  the  color  or  colors 
of  the  lining  will  reveal  what  university 
or  college  granted  the  degree. 

The  more  things  change  the  more 
they  stay  the  same:  Americans 
may  have  almost  completely  rede- 
signed the  traditional  cap-and-gown  uni- 
form and  then  attempted  to  fix  this  new 
design  for  all  time,  but  the  traditional 
spirit  of  academic  dandyism  is  not  so 
easily  suppressed.  Against  a  background 
of  black  caps  and  gowns  and  uniformly 
colored  hoods,  students  today  distinguish 
themselves  with  corsages  (strictly 
against  the  Code),  neon  socks,  and  mes- 
sages like  "Hi.  Mom!"  taped  across 
their  mortarboards.  And  even  though 
there  have  always  been  schools  (like 
Harvard)  who  preferred  their  own 
designs  for  gowns  and  hoods  to  those 
specified  by  the  Code,  now  even  long- 
time Code  observers  have  begun  to  bend 
the  rules  just  a  little  bit  to  add  some  extra 
splendor  to  commencement. 

"What  I  find  interesting,"  says  Linda 
Risinger.  Academic  Consultant  for  the 
Collegiate  Cap  &  Gown  Company,  the 
largest  business  of  its  kind  in  the  world, 
"is  the  new  trend  in  trustee  apparel."  At 
many  schools,  trustees  (who  have  always 
been  entitled  to  wear  doctors'  gowns,  no 
matter  what  degrees  they  actually  hold) 
have  switched  from  black  gowns  to 
gowns  in  the  school's  colors.  "It  seems 
to  have  started  with  the  presidents,  who 
are  allowed  under  the  Code  to  wear  any 
design  the  school  comes  up  with,"  says 
Risinger.  "It's  not  really  a  new  idea,  but 
it's  grown.  After  all,  commencement  is 
the  culmination  of  the  education  process: 
You  want  it  to  be  impressive.  A  little 
extra  color  brings  a  lot  of  excitement." 

Leslie  Brunetta,  assistant  editor  of  the 
Alumni  Magazine  Consortium,  wore  an 
advanced  student 's  gown  as  a  Fulbright 
scholar  at  Oxford  University. 


XVI       MAY  1986 


AND 
NOTHING 

BUT 
THE  TRUTH 


It's  like  playing  one-on-one  basket- 
ball," says  Mechanical  Engineer- 
ing Professor  Allan  H.  Hoffman 
'64.  "What  you  have  to  do.  partic- 
ularly when  you're  dealing  with 
good  opposing  attorneys,  is  anticipate 
where  they're  leading  you  five  questions 
ahead.  They  try  to  get  your  guard  down, 
and  vanquish  you  with  a  final  question." 
Hoffman  and  other  WPI  faculty  mem- 
bers and  alumni  appear  in  court  not  as 
defendants  or  plaintiffs,  but  as  expert 
witnesses.  As  they  vow  to  tell  the  whole 
truth,  these  technical  authorities  commit 
their  knowledge  and  experience  to  pro- 
tect or  defend  the  use  or  safety  of  engi- 
neering products,  projects  or  services. 

And  to  be  successful,  according  to 
Wilson  G.  Dobson  '75,  '77  MS,  who 
works  extensively  in  this  field,  "You 
have  to  explain  highly  technical  and  vital 
concepts  to  jury  members  who  basically 
know  very  little." 

Expert  testimony,  say  most,  requires 
cunning  as  well  as  technical  compe- 
tence, and  provides  ways  for  witnesses' 
knowledge  to  make  a  real  mark  on  both 
the  non-academic  and— indirectly— the 
academic  worlds. 

For  some  experts,  it's  the  opportunity 
to  exercise  technical  knowledge  and  ana- 
lytic ability  that  encourages  them  to 
work  on  a  case. 


To  WPI  faculty  and 

alumni  who  offer  their 

expertise  in  courts  of 

law,  speaking  from 

the  witness  stand  is 

as  natural  as  delivering 

a  lecture. 


By  Linda  A.  Blackmar  '86 


Consider  the  experiences  of  Professor 
Carlton  W.  "Spike"  Staples'  '58  ME 
with  machinery  failure  cases.  Mechani- 
cal principles  govern  the  operation  of  the 
mechanical  components,  he  says,  but 
analytical  insight  is  needed  to  get  to  the 
exact  cause  of  mechanical  failure. 

Because  each  case  presented  to  an 


expert  for  consideration  is  entirely  differ- 
ent from  the  previous  one.  he  adds,  the 
element  of  variety  adds  to  the  entice- 
ment. "If  you're  involvement  in  a  case  is 
successful,"  he  says.  "Your  credibility  is 
enhanced,  opening  further  opportunities 
for  you  to  provide  expert  assistance." 

The  role  of  expert  witnesses  has 
gained  increasing  importance  in  recent 
years  largely  in  response  to  the  dramatic 
jump  in  the  nation's  litigation  involving 
products  liability.  Cases  ranging  from 
poorly  constructed  lawnmowers.  to 
faulty  chain  saws,  to  safe  dosages  of 
anesthetics  have  come  across  the  desks 
of  WPI's  expert  witnesses. 

Litigation  surrounding  public  health 
and  safety  issues  has  also  increased  the 
need  for  expert  testimony.  Consequently, 
experts  in  virtually  every  discipline  of 
science  and  technology  are  finding  more 
opportunities  to  use  their  know-how  in 
what  can  become  highly  charged  court 
proceedings. 

Bill  Dobson.  vice  president  of  Binary 
Engineering,  of  Holden.  MA,  has  con- 
sulted to  assess  cause  and  effect  in  litiga- 
tion involving  the  collapse  of  an  offshore 
oil  platform  (where  several  lives  were 
lost),  damage  to  machine  parts  causing 
injury  to  workers,  and  automobile  acci- 
dent reconstruction.  "In  most  cases."  he 
says,  "we're  called  in  to  perform  stress 


MAY  1986       39 


k    j 

■  v. 

''  t&^if 

:  ME  Professor  Ray- 
..agglund  '56  gets  an  unusual 
e  to  inspect  the  remain? 
it  explosion  in  Derby,  C" 
eople  dead.  This  M%d  of  on-site  fact 
gathering  is  ofteivtbe  first  step  in  expr 
witnesses'  invblvenSent  in  litigation  th 


'',A 


ME  Professor  Allan  H.  Hoffman  '64: 
"Opposing  lawyers  try  to  catch  you  with 
your  guard  down,  and  after  four  or  five 
questions  they  attempt  to  vanquish  you." 

analysis  on  failed  parts,  assess  the  appro- 
priateness of  designs  and  materials,  or,  in 
auto  accidents,  to  determine  whether 
failed  parts  on  the  vehicle  caused  or 
resulted  from  the  crash." 

Alan  K.  Wolfe  '81,  is  a  partner  in  the 
firm,  which  also  consults  to  industry  on 
design  and  materials  processing. 

WPI  faculty  and  alumni 
members  representing 
nearly  every  discipline 
of  science  and  engineer- 
ing have  been  drawn  to 
expert  testimony.  Many  become 
involved  through  personal  recommenda- 
tions of  a  colleague.  Others  find  their 
way  to  court  testimony  through  their 
publications,  their  involvement  with  pro- 
fessional societies  or  their  past  expert 
witnessing. 

WPI's  name  itself,  says  Staples,  often 
leads  lawyers  or  insurance  companies  to 
seek  experts  from  the  faculty.  Staples  has 
worked  on  cases  involving  consumer 
machinery  such  as  home  workshop  tools, 
table  saws,  chain  saws  and  lawn 
mowers. 

Mechanical  Engineering  Professor 
Raymond  R.  Hagglund  '56,  perhaps  the 
most  experienced  of  WPI's  expert  wit- 
nesses, introduced  Chemistry  Professor 
Alfred  A.  Scala  to  service  as  an  expert 
witness.  Hagglund  says  he  learned  of  a 
case  for  which  a  chemistry  expert  would 
be  needed,  so  he  called  the  lawyer's 
attention  to  Scala's  qualifications. 

Roy  F.  Bourgault  '42,  professor  emeri- 
tus of  mechanical  engineering,   agrees 


that  the  paths  to  giving  expert  testimony 
are  many,  saying,  "An  insurance  company 
or  a  lawyer  or  an  individual  or  a  manu- 
facturing company  may  come  to  me, 
perhaps  as  a  result  of  having  heard  of  me 
somewhere  else."  An  insurer  in  Spring- 
field, MA,  for  instance,  learned  of  Bour- 
gault's  skills,  and  Bourgault  has  since 
assisted  the  company  with  15  or  20  cases. 

Ronald  R.  Biederman,  professor  of 
mechanical  engineering  and  head  of 
WPI's  Materials  Science  Program,  says 
he  believes  engineers  are  likely  to 
encounter  expert  testimony  at  some  point 
in  their  careers.  "By  one  way  or  another, 
people  become  aware  of  your  expertise. 
Occasionally,  you  can't  avoid  such  testi- 
mony. It  just  seems  to  come  to  you."  A 
variety  of  cases  concerning  materials 
analysis  of  product  failure  have  come 
across  Biederman 's  desk  through  his  15 
years  of  expert  testimony,  including 
cases  on  grinding  wheels  and  small 
mechanical  components. 

Years  of  experience  in  structural  engi- 
neering and  surveying,  as  well  as  word 
of  mouth,  led  Civil  Engineering  Profes- 
sor Frank  D.  DeFalco  '58  to  serve  as  an 
expert  on  cases  involving  building 
designs,  building  collapses  and  land  dis- 
putes. 

Likewise,  Electrical  Engineering  Pro- 
fessor Alexander  E.  Emanuel's  back- 
ground and  experience  resulted  in  his 
involvement  with  testimony  in  cases 
questioning  electrical  wiring  principles. 
And  Helen  G.  Vassallo,  professor  of 
management  and  biology,  gained  an 
expert's  reputation  in  part  through  publi- 
cation of  a  textbook  on  anesthetics. 

Although  he  offers  the  views  of  an 
expert,  Daniel  L.  David  '72  says  he  nor- 
mally doesn't  testify  in  legal  cases  as  an 
"expert  witness."  As  technical  services 
manager  of  Saab-Scania  of  America, 
Inc.,  West  Haven,  CT,  he  is  the  sole 
U.S.  resource  for  Saab  in  cases  involving 
government  or  personal  litigation  against 
the  Swedish  auto  maker.  "As  a  company 
resource,  the  court  and  the  jury  view  me 
as  highly  biased,"  he  acknowledges,  "so 
we  involve  independent  experts  in  most 
of  our  cases." 

If  a  plaintiff  wants  someone  from  Saab 
deposed  or  sues  for  personal  damages,  "I 
protect  the  company's  interests,"  he  says, 
but  adds,  "Since  we  encounter  only 
about  a  dozen  cases  against  the  company 
each  year,  and  all  but  a  couple  of  these 
are  settled  out  of  court,  relatively  few 
reach  a  jury  decision." 

In  fact,  he  says,  product-related  litiga- 


ME  Professor  Carlton  W.  "Spike"  Staples  '58: 
"Lawyers  are  always  seeking  the  help  of 
experts  from  WPI.  This  involvement  can 
have  a  big  impact  on  your  reputation." 

tion  is  only  a  small  part  of  his  responsi- 
bilities at  Saab,  which  include  evaluating 
product  problems  that  are  reported  by 
dealers,  producing  service  literature,  and 
testing  products  before  production  for 
compliance  with  U.S.  government  regu- 
lations. 

"Our  engineers  in  Sweden,"  he  notes, 
"pay  particular  attention  to  the  regula- 
tory demands  of  U.S. -bound  automo- 
biles, since  the  environment  here  is  far 
more  litigious  than  in  Europe." 


ME  Professor  Ronald  R.  Biederman: 
"I  stay  away  from  cases  in  which  I  can't 
make  a  clear  professional  judgment 
based  on  fact." 


MAY  1986       41 


Once  the  task  of  constructing 
and  strengthening  the  case 
begins,  the  normal  proce- 
dure for  the  insurance  com- 
pany's lawyers  or  the  indi- 
vidual litigant  is  to  recruit  the  experts 
needed  to  build  the  case. 

The  work  involved  for  the  expert  var- 
ies from  case  to  case,  says  Bourgault. 
Sometimes,  the  witness  considered  for 
testimony  may  have  to  perform  extensive 
laboratory  testing.  In  other  situations, 
involvement  could  mean  engaging  in 
documentation  analysis  or  examination 
of  a  design. 

Once  asked  for  an  expert  opinion  on  a 
technical  situation,  the  consultant  must 
decide  whether  or  not  to  pursue  the  liti- 
gation. This  decision  involves  careful 
scrutiny  of  the  situation  and  an  analytic 
judgment  concerning  whether  or  not  the 
case  can  be  won. 

"In  my  experience,"  says  Dobson, 
"about  half  the  time  our  clients  are 
wrong,  so  the  cases  never  get  to  court.  I 
wouldn't  let  a  'bad'  case  get  that  far,"  he 
adds.  "And  I  don't  hesitate  to  give  the 
attorney  my  opinion  on  our  prospects  for 
success." 

"My  approach  is  to  call  it  as  I  see  it," 
says  Ron  Biederman.  "I  don't  get 
involved  with  those  cases  in  which  I  can- 
not clearly  make  a  professional  judgment 
based  on  fact."  Alex  Emanuel  says  he 
selects  his  cases  in  a  similar  manner.  The 


EE  Professor  Alexander  E.  Emanuel: 
"The  demand  for  expert  witnesses, 
together  with  the  diversity  of  cases,  often 
causes  us  to  be  selective  in  choosing 
where  and  when  we  get  involved." 


42       WPI  JOURNAL 


CE  Professor  Frank  D.  DeFalco  '58: 
"Witnessing  can  call  for  lots  of  footwork 
to  locate  and  evaluate  documents  or 
locations  involved  in  the  case." 

number  of  cases  available  for  faculty  to 
work  on,  he  says,  allows,  and  sometimes 
requires,  such  selectivity. 

Sometimes,  says  Dobson,  cases  call 
for  expertise  which  he  and  his  company 
cannot  supply  directly.  "We've  gone  to 
faculty  members  such  as  Alex  Emanuel 
and  Jon  Barnett  in  firesafety  studies 
when  we  need  specialists  in  fields  other 
than  materials  engineering." 

Often,  expert  involvement  calls  for  a 
great  deal  of  locating  and  evaluating 
product  blueprints,  patterns  and  designs. 
Before  a  case  can  be  developed,  accord- 
ing to  Frank  DeFalco,  written  evalua- 
tions must  be  completed.  "We  have  to 
locate  full  documentation,"  he  says, 
"and  models  of  the  product  in  question 
must  be  examined  to  determine  the  valid- 
ity of  the  case." 

After  an  initial  assessment  of  the  legal 
situation,  the  expert's  research  and  test- 
ing may  begin  in  earnest  to  determine 
more  facts  about  the  case.  Bourgault 's 
cases  often  involve  a  failure  analysis. 
For  Emanuel,  initial  investigative  work 
could  include  careful  evaluation  of  cir- 
cuit boards.  DeFalco  might  begin  by 
examining  maps  and  blueprints. 

Sometimes  the  legal  authorities  pos- 
sess most  of  the  evidence  and  documen- 
tation necessary  before  the  expert  is  con- 
sulted. 

One  time,  for  example,  Al  Hoffman, 
who  serves  as  chairman  of  the  Board  of 
Health  in  Sterling.  MA,  was  called  to 
examine  a  public  health  case.  The  attor- 
ney, who  already  possessed  background 
on  the  case,  did  not  realize  that  the  infor- 
mation in  hand  had  great  technical  sig- 
nificance. Consequently,  Hoffman  says, 


"The  lawyer  presented  me  the  full  docu- 
mentation needed  to  build  an  airtight 
case."  In  this  situation  witness  Hoffman 
synthesized  already  existing  factual 
information  into  an  argument  that  could 
ultimately  lead  to  settlement. 

Regardless  of  how  much  information 
is  provided  initially,  an  expert's  technical 
report  can  have  significant  bearing  on  the 
litigation. 

Technical  reports,  says  Bourgault,  can 
include  the  expert's  research,  analyses  of 
the  situation,  testing  results  on  compo- 
nents, and  other  evidence  to  support  the 
case.  Many  cases  are  settled  out  of  court 
solely  on  the  basis  of  such  technical 
reports. 

In  addition,  witnesses  may  be  asked  to 
respond  to  questions  in  the  form  of  a 
written  deposition.  In  effect,  a  deposition 
involves  extensive  questioning  of  a  wit- 
ness, under  oath,  out  of  court  on  the 
material  in  the  technical  report  he  or  she 
has  prepared.  Every  word  of  this  inter- 
rogation is  recorded,  and  the  transcript 
is  as  powerful  as  live  courtroom  testi- 
mony. 

If  the  expert  has  done  a  thorough  job, 
and  the  facts  are  presented  in  a  way  that 


TIPS  FOR 
WITNESSES 


1  TELL  THE  TRUTH.  If  you  tell 
the  truth  and  tell  it  accurately, 
nobody  can  cross  you  up. 

2.  DON'T  GUESS.  If  you  don't 
know,  say  you  don't  know. 

3.  DON'T  MEMORIZE  what  you  are 

going  to  say. 

4  UNDERSTAND  THE  QUES- 
TION before  you  attempt  to  give  an 
answer.  If  you  don't  understand  the 
question,  ask  the  lawyer  to  repeat  it. 

5.  TAKE  YOUR  TIME.  Although 
you  can't  be  rushed  into  answering, 
taking  too  much  time  on  each  ques- 
tion may  lead  the  jury  to  think  you 
are  making  up  an  answer. 


Management  and  Biology  Professor 
Helen  G.  Vassallo  '82: 
"On  my  very  first  trip  to  the  witness 
stand,  the  judge  restricted  my  testimony 
to  clinical  pharmacology  of  local  anes- 
thetics because  I  don't  hold  an  M.D.— 
just  a  Ph.D.  and  an  M.B.A." 

would  leave  little  question  of  liability. 
Bourgault  adds,  the  technical  report 
could  lead  to  an  out-of-court  settlement. 
Once  this  technical  report  is  completed. 
he  says,  "The  job  is  done." 


Not  surprisingly,  expert  tes- 
timony often  involves 
close  association  with 
attorneys.  By  assisting  the 
attorneys  in  comprehend- 
ing the  technical  subtleties  of  a  case, 
experts  can  make  the  most  of  their  exam- 
inations. Interactions  characterized  by 
many  questions  and  attention  to  technical 
detail  strengthen  the  case  built  by  techni- 
cal expertise  and  legal  knowledge. 

Witnesses  can  help  lawyers  in  plan- 
ning courtroom  strategies,  as  well,  most 
experts  agree.  With  knowledge  about  the 
scientific  aspects  of  a  case,  they  are  able 
to  point  attorneys  to  vulnerable  areas  in 
the  opposition's  argument.  Likewise,  the 
competence  of  lawyers  in  the  arena  of 
the  courtroom  can  assist  the  expert  in 
preparing  for  cross-examination. 

Most  interactions  that  occur  between 
expert  and  lawyer  involve  explanation  of 
the  technical  aspects  of  a  case.  In  order 
to  understand  the  spectrum  of  the  case. 
Bourgault  maintains,  the  lawyer  must 
first  know  the  scientific  facts  of  the  case 
inside  and  out.  And  since  most  lawyers 
have  little  experience  in  dealing  with  the 
technical  components  of  each  case  they 


encounter,  experts  often  find  themselves 
in  a  teaching  role. 

Bourgaulfs  experiences  have  con- 
firmed the  importance  of  this  role. 
"Lawyers  sometimes  have  a  different 
perspective  of  what  is  important  and 
what's  not,"  he  says,  "especially  when  it 
comes  to  technical  information." 

Bill  Dobson  agrees:  "Engineers  and 
lawyers  often  think  very  differently  about 
the  same  question." 

Expert  consultants  also  seek  to  dis- 
cover weaknesses  in  their  side's  views  of 
the  case.  Through  such  discovery,  the 
lawyer  and  the  expert  can  prepare  addi- 
tional supportive  materials  if  acting  as 
defendant,  or  else  settle  the  case  out  of 
court  if  serving  as  plaintiff. 

The  technical  expert,  says  Hoffman, 
might  also  develop  for  the  attorney  ques- 
tions that  ought  to  be  asked  of  the  oppo- 
sition. Once  lawyers  understand  the 
technical  subtleties  of  the  case,  he  says. 
they  can  form  stronger  arguments. 

"To  be  really  effective,  you  have  to 
understand  where  the  other  side  is  com- 
ing from."  says  Hoffman.  Just  as  the 
defendant  tries  to  anticipate  what  the 
plaintiff  will  say.  the  plaintiff  must  also 


6  STICK  TO  FACTS.  No  hearsay, 
nor  your  conclusions,  nor  opinions. 
You  usually  can't  testify  about  what 
someone  else  told  you. 

7  DON'T  BE  TOO  FINAL.  Don't 
say  "That's  all  of  the  conversation," 
or  "That's  all  I  remember  happen- 
ing." It  may  be  that  after  more 
thought  or  another  question  you  will 
remember  and  want  to  say  some- 
thing important. 

8  GIVE  A  POSITIVE  ANSWER  IF 
YOU  CAN.  Avoid  saying,  "I 
think,"  "I  believe,"  "in  my  opin- 
ion" and  "I  guess."  If  you  are  asked 
about  details  which  you  don't 
remember,  just  say  that  you  don't 
remember  them.  But  don't  let  the 
cross-examiner  get  you  in  the  trap  of 
answering  question  after  question 
with  "I  don't  know,"  or  "I  don't 
remember." 

9  DON'T  VOLUNTEER.  Answer 
directly  and  simply  only  the  ques- 
tion asked  you,  and  then  stop.  Do 
not  volunteer  information  not  actu- 
ally asked  for. 


10  CORRECT  MISTAKES.  If  your 
answer  was  wrong,  correct  it  imme- 
diately. 

11  BEWARE  OF  QUESTIONS 
INVOLVING  DISTANCES  AND 
TIME.  If  you  make  an  estimate 
make  sure  that  everyone  under- 
stands that  you  are  estimating  and 
make  certain  your  estimates  are  rea- 
sonable. 

12.  SPEAK  UP.  Talk  loud  enough  so 
that  everybody  can  hear  you.  Speak 
clearly  and  distinctly.  Keep  your 
hands  away  from  your  mouth. 

13  YOU'RE  ON  YOUR  OWN.  Don't 
look  at  the  lawyer,  or  the  judge,  for 
help  when  you're  on  the  stand. 

14.  DON'T  ARGUE.  Don't  fence  or 
argue  with  the  lawyer  on  the  other 
side.  He  has  a  right  to  question  you. 
and  if  you  give  him  smart  talk  or 
evasive  answers  you  will  make  a 
bad  impression. 

15    DON'T  LOSE  YOUR  TEMPER 

no  matter  how  hard  you  are  pressed. 


16.  BE  COURTEOUS.  This  is  one  of 
the  best  ways  to  make  a  good 
impression  on  the  court  and  the  jury. 
Be  sure  to  answer  "Yes.  ma'am" 
and  "No,  sir"  and  to  address  the 
judge  as  "Your  Honor." 

17  DON'T  DENY  DISCUSSING 
CASE.  If  asked  if  you  have  talked 
to  the  lawyer  on  your  side,  or  to  an 
investigator,  admit  it  freely. 
Remember,  you're  sworn  to  tell  the 
truth. 

18  DON'T  BE  AFRAID  to  look  the 
jury  members  in  the  eyes  while  tell- 
ing the  story.  Jurors  are  naturally 
sympathetic  to  witnesses  and  want 
to  hear  what  they  have  to  say.  Eye 
contact  helps  to  establish  credibility. 

19  DRESS  PROPERLY.  A  court  of 
law  demands  respect. 

20  WAIT  UNTIL  THE  JUDGE  HAS 
RULED  on  any  question  about 
which  an  objection  has  been  made. 
You  may  never  have  to  answer  the 
question  if  the  judge  sustains  your 
attorney's  objection. 


MAY  1986       43 


be  prepared  for  the  questions  coming 
from  the  defendant.  "I  ask  myself,  'If  I 
were  the  technical  expert  working  for  the 
other  side,  which  issues  would  I  bring 
out?'  " 

Roy  Bourgault's  experiences  on  the 
witness  stand  indicate  that  the  interac- 
tions between  attorneys  and  expert  wit- 
nesses usually  lead  to  mutual  respect 
between  the  two  professionals.  "The 
lawyers  for  the  people  you  are  working 
for  are  very  kind  to  you.  They  protect 
you  while  you're  on  the  stand.  That's 
their  job— to  not  allow  the  other  side  to 
run  over  their  witnesses." 

Interactions  with  opposing  attorneys, 
says  Ron  Biederman,  can  be  less  pleas- 
ant. "Some  treat  you  very  well— but  oth- 
ers are  terrible." 

"Most  lawyers,"  Bourgault  adds,  "are 
pretty  careful,  especially  in  front  of  a 
jury.  They  don't  want  the  jury  to  think 
they're  mistreating  a  witness.  If  you 
have  a  witness  with  some  standing  in  the 
community— a  doctor,  an  engineer— the 
lawyers  don't  want  the  jury  to  think  they 
are  trampling  on  them. 

"On  the  other  hand,"  he  adds,  "if  the 
opposition  perceives  that  technical 
experts  are  in  trouble — and  don't  under- 
stand that  they're  digging  a  deeper  and 
deeper  hole  for  themselves— the  lawyers 
will  ask  very  pointed,  embarrassing 
questions.  They  put  on  an  act.  They 
reflect  how  shocked  and  surprised  they 
are  that  you  seem  in  their  eyes  to  be  so 
ignorant." 

Every  expert  who  approaches  the  wit- 
ness stand,  says  Helen  Vassallo,  is  sub- 
ject to  a  careful  review  of  his  or  her  cre- 
dentials. For  example  mechanical 
engineers  working  on  a  case  involving  a 
power  lawn  mower  might  be  asked  if 
they  have  ever  designed  such  a  device. 
Standard  engineering  principles  govern- 
ing lawn  mowers  can  be  applied  to  other 
engineering  projects.  But  the  opposing 
lawyers,  attempting  to  strengthen  their 
case,  will  question  credentials  exten- 
sively in  an  effort  to  disqualify  an  expert. 

Vassallo,  for  example,  confronted  a 
challenge  to  her  professional  credentials 
on  her  first  trip  to  the  courtroom.  "The 
plaintiff's  attorney  did  not  want  me  qual- 
ified as  an  expert  because  I  don't  hold  an 
M.D.  The  judge  indicated  that  my  testi- 
mony would  be  restricted  to  clinical 
pharmacology  of  local  anesthetics,  in 
which  I  could  be  considered  an  expert 
although  not  medically  qualified." 

Bourgault  agrees  that  attorneys  try  to 
limit  how  much  experts  can  contribute. 


ME  Professor  Emeritus  Roy  F. 
Bourgault  '42: 

"The  opposition  lawyers  don't  like  to  be 
seen  as  harrassing  you  on  the  witness 
stand.  Still,  your  own  lawyers  often  have 
to  protect  you  from  being  trampled." 

"The  side  you  are  working  for  tries  to 
give  you  the  broadest  possible  latitude," 
he  says.  "All  the  while,  the  other  side 
will  try  to  limit  how  far  you  can  go." 

While  on  the  witness  stand,  experts  are 
accountable  for  everything  they  have 
ever  written  or  testified  to.  Witnesses,  in 
turn,  must  be  careful  not  to  volunteer 
information  that  would  back  them  into  a 
corner  or  to  speculate  on  what  could 
have  caused  particular  scientific  difficul- 
ties. As  Biederman  says,  "You  have  to 
tell  it  like  it  is.  It  is  like  taking  the  oral 
part  of  the  Competency  Exam.  You  can't 
bluff  your  way  through  it." 

According  to  Frank  DeFalco,  the 
expert's  influence  over  the  jury  can 
depend  on  how  well  the  jury  understands 
the  technological  aspects  of  the  case. 
The  expert's  testimony,  he  says,  must 
balance  technical  jargon  and  clear  expla- 
nation. The  jury  must  be  convinced  that 
although  the  matter  in  question  is  often 
not  easily  understood,  it  is  usually  gov- 
erned by  simple  principles.  Visual  aids 
can  help,  says  DeFalco. 

As  the  case  proceeds,  the  jury  deliber- 
ates, considers  all  experts'  views,  and 
finally  gives  its  verdict.  Naturally,  ver- 
dicts emerging  from  cases  that  include 
expert  testimony  meet  with  a  wide  range 
of  sentiments  from  the  experts.  Most 
say,  for  example,  that  the  emotions  sur- 
rounding a  personal  injury  case  can  cam- 
ouflage the  scientific  facts,  and  that  the 
amount  of  information  conveyed  during 
the  witness's  examination  can  easily 


influence  the  jury's  viewpoint. 

What  is  more,  many  of  the  jury's  ver- 
dicts might  appear  accurate  if  one  con- 
siders that  the  information  discussed  in 
the  courtroom  is  the  only  information  the 
jury  considers.  Consequently,  if  a  wit- 
ness is  prevented  from  contributing  a 
good  deal  of  information,  an  "inaccu- 
rate" verdict  may  result. 

Although  Ron  Biederman  has 
served  as  an  expert  witness 
for  nearly  20  years,  he 
maintains  that  expert  testi- 
mony forms  only  a  small 
portion  of  his  professional  activities.  For 
others  who  may  be  involved  with  more 
than  one  case  at  a  time,  serving  as  an 
expert  constitutes  more  of  their  profes- 
sional involvement. 

Bill  Dobson  says  that  about  half  of 
Binary  Engineering's  business  comes 
from  expert  consulting,  but  he  adds  that 
he  knows  of  no  more  than  a  dozen  col- 
leagues elsewhere  who  do  litigation 
work  for  a  living. 

The  court  is  not  alone  in  deriving  ben- 
efits from  the  testimony  of  WPI  faculty 
members.  Roy  Bourgault,  whose  legal 
work  has  spanned  two  decades,  devel- 
oped a  course  in  analysis  of  defects  and 
failures  which  examines  topics  that 
would  confront  an  expert  in  mechanical 
engineering.  And  Emanuel  and  Hoff- 
man, among  others,  have  advised  IQP 
teams  studying  engineering  analysis  and 
liability. 

WPI's  faculty  members  find  expert 
testimony  to  be,  in  many  cases,  lucrative 
work.  According  to  Bourgault,  "We 
charge  lawyers  a  fair  amount  of  money — 
not  as  much  as  the  lawyers  themselves 
charge,  but  we're  not  working  for  five 
dollars  an  hour  either." 

Regardless  of  the  extent  of  the  scien- 
tific analysis  or  the  amount  of  energy 
devoted  to  the  project,  says  Bourgault, 
court  work  is  not  necessarily  conclusive. 
Many  times  expert  testimony  uncovers 
flaws  in  product  design  and  safety.  But, 
he  adds,  "Sometimes  you  can't  come  to 
a  plausible  answer.  You  have  to  settle  for 
a  probable  answer." 

Linda  Blackmar  '86,  a  humanities- 
technology  major,  wrote  this  story  as 
part  of  her  Major  Qualifying  Project,  in 
which  she  completed  an  anthology  of  her 
own  and  others '  technical  writing.  The 
anthology  pieces  ranged  from  highly 
technical  works  to  purely  literary  stories 
containing  a  technical  element. 


44       WPI  JOURNAL 


WPI  CIASS  NOTES 


1923 


Ralph  White  and  Fred  Pickwick,  Jr.,  '22 

decided  it  would  be  interesting  to  hold  a 
reunion  of  the  1919-1920  and  1920-1921 
New  England  championship  basketball  team 
from  WPI.  Both  were  regulars  on  the  team 
and  are  the  only  surviving  members.  Pick- 
wick, who  lives  in  Grand  Junction,  CO.  and 
White,  who  resides  in  Keene,  NH,  got 
together  last  summer  in  Maine  to  feast  on 
steamed  clams  and  lobster. 

White  writes,  "Neither  one  of  us  had  seen 
classmates  for  years,  and  we  hadn't  seen  each 
other  for  over  60.  We  had  a  great  time  talking 
about  the  good  old  days." 

Pickwick  is  a  member  of  Phi  Sigma  Kappa 
and  White  belongs  to  ATO.  Both  are  mem- 
bers of  Skull.  Says  White,  following  their 
reunion,  "We  promised  to  carry  on  a  lively 
correspondence." 


1926 


Reunion  June  5-8,  1986 


1930 

Word  has  been  received  that  Betty  Center,  the 
widow  of  class  president,  Eugene  Center, 
passed  away  on  January  23,  1985. 


1931 


Reunion  June  5-8,  1986 


1933 

We  hear  from  Ed  Allen  that  he  and  his  wife, 
Earlene,  are  planning  to  move  to  Westboro, 
MA,  to  a  new  retirement  home  called  "The 
Willows."  Although  they  will  be  giving  up  an 
11 -room  house  situtated  amidst  18  acres  of 
flora  and  fauna  and  squeezing  into  three 
rooms,  Ed  says,  "I'm  already  practicing  how 
to  grow  old  gracefully,  helped  by  gentle 
wifely  admonitions  'to  just  try  a  little  harder, 
dear!'"  Ed  faithfully  attends  Tech  Old- 
Timers'  meetings. 

Ethan  "Charlie"  Bassett  is  in  good  health 
and  residing  in  Longmeadow,  MA.  After  his 
official  retirement  from  Electronic  Coils  Inc., 
he  ran  his  own  business  from  his  home.  At  his 


WPI  Alumni  Association 

President,  Paul  W.  Bayliss  '60 
Senior  Vice  President, 

Richard  B.  Kennedy  '65 
Vice  President,  Alex  C.  Papianou  '57 
Past  President,  Harry  W.  Tenney,  Jr.  '56 
Executive  Committee 
Members-at-Large 
Henry  P.  Allessio  '61 
Walter  J.  Bank '46 
William  J.  Firla,  Jr.  '60 
Patricia  A.  Graham  Flaherty  '75 
Alumni  Fund  Board 
Allen  H.  Levesque  '59,  Chairman 
Edwin  B.  Coghlin,  Jr.  '56 
David  B.  Denniston  '58 
Michael  A.  DiPierro  '68 
William  A.  Kerr  '60 
Bruce  A.  MacPhetres  '60 
Francis  W.  Madigan,  Jr.  '53 
Stanley  P.  Negus,  Jr.  '54 


wife's  request,  his  home  activities  are  now 
confined  to  hobbies,  including  clock  repair 
and  renovation.  The  Bassetts  have  two  daugh- 
ters and  two  granddaughters. 

Al  Bicknell,  a  retired  chemist  from  the 
S.D.  Warren  Co.,  lives  with  his  wife  in 
Westbrook,  ME,  near  Portland.  He  says  they 
have  a  quiet  life  playing  the  various  golf 
courses  in  their  area  in  the  summer  and  bowl- 
ing and  playing  contract  bridge  in  the  winter. 

Bob  Blake  has  been  retired  for  almost  a 
decade  from  43  years  of  service  as  senior 
electrical  engineer  with  New  York  State  Elec- 
trical &  Gas  Corp.  He  keeps  busy  helping  in 
the  county  historian's  office,  delivering 
Meals-On- Wheels,  and  golfing  and  bowling 
with  friends.  Occasionally,  he  leaves  his  resi- 
dence in  Binghamton,  NY,  and  returns  to  his 
"old  home  country"  in  New  Hampshire. 

It's  amazing  how  many  of  our  classmates 
are  healthy  and  still  employed:  Tom  Decker 
for  one.  He  continues  as  a  sales  manager  for 
the  County  Photo  Compositing  Corp.  of  Jef- 
ferson, MA.  Tom  and  his  wife,  Helen,  reside 
in  Holden,  MA.  We  see  them  often  at  TOT 
meetings. 

John  Dwyer  has  been  named  by  our  class 
vice  president,  Ed  Johnson,  to  represent  the 
class  on  the  WPI  Alumni  Council.  He  will  fill 


the  post  vacated  by  Norm  Clark,  whose 
years  of  service  in  that  capacity  we  much 
appreciate. 

Another  class  member  who  is  still  working 
is  Bob  Ferguson,  a  Worcester  native,  who  is 
putting  his  talents  to  use  with  the  real  estate 
firm.  Century  21.  He  and  his  wife,  Eileen, 
have  eight  children  and  12  grandchildren, 
"And  believe  it  or  not,  they  were  all  home  for 
Christmas!" 

We  had  the  opportunity  to  talk  with  John 
Keefe,  whose  colorful  and  successful  busi- 
ness career  ended  with  retirement  after  14 
years  as  city  manager  for  Modesto,  CA. 
While  he  was  in  the  Modesto  post,  the  city 
won  the  "All  American  City"  award.  During 
World  War  II,  he  served  as  an  army  major. 
Later,  he  held  engineering  or  manager's  posi- 
tions in  Northampton,  MA,  and  Annapolis, 
MD,  and  in  California  at  Palm  Springs, 
Bruno  and  Modesto.  Although  he  has  had 
three  serious  operations,  he  is  currently  in 
good  health  and  enjoying  an  active  life. 

Recently,  the  William  Slagles  of  West 
Medford,  MA,  celebrated  their  golden  wed- 
ding anniversary  at  a  reception  hosted  by  their 
children  at  the  Lexington  Inn.  They  were 
married  on  December  7,  1935,  in  their  home- 
town of  Stamford,  CT.  Until  his  retirement. 
Bill  was  chief  of  northeast  flood  studies  for 
the  U.S.  Army  Corps  of  Engineers.  He  had 
also  been  chief  of  enforcement  for  the  Divi- 
sion of  Water  Pollution  Control  of  the  Massa- 
chusetts Department  of  Natural  Resources. 
He  is  currently  president  of  the  Royall  House 
Association  in  Medford  and  clerk  of  the  Con- 
gregational Church  of  West  Medford.  Mrs. 
Slagle,  the  former  Harriet  Ferris,  serves  on 
the  boards  of  directors  of  the  Lawrence 
Memorial  Hospital  Auxiliary  and  of  the  Roy- 
all  House  Association.  She  is  also  active  in 
many  church,  social  and  charitable  organiza- 
tions in  the  area. 

Al  Brownlee,  Class  Secretary 


1935 


Carl  Bergstrom  spent  most  of  his  career  with 
Wy man-Gordon  Co.  of  Worcester,  a  leading 
manufacturer  of  aircraft  forgings.  After  start- 
ing out  as  a  metallurgical  trainee,  he  later 
managed  various  laboratory  departments  con- 
cerned with  the  acceptance  testing  of  raw 
materials,  heat  treatment  and  product  testing. 
Eventually,  he  became  chief  metallurgist  of 
the  Worcester  plant,  as  well  as  of  the  larger 
Grafton  facility.  Prior  to  retirement,  he  was 
involved  in  quality  control  management  for 
both  plants. 
The  Walter  Blaus  have  a  new  34-foot 


MAY  1986       45 


O'Day  auxiliary'  sloop  which  they  use  as  their 
vacation  home.  They  belong  to  three  yacht 
clubs,  with  Walter  being  the  past  commodore 
of  two.  During  the  past  20  years,  they  have 
traveled  to  Europe.  North  Africa,  the  Far  East 
and  Hawaii.  Walter  belongs  to  the  U.S. 
Power  Squadron,  the  Lions  Club,  Mystic  Sea- 
port (CT)  River  Foundation,  the  Middlesex 
County  Historical  Society,  Navy  League  and 
the  Greater  Middlesex  Preservation  Trust.  He 
is  director  emeritus  of  the  local  Farmer's  and 
Mechanics  Savings  Bank.  In  1979,  he  retired 
from  Wallace  Silversmiths  in  Wallingford. 
CT.  He  writes,  "My  last  major  accomplish- 
ment with  Wallace  was  the  layout  and  super- 
vision of  the  plant  relocation." 

Karl  Bohaker  works  part  time  as  a  consul- 
tant for  Struther-Dunn,  a  relay  and  electronic 
control  manufacturer  in  New  Jersey.  In  1978, 
he  retired  as  director  of  business  development 
at  AMF  Electrical  Products  Group,  Alexan- 
dria, VA.  Earlier  posts  were  with  Factory 
Insurance  Association,  Sigma  Instruments 
and  Fisher-Pierce  Co.  At  one  time,  he  was  an 
independent  manufacturers'  representative  in 
the  mid-Atlantic  states.  His  hobbies  include 
woodworking  and  radio-controlled  model 
boats. 

B.  Austin  Coates,  a  retired,  40-year 
employee  at  Heald  Machine  Co.  (supervisor 
of  methods  engineering),  now  raises  dogs, 
collects  stamps,  gardens  and  spends  time 
restoring  his  200-year-old  house.  He  belongs 
to  the  Masons,  the  Eastern  Star  and  ASME. 

Ted  Cole,  of  Holden,  MA,  continues  as 
vice  president  of  engineering  and  R&D  at 
Parker  Metal  Corp.  Earlier,  he  had  been  with 
Bauer  Brothers,  Norton  Co.,  FH.  Cole 
(wooden  box  manufacturer)  and  Atlas  Tack 
Corporation.  His  hobbies  currently  include 
golf,  tennis,  gardening,  travel  and  music.  He 
has  been  active  with  his  church,  and  he's  also 
served  on  the  Governor's  Executive  Advisory 
Committee  on  Education.  A  former  member 
of  TAPPI,  and  a  registered  professional  engi- 
neer, he  is  a  past  president  of  the  Worcester 
Better  Business  Bureau. 

Edward  Cove  and  his  wife,  Theresa,  enjoy 
traveling  throughout  the  U.S.  and  abroad. 
Edward  also  likes  bowling,  swimming  and 
spectator  sports.  He  worked  for  39  years  for 
New  England  Telephone  &  Telegraph  Co., 
retiring  as  a  testroom  supervisor. 

John  Coyle  writes  from  his  home  in  Palm 
Beach  Gardens,  FL,  that  he  loves  to  swim  and 
likes  sports  cars,  playing  bridge  and  listening 
to  good  music.  From  1938  to  1964,  he 
worked  on  the  development  of  aircraft 
engines.  After  retiring  from  the  USAF  at 
Wright  Field,  he  became  an  engineer  and 
technical  writer  for  Pratt  &  Whitney.  In  1975, 
he  retired— for  the  second  time. 

Edward  Cronin  currently  is  active  playing 
golf,  woodworking  and  refinishing  furniture. 
For  44  years  prior  to  his  retirement,  he  was 
with  GE  in  Pittsfield,  MA,  which  he  served  as 
a  senior  design  engineer.  In  1955,  he  received 
the  firm's  Managerial  Award.  He  developed 
eight  patents  while  with  the  company. 

C.  Marshall  Dann,  a  WPI  trustee  since 
1974,  is  a  former  president  of  the  American 
Patent  Law  Association,  and  is  active  with  the 
American  Bar  Association,  and  the  Interna- 
tional Patent  &  Trademark  Association.  In 
1976,  he  received  the  Goddard  Award  from 


WPI  for  outstanding  professional  achieve- 
ment. He  received  the  Jefferson  Medal  of  the 
New  Jersey  Patent  Law  Association  and  the 
1978  Distinguished  Achievement  Award  of 
the  Government  Patent  Lawyers  Association. 
Since  1977,  he  has  been  associated  with  the 
Philadelphia  firm  of  Dann,  Dorfman,  Herrell 
&  Skillman.  Earlier,  he  had  been  the  U.S. 
Commissioner  of  Patents,  and  chief  patent 
counsel  for  Du  Pont,  where  he  had  been 
employed  for  38  years.  He  belongs  to  the 
Mayflower  Society  and  plans  to  do  some 
genealogical  research  in  the  future. 

Phillip  Dean  is  a  charter  member  of  the 
Waterbury  (CT)  Chapter  of  the  Society  for  the 
Preservation  &  Encouragement  of  Barbershop 
Quartet  Singing  in  America.  He  once  con- 
structed a  25-foot  sloop  which  the  family  still 
sails  off  Long  Island.  One  of  his  involve- 
ments has  been  with  the  local  BSA  Scoutmas- 
ter's Troop  Committee.  He  is  a  member  of  the 
U.S.  Power  Squadron,  the  Branford  (CT) 
Yacht  Club  and  the  Masons.  A  member  of  the 
IEEE  and  the  AIEE,  he  served  on  the  pro- 
gram committee  for  the  New  England  Electric 
Council.  He  also  belongs  to  the  Goodspeed 
Opera  House  Foundation.  During  his  career, 
he  was  with  Connecticut  Light  &  Power  and 
Northeast  Utilities  Service  Co.  He  was 
involved  in  joint  design  with  other  utilities  in 
the  first  345-KV  lines  in  the  state. 

Joseph  Glasser,  a  WPI  trustee,  serves  on 
the  board  of  advisors  in  the  department  of 
management  at  WPI.  He  is  also  a  trustee  of 
Bon  Secours  Hospital,  Methuen,  MA,  and 
Andover  (MA)  Memorial  Library  and  a 
corporator-trustee  of  Lawrence  (MA)  Savings 
Bank.  He  is  a  director  of  the  Lawrence  Boys 
Club,  as  well  as  a  corporator  of  Lawrence 
General  Hospital.  Currently,  he  is  a  manage- 
ment consultant  and  director  of  the  Center  for 
Business  and  Industry,  Northern  Essex  Com- 
munity College,  Haverhill,  MA.  In  1979,  he 
retired  as  corporate  vice  president  of  Ray- 
theon Co.,  Andover.  From  1935  to  1945,  he 
was  superintendent  of  F.  W.  Sickles  Co.  (Gen- 
eral Instrument),  Chicopee,  MA.  He  holds  an 
honorary  doctorate  from  the  University  of 
Lowell,  an  Outstanding  Civilian  Service 
Medal  from  the  U.S.  Army  and  the  Goddard 
Award  from  WPI  for  outstanding  professional 
achievement. 

Raymond  Granger,  of  West  Boylston, 
MA,  started  his  own  construction  company  in 
1939.  At  first  the  firm  built  gas  stations  and 
then  branched  out  and  specialized  in  high-rise 
buildings,  schools,  hospitals  and  college 
buildings.  AT  WPI  his  company  made  addi- 
tions to  the  EE  labs,  to  Morgan  Hall,  Har- 
rington Gym  and  alterations  to  Boynton  Hall. 
It  was  also  concerned  with  several  dormito- 
ries. Ray  is  a  co-founder  of  the  Worcester 
Building  Contractors'  Association,  past  presi- 
dent of  the  Associated  General  Contractors  of 
Massachusetts,  a  registered  professional  engi- 
neer and  a  member  of  ASCE. 

Currently,  Jack  Healy  of  Newburyport, 
MA,  is  engaged  in  managing  investment  real 
estate  holdings.  He  has  been  president  of  the 
local  YMCA,  the  historical  and  maritime 
societies,  and  a  board  member  for  the  local 
hospital  and  savings  bank,  as  well  as  com- 
mander of  the  American  Legion.  A  descen- 
dant of  the  original  settlers  in  Newbury,  MA 
(1635),  he  worked  on  the  committee  planning 


the  celebration  of  the  350th  anniversary  of  the 
town.  He  is  a  32nd  degree  Mason  and  a 
Shriner.  During  his  career,  he  worked  for  33 
years  for  Liberty  Mutual  Insurance  Co., 
being  assigned  for  12  years  to  Avis  Rent-A- 
Car  Systems  as  a  consultant.  He  had  eight 
years  of  active  duty  with  the  U.S.  Army  and 
27  years  with  the  reserves. 

In  1972,  Eugene  Henning  retired  as  a 
project  engineer  from  the  Quality  and  Relia- 
bility Assurance  Laboratory  at  Marshall 
Space  Flight  Center,  NASA,  Huntsville,  AL. 
Previously,  he  had  been  with  the  Army  Ballis- 
tic Missile  Agency  in  Huntsville  and  with  the 
Fire  Control  Branch,  Bureau  of  Ships,  Navy 
Dept.,  Wilmington,  DE.  He  belongs  to 
AIAA,  Sigma  Xi,  NARFE,  AARP  and  the 
Press  Club.  Hobbies  include  hiking  and  trav- 
eling. 

John  Howes's  interests  include  horse 
shows,  trail  rides,  golf  motorcycling,  build- 
ing ship  models,  grandfather  clocks,  garden- 
ing and  travel.  From  1950  to  1975,  he  was 
manager  and  treasurer  of  Woods  Pond  Cran- 
berry Co.,  a  39-acre  family  business.  From 
1936  to  1981,  he  was  a  self-employed  cran- 
berry grower.  He  is  the  former  director  of 
New  England  Cranberry  Sales,  a  member  of 
the  Grower  Advisory  Committee  for  Ocean 
Spray  and  treasurer  of  the  Cranberry  Highway 
Horsemen's  Association.  He  has  been  a  mem- 
ber of  the  board  of  trustees  or  a  director  for 
two  Middleboro  (MA)  banks. 

Leonard  Humphrey,  Jr.  spent  his  entire 
career,  from  1936  to  1976,  with  Buffalo 
Forge  Co.,  first  in  Buffalo,  NY,  then  in 
Washington,  DC.  He  worked  with  various 
Navy  and  commercial  shipyards  in  the  West 
Coast,  Gulf  Coast  and  Great  Lakes  areas  and 
on  the  Eastern  Seaboard  supplying  and  servic- 
ing company  equipment.  Much  of  his  spare 
time  was  spent  in  Scouting.  In  1950,  he  was 
honored  with  the  Silver  Beaver  Award.  In 
1963,  he  successfully  ran  for  a  seat  on  the 
Board  of  Managers  of  Chevy  Chase  (MD) 
Village,  and  remained  on  the  Board  until 
1983.  Since  then,  he  has  been  village  engi- 
neer working  on  street  lighting,  drainage  and 
renovation  of  the  village  hall.  Active  in  WPI 
alumni  affairs,  he  has  held  local  chapter 
offices  and  served  on  the  Alumni  Fund  Board. 
In  1980,  he  received  the  Herbert  F.  Taylor 
Award  from  WPI  for  service  to  the  college. 

Joseph  Johnson,  Jr.  has  been  an  active 
amateur  radio  operator  for  53  years.  He 
writes,  "Current  interest  is  talking  to  old 
friends  around  the  world."  Other  pastimes  are 
genealogical  research,  historical  house 
research  and  the  restoration  of  his  200-year- 
old  house.  He  belongs  to  the  National  Associ- 
ation of  Naval  Technical  Supervisors,  the 
American  Radio  Relay  League,  the  Quarter 
Century  Wireless  Association  and  the  Poto- 
mac Valley  Radio  Club.  He  holds  two  supe- 
rior accomplishment  awards  from  the  New 
York  Naval  Shipyard  and  numerous  commen- 
dations for  work  done  on  various  naval  ves- 
sels, as  well  as  letters  of  appreciation  from  the 
Commander-in-Chief  of  the  Pakistan  Navy. 
In  1973,  he  retired  from  the  Naval  Ship  Sys- 
tems Command,  Washington,  DC.  Previ- 
ously, he  was  with  the  New  York  Naval  Ship- 
yard, Brooklyn,  NY,  Buffalo  Niagara  Electric 
Co.,  and  New  York  Power  and  Light  Corp. 
He  is  a  former  officer  with  the  New  York  and 


46       WPI  JOURNAL 


He  Still  Has 

A  Nose  For  News! 


According  to  the  WP1  Alumni  Direc- 
tory, Clark  Goodchild  '40  is  a 
mechanical  engineer.  True  enough. 
But  ever  since  junior  high  school, 
Goodchild  has  also  been  something 
else:  a  die-hard  writer. 

"When  you  get  right  down  to  it," 
Goodchild  observes,  "writing  is  a  lot 
like  an  addiction.  Hard  to  break  an 
enjoyable  habit." 

Goodchild,  who  retired  four  years 
ago  from  Emhart's  USM  Machinery 
Division  after  42  years,  is  still  hard  at 
work  at  his  avocation.  He  continues 
to  edit  USM's  Quarter  Century  News, 
a  publication  for  employees  and  retir- 
ees with  more  than  25  years  of  serv- 
ice. He  also  contributes  to  Beverly 
Today,  USM's  employee  newsletter. 

Hard  put  to  describe  the  appeal  that 
writing  holds  for  him.  Goodchild  says 
simply  that  he  enjoys  talking  with 
people  and  learning  about  their  back- 
grounds. "It's  fun  to  see  your  efforts 
in  print.  Occasionaly  embarrassing 
when  there's  a  goof!" 

In  actual  practice,  writing  comes 
easily  to  him.  He  doesn't  suffer  writ- 
er's block.  "But  I  still  have  run-ins 
with  spelling  and  style,"  he  admits. 

Goodchild 's  technical  background 
sets  him  apart  from  many  writers.  At 
WPI,  he  edited  the  former  Tech 
News.  During  his  school  days,  he  also 


Clark  Goodchild  '40 


wrote  for  his  hometown  daily,  the 
Springfield  (MA)  Union  and  Daily- 
News,  earning  15  cents  per  column 
inch. 

In  the  unlikely  event  that  Goodchild 
should  become  bored  with  writing,  he 
has  lots  of  other  interests  to  fall  back 
on,  like  photography,  origami  (Japa- 
nese paper-folding)  and  space  explo- 
ration study.  He  also  enjoys  his  1931 
Ford,  Apple  computer  and  ham  radio 


(KAIACM).  When  not  serving  as  a 
hospital  volunteer,  he  is  host  at  the 
Beverly  High  School  Photovoltaic 
Visitors  Center. 

"I'm  probably  best  suited  to  writ- 
ing, however,"  he  says.  In  the  tradi- 
tion of  the  true  journalist,  he 
explains,  "I'm  the  lousiest  organizer 
you  ever  saw.  I  never  finish  anything, 
never  file  anything  and  never  throw 
anything  away!" 


Washington  chapters  of  the  Alumni  Associa- 
tion. 

Paul  Krantz  was  the  first  president  of  the 
Citizens'  "Plan  E"  Society  of  Worcester,  and 
the  organizer  of  a  successful  petition  drive 
and  campaign  for  the  council  manager  form 
of  government  in  Worcester.  Among  his  inter- 
ests are  furniture  construction.  Boy  Scout 
work  and  boat  building.  He  retired  as  North- 
east regional  sales  manager  from  Kropp  Forge 
Co.,  Chicago,  in  1978.  Other  employers  had 
been  Berwick  Forge.  Berwick,  PA,  Wyman 
Gordon  and  Pratt  &  Whitney  Aircraft. 

Ted  Latour,  who  walks  five  miles  daily,  is 
active  with  his  political  party  in  Las  Vegas. 
NV.  He  has  served  as  district  captain  and  as  a 
member  of  the  Clark  County  Central  Com- 
mittee. In  addition,  he  has  assisted  several 
national  and  state  candidates.  He  retired  from 
Du  Pont  as  senior  chemist  for  R&D  following 
38  years  of  service  after  transferring  from 
Richmond  to  Buffalo  to  Birmingham  to  Buf- 
falo to  Seaford,  DE.  and  to  Kinston,  NC.  A 
member  of  Tau  Beta  Pi,  he  also  belongs  to 
Sigma  Xi  and  ACS.  He  holds  gold  and  bronze 
medals  for  race-walking  in  the  local  Senior 
Olympics.  Ted  and  his  wife.  Irene,  have  six 


sons. 

Roger  Lawton  of  Mystic.  CT,  has  a  600- 
acre  tree  farm  in  Athol,  MA.  Although  he 
currently  is  active  with  gardening,  world 
travel,  carpentry  and  swimming,  he  formerly 
ere  wed  the  Bermuda  Yacht  Race  twice,  and 
served  as  commander  of  the  U.S.  Power 
Squadron  and  as  commodore  of  the  Ram 
Island  Yacht  Club.  Over  the  years,  he  and  his 
family  have  done  considerable  boating,  sail- 
ing and  cruising  from  their  summer  home  in 
Gloucester  (MA)  and  from  Mystic.  Every 
year,  he  enjoys  a  golf  vacation  in  Stuart,  FL 
(Indian  River  Plantation).  In  1977,  he  took 
early  retirement  from  General  Dynamics- 
Electric  Boat.  Other  posts  had  been  with 
Davis  Standard  Division  of  Crompton  & 
Knowles,  Rodney  Hunt  and  U.S.  Steel's  Fed- 
eral Shipbuilding  &  Drydock  Co. 

Harold  LeDuc  plays  regularly  in  a  dupli- 
cate bridge  club  and  golfs  in  the  summer.  He 
does  most  of  his  home  maintenance  from  gar- 
dening, to  painting  to  reroofing.  as  well  as 
furniture  repairing.  Besides  concerts  and 
plays,  he  and  his  wife.  Emily,  enjoy  trips 
abroad.  Since  1975,  he  has  worked  "more  or 
less    independently"     in    the    Brockville, 


Ontario,  Canada,  area  as  a  financial  consul- 
tant and  manager  for  several  small  busi- 
nesses. Previously,  he  was  with  an  oil-fired 
home  and  water  heating  equipment  manufac- 
turer. In  1970,  he  was  appointed  to  the  board 
of  the  firm's  Canadian  affiliate  as  financial 
director.  From  1944  to  1956,  he  was  plant 
manager  with  a  management  consulting  firm 
specializing  in  textiles.  He  has  an  MBA  from 
Western  New  England  College  and  has  lec- 
tured at  several  American  Management  Asso- 
ciation seminars.  Currently,  he  is  treasurer  of 
his  local  YMCA/YWCA. 

Les  Libby  holds  nine  patents  and  has  had 
five  articles  published.  A  member  of  Sigma 
Xi,  he  is  also  a  senior  life  member  of  IEEE. 
Sports  cars,  amateur  radio,  radio-electronics, 
tennis  and  music  are  his  interests.  Since  1968. 
he  has  served  as  an  independent  consultant. 
Among  his  earlier  employers  were  Varian. 
Lockheed  Aerospace.  Carad  Corp..  Sierra 
Electronic  Corp.,  Kay  Electric,  ITT  Labs  and 
RCA.  Les  and  his  wife.  Grace,  reside  in  Los 
Altos  Hills.  CA.  They  have  two  daughters. 

Gordon  Lincoln  is  a  past  president  of  the 
Northern  California  Chapter  of  the  Alumni 
Association  and  former  member  of  the  Soci- 


MAY  1986       47 


ety  of  Manufacturing  Engineers.  Because  of 
the  loss  of  sight  of  one  eye  in  1973,  he  had  to 
give  up  his  hobbies  of  tennis,  golf,  bowling 
and  woodworking.  "To  compensate  I've 
taken  up  baking  and  turn  out  a  mean  loaf  of 
sourdough  French  bread!"  Gordon  spent  18 
years  with  Morse  Twist  Drill  and  12  with 
Union  Twist  Drill  as  a  cutting  tool  engineer. 
He  managed  Morse's  San  Francisco  sales  dis- 
trict, after  which  he  managed  Union's  San 
Francisco  sales  district.  He  retired  to  Red- 
ding, CA,  in  1971,  where  he  worked  at  a 
local  hospital  until  final  retirement  in  1977. 

Evan  Luce,  who  joined  Norton  Co.,  Wor- 
cester, in  1935,  retired  from  the  company  in 
1972  as  a  senior  project  engineer.  From  1940 
to  1955,  he  was  water  commissioner  for  the 
West  Boylston  (MA)  Water  District.  A  regis- 
tered professional  engineer  in  Massachusetts, 
he  has  had  technical  articles  published  in  sev- 
eral magazines  including  Stone  Industry,  and 
the  Norton  publication  Grits  and  Grinds.  Cur- 
rently, he  and  his  wife,  Mary,  reside  in  Wells, 
ME,  where  he  participates  in  church  and  his- 
torical work.  He  is  also  active  with  the 
Masons  and  the  Shriners.  Hobbies  include 
golf,  fishing,  gardening,  cooking  and  philat- 
ely. 

George  Makela  spent  37  years  with  the 
Corps  of  Engineers  working  on  water 
resources  projects  while  stationed  in  Boston, 
Little  Rock,  AR,  Bismark,  ND,  Dallas,  TX, 
and  Washington,  DC.  He  retired  in  1972,  but 
is  now  concerned  with  a  project  for  his  son  at 
the  Houston  office  of  a  Dallas  engineering 
firm.  A  life  member  of  ASCE  and  a  member 
of  SAME,  he  received  a  meritorious  civilian 
service  medal  from  the  Corps  of  Engineers. 
He  enjoys  fishing  in  the  Gulf  of  Mexico, 
working  with  home  computers  and  printers, 
and  woodworking. 

Ted  McKinley  was  concerned  with 
research,  chemistry  and  metallurgy  at  Du 
Pont  from  1935  to  1979.  He  is  now  interested 
in  the  development  of  new  flowers  by  muta- 
tions induced  by  large  dosages  of  high  energy 
X-rays.  He  has  75  varieties  of  specimen  hol- 
lies. Listed  in  both  "Who's  Who  in  America," 
and  "Who's  Who  in  the  World,"  he  has 
served  on  the  National  Materials  Advisory 
Board,  as  chairman  of  Division  I,  ASTM,  as 
chief  of  the  U.S.  Delegation  to  AGARD- 
NATO,  and  as  president  of  the  Electrochemi- 
cal Society. 

Tom  McNulty,  a  retired  vice  president  of 
manufacturing  at  Emhart  Corporation's  hard- 
ware plant,  Berlin,  CT,  was  at  one  time  a 
member  of  several  committees  concerned 
with  standards  for  doors  and  hardware  for 
commercial  construction.  His  committees' 
recommendations  were  accepted  by  the  Fed- 
eral Bureau  of  Standards.  Prior  to  joining 
Emhart  in  1947,  Tom  was  with  the  U.S. 
Navy.  Travel  and  golf  are  among  his  current 
hobbies. 

Richard  Merriam  was  a  39-year  employee 
of  Stanley  Works,  New  Britain,  CT,  from 
which  he  retired  as  controller  of  the  plant 
engineering  division  in  1978.  Previously,  he 
had  been  plant  manager  of  the  strapping  sys- 
tems division.  He  writes,  "My  most  gratify- 
ing non-employment  accomplishment 
involved  the  supervision  of  construction  of  an 
educational  wing  for  Christ  Lutheran  Church 
in  Middletown  (CT)."  Besides  playing  golf, 


he  works  around  the  yard  and  the  house. 

One  of  Howard  Nordlund's  interests  is 
assisting  Asian  refugees.  He  also  remodels 
houses,  sails,  fishes  and  is  involved  with  the 
Masons,  the  Elks,  photography  and  the  Coast 
Guard  Auxiliary.  He  holds  two  community 
service  awards  and  the  Western  Insurance 
Information  Service  Award.  He  is  a  Com- 
mander, USNR  (Ret.).  From  1946  to  1973, 
he  was  with  Safeco  Insurance  Co.,  Seattle, 
WA,  where  he  was  manager  of  the  loss  con- 
trol department.  Other  employers  were  Lib- 
erty Mutual  Insurance  Co.,  New  England 
Telephone  and  Telegraph,  and  Rockefeller 
Center  Inc. 

Verner  Olson  retired  in  1978  as  production 
superintendent  of  Du  Pont's  Toledo  (OH) 
plant  following  41  years  with  the  company. 
Some  of  his  previous  posts  were  technical 
supervisor,  sales  development  supervisor  and 
research  chemist.  He  now  golfs,  fishes,  lis- 
tens to  music,  travels,  enjoys  sports  and  is 
involved  with  community  affairs  and  adult 
Sunday  school  classes.  A  member  of  Sigma 
Xi,  he  has  also  belonged  to  the  Chamber  of 
Commerce,  Rotary  (former  local  president), 
and  to  the  council  of  his  Lutheran  Church.  He 
has  served  on  various  United  Way  and  church 
committees,  often  as  chairman. 

Charles  Puffer,  who  was  employed  as  first 
standards  engineer  at  Chapman  Valve  Mfg. 
Co.,  now  finds  time  for  golf,  gardening, 
house  maintenance  and  investing.  He  serves 
as  chairman  of  the  Big  Alum  Lake  Environ- 
mental Committee.  The  Puffers  currently 
reside  in  Osprey,  FL,  and  Big  Alum  Lake, 
Fiskdale,  MA. 

Emerson  Robinson,  a  registered  profes- 
sional engineer  in  Massachusetts  and  Rhode 
Island,  belongs  to  ASME,  WES,  PES, 
MSPE,  NSPE  and  the  Wire  Association.  A 
member  of  the  Aleppo  Temple,  he  has  served 
as  past  master  of  the  local  Grange,  the  Odd 
Fellows  and  the  Masons.  In  1979,  he  retired 
from  Wanskuck  Co. /New  England  Butt  Divi- 
sion, Providence,  RI,  where  he  had  been 
employed  since  1935.  During  his  career,  he 
rose  from  engineering  draftsman  to  chief 
engineer.  He  writes,  "We  were  the  largest 
manufacturer  of  braiders  of  all  types:  textile 
agers  and  knitting  machinery,  wire  machinery 
for  the  manufacture  of  copper  and  aluminum 
power  cables  used  in  transmission  lines  and 
the  communications  industry,  and  centerless 
grinders."  In  retirement  he  enjoys  boating, 
fishing,  bowling  and  traveling. 

Victor  Sepavich,  who  holds  more  than  50 
patents,  was  with  Crompton  &  Knowles  from 
1936  until  his  retirement  in  1978.  He  retired 
as  director  of  research,  a  post  which  sent  him 
on  numerous  assignments  throughout  Europe. 
His  primary  concern  was  machinery  for  mak- 
ing all  types  of  fabrics.  He  now  enjoys  golf, 
photography,  bridge  and  gardening.  He  has 
been  active  with  ASME  and  IEEE  serving  as 
a  committee  member  and  division  chairman. 

David  Smyth  continues  as  executive  vice 
president  and  part-owner  of  Peck  Spring 
Company,  Plainville,  CT.  He  and  his  brother 
founded  Screw  Machine  Products  in  1948.  In 
1950,  the  firm  was  absorbed  by  Peck  Spring, 
and  Smyth  still  remains  with  the  closely  held 
company.  He  has  been  president  of  the  New 
England  Spring  Manufacturers'  Association, 
and  a  director  of  the  national  Spring  Manufac- 


turers' Institute.  Several  of  his  articles  have 
been  published  in  magazines.  For  many 
years,  he  has  served  as  secretary  of  the  Water- 
bury  (CT)  Chamber  of  Commerce.  Photogra- 
phy and  raising  show  dogs  (Cocker  Spaniels) 
have  been  his  hobbies.  For  years  he  has 
served  his  church  as  a  vestryman  and  warden. 

Frederick  Swan,  Jr.  restores  antique  fur- 
niture and  builds  miniature  antique  furniture. 
He  keeps  busy  with  the  Boy  Scouts,  the  Boys' 
Club,  Unitarian  Church  and  conservation 
work.  Also,  golf,  "RV-ing,"  traveling  (often 
with  Jack  Healy),  gin  rummy  and  bridge.  He 
says  he  belongs  to  too  many  organizations  to 
list!  Formerly,  he  was  with  Buffalo  Forge 
Co.,  Farrar  &  Trafts  Inc.,  Sylvania,  and 
Fisher  Price  Toys. 

Gordon  Swift,  who  is  interested  in  geneal- 
ogy, has  traced  his  family  back  1 1  genera- 
tions. For  35  years,  he  has  been  active  with 
Rotary,  having  served  his  local  club  as  presi- 
dent and  secretary.  Other  activities  are  cross- 
country skiing,  gardening,  and  summering  at 
the  family  cottage  on  Highland  Lake  in 
Goshen,  MA.  Since  1967,  he  has  been  a 
partner-owner  in  two  retail  shops:  Empsall's 
Sport  Shop  and  Laura  Girard  Shop  (ladies 
sportswear,  equipment,  etc.)  in  Northampton, 
MA.  Earlier,  he  had  been  with  Crompton  & 
Knowles,  Brown  Bag  Filling  Machine  Co. 
and  Prophylactic  Brush  Co. 

Robert  Taylor  continues  to  do  consulting. 
He  retired  from  Buffalo  Forge  in  1975. 
Although  he  formed  his  own  company  in 
1965,  he  still  was  associated  in  sales  and  serv- 
ice with  Buffalo  Forge  until  his  retirement. 
He  likes  boating  and  runs  his  "small  Hat- 
teras."  He  gives  travel  talks  which  he  illus- 
trates with  his  own  photographs.  Every  year, 
he  wins  a  couple  of  trophies  for  skeet  and  trap 
shooting.  He  was  the  first  president  of  the 
local  chapter  of  the  American  Society  of 
Heating  and  Ventilating  Engineers,  and  is  a 
life  member  of  ASHRAE.  The  past  com- 
mander of  the  Mohawk  Power  Squadron,  he 
is  also  past  commodore  of  the  Tri-City  Yacht 
Club.  He  is  a  Paul  Harris  Fellow  of  the 
Albany  (NY)  Rotary  Club. 


1936 


Reunion 


June  5-8, 1986 


1937 

In  November,  Henry  Dearborn  retired  as  a 
patent  attorney  with  Texaco  Development 
Corporation,  White  Plains,  NY. 


1941 


Reunion 


June  5-8, 1986 


K.  Blair  Benson  is  the  editor  in  chief  of  the 
1 ,478-page  Television  Engineering  Handbook 
recently  published  by  McGraw-Hill.  Written 
by  some  of  the  leading  experts  in  the  field,  the 
handbook  includes  technical  information  and 
provides  the  know-how  which  engineers  need 


48       WPI  JOURNAL 


to  design,  operate  and  maintain  every  type  of 
television  equipment  in  current  use.  The  book 
explains  the  latest  techniques  and  hardware 
being  employed  in  television  engineering,  and 
provides  a  comprehensive  discussion  of  the 
basic  theories  of  light,  vision  and  information 
that  underlie  the  technology. 

Dr.  A.  Ranger  Curran,  a  professor  and 
chairman  of  the  Management  Department  at 
Keene  (NH)  State  College,  participated  in  the 
1985  International  Discoveries  Symposium 
entitled  "Laws  of  Nature  and  Human  Con- 
duct: Specificities  and  Unifying  Themes"  last 
October  in  Brussels,  Belgium.  He  attended 
the  1982  symposium  in  Columbus,  OH,  the 
1983  symposium  in  London,  England,  and 
the  1984  symposium  in  Melbourne,  Austra- 
lia. Organized  by  the  Solvay  Institutes  for 
Physics  and  Chemistry  and  sponsored  by  the 
Honda  Foundation,  the  Brussels  conference 
was  designed  to  study  the  impact  of  the  new 
developments  of  nonlinear  dynamics  in  math- 
ematical physics.  Seventy-five  experts 
throughout  the  world  were  invited  to  discuss 
various  aspects  of  technology  and  cultural 
interaction.  Curran  received  his  master's 
degree  from  the  Air  Force  Institute  of  Tech- 
nology and  his  doctorate  from  the  University 
of  Georgia. 

Leonard  White,  president  and  treasurer  of 
the  R.H.  White  Construction  Co.,  and  a  WPI 
trustee,  delivered  the  fall  commencement 
address  at  WPI.  He  is  the  founder  and  former 
chairman  of  the  President's  Advisory  Council 
at  WPI.  For  seven  years,  he  served  as  a  mem- 
ber of  the  WPI  Alumni  Fund  Board.  In  1981, 
he  received  the  Herbert  F.  Taylor  Award  for 
outstanding  service  to  the  college. 


1942 


Robert  Searles  writes,  "After  37  years  in  the 
Ready  Mix  Concrete  business,  I've  sold  out 
and  retired." 


1944 


Earl  Harris,  president  of  Rodney  Hunt  Com- 
pany, was  recently  elected  to  a  three-year 
term  on  the  board  of  trustees  of  Historic  Deer- 
field  in  Massachusetts.  The  33-year-old 
museum  of  early  American  history  and  the 
decorative  arts  operates  12  historic  houses  as 
museums  open  to  public  tours.  Historic  Deer- 
field  also  offers  public  lectures  and  education 
programs  and  operates  the  Deerfield  Inn. 
Harris,  a  resident  of  Greenfield,  MA, 
attended  Dartmouth,  the  University  of  West 
Virginia,  and  MIT,  as  well  as  WPI.  Cur- 
rently, he  serves  as  director  of  Blue  Shield  of 
Massachusetts,  a  trustee  of  the  Orange  Sav- 
ings Bank,  a  member  of  the  World  Business 
Council  and  a  director  of  the  National  Associ- 
ation of  Manufacturers. 


1945 

Warren  Morgan,  project  coordinator  of  the 
bulk  systems  division  at  the  Jervis  B.  Webb 


Company,  was  co-author  of  "Lignite— A  Dif- 
ferent Experience  for  Coal-Burning  Utilities," 
which  appeared  in  the  November  issue  of 
Public  Utilities  Fortnightly.  At  Webb  he  is 
responsible  for  coordinating  proposal  prepa- 
ration and  serves  as  the  primary  in-house  con- 
tact on  major  contracts.  He  has  had  more  than 
thirty  years  of  experience  in  the  engineering 
field,  with  an  extensive  background  in  the 
bulk-material  handling  area  of  power  genera- 
tion. 


1946 


Reunion 


June  5-8,  1986 


Edward  Pendleton  exhibited  work  at  the 
30th  Annual  Exhibit  and  Sale  of  Wesleyan 
Potters  held  in  December  in  Middletown,  CT. 
A  professional  engineer,  Pendleton  learned 
his  cabinet  making  skills  from  his  grandfa- 
ther. 


1947 


Dan  Lewis  was  recently  named  director  of 
technical  services  for  the  American  Public 
Power  Association.  APPA  is  a  small  trade 
association  located  in  Washington,  DC,  rep- 
resenting the  publicly-owned  electric  utilities 
in  the  U.S.,  as  opposed  to  the  corporate  or 
investor-owned  utilities.  Lewis  was  formerly 
special  assistant  to  the  director  of  the  Office 
of  Electric  Power  Regulation  at  the  Federal 
Energy  Regulatory  Commission. 

In  his  new  post,  he  is  responsible  for  all 
APPA  technical  programs  in  support  of  legis- 
lative and  regulatory  issues.  He  will  oversee 
association  services  in  the  areas  of  the  envi- 
ronment, rates,  generation,  transmission,  dis- 
tribution, energy  use  and  research  and  devel- 
opment. From  1972  to  1974,  he  directed  the 
National  Power  Survey,  a  comprehensive 
study  of  the  status  and  prospects  of  the  U.S. 
electric  power  industry.  In  1975,  he  was 
named  assistant  to  the  FERC  chief  engineer, 
and  in  1976,  he  became  special  assistant  to 
the  director  of  the  Office  of  Electric  Power 
Regulation. 

Before  joining  the  FERC,  Lewis  worked 
for  Control  Data  Corporation,  where  he  pro- 
vided technical  support  for  applications  of 
large-scale  computers.  He  was  also  a  system 
engineering  analyst  forGE. 

Lewis  continues  to  sing  in  his  church  and  is 
on  the  golf  course  when  time  and  weather 
permit.  He  keeps  up  with  astronomy  and 
says,  "I've  seen  Comet  Halley  approaching 
from  afar,  and  expect  to  be  in  the  southern 
Caribbean  for  a  better  view  in  the  spring." 


1948 


George  Allen  continues  as  guidance  coun- 
selor at  East  Hartford  (CT)  High  School. 

Robert  Dieterle,  former  manager  of  pur- 
chases at  Northeast  Utilities,  recently  retired. 

Prof.  Ken  Scott  of  WPI's  Mechanical 
Engineering  Department  moderated  a  techni- 


cal session,  "Computer-Aided  Design  in 
Engineering  Education,"  at  the  63rd  annual 
fall  conference  of  the  New  England  Section  of 
ASEE.  He  also  presented  his  paper.  "Inte- 
grating a  Turnkey  CAD  System  into  an 
Undergraduate  Engineering  Program." 


1949 


Walt  Dick  writes  that  in  1984  when  the  Bell 
System  was  broken  up  by  the  government,  he 
moved  from  Pittsburgh  to  Arlington,  VA,  in 
order  to  help  set  up  the  new  Bell  Atlantic 
Regional  Holding  Company.  His  job  was  to 
handle  the  negotiation  of  new  interconnection 
arrangements  with  the  plethora  of  new  long 
distance  telephone  carriers.  "As  a  result,  my 
wife  lived  in  Arlington,  but  during  the  year  I 
was  in  New  Jersey,  New  York,  Pennsylvania, 
Maryland,  Georgia,  Illinois,  Colorado,  Cali- 
fornia, Texas,  New  Mexico,  Missouri,  West 
Virginia  and  Massachusetts,  rather  than  in 
Virginia."  By  the  end  of  year,  he  retired  to 
Bradenton,  FL,  just  shy  of  40  years  with  the 
company. 


1951 


Reunion  June  5-8,  1986 


1953 

Charles  DeChand  was  recently  elected  presi- 
dent of  Bloomfield  (CT)  Access  Television 
(BATV).  Long  interested  in  video,  he  has 
produced  and  taped  several  on  seasonal  reli- 
gious music,  and  has  begun  a  documentary 
series  on  "Houses  of  Worship"  in  the  local 
area.  He  instituted  live  coverage  of  the  Board 
of  Education's  bi-monthly  meetings. 

A  scientist,  Charlie  has  worked  at  Combus- 
tion Engineering  since  1958,  the  year  he 
received  his  doctoral  degree  from  Yale.  In 
addition  to  his  BATV  commitments,  he  is 
active  in  the  Bloomfield  Methodist  Church  as 
long-time  treasurer  and  committee  member. 
He  is  also  involved  with  the  Connecticut 
Aeronautical  Historical  Association,  working 
in  the  museum  library. 

Jack  Gearin  has  been  named  director  of 
AT&T's  Manufacturing  Development  Center 
in  Princeton,  NJ.  He  supervises  the  design 
and  manufacture  of  prototype  automatic 
machinery  and  test  systems.  He  also  directs 
the  Center's  production  of  special  purpose, 
proprietary  machinery  and  test  equipment. 
During  Jack's  30-year  career  with  AT&T,  he 
has  held  engineering  and  managerial  assign- 
ments in  Merrimack  Valley,  MA,  Newark, 
NJ,  and  Cockeysville,  MD.  Before  his  recent 
promotion,  he  supervised  engineering  opera- 
tions at  the  company's  Indianapolis  works.  He 
holds  an  MBA  from  Northeastern. 


1956 


Reunion 


June  5-8,  1986 


MAY  1986       49 


1957 


Adrian  Atkins.  P.E.,  continues  as  manager 
of  engineering  specialties  at  Aetna  Life  & 
Casualty.  He  joined  Aetna  in  1966  following 
five  years'  service  in  project  and  chief  engi- 
neer posts  with  several  Connecticut  construc- 
tion firms.  He  is  past  chairman  of  the  AIA 
Construction  Committee,  and  served  as  a  first 
lieutenant  with  the  U.S.  Army  Corps  of  Engi- 
neers following  graduation  from  WPI.  He  has 
an  MSCE  from  UConn. 


1958 


C.  Stewart  Gentsch  has  been  appointed  pres- 
ident and  general  manager  of  Stanley  Tools — 
U.S.,  New  Britain,  CT.  With  the  firm  since 
1982,  he  had  served  as  plant  operations  man- 
ager with  responsibility  for  several  plants.  In 
1984,  he  was  named  vice  president  of  manu- 
facturing, with  responsibility  for  all  of  Stan- 
ley's U.S.  hand  tools  plants.  Earlier,  he  was 
president  and  general  manager  for  a  division 
of  Rexnord.  He  was  also  a  director  of  the 
local  United  Way,  a  director  and  past  presi- 
dent of  Junior  Achievement,  a  director  of 
Associated  Industries  of  Massachusetts,  and 
had  held  posts  in  other  professional  and  com- 
munity organizations.  He  attended  the  Carne- 
gie-Mellon Advanced  Management  Program. 

William  McLeod,  Jr.  is  now  production 
and  engineering  manager  for  Borden  & 
Remington  Corporation,  Fall  River,  MA. 

Robert  Wolff,  president  of  Blackstone  Val- 
ley Electric  Co.,  has  been  elected  a  vice  pres- 
ident of  EUA  Service  Corp.,  Boston.  He  will 
maintain  liaisons  with  suppliers  of  electricity 
to  the  EUA  System  and  assume  a  prominent 
role  in  EUA's  New  England  power  pool  activ- 
ities. Prior  to  joining  Blackstone  Valley  Elec- 
tric in  1983,  he  managed  several  key  engi- 
neering, purchasing  and  operations  areas  at 
Consolidated  Edison  Co.,  New  York.  For 
five  years,  he  was  power  delivery  editor  of 
Electrical  World,  a  McGraw-Hill  publication. 
A  professional  engineer,  he  is  a  member  of 
IEEE.  He  served  three  years  as  a  U.S.  Navy 
engineering  officer. 


1959 


Dr.  Joseph  Bronzino  wrote  "Clinical  Engi- 
neering Internships:  A  Regional  Hospital- 
Based  Approach,"  which  appeared  in  Septem- 
ber's Journal  of  Clinical  Engineering.  Joe 
continues  as  chairman  of  the  Engineering 
Department  at  Trinity  College,  Hartford,  CT. 


1961 


Reunion 


June  5-8, 1986 


Lee  Hackett  has  been  named  to  the  Board  of 
Trustees  of  St.  Johnsbury  (VT)  Academy.  He 
is  president  of  the  American  Appraisal  Com- 
pany, the  world's  largest  appraisal  firm  with 
annual  sales  in  excess  of  $40  million.  The 


company  is  a  division  of  American  Appraisal 
Associates  Inc.,  which  Hackett  serves  as  a 
vice  president  of  operations  and  a  director. 
Lee,  who  holds  an  MBA  from  the  University 
of  Chicago,  is  also  an  officer  in  the  U.S. 
Army  Reserve.  In  his  spare  time,  he  sails  as 
often  as  possible  on  Lake  Michigan. 


1962 


MARRIED:     Kenneth     Krikorian     and 

Dianne  Chakarian  in  Osterville,  MA,  on  July 
27,  1985.  A  school  adjustment  counselor  in 
Cambridge,  she  graduated  from  Anna  Maria 
College  and  has  a  master's  degree  in  educa- 
tion from  Antioch  University,  Yellow 
Springs,  OH.  He  holds  a  master's  degree 
from  Yale  and  did  advance  studies  at  Johns 
Hopkins.  Currently,  he  is  a  senior  member  of 
the  physics-math  faculty  at  Quinsigamond 
Community  College,  Worcester. 

Ronald  Baruzzi  has  been  named  a  "Distin- 
guished Member  of  the  Professional  Staff"  by 
Bell  Communications  Research,  Network 
Planning  Center.  He  was  one  of  37  employees 
out  of  8,000  to  receive  the  award. 

Bob  Wilder  recently  began  a  new  career  as 
innkeeper  at  the  Inn  at  Weston  in  Weston, 
VT.  Bob  and  Jeanne  have  purchased  the  inn, 
which  will  be  in  operation  for  the  1986  sea- 
son. The  Wilders  returned  to  the  U.S.  in  the 
summer  of  1985  after  two  years  in  London, 
England,  where  Bob  managed  the  European 
branch  for  the  consulting  firm  of  Nolan,  Nor- 
ton &  Company.  After  a  few  months  back  on 
the  travel  circuit,  they  decided  to  take  the 
plunge  and  pursue  a  long-time  dream.  Weston 
is  a  small  town  (Pop.  508)  in  the  Stratton- 
Bromley  area,  which  boasts  its  own  summer 
playhouse.  Says  Bob,  "It's  a  long  way  from 
EE101  to  running  a  country  inn  in  the  Green 
Mountains.  Drop  by,  and  we'll  let  you  know 
if  it's  as  good  as  Bob  Newhart  makes  it  out  to 
be!" 


1963 


Gary  Adams,  a  faculty  member  at  Thames 
Valley  State  Technical  College,  was  recently 
promoted  to  professor  by  the  Board  of  Trust- 
ees for  the  Connecticut  State  Technology  Col- 
leges. He  began  his  teaching  career  at  Tha- 
mes Valley  in  1966.  He  has  served  on  several 
college  committees  and  is  currently  the 
department  chairperson  for  mathematics  and 
science,  as  well  as  a  member  of  the  Corpora- 
tion of  the  Norwich  Free  Academy.  The  envi- 
ronment is  another  active  interest. 

George  Eldridge,  PE.  is  chief  electrical 
engineer  for  United  Illuminating  in  New 
Haven,  CT. 

Last  fall,  Prof.  Allen  Hoffman  of  the  ME 
Department  at  WPI,  ran  one  segment  of  the 
Annual  Cape  Cod  Relay,  an  81 -mile  race 
from  Plymouth  Rock  to  Provincetown.  He  is 
a  member  of  The  WPI  Footpounders,  who 
finished  34th  out  of  200  teams  at  the  Cape 
race.  They  covered  the  81  miles  in  8  hours, 
15  minutes.  In  November,  Al  was  part  of  a 
three-member  WPI  team  which  came  in  first 
at  the  Finnish-American  Social  Club  4-mile 


road  race  held  in  Shrewsbury.  He  was  also 
first  in  his  age  group  in  the  Shrewsbury  race. 

David  Nordin  works  for  Peerless  Nuclear 
Corp.,  Stamford,  CT. 

Ronald  Pueschel  is  now  with  Canaan 
Computer,  Trumbull,  CT. 

Warren  Standley  has  recently  returned  to 
the  Washington,  DC,  area  after  a  two-year 
assignment  in  Massachusetts,  where  he  was 
in  charge  of  starting  up  a  TRW  field  office 
near  Boston.  As  a  department  manager  in  Vir- 
ginia, he  is  currently  in  charge  of  40  computer 
scientists  who  are  involved  in  database  man- 
agement, computer  data  security  and  applica- 
tions programming  for  a  variety  of  defense- 
related  customers. 


1964 


MARRIED:  Stephen  Wilcox  and  Pauline 
Schwensen  in  October  in  Longmeadow,  MA. 
Pauline  graduated  from  Hobart  and  William 
Smith  College,  Geneva,  NY,  and  has  a  mas- 
ter's degree  from  the  University  of  Buffalo 
School  of  Social  Work.  She  is  with  Strong 
Memorial  Hospital  in  Rochester.  Stephen, 
who  has  a  master's  degree  from  WPI,  is 
employed  at  Kodak  in  Rochester. 

Allen  Case,  Jr.  has  been  appointed  a  liai- 
son scientist  at  the  General  Electric  Research 
and  Development  Center,  in  Schenectady, 
NY.  In  his  new  post,  he  will  be  responsible 
for  promoting  technology  transfer  between 
the  Center  and  GE's  Factory  Automation 
Products  Division,  Drive  Systems  Opera- 
tions, Automation  Controls  Operations, 
Calma  Company,  Semiconductor  Business 
Division,  GE  Financial  Services  and  GE  Sup- 
ply Company  Business  Division.  He  is  also 
responsible  for  recognizing  the  technical 
needs  of  these  components  and  keeping  lines 
of  communication  open  with  researchers  at 
the  Center.  Allen  joined  the  R&D  Center  in 
1970  as  a  systems  engineer  in  the  Mechanical 
Equipment  Branch. 

Along  with  other  colleagues,  he  won  two 
awards  presented  by  Research  and  Develop- 
ment Magazine  for  the  development  of  an 
assembly  robot  (1981)  and  a  vision-guided 
welding  robot  system  (1984).  He  holds  four 
U.S.  patents  in  sensors  and  robotic  control, 
and  has  co-authored  several  technical  publica- 
tions on  robotics.  The  holder  of  two  degrees 
from  WPI,  he  is  a  member  of  ASME  and  the 
Robotics  Institute  of  America. 

Prof.  Robert  Peura,  director  of  the  biome- 
dical engineering  program  at  WPI,  was  re- 
elected secretary-treasurer  at  the  Engineering 
in  Medicine  and  Biology  Society  meeting 
held  in  Chicago  on  September  27.  He  was 
also  elected  vice  president  of  financial  and 
long-range  planning. 


1965 


Stephen  Cloues  was  named  PACT  "consul- 
tant of  the  year"  at  a  recent  meeting  of  the 
Southern  Baptist  Home  Mission  Board  during 
its  annual  conference  at  the  Ridgecrest  (NC) 
Baptist  Conference  Center.  PACT  (Project: 
Assistance  for  Churches  in  Transitional  Com- 


50       WPI  JOURNAL 


munities)  is  a  Home  Mission  Board  effort  to 
help  church  ministries  evaluate  their  pro- 
grams and  communities  in  order  to  be  more 
effective  in  public  outreach  and  ministry. 

Cloues  began  serving  as  a  church  extension 
and  planning  consultant  in  Birmingham  in 
1978  and  was  appointed  by  the  Home  Mission 
Board  in  1984.  Last  year,  he  conducted  15 
PACT  consultations  with  churches.  Two  of 
the  Birmingham  churches  received  the  PACT 
"church  of  the  year  award." 

In  January,  Cloues  was  named  associate 
director  of  associational  and  cooperative  mis- 
sions for  the  Alabama  Baptist  Convention.  In 
his  new  role  in  Montgomery,  he  will  provide 
technical  assistance  in  the  Mega  Focus 
process  in  metropolitan  areas,  help  in  urban 
mission  and  associational  strategy  planning, 
address  needs  of  transitional  churches,  and 
gather  census  data  on  church  program  organi- 
zations. He  will  also  conduct  association 
studies,  work  with  missions  development 
committees,  give  leadership  to  experimental 
ministries  and  work  with  Sunday  School 
departments  in  identifying  sites  for  new 
churches  and  missions. 

Besides  WPI,  Cloues  holds  degrees  from 
Georgia  Institute  of  Technology  and  South- 
western Baptist  Theological  Seminary.  He 
served  as  a  construction  batallion  officer  in 
the  U.S.  Navy,  as  associate  regional  planning 
director  in  Columbia,  SC,  and  as  a  seminary 
student  summer  missionary.  He  is  married 
and  has  two  teenage  daughters. 


1966 


Reunion  June  5-8,  1986 


1967 

Dr.  Richard  Gutkowski  was  an  invited  par- 
ticipant in  an  international  expert  group  meet- 
ing on  the  subject  of  timber  construction  held 
in  Vienna,  Austria,  in  December,  and  orga- 
nized by  the  United  Nations  Industrial  Devel- 
opment Organization  (UNIDO).  The  purpose 
of  the  meeting  was  to  draw  together  the  expe- 
rience of  a  small  group  of  experts  to  discuss 
ways  and  means  of  increasing  the  use  of  tim- 
ber construction  in  developing  countries.  Dr. 
Gutkowski  was  one  of  some  20  experts  whose 
conclusions  and  recommendations  were  pre- 
sented to  the  Secretariat.  He  described  the  ini- 
tiative to  reintroduce  timber  bridges  in  the 
U.S.  He  also  assessed  the  potential  for  their 
fabrication  and  use  in  developing  countries. 
He  chaired  the  ASCE's  committee  on  timber 
bridges  for  six  years  and  presently  chairs  the 
administrative  committee  on  bridges. 

Dr.  Gutkowski,  an  associate  professor  in 
the  Department  of  Civil  Engineering  at  Colo- 
rado State  University  in  Fort  Collins,  returned 
in  September  from  an  eight-month  sabbatical 
leave  in  Western  Europe.  During  that  time,  he 
was  an  invited  professor  at  the  Ecole  Poly- 
technique  Federale  de  Lausanne  (EPFL), 
Switzerland  (Swiss  Federal  Institute  of  Tech- 
nology). He  worked  on  structural  wood 
research  within  the  IBOIS  (Institute  for  Wood 
Construction)  at  the  EPFL. 


1968 


Bob  Gemmer  has  accepted  a  position  as 
project  manager  with  the  Gas  Research  Insti- 
tute, Chicago. 

Robert  Horansky  has  been  named  director 
of  the  Data  Processing  Department  of  The 
Travelers  Companies  in  Hartford,  CT.  The 
department  operates  a  nationwide  computer- 
communications  network  of  more  than 
15,000  terminals  that  access  more  than  2,000 
on-line  data  bases  located  in  five  computer 
complexes.  Before  joining  The  Travelers  in 
1984,  Horansky  worked  for  Northeast  Utili- 
ties, where  he  was  responsible  for  the  man- 
agement of  technical  support  and  telecommu- 
nications software.  He  is  married,  has  two 
children,  and  lives  in  Wethersfield,  CT. 

C.  David  Larson  holds  the  post  of  interna- 
tional product  manager  at  A.W.  Chesterson  in 
Stoneham,  MA. 

Kenneth  Roberts  has  been  appointed  vice 
president  and  regional  general  manager  for 
the  eastern  region  of  the  Shipping  Container 
Division,  Container  Corporation  of  America 
(CCA)  in  Chicago.  Previously,  he  had  been 
vice  president  of  planning  and  public  policy 
for  CCA,  and  vice  president  of  administration 
for  W.F  Hall  Printing  Company,  a  subsidiary 
of  Mobil,  which  he  had  also  served  in  mana- 
gerial assignments.  He  holds  an  MBA  in 
operations  management  from  the  University 
of  Rochester  (NY). 

Dr.  E.  Wayne  Turnblom  is  currently 
director  of  marketing  planning  for  the  Bio- 
Products  Division  of  Eastman  Kodak  Com- 
pany, Rochester,  NY. 


1969 


BORN:  to  Cheryl  Weisman-Cohen  and 
Michael  Cohen  a  son,  Benjamin  Seth,  on 
September  11,  1985.  Benjamin  joins  his  sis- 
ter, Whitney  Sara,  who  is  4.  The  family  lives 
in  Needham  Heights,  MA. 

John  Poblocki  was  recently  named  senior 
vice  president  in  charge  of  acquisitions  at 
Mutual  Benefit  Financial  Service  Co.,  Provi- 
dence, RI.  Before  joining  the  company  in 
1983  as  vice  president  of  product  develop- 
ment, he  was  executive  vice  president  of 
Kates  Properties  Inc.  Earlier,  he  was  director 
of  planning  and  development  for  the  City  of 
Woonsocket,  RI.  He  has  a  master's  degree 
fromURI. 


1970 


William  Coblenz  is  now  a  senior  scientist 
with  the  High  Performance  Ceramics  Divi- 
sion of  Norton  Company,  in  Northboro,  MA. 
David  Emery,  former  First  District  Con- 
gressman from  Maine  and  current  deputy 
director  of  the  Arms  Control  and  Disarma- 
ment Agency  in  Washington,  DC,  has  visited 
27  countries  on  arms-control  business  during 
the  last  two  years.  He  has  authority  in  the  area 
of  multilateral  affairs  and  serves  as  the 
agency's  primary  representative  in  the  ongo- 
ing review  of  nuclear  testing  and  related  trea- 


ties. He  has  received  public  service  awards 
from  the  American  Freedom  Foundation,  the 
National  Federation  of  Independent  Busi- 
nesses and  other  national  organizations. 
David  and  his  wife,  Carol,  are  building  a  home 
of  their  own  design  in  Tenants  Harbor,  ME. 

Edward  Mason  is  director  of  logistics  for 
Cummins  Engine  Company  in  Brazil.  He  is 
responsible  for  manufacturing,  materials, 
importation  and  exportation  and  systems  for  a 
$100  million  diesel  engine  business,  which 
has  a  world-wide  customer  base.  He  belongs 
to  the  American  Society  of  Brazil  and  is  a 
Fellow  of  the  American  Production  and 
Inventory  Control  Society. 

Frank  Meoli  holds  the  post  of  president  of 
Eastern  Fire  Door  Co.  Inc.,  New  Haven,  CT. 
With  the  company  since  1971,  he  is  now  in 
charge  of  long  and  short-term  decisions  rela- 
tive to  company  policies,  purchasing,  person- 
nel and  product  lines.  He  is  active  with  the 
Cub  Scouts  and  the  local  soccer  program. 

Alan  Miller  is  an  account  executive  with 
sales  responsibility  in  the  Boston  area  for  Cul- 
linet  Software  Inc.  of  Braintree.  Earlier,  he 
held  various  sales  positions  with  IBM  for  14 
years.  He  belongs  to  the  Woodland  Golf  Club 
and  enjoys  skiing. 

Gregory  Moberg  works  as  a  project  engi- 
neer for  Eastman  Kodak  in  Rochester,  NY. 
He  is  concerned  with  advanced  development 
and  pre-production  design  in  the  area  of  con- 
sumer electronics  and  magnetic  video  record- 
ing. Since  finishing  graduate  school,  he  has 
worked  in  both  the  R&D  labs  and  advanced 
development  at  Kodak.  He  is  a  ruling  elder  of 
the  Reformed  Presbyterian  Church. 

Paulo  Su  works  as  an  engineer  in  customer 
service  with  DEC. 


1971 


Reunion 


September  20,  1986 


Allen  Downs  continues  with  Dataproducts  in 
Milford,  NH.  When  he  recently  worked  on  a 
project  in  San  Jose,  CA,  he  visited  with  John 
Pratt  and  Dave  Pratt  '69  in  San  Francisco. 
Dave,  John  and  Vi  Pratt  were  in  San  Fran- 
cisco at  a  computer  show  demonstrating 
"Computereyes,"  the  first  product  of  Dave's 
new  company,  Digital  Vision.  Allen  writes 
that  John  has  moved  from  Connecticut  to 
Massachusetts  to  work  with  Dave. 

Thomas  Mirarchi  has  been  promoted  to 
the  new  post  of  director  of  process  technolo- 
gies for  USCI  Division,  C.R.  Bard,  Billerica, 
MA.  He  joined  the  division  in  1984  as  devel- 
opment engineering  manager,  following  sev- 
eral years  as  manager  of  manufacturing  engi- 
neering for  American  Optical  Corporation.  A 
registered  professional  engineer  in  Massa- 
chuetts,  he  has  an  MBA  from  RPI. 

Vincent  Pace  has  become  associated  with 
Dann,  Dorfman,  Herrell  and  Skillman,  a 
Philadelphia  law  firm  specializing  in  patent, 
trademark  and  copyright  law.  He  has  an 
MSEE  from  Drexel  University  and  a  doctor 
of  law  degree  from  Temple  University. 
Before  joining  the  firm,  he  served  as  a  patent 
attorney  at  the  Naval  Air  Development  Center 
in  Warminster,  PA,  and  at  the  Naval  Research 
Laboratories  in  Washington,  DC. 


MAY  1986       51 


Richard  Teitelman  serves  as  manager  of 
customer  training  at  Sperry  Computer  Sys- 
tems. He  holds  an  MBA  from  Fairleigh  Dick- 
inson University. 

Bob  Trachimowicz  is  now  resident  engi- 
neer for  Ebasco  Constructors  Inc..  Houston, 
TX. 

David  Winer  has  been  appointed  vice  pres- 
ident of  engineering  at  Lion  Precision  Corp., 
North  Billerica,  MA.  He  joined  the  firm  only 
recently  as  director  of  engineering.  Earlier,  he 
was  employed  as  principal  engineer  at  Orion 
Research,  where  he  directed  the  development 
of  several  major  products.  He  had  also  served 
Orion  as  reliability  manager  and  senior  engi- 
neer. A  member  of  IEEE  and  AM  A.  he  holds 
a  master's  degree  from  Northeastern  and  an 
MBA  from  Boston  College. 


1972 


John  Cuth  has  been  named  superintendent  of 
building  maintenance  at  Northern  Michigan 
University.  Previously,  he  was  supervisor  of 
facilities  for  a  year  and  a  half  for  the  County 
of  Marquette.  From  1982  to  1984,  he  was  a 
mechanical  engineer  at  K.I.  Sawyer  Air  Force 
Base.  He  is  a  licensed  professional  engineer 
in  Michigan. 

Brian  Savilonis,  associate  professor  of 
mechanical  engineering  at  WPI,  was  part  of  a 
three-member  WPI  team  which  won  the 
Finnish-American  Social  Club  4-mile  road 
race  held  in  Shrewsbury  in  November. 

Nickolas  Denetracopoulos  is  with  the 
Nuclear  Engineering  Department  at  National 
Technical  University,  Athens,  Greece. 


1973 


Dr.  David  Hubbell,  now  out  of  the  Navy,  is 
currently  at  the  Case  Western  Medical  Center 
in  Cleveland.  OH,  where  he  teaches  medical 
students,  conducts  research  and  has  a  small 
practice  in  the  Center  hospital. 

Sippican  Ocean  Systems  has  named  Steve 
Iannotti  senior  manufacturing  engineer.  He 
will  be  responsible  for  the  design  and  devel- 
opment of  new  products  and  equipment.  A 
member  of  the  Society  of  Plastics  Engineers, 
he  received  an  ASME  from  Central  New 
England  College  and  a  BSME  from  WPI.  He 
and  his  wife.  Donna,  and  their  four  sons 
reside  in  East  Sandwich,  MA. 

Robert  Schultz,  public  works  director  for 
the  last  two  years  in  Foster,  RI,  recently  left 
to  become  public  works  director  in  Lincoln. 
RI.  In  1975,  he  was  program  engineer  for 
Alyeska  Pipeline  Service  Co.,  Fairbanks, 
Alaska,  and  worked  on  the  construction  of  a 
road  from  Fairbanks  to  Prudhoe  Bay.  From 
1976  to  1981,  he  was  project  engineer  for 
civil  construction  for  the  Alaska  International 
Construction  Co.,  which  built  the  Fairbanks 
sewer  system,  a  highway,  two  airports  and 
other  major  projects.  Currently,  he  is  broker 
and  owner  of  Meetinghouse  Realty  of  Provi- 
dence, and  co-owner,  vice  president  and  sec- 
retary of  the  Riverpoint  Tool  Co.,  also  in 
Providence.  Schultz  studied  arctic  engineer- 
ing at  the  University  of  Alaska.  He  and  his 
wife.  Vickie,  have  two  children  and  reside  in 
Foster. 

Bob  Steinberg  is  a  naval  architect  with  the 
U.S.  Navy,  U.S.  Chief  of  Naval  Operations. 
Washington,  DC. 


1974 


MARRIED:  Gary  Gastiger  and  Linda 
Goulet  on  September  20,  1985,  in  Groton. 
CT.  Linda  graduated  from  the  University  of 
Connecticut  and  is  with  Electric  Boat.  Gary  is 
with  Stone  &  Webster. 

In  November,  Edward  Dlugosz  partici- 
pated in  the  Sixth  Superfund  Conference  in 
Washington,  DC.  His  paper,  "The  California 
Ranking  System,"  was  selected  for  presenta- 
tion at  the  National  Conference  and  Exhibi- 
tion on  the  Management  of  Uncontrolled 
Hazardous  Waste  Sites. 

Dr.  Bruce  Johansen  has  been  awarded  the 
Herbert  F  Alter  Chair  of  Engineering  Science 
for  1985-1986  at  Ohio  Northern  University, 
Ada,  OH.  Johansen  holds  an  MD  from  the 
University  of  Pittsburgh,  and  a  doctorate  from 
WPI.  He  is  chairman  of  the  Department  of 
Electrical  Engineering  at  Ohio  Northern  Uni- 
versity, as  well  as  a  professor  of  electrical 
engineering.  He  joined  the  faculty  there  in 
1967. 

Russ  Naber  holds  the  post  of  section  head 
of  food  product  development  at  Procter  & 
Gamble  Co.,  Cincinnati.  He  has  an  MBA 
from  Xavier  University. 

Mort  Williams  is  currently  with  Vision 
Ease  in  Fort  Lauderdale,  FL. 


1975 


MARRIED:  Jeffrey  Lacko  and  Pamela 
Jaquith  on  October  5.  1985,  in  Rockville,  CT. 
Pamela  attended   Manchester  Community 


Remember  the  Boston 

Navy  Yard? 

Now  It's  a  Crystal  Palace! 

If  you  visit  the  Charlestown  Navy 
Yard  next  September,  you  probably 
won't  recognize  it.  By  then  the  vener- 
able Boston  landmark  will  have  meta- 
morphosed into  a  $60  million  office 
park.  The  park's  showcase  will  be  a 
crystal  palace  built  around  a  garden. 

Says  Dean  Stratouly  '74  CE,  vice 
president  of  The  Congress  Group, 
real  estate  developers  for  the  project, 
the  gardens  will  be  connected  to  three 
buildings  containing  965,000  square 
feet  of  office  space.  "The  overall 
plan,"  he  adds,  "will  combine  an  Ital- 
ian palazzo  and  a  Rockefeller  Center 
idea  with  ice  in  the  winter  and  a 
reflecting  pool  in  the  summer."  The 
complex  will  also  house  a  restaurant. 

The  revitalized  Navy  Yard,  to  be 
known  as  Constitution  Park,  is 
expected  to  increase  tourism  in  the 
area  and  provide  more  than  3,000 
permanent  jobs. 

During  the  past  few  years,  Dean 


Stratouly  '74,  vice  president 
The  Congress  Group 

has  been  involved  in  numerous 
projects  which  are  changing  the  face 
of  Boston.  "I  deal  with  the  financing, 
design  and  construction  aspects,"  he 
says.  "Our  company  develops  sites, 
purchases  land  and  buildings  and 
hires  architects,  engineers  and  con- 
struction companies.  We  rehab  older 
buildings    or    build    new    ones- 


whatever  the  project  calls  for." 

Dean  and  his  partner,  Edward 
Barry,  Jr. ,  president  of  The  Congress 
Group,  have  28  permanent  employ- 
ees, and  provide  jobs  for  1 ,500  other 
employees  outside  of  their  immediate 
group. 

"We  recently  completed  three 
projects  and  have  four  more  on  the 
boards,"  he  says.  "We  have  $196  mil- 
lion in  on-going  construction  with 
$350  million  coming  up  in  the  near 
future.  We  do  everything  on  specula- 
tion. At  the  beginning  of  every 
project  all  of  our  net  worth  is  at  risk." 

Prior  to  joining  the  Congress 
Group,  Dean,  who  also  holds  an 
MBA  from  Central  Michigan  Univer- 
sity, worked  for  Stone  &  Webster  and 
Babcock  &  Wilcox.  For  a  time  he 
was  vice  president  of  operations  for 
an  architectural  engineering  firm  in 
Boston. 

In  June,  Dean  plans  to  take  a  break 
from  his  15-hour  a  day  schedule  and 
participate  in  the  annual  Newport  to 
Bermuda  yacht  race.  "I've  ere  wed  for 
others  for  years,"  he  reports.  "This 
time  it's  going  to  be  different.  I'm 
going  to  captain  my  own  boat! " 


52       WPI  JOURNAL 


College  and  is  a  manager  with  the  Hartford 
Insurance  Group  in  Windsor.  Jeff  serves  as 
project  supervisor  of  data  processing  with  the 
Hartford  Insurance  Group  in  Hartford. 

John  and  Ginny  Giordano  FitzPatrick, 
their  daughter.  Cara.  and  son.  Joseph,  write 
"we  have  adopted  a  baby  girl."  Linda  Marie 
was  born  in  Bogota.  Colombia,  on  September 
9.  1985. 

John  Gabranski  was  recently  named  a 
partner  in  the  Springfield,  MA.  office  of 
Coopers  &  Lybrand,  an  accounting,  tax  and 
consulting  firm,  which  he  joined  in  1978.  He 
currently  serves  clients  in  the  retail,  health 
care,  higher  education  and  manufacturing 
fields.  Previously,  he  was  a  dean  and  instruc- 
tor for  the  firm's  retailing  industry  training 
course  for  new  staff  members.  He  wrote  a 
chapter  of  the  Retail  Accounting  Handbook 
published  by  the  National  Retail  Management 
Association.  A  director  of  the  Pioneer  Valley 
chapter  of  the  American  Red  Cross  and  of 
Springfield  School  Volunteers  Inc..  he  holds  a 
master's  degree  from  Columbia  University. 

Bob  Simon  was  recently  named  marketing 
manager  for  Baron-Blakeslee  Inc..  a  new 
acquisition  of  Allied  Corporation.  The  firm 
manufactures  industrial  degreasing  and 
defluxing  equipment  and  serves  as  a  distribu- 
tor of  degreasing  solvents. 

Stephen  YVojciak  writes,  "Completed  first 
marathon  at  the  Worcester/ Norton  100  Mara- 
thon in  October." 


1976 


Reunion 


September  20,  1986 


MARRIED:  Donald  Moore  to  Carol  Wash- 
ington in  Worcester  on  September  14,  1985. 
Carol  graduated  from  Wellesley  College  and 
has  a  master's  degree  from  Johns  Hopkins 
University.  Donald  is  with  Prime  Computer 
Company.  .  .  .  David  Vogt  and  Susan  Bro- 
deur  in  Nashua,  NH,  on  September  15.  1985. 
She  graduated  from  Franklin  Pierce  College 
and  is  an  R&D  administrator  for  Sanders 
Associates  in  Merrimack.  He  serves  as  actu- 
arial director  of  loss  reserves  and  special  stud- 
ies at  American  Universal  Insurance  Group  in 
Providence.  RI. 

BORN:  to  Diana  and  Rob  Roy  a  daughter. 
Elizabeth,  on  November  19.  1985  .... 
to  Reggie  and  Mary  Polanik  Sherman  a  son, 
Brian,  on  September  18,  1985.  Brian  has  a 
three-year-old  sister,  Alison.  Mary  is  cur- 
rently working  part  time  as  an  instructor  at 
Central  New  England  College. 

Capt.  Daniel  Brock,  former  fire  chief  in 
Southboro,  MA,  was  recently  named  fire  cap- 
tain in  Cohasset,  MA.  He  has  worked  on  the 
Southboro  force  since  the  age  of  17,  first  as  a 
call  firefighter  and  then  as  a  permanent  fire- 
fighter. Four  years  ago,  he  was  appointed 
captain.  Currently,  he  is  working  for  his  mas- 
ter's degree  in  fire  protection  engineering  at 
WPI. 

Bob  D'Orazio  serves  as  manager  of  appli- 
cations engineering  at  Amerigas  Division  of 
UGI  in  Dallas,  TX.  He  has  an  MS  from  Rice 
University. 

Last  October,  Paul  Grogan  ran  a  segment 
of  the  Annual  Cape  Cod  Relay  with  The  WPI 


Footpounders,  who  came  in  34th  out  of  a  field 
of  200  teams.  They  covered  the  81  miles  from 
Plymouth  Rock  to  Provincetown  in  8  hours. 
15  minutes.  Paul  serves  as  a  senior  air  pollu- 
tion control  engineer  for  the  Massachusetts 
Department  of  Environmental  Quality  Engi- 
neering in  Boston. 

Constance  Kuzmier  has  been  elected  a 
member  of  the  Institute  of  Management  Con- 
sultants and  has  been  named  a  certified  man- 
agement consultant.  The  certification  signi- 
fies that  an  individual  consulting  practitioner 
meets  the  Institute's  strict  standards  of  techni- 
cal competence,  professional  experience  and 
ethical  conduct.  Constance  is  a  senior  consul- 
tant with  Rath  &  Strong  Inc.,  Lexington. 
MA.  Her  practice  includes  development  and 
implementation  of  management  systems,  pro- 
ductivity improvement  programs,  computer- 
ized manufacturing  and  control  systems  and 
Just-In-Time  setup  reduction.  She  also 
belongs  to  the  Institute  of  Industrial  Engi- 
neers. 

Arthur  Strver,  a  senior  engineer  with  Ray- 
theon, has  held  previous  posts  in  design  engi- 
neering with  DEC  and  Data  General.  He  has 
an  MBA  from  Northeastern  and  is  currently 
attending  the  WPI  evening  program  working 
for  his  MSEE.  He  holds  a  patent  for  a  phase- 
locked  loop  design. 

Steven  Tuckerman  has  been  named  the 
town  planner  for  Southington.  CT.  Earlier,  he 
had  been  town  planner  in  Coventry  and  East 
Hampton.  He  has  a  master's  degree  in 
regional  planning  from  UMass. 

Dr.  Edward  Whittaker  was  co-author 
of  "Quantum-Limited  Laser  Frequency- 
Modulation  Spectroscopy."  which  appeared 
in  the  September  issue  of  the  Journal  of  the 
Optical  Society  of  America.  He  received  his 
PhD  from  Columbia  in  1982.  and  spent  two 
years  as  a  visiting  scientist  at  IBM's  San  Jose 
Research  Laboratory.  Currently,  he  is  an 
assistant  professor  at  Stevens  Institute  of 
Technology,  Hoboken,  NJ. 


1977 


MARRIED:  Brian  Barnoski  and  Jill  Stem- 
pek  in  Hoosick  Falls,  NY,  on  September  7. 
1985.  Jill  attended  Bay  Path  Junior  College 
and  is  a  medical  assistant.  Brian  is  a  chemical 
engineer  in  Winterport.  ME. 

BORN:  to  Joan  (Tarantula  O.D.)  and  Herb 
Schiller  their  first  child,  Elizabeth  Ann  Schil- 
ler, on  November  21,  1985.  Joan  graduated 
from  the  Pennsylvania  College  of  Optometry 
in  1983  and  works  as  an  optometrist  in 
Somerset  County,  NJ.  Herb,  who  is  looking 
forward  to  attending  an  executive  MBA  pro- 
gram in  the  fall,  is  with  Foremost  Mfg.  Co.  of 
Union,  NJ. 


1978 


MARRIED:  U.S.  Army  Captain  Gerald 
Baird,  Jr.  and  Carol  Spence  on  September  4. 
1985,  in  Lake  Hopatcong.  NJ.  Carol  gradu- 
ated from  County  College  of  Morris  in  Ran- 
dolph, NJ.  Gerald  is  currently  attending 
MIT.   .   .   .  Kathryn  Dearden  and  Dennis 


Simmons  on  August  24,  1985.  in  Victor,  NY. 
Kathryn  is  with  Mobil  Chemical  Co.  in  Mace- 
don.  NY.  Dennis,  a  graduate  of  Victor  High 
School,  is  self  employed. 

Bill  Kelm  has  been  promoted  to  director  of 
engineering  for  Espey  Huston/Structural. 
Mechanical  &  Electrical  Engineers,  engineers 
and  environmental  consultants,  in  Austin. 
TX.  He  has  been  the  subsidiary's  structural 
department  manager  since  1983.  Earlier,  he 
was  primarily  active  in  designing  bridges, 
commercial  office  buildings  and  water  and 
wastewater  facilities. 

Wayne  Noss,  who  resides  in  Boston,  is 
now  with  Cognex  in  Newton,  MA.  He  writes. 
"Am  a  systems  hacker  at  Cognex  and  loving 
it!" 

Douglas  Thompson,  an  engineer  and 
supervisor  of  WPI's  Instructional  Media  Cen- 
ter, has  been  named  technical  advisor  for  the 
Cable  Television  Advisory  Committee  in 
Northbridge.  MA. 

Wes  Wheeler  continues  as  a  senior  engi- 
neer at  Exxon  Research  &  Engineering  in 
Florham  Park.  NJ. 


1979 


MARRIED:  John  Brennan  and  Claire 
Crane  in  Newton.  MA,  on  October  12.  1985. 
She  graduated  from  Lasalle  Jr.  College  and 
Wheelock  College  in  Boston  and  is  assistant 
director  of  the  Groton  (CT)  Senior  Center.  He 
has  a  master's  degree  in  business  from  the 
University  of  New  Haven  and  is  a  production 
supervisor  for  Pfizer  Inc. ,  Groton. 

BORN:  to  Deborah  and  Donald  Larson  a 
son,  Daniel,  on  June  13.  1985.  Donald 
received  his  MBA  from  The  Wharton  School. 
University  of  Pennsylvania,  and  is  currently  a 
product  marketing  engineer  for  Intel  Corpora- 
tion in  Folson,  CA. 

Joe  Carrolo  holds  the  post  of  sales  support 
manager  for  Hewlett-Packard  in  Andover. 
MA. 

Robert  Hart  has  joined  The  Disney  Chan- 
nel, Burbank,  CA,  as  director  of  business 
development.  He  is  responsible  for  marketing 
and  sales  development  in  new  markets  as  well 
as  corporate  tie-ins  for  the  channel.  Previ- 
ously, he  was  marketing  manager  for  Cornell 
Dubilier  Electronics  in  Santa  Monica,  CA. 
where  he  was  responsible  for  the  on-going 
marketing  and  sales  development  activities 
for  the  highly  diversified  manufacturer  of 
electronic  components. 

In  addition,  he  has  served  as  western 
regional  sales  manager  for  Artel  Communica- 
tions, a  Massachusetts  firm  engaged  in  the 
manufacture  of  fiber  optics,  where  he  devel- 
oped sales  with  aerospace  and  defense  con- 
tractors, government  and  military  agencies, 
and  process  control  developers.  Earlier,  he 
was  assistant  project  director  with  Cordoba 
Corporation,  as  well  as  sales  engineer  with 
The  Trane  Company.  He  holds  an  MBA  from 
the  UCLA  Graduate  School  of  Management. 
The  Disney  Channel  is  a  subsidiary  of  Walt 
Disney  Productions. 

Air  Force  Captain  Steve  Kanevski  has  par- 
ticipated in  Maple  Flag  XVI.  an  exercise 
involving  U.S.  Air  Force.  Air  National 
Guard,  and  Air  Force  Reserve,  as  well  as 


MAY  1986       53 


Winning  Tactics  By 
Gregory  VanHouten 


When  it  comes  to  Caesar's  conquests, 
the  American  Revolution  and  the 
Arab-Israeli  Wars,  Gregory 
VanHouten  '79ME  knows  far  more 
than  most  of  his  comtemporaries. 
And  he  uses  board  wargames  to  chal- 
lenge high  school  students  to  learn 
more  about  history. 

Last  year,  his  enthusiasm  led  him  to 
organize  the  Simsbury  (CT)  High 
School  Historical  Simulations  Club. 
Now  every  Friday  afternoon  the  club 
carries  out  strategies  in  campaigns 
ranging  from  Roman  times  into  the 
future. 

"I  belonged  to  a  similar  group 
when  I  was  in  high  school,"  he  says. 
"and  I  continued  my  interest  while  I 


Canadian  air  crews,  staged  at  Canadian 
Forces  Base  Cold  Lake,  Alberta,  Canada. 
The  exercise  was  designed  to  enhance  the 
crews'  combat  capability  in  a  densely  wooded 
area  resembling  the  central  European  plains. 
Kanevski  is  an  instructor  of  weapons  systems 
operations  with  the  391st  Tactical  Fighter 
Squadron  at  Mountain  Home  AFB,  Idaho. 

Randy  Wheeler  holds  the  post  of  White 
House  technical  manager  for  Grid  Systems  of 
Vienna,  VA.  He  is  located  in  San  Ramon, 
CA. 


1980 


MARRIED:  Peter  Sharpe  to  Norean 
Radke  on  October  12,  1985,  in  Yorktown 
Heights,  NY.  Norean,  who  holds  degrees 
from  Mount  Holyoke  College  and  the  Univer- 
sity of  North  Carolina,  is  currently  studying 


was  at  WPI."  Most  of  the  games  that 
the  Simsbury  High  club  play  come 
from  the  VanHouten  collection.  The 
games  can  take  from  one  to  200  hours 
to  complete  with  from  one  to  eight 
players  involved. 

"Most  games  require  the  use  of 
maps,"  VanHouten  explains. 
"Through  actual  historical  situations 
the  kids  learn  a  lot  about  different 
countries.  Players  try  to  do  as  well  or 
better  than  the  historical  commander 
did,"  VanHouten  continues.  "They 
know  what  resources  they  have  to 
work  with  and  how  much  time  they 
have  to  accomplish  their  objectives. 
The  person  who  makes  the  most  of 
his  or  her  assets  wins." 

"Tactics  II"  is  regarded  as  the  basic 
teaching  game  with  more  difficult 
games  such  as  "Diplomacy,"  "Squad 
Leader"  and  "Up  Front"  topping  the 
popularity  charts.  VanHouten  cau- 
tions that  beginners  need  coaching 
and  shouldn't  play  at  the  wrong  level. 

VanHouten,  who  recently  moved 
his  family  to  Florida  where  he's 
working  as  an  aerospace  engineer  on 
naval  helicopters,  is  currently  playing 
a  Napoleonic  game  with  participants 
from  the  U.S.,  Canada,  Britain, 
France,  Holland  and  Hong  Kong: 
"It's  been  going  on  for  18  months." 
He  has  also  developed  his  own  war- 
game  which  he  hopes  to  market,  and 
has  started  a  historical  simulations 
club  at  Gulf  Breeze  High  School. 

Greg  writes,  "My  professional 
experiences  in  Nicaragua  and  with  the 
multi-national  force  in  Beirut,  Leba- 
non, have  greatly  enhanced  my  con- 
viction that  people  can  learn  a  great 
deal  about  history,  people  and  places, 
as  well  as  have  a  good  time,  through 
the  playing  of  historical  simulations." 


for  her  PhD  in  systems  engineering  at  the 
University  of  Virginia.  Peter,  an  account 
executive  with  Siecor  Corporation,  Stamford, 
CT,  holds  an  MS  from  the  University  of  Vir- 
ginia. .  .  .  Scott  Wade  and  Kathleen  Wrenner 
in  Endicott,  NY,  on  August  31,  1985. 
Kathleen  graduated  from  York  College  and 
Bryn  Mawr  School  of  Social  Work  and  Social 
Research.  She  is  a  social  worker  at  Kennedy- 
Donovan  Center,  Foxboro,  MA.  Scott  works 
for  Texas  Instruments  Inc.,  Attleboro,  MA. 

BORN:  to  Paul  and  Deborah  Johnson 
Doherty  '81  their  first  child,  a  daughter,  Lau- 
rel Ann,  on  July  16,  1985.  ...  to  Judith 
Gemma-Sjostedt  and  John  Sjostedt  their 
third  child,  Daniel  William,  on  December  5, 
1985.  Peter  is  now  three  and  Jennifer  is  two. 
Daniel's  maternal  grandfather  is  Rowland 
Gemma  '79  SIM.  His  aunt  is  Jackie  Gemma 
'83  MA.  John  continues  as  a  research  labora- 
tory supervisor  with  Du  Pont's  Washington 
works  facility  in  West  Virginia. 


Margaret  Davis  is  now  a  material  control 
analyst  for  Honeywell  in  Newton,  MA. 

Capt.  David  Paciorkowski  has  completed 
the  Air  Force  Institute  of  Technology  pro- 
gram, receiving  a  master's  degree  in  electrical 
engineering.  Located  at  Wright-Patterson 
AFB,  OH,  AFIT  provides  accredited 
graduate-level  resident  education  for  selected 
Air  Force  members  in  the  sciences,  engineer- 
ing, technology,  management  and  related 
fields. 

Capt.  Robert  Vozzola  has  graduated  from 
the  Squadron  Officer  School  at  Maxwell 
AFB,  AL.  He  is  slated  to  serve  with  the 
1912th  Information  Systems  Support  Group  at 
Langley  AFB,  VA. 

Lisa  Wylie  is  currently  a  staff  member  in 
information  systems  at  AT&T  Technologies 
in  North  Andover,  MA.  She  received  her 
MSCS  from  Kansas  State  University  through 
a  program  sponsored  by  AT&T  called 
"Summer-on-Campus,"  which  she  started 
four  years  ago. 

Ali  Zahedi  serves  as  cost  engineer  at 
Pacific  Bell  in  San  Ramon,  CA. 


1981 


Reunion 


September  20, 1986 


MARRIED:  Elaine  DTorio  and  Michael 
Baginski  recently  in  Danvers,  MA.  She  grad- 
uated from  Marian  Court  Junior  College  and 
works  for  GE  in  Lynn,  MA.  He  is  with  Travis 
Associates  of  Burlington,  MA.  .  .  .  Eleanor 
Cromwick  and  Thomas  Kelly  III  in  Washing- 
ton, DC,  on  October  12,  1985.  Eleanor  is  an 
estimating  engineer  at  Turner  Construction 
Co.,  Detroit.  Tom,  a  graduate  of  Canisius 
College,  Buffalo,  NY,  has  a  master's  degree 
from  the  University  of  Missouri  at  Columbia 
and  an  MS  in  management  from  the  Sloan 
School  of  Management  at  MIT,  where  he  was 
named  a  Sloan  Fellow.  He  served  three  years 
in  the  U.S.  Army  and  was  recently  director 
with  the  U.S.  Army  Artificial  Intelligence 
Center  at  the  Pentagon.  Currently,  he  holds 
the  post  of  director  of  technical  planning  for 
Ford  Aerospace  in  Detroit.  .  .  .  Gary  Godek 
and  Patricia  Miller  in  Longmeadow,  MA, 
recently.  Patricia,  a  graduate  of  Westfield 
State  College,  is  a  junior  high  school  mathe- 
matics teacher  in  Somers,  CT.  Gary  serves  as 
a  project  engineer  for  Hamilton  Standard  in 
Windsor  Locks,  CT. 

MARRIED:  Barry  Jackson  to  Kathleen 
Spencer  in  Peterborough,  NH,  on  November 
23,  1985.  She  graduated  from  Bonny  Eagle 
High  School,  Standish,  ME.  Currently,  she 
serves  as  a  surgical  assistant  with  Breakfast 
Hill  Oral  Surgeons  in  Rye.  He  is  a  mechanical 
engineer.  .  .  .  Thomas  Johnson  III  and  Cyn- 
thia Lee  on  October  5,  1985,  in  West  Chester, 
PA.  Cynthia,  a  senior  customer  representative 
for  Du  Pont,  Wilmington,  DE,  graduated 
from  Virginia  Polytechnic  Institute  and  State 
University,  Blacksburg.  After  studying  at 
WPI,  Tom  became  a  student  of  architecture  at 
the  University  of  Pennsylvania.  He  is  self 
employed  as  a  cabinetmaker  and  designer 
with  Johnson  Woodworks.  .  .  .  Richard  Pas- 
saro  to  Robbin  Ann  Sawicki  in  Hyannis, 
MA,  on  October  5,  1985.  Robbin,  a  dental 


54       WPI  JOURNAL 


assistant,  graduated  from  Becker  Junior  Col- 
lege. Richard  is  an  electrical  engineer.  .  .  . 
Gary  Styskal  and  Marcia  Ryan  in  Woburn, 
MA.  Marcia  graduated  from  Northeastern 
University  and  Katharine  Gibbs  School.  Gary 
is  an  electrical  engineer.  .  .  .  William  Waller 
and  Sandra  Paille  '82  in  Amherst,  MA,  on 
October  12,  1985.  He  is  an  astronomy  PhD 
candidate  at  UMass,  Amherst. 

William  Carlson  was  the  coauthor  of 
"Algorithmic  Performance  of  Dataflow 
Multiprocessors,"  which  appeared  in  the 
December  issue  of  the  magazine,  Computer. 
He  is  a  doctoral  student  in  electrical  engineer- 
ing at  Purdue  University.  His  current  research 
interests  include  multiprocessors,  dataflow 
computering  techniques  and  performance 
evaluation  of  new  computer  systems.  A  stu- 
dent member  of  the  IEEE  Computer  Society, 
he  holds  an  MSEE  from  Purdue. 

Tom  Clark  works  for  Stratus  Computer 
Inc.,  Marlboro,  MA. 

Bob  Daley  serves  as  a  standards  engineer 
for  Sikorsky  in  Stratford,  CT.  His  wife,  Su- 
sanne,  is  a  merchandise  manager  for  Brian 
Alden,  Clinton,  CT. 

Craig  Dempsey  has  completed  a  two-year 
assignment  as  shift  supervisor  for  GE's  Knolls 
Atomic  Power  Laboratory  in  Windsor,  CT. 
He  was  recently  promoted  to  senior  field 
engineer.  He  will  represent  GE  at  the  Pearl 
Harbor  Naval  Shipyard  in  support  of  nuclear 
powered  attack  submarines. 

Ethan  Foster  serves  as  lead  programmer/ 
analyst  at  Harvard  Medical  School,  Boston. 

Lt.  Mark  Malenbaum,  USAF,  was  pro- 
moted to  captain  in  October.  Stationed  at  the 
Los  Angeles  AFB  in  El  Segundo,  CA,  he  is 
currently  a  project  engineer  on  the  Consoli- 
dated Space  Operation  Center  being  built  in 
Colorado  Springs.  He  has  a  master's  degree 
from  Chandler  College,  El  Segundo.  CA. 


1982 


MARRIED:  Paul  Lindenfelzer  III  and  San- 
dra Delmolinoon  November  9,  1985,  in  West 
Stockbridge,  MA.  Sandra  graduated  from 
Becker  Jr.  College.  She  is  a  receptionist  and 
secretary  at  GE,  where  Paul  is  an  engineer. 
Last  May,  he  received  his  MSEE  from  RPI. 
.  .  .  Wilson  Powell  and  Sonia  Adrianowycz 
'83  on  October  12,  1985,  in  Ansonia,  CT. 
She  holds  a  degree  in  chemical  engineering. 
He  is  a  software  engineer  with  Raytheon 
Company.  .  .  .  Wolfgang  Strobel  and  Karen 
Nickolas  in  New  Britain,  CT,  on  September 
22,  1985.  Karen  graduated  from  Central  Con- 
necticut State  University.  .  .  .  Christopher 
Wraight  and  Katherine  Higgins  in  East 
Lyme,  CT,  on  November  29,  1985. 
Katherine,  who  graduated  from  Lesley  Col- 
lege, Cambridge,  MA,  is  employed  by 
CIGNA  Corp.,  Boston.  Chris  works  for 
AT&T  Information  Systems,  Morristown, 
NJ. 

Richard  Bolstridge  has  transferred  from 
Applicon  in  Burlington,  MA,  to  Flopetrol 
Johnston,  a  division  of  Schlumberger  Ltd.  in 
Houston.  TX. 

David  Freitas  is  with  Marshall  Contractors 
in  Rumford,  RI. 

James  Kaemmerlen  serves  as  a  mechani- 


cal engineer  with  BIF  in  West  Warwick,  RI. 

Daniel  O'Laughlin  holds  the  post  of  sys- 
tems engineer  at  RCA  Corporation  in  Cam- 
den, NJ. 

Prof.  Helen  Vassal  lo  of  WPI's  Manage- 
ment Department,  was  awarded  honorable 
mention  for  Outstanding  Advisor  of  the  Year 
at  the  Phi  Sigma  Sigma  national  convention 
held  in  August  in  Columbia,  MD.  She  con- 
ducted a  workshop  on  Communication  and 
Cohesion  at  the  convention.  Her  article,  "The 
Pharmacology  of  Local  Anesthetics,"  was 
included  in  the  Continuing  Education  Semi- 
nar Series,  Department  of  Anesthesia,  Aca- 
demic Health  Science  Center,  University  of 
Medicine  and  Dentistry  of  New  Jersey, 
Rutgers  Medical  School. 


1983 


MARRIED:  Brian  Perkins  and  Susan 
Kirkman  '84  in  Otter  River,  MA,  on  July  20, 
1985.  Besides  WPI,  Susan  graduated  from  the 
John  Robert  Powers  Modeling  School.  She  is 
a  civil  engineer  with  the  Massachusetts 
Department  of  Public  Works.  Brian  is  an  elec- 
trical engineer  with  Raytheon  Co.,  Wayland, 
MA.  .  .  .  Paul  Perron  and  Brenda  Boucher 
on  September  21,  1985,  in  Westboro,  MA. 
Brenda  graduated  from  Quinsigamond  Com- 
munity College,  Worcester.  Paul  serves  as  an 
analytical  engineer  at  Pratt  and  Whitney  Air- 
craft in  East  Hartford,  CT.  .  .  .  Christos  Ross 
and  Meggan  McGuiness  on  September  22, 
1985.  Meggan  is  a  radiological  engineer  for 
GE-Knolls  Atomic  Power  Laboratory, 
Schenectady,  NY.  Christos  works  for  GE  in 
Utica,  NY.  .  .  .  Daniel  Statile  and  Debra 
Noel  in  Bristol,  CT,  on  October  12,  1985. 
Debra,  a  secretary,  graduated  from  Becker  Jr. 
College.  Dan  has  an  MS  from  RPI  and  is  a 
nuclear  engineer  at  Westinghouse. 

Steve  Bednarz  serves  as  a  project  engineer 
at  Pratt  &  Whitney  Aircraft  in  West  Palm 
Beach,  FL. 

Colin  Craig,  now  with  Pratt  &  Whitney,  is 
also  pursuing  a  master's  degree  at  the  Univer- 
sity of  Connecticut. 

Brian  Fuller  has  been  promoted  to  the  rank 
of  first  lieutenant  in  the  U.S.  Air  Force.  He  is 
a  mechanical  engineer  with  the  2835th  Elec- 
tronic Systems  Division  at  Hanscom  AFB, 
MA. 

Mark  Millay  continues  with  GTE  in  West- 
boro, MA. 

Mark  Mungeam  works  for  Classic  Golf 
Course  Builders,  Palmetto,  FL. 

Nicholas  Ortyl  is  principal  engineer  for 
Colt  Industries,  Chandler-Evans  Division, 
West  Hartford,  CT. 

Sean  Suckling,  who  has  an  MBA  from 
RPI.  is  a  jet  engine  mechanic  at  Griffiss  AFB, 
Rome,  NY. 

Eric  Tuvesson  works  as  a  hardware  engi- 
neer II  at  Wang  Labs  in  Lowell,  MA. 


1984 


MARRIED:  David  Anderson  and  Mary 
Foley  in  Franklin,  MA,  on  November  9, 
1985.  Mary  is  with  AT&T  Network  Systems 


and  David  with  Teradyne  Corp.  .  .  .  Richard 
Hajec,  Jr.  to  Lori  Turner  in  Shelburne  Falls, 
MA,  on  October  12,  1985.  Lori  graduated 
from  Becker  Jr.  College  and  is  with  Epsilon 
Data  Management  in  Burlington,  MA. 
Richard  works  for  AT&T  Technologies, 
North  Andover,  MA.  .  .  .  G.  Christopher 
Heyl  and  Lisa  LaChance  on  October  19, 
1985,  in  Cumberland,  RI.  Lisa  is  with  Barden 
Corp.,  Danbury,  CT,  and  Chris  with  Colt 
Industries,  West  Hartford,  CT.  .  .  .  Jean 
Salek  and  David  Camp  in  Clifton,  NJ,  on 
September  8,  1985.  David  graduated  from 
Georgia  Tech,  Atlanta.  Both  are  process  engi- 
neers for  Chevron  Research  Co.,  Richmond, 
CA. 

Lt.  Brian  Coleman,  U.S.A.,  a  medical 
specialist,  is  currently  assigned  to  duty  with 
the  U.S.  Military  Community  Activity,  Pir- 
masens.  West  Germany. 

Paul  R.  Graham,  Jr.  has  been  appointed 
associate  field  engineer  by  New  England 
Power  Service  Co.,  Worcester.  Previously,  he 
was  assistant  field  engineer. 

Kurt  Krusinski  continues  with  AT&T  Bell 
Laboratories,  Holmdel,  NJ. 

Patty  Martone  has  been  working  as  a  sales 
engineer  for  Hewlett-Packard  in  Andover, 
MA,  for  more  than  a  year  and  a  half. 

2/Lt.  Rolfe  Parsloe  has  graduated  from 
U.S.  Air  Force  pilot  training,  and  has 
received  his  silver  wings  at  Mather  AFB,  CA. 
He  is  scheduled  to  serve  at  Castle  AFB,  CA. 


1985 


MARRIED:    Thomas   Arseneault    and 

Mary  Shea  in  Norwich,  CT,  on  September  7, 
1985.  Mary,  an  assistant  buyer  at  Quill  & 
Press  Stationers,  Acton,  MA,  graduated  from 
Bay  Path  Jr.  College.  Tom  is  with  RCA  Gov- 
ernment Systems  in  Burlington,  MA.  .  .  . 
Gary  Capitanio  and  Ronda  Will  on  October 
5,  1985,  in  Torrington,  CT.  She  graduated 
from  Torrington  High  School  and  is  with 
McCann's  Downtown  Army  and  Navy  Store. 
Gary  serves  as  a  project  manager  at  Interior 
Technology  of  Torrington.  .  .  .  John  Cole 
and  Catherine  Marinelli  in  Southbridge, 
MA,  on  September  7,  1985.  Catherine  is  a 
management  intern  with  Consolidated  Edi- 
son, New  York  City.  John  works  for  Hamil- 
ton Standard,  Windsor  Locks,  CT.  .  .  .  Theo- 
dore Fazioli  and  Carol  Asermely  on  October 
5,  1985,  in  Central  Falls,  RI.  Carol,  a  grad- 
uate of  the  Community  College  of  Rhode 
Island,  is  employed  by  a  law  firm.  Ted  is  with 
Hewlett-Packard  Co.,  Santa  Clara,  CA. 

MARRIED:  Richard  Hilow  to  Ginger 
Isaacs  in  Auburn,  MA,  on  August  24,  1985. 
An  electrical  assembler,  Ginger  graduated 
from  Auburn  High  School.  Richard  serves  as 
a  design  engineer  at  Harris  Graphics  Corp., 
Dover,  NH.  .  .  .  Stephen  Horan  and 
Deborah  Hanna  in  Worcester  on  August  23, 
1985.  Deborah,  an  RN  at  the  University  of 
Massachusetts  Medical  Center,  graduated 
from  Southeastern  Massachusetts  University. 
Stephen  teaches  computer  science  and 
coaches  football  at  Worcester  Academy.  .  .  . 
Manuel  Irujo  and  Carrie  Goss  in  Newbury- 
port,  MA,  on  June  22,  1985.  She  graduated 
from   Framingham   State   and   is   attending 


MAY  1986       55 


Augusta  College  in  Georgia,  where  she  is 
majoring  in  secondary'  English.  He  is  supervi- 
sor of  waste  management  operations  at  Du 
Pont  in  Aiken.  SC. 

MARRIED:  Wayne  Lovington  and  Karen 
Ruggiero  in  Connecticut  on  October  19, 
1985.  Karen,  a  radiation  therapist  technician 
at  Yale-New  Haven  Hospital,  graduated  from 
South  Central  Community  College.  Wayne  is 
a  materials  engineer,  surface  analysis,  at  the 
U.S.  Army  Materials  and  Mechanics 
Research  Center,  Watertown.  MA.  .  .  . 
Christopher  Papile  and  Susan  Decoteau  in 
Worcester  on  August  10,  1985.  Susan  is  a 
chemical  engineer.  Christopher  is  a  graduate 
student  in  chemical  engineering  at  the  Univer- 
sity of  Delaware,  Newark.  .  .  .  Michael  Sul- 
livan and  Kathleen  Iovene  on  August  23. 
1985,  in  Cheshire.  CT.  A  manager  for  Jordan 
Marsh  Co..  Kathleen  holds  a  BA  in  econom- 
ics from  Holy  Cross  College.  Michael  is  an 
industrial  engineer  for  Parker  Bros,  of  Salem. 
MA.  .  .  .  David  Williams  and  Patricia 
Coghlin  in  Shrewsbury.  MA.  on  August  24. 
1985.  Tricia  is  a  mathematician  at  Alphatech 
in  Burlington.  MA.  David  is  a  mechanical 
engineerforBemardDantilnc.  Wobum.  MA. 

Michael  Abladian  is  employed  by  Ray- 
theon. 

Licinio  Alves  has  joined  Naval  Underwater 
Systems  Center  in  Newport,  RI. 

Gloria  Andrews,  who  holds  an  MSCE 
from  WPI,  serves  as  a  civil  engineer  with  the 
U.S.  Army  Corps  of  Engineers  in  Waltham, 
MA. 

Daniel  Baird  is  a  site  engineer  for  Francis 
Harvey  &  Sons  Inc..  Worcester. 

Rich  Caloggero,  Jr.  works  for  the  U.S. 
Army  Materials  and  Mechanics  Research 
Center.  Watertown.  MA. 

Carolyn  Cannon,  who  has  her  MSEE 
from  WPI.  continues  as  a  first-year  student  in 
the  MD/PhD  program  at  The  University  of 
Texas  Health  Science  Center  at  Houston. 

Mark  Cioffi  works  as  a  senior  engineer  for 
Luminescent  Systems  Inc..  Lebanon.  NH. 

Derek  Doughty  is  a  technical  specialist  for 
E-Sy stems  Inc..  St.  Petersburg.  FL. 

Katherine  Driscoll  works  as  an  environ- 
mental engineer  for  Metcalf  &  Eddv.  Wake- 
field. MA. 

Robert  Gibbons  serves  as  quality  control 
manufacturing  engineer  in  the  equipment 
division  at  Raytheon  in  Waltham.  MA. 

Larry  Haith  is  a  research  associate  with 
Creative  Biomolecules  in  Hopkinton.  MA. 

Bruce  Harley  works  as  a  design  engineer 
for  Capitol  Circuits  Corp.,  Allston.  MA. 

Lt.  Michael  Hobson  is  a  flight  test  engi- 
neer with  the  U.S.  Air  Force.  Edwards  AFB. 
CA. 

Denise  Johnston,  who  continues  as  a 
project  engineer  (mechanical)  at  Wey- 
erhaeuser in  Longview.  WA.  is  also 
employed  as  an  aerobic  dance  and  nautilus 
instructor  for  the  Family  Fitness  Center  in 
Vancouver. 

2/Lt.  Daniel  Kennedy  is  an  air  defense 
control  officer  with  the  U.S.  Marine  Corps  at 
Camp  Pendleton.  CA. 

Robert  Kunemund  serves  as  a  patent 
examiner  with  the  U.S.  Patent  and  Trademark 
Office.  Arlington.  VA. 

Mark  LaCasse  holds  the  post  of  senior 
project  member  of  the  technical  staff  at  RCA 


in  Burlington.  MA.  He  has  an  MSEE  from 
WPI. 

Daniel  Laprade  is  on  a  two-year  assign- 
ment in  Nepal  with  the  Peace  Corps. 

Richard  Levy,  who  has  a  PhD  from  WPI. 
an  MA  from  Clark  University  and  a  BA  from 
Colby  College,  is  a  consulting  scientist  for 
Millipore  Corp..  Bedford,  MA. 

Wayne  Lipson  continues  as  a  graduate  stu- 
dent at  WPI. 

Edward  Mackey  is  with  Raytheon  Com- 
pany. 

Robert  MacLeod,  Jr.  who  recently  gradu- 
ated from  OTS  at  Lackland  AFB.  TX.  now 
holds  the  post  of  second  lieutenant  with  the 
U.S.  Air  Force.  Scott  AFB.  Belleville.  IL. 
The  12- week  course  held  at  Lackland  AFB 
trained  selected  college  graduates  to  apply 
communicative  skills,  professional  knowl- 
edge, leadership  and  management  in  positions 
of  responsibility. 

Alan  Macomber  serves  as  a  project  engi- 
neer at  United  Technologies*  Hamilton  Stan- 
dard Division  in  Windsor  Locks.  CT. 

David  Madamba  works  for  Hamilton 
Standard. 

Kelly  Madden  has  joined  Raytheon. 

Kevin  Madden  works  for  Craig  Systems 
Inc. 

Rajiv  Maheshwary  is  now  with  Mitsubishi 
Semiconductor  of  America  Inc. 

Paul  Maier  has  accepted  a  post  at  Hamil- 
ton Standard. 

Mark  Malagodi  is  at  the  University  of 
Utah. 

Zeke  Mannel  serves  as  a  process  engineer 
at  Corning  Glass  Works.  Coming,  NY. 

John  Marczewski  works  as  an  assistant 
field  engineer  at  Massachusetts  Electric  Co. 
in  Hopedale.  MA. 

Stephen  Mariano  is  with  the  U.S.  Army 
Materials  &  Mechanics  Research  Center. 
Watertown.  MA. 

Gregg  Marcus  has  accepted  a  position 
with  Raytheon. 

Roland  Martin  is  currently  a  systems  pro- 
grammer with  Pratt  &  Whitney  Aircraft.  East 
Hartford.  CT. 

Scott  McAuliffe  has  joined  Stratus  Com- 
puter. 

David  McCarthy  works  for  New  Seabury 
Corporation. 

Deidre  McCarthy  is  with  Hamilton  Stan- 
dard. 

Kelly  McGurl  has  been  employed  by 
MITRE  Corporation,  Bedford.  MA.  where 
she  is  a  member  of  the  technical  staff. 

Patricia  McSherry  is  with  Raytheon  Com- 
pany. 

Andrew  Melnyk  has  been  employed  by 
LTV  Aerospace. 

James  Melvin  has  joined  Digital  Equip- 
ment Corporation. 

William  Michaud  works  for  Zenith. 

Don  Mikan  works  for  IBM  in  Poughkeep- 
sie.  NY. 

Robert  Minicucci  is  with  the  Massachu- 
setts Department  of  Public  Works. 

James  Mirabile  is  an  ensign  with  the  U.S. 
Navy. 

Rosario  Mollica  is  a  grad  student  at  the 
University  of  Michigan. 

Michael  Mongilio  works  as  a  junior  engi- 
neer for  Westinghouse  Electric  Corporation  in 
Baltimore.  MD. 


Joseph  Mooney  has  joined  Target  Indus- 
tries, East  Windsor,  CT. 

David  Moriarty  serves  as  a  microwave 
systems  engineer  at  Motorola  Communica- 
tions and  Electronics  Inc.  in  Glen  Rock,  NJ. 

Brian  Morrison  is  a  senior  design  and 
development  engineer  at  Raytheon  in  Sud- 
bury, MA.  He  has  his  MSEE  from  WPI  and  a 
BS  from  the  University  of  Maine. 

Sondra  Morrissey  has  joined  Augat  Altair 
International  in  Mount  Clemens.  MI 

Jim  Morton  has  been  employed  as  a  soft- 
ware engineer  by  Applix  Corporation. 

Frederick  Moseley  is  enrolled  in  the  mas- 
ter of  science  program  in  transportation  at  the 
University  of  Pennsylvania. 

Paul  Mulroney  works  for  Boston  Gas. 

Neal  Murphy  has  joined  GTE  Government 
Systems  Corporation.  Westboro.  MA. 

James  Murray,  Jr.  is  now  a  design  engi- 
neer with  the  U.S.  Government/Army 
Counter  Measures  Research  Lab.  in  Fort 
Bel  voir.  VA. 

James  Nadeau  has  been  employed  by 
TRW. 

Michael  Narkis  is  with  the  U.S.  Air  Force. 

Neal  Neslusan  has  been  employed  by  Ray- 
theon. 

Raymond  Newmark  has  joined  Apollo 
Computer,  Chelmsford,  MA.  as  a  major 
accounts  systems  analyst. 

Louis  Nicholls,  now  with  Mitsubishi  Semi- 
conductor of  America  Inc.,  is  currently  an 
assembly  engineer  trainee  for  the  firm  in 
Japan,  where  he  will  be  located  for  nearly  two 
years. 

Joe  Nikosey,  Jr.  now  works  at  Auguat. 

Eric  Noack  is  with  G.L.  Tool  &  Manufac- 
turing Co. 

Virginia  Noddin  has  been  employed  by  the 
U.S.  Government/Army  Corps  of  Engineers, 
Vicksburg,  MS.  She  writes  that  she  is  taking 
night  classes,  working  on  her  master's  degree. 

Marek  Nowak  has  been  employed  as  a 
materials  engineer  by  GE  in  Lynn.  MA. 

Maureen  O'Brien  is  with  GE  Datel. 
Mansfield.  MA,  where  she  is  a  thin  film 
process  engineer. 

Judith  O'Coin  works  for  Arthur  Andersen 
&  Company.  Hartford.  CT.  as  a  management 
information  consultant. 

Tom  O'Donnell  has  joined  GTE.  Needham 
Heights.  MA. 

Charles  Owen  has  been  employed  by  Digi- 
tal Equipment  Corporation. 

Robert  Pacecca  works  as  an  associate 
engineer  for  General  Dynamics-Electric  Boat. 
Groton.  CT. 

John  Packer  is  now  with  Off  Shore  Engi- 
neering. 

Angela  Padavano  is  currently  attending 
the  master's  program  in  fire  protection  engi- 
neering at  WPI  full  time. 

Francisco  Palacios,  who  has  his  MBA 
from  WPI.  works  as  manager  of  instruments 
and  controls  at  Riley  Stoker  in  Worcester. 

John  Palczynski,  Jr.  is  now  with  Digital 
Equipment  Corporation. 

Harold  Paraghamian  holds  the  post  of 
supervisor  of  project  engineering  at  Norton 
Co.  in  Worcester.  He  has  a  BS  from  North- 
eastern and  an  MBA  from  WPI. 

Kathy  Parker  works  for  the  Naval  Under- 
water Systems  Center. 

Richard  Parsons  works  for  Turner  Con- 


56       WPI  JOURNAL 


struction  Co..  Boston.  MA.  as  a  field  engi- 
neer. 

Benjamin  Paul  is  a  graduate  student  at 
MIT. 

Thomas  Pelnik  is  studying  at  the  Univer- 
sity of  Rhode  Island. 

Luigi  Peluso  works  as  a  product  design 
engineer  at  Torrington  Company  in  Connecti- 
cut. 

Charles  Penta  works  at  New  Seabury  Cor- 
poration. 

Eric  Peterson  now  works  for  Augat  Inc., 
Attleboro,  MA. 

Roy  Peterson  has  accepted  a  post  at  Ray- 
theon Company's  Submarine  Signal  Division 
in  Portsmouth,  RI. 

Michael  Petkewich  has  joined  Dennison 
Manufacturing  Company.  He  works  in 
Framingham,  MA. 

Ann  Pettit  works  for  AT&T  Technologies. 

Elizabeth  Phalen  is  currently  employed  at 
Digital  Equipment  Corporation. 

Alan  Phipps  has  joined  NelmorCo.,  North 
Uxbridge,  MA. 

Martin  Pierce  works  as  a  mechanical 
design  engineer  at  Pratt  &  Whitney  Aircraft. 
West  Palm  Beach,  FL. 

Liza  Pierro  works  for  RCA. 

Robert  Pierson  is  now  employed  by  Gen- 
eral Electric. 

Steven  Pinkerton  has  joined  the  Dynapert 
Division  of  Emhart  Corporation  in  Beverly. 
MA. 

Daniel  Pitkowsky  works  as  a  sales  engi- 
neer for  GE  in  Jacksonville.  FL. 

Robert  Pizzano  has  been  employed  by 
MITRE  Corporation,  Bedford,  MA,  as  a 
member  of  the  technical  staff. 

Walter  Plante  continues  as  a  teaching 
assistant  at  WPI. 

James  Polewaczyk  works  as  a  field  engi- 
neer for  Hewlett-Packard.  Lexington.  MA. 

Robert  Power  works  for  General 
Dynamics-Electric  Boat. 

Mark  Primmer  serves  an  ensign  in  the 
U.S.  Navy,  Naval  Aviation  Schools  Com- 
mand, Pensacola,  FL.  Last  summer,  he  was 
assigned  to  temporary  duty  at  the  Pentagon. 
Currently,  he  is  training  to  be  a  naval  flight 
officer. 

Anne  Provencher  works  for  Procter  & 
Gamble. 

Edward  Quigley  is  an  associate  engineer  at 
General  Dynamics-Electric  Boat  in  Groton. 
CT. 

Michael  Raspuzzi  works  for  Digital 
Equipment  Corporation. 

Brent  Reedstrom  is  with  Allied  Chemical. 

Ellen  Regan  has  joined  Stone  &  Webster 
Engineering  Corporation. 

James  Richard  has  been  employed  by 
GCA. 

Virginia  Roach  holds  the  post  of  civil 
(environmental)  engineer  at  Camp  Dresser  & 
McKee  Inc.,  Boston. 

Franz  Roesner  works  as  a  product  repre- 
sentative for  Siemens-AUis  Inc.,  Atlanta. 
GA. 

Steven  Rogers  is  with  Pratt  &  Whitney 
Division. 

Jorge  Ros  has  joined  Intel. 

Stephen  Roughan  is  with  Raytheon  Com- 
pany. 

Kenneth  St.  Hilaire  works  for  Transcom 
Electronics. 


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Marc  Sanfacon  is  employed  by  Data  Gen- 
eral. 

John  Scacciotti  has  joined  General  Electric 
as  a  sales  engineer  in  Elmonte,  CA. 

Rochelle  Scala  has  been  employed  by 
Computervision. 

Laura  Mackertich  Scanlon  is  now  with 
Paul  Carroll  Associates  in  Boston. 

John  Scanned  works  as  a  transportation 
engineer  at  BSC  Engineering  in  Boston. 

Scott  Schaefer  is  DEC  systems  manager 
with  Access  Technology  Inc.,  South  Natick. 
MA. 

Victor  Schubert  is  a  graduate  student  at 
Southern  Methodist  University. 

Brian  Sears  has  been  employed  by  Pratt  & 
Whitney. 

Ronald  Sedergren  works  for  GE. 

Michael  Shea  works  for  Con-Edison. 

Nikhil  Shah  has  been  named  a  project 
engineer  in  the  Admiral  Division  of  Magic 
Chef. 

David  Sheehan  is  concerned  with  semicon- 


ductor sales  at  Texas  Instruments,  Dallas, 
TX.  He  is  also  directing  his  energies  toward 
the  development  of  a  professional  lacrosse 
league. 

Joseph  Simonelli  has  joined  GTE- 
Communication  Systems  Division,  Natick. 
MA. 

Mark  Skinner  is  employed  by  General 
Electric. 

Air  Force  2/Lt.  Gary  Smith  has  arrived  for 
duty  with  the  71st  Student  Squadron.  He  is 
currently  stationed  at  Vance  Air  Force  Base  in 
OK. 

Jeffrey  Smith  works  for  New  England 
Power  Service. 

John  Snow  has  been  employed  by  General 
Electric.  He  currently  works  at  the  Lynn, 
MA,  facility. 

Peter  Spinney  has  accepted  a  post  with  the 
Research  and  Development  department  at 
Raytheon  Company.  He  works  in  Northboro. 
MA. 

Mark  Stanley  is  currently  employed  as  an 


MAY  1986       57 


industrial  engineer  at  Princess  House,  North 
Dighton,  MA. 

Russell  Staples  has  been  employed  as  a 
quality  assurance  engineer  at  Jamesbury 
Corp.,  Worcester.  He  has  an  MBA  from  WPI 
and  a  BS  from  Tufts. 

Frank  Statkus  holds  the  post  of  engineer- 
ing manager  at  IC  Testing  Inc.,  Sudbury, 
MA.  Besides  degrees  from  Worcester  Junior 
College  and  Northeastern,  he  has  an  MS  in 
management  from  WPI.  Previously,  he  was 
employed  at  Data  General,  RCA,  Raytheon 
and  Fenwal  Inc.  He  and  his  wife,  Patricia, 
have  three  children. 

Craig  Stearns  is  an  associate  engineer  in 
design  and  development  at  Raytheon  in 
Andover,  MA. 

Scott  Stefanov  has  been  commissioned  a 
second  lieutenant  in  the  United  States  Air 
Force  upon  graduation  from  Officer  Training 
School  at  Lackland  AFB,  Texas.  He  is  cur- 
rently stationed  at  Wright-Patterson  AFB  in 
Ohio,  where  he  is  an  avionics  systems  engi- 
neer. 

Jeffrey  Stevens  works  for  Raytheon  Com- 
pany. 

Susan  Stidsen  has  accepted  a  post  with 
Pratt  &  Whitney. 

Nancy  Stone  is  a  graduate  student  in  chem- 
istry at  Brown. 

Robert  Stoodt  holds  the  post  of  mechani- 
cal engineer  at  Naval  Underwater  Systems 
Center,  New  London,  CT. 

Kirsten  Storm  works  for  Westinghouse 
Electric.  Monroeville,  PA,  as  a  manufactur- 
ing controls  engineer  in  the  apparatus  divi- 
sion. 

Jonathan  Story  has  been  named  as  produc- 
tion engineer  at  Union  Carbide/Molecular 
Sieve  in  Chickasaw,  AL. 

Michael  Strzepa  works  for  Digital  Equip- 
ment Corporation. 

Patrick  Tacelli  has  joined  Pratt  &  Whit- 
ney. 

David  Tahajian  is  employed  by  Raytheon 
Company. 

Olanivi  Taiwo  is  at  RPI. 

David  Tardito  is  currently  employed  at 
Raytheon,  Marlboro.  MA.  as  an  associate 
electrical  engineer. 

Kathy  Taylor  has  joined  Procter  &  Gam- 
ble. Quincy,  MA,  as  manufacturing  manager. 

Lloyd  Tepper  works  for  GE's  Knolls 
Atomic  Laboratory  in  Schenectady,  NY. 

Craig  Therrien  works  for  General  Elec- 
tric. 

Barbara  Thissell  works  for  Barnes  and 
Jarnis  Inc..  Boston. 

Jean  "J. P."  Thomsin  is  studying  for  a 
master's  in  theoretical  and  applied  mechanics 
at  Cornell  University. 

Shaun  Tine  works  for  Grace  Heights- 
Mukonoso  II  in  Japan.  He  writes,  "Love 
Japan.  People  are  great!*' 

R.  Christopher  Trimper  works  for  Ray- 
theon Company. 

Barry  Tripp  is  an  associate  engineer  with 
Raytheon  in  Bedford,  MA. 

Hank  Valcour  serves  as  a  cryogenic  test 
technician  at  Koch  Process  Systems  in  West- 
boro,  MA. 

John  Voccio  is  doing  graduate  work  at 
MIT. 

Scott  Wahlstrom  has  joined  Dennison 
Manufacturing,  Framingham,  MA,  where  he 


is  a  project  engineer. 

David  Wall  has  accepted  a  post  as  a  soft- 
ware engineer  with  Digital  Equipment  in 
Marlboro,  MA. 

Maureen  Walsh  works  as  a  production 
control  supervisor  for  General  Electric  in 
Everett,  MA. 

Matthew  Wasielewski  has  joined  Wes- 
tinghouse. 

Richard  Weed  serves  as  an  environmental 
process  engineer  at  C.T.  Main  Corporation  in 
Boston. 

Dan  Weinshenker  is  a  field  recruiter  with 
Business  Executives  for  National  Security, 
Louisville,  CO. 

Fran  Weiss  has  been  employed  as  a  sys- 
tems engineer  by  Corning  Glass  Works, 
Corning,  NY. 

Paul  Westgate  is  at  Purdue  University. 

Scott  Wheaton  works  as  a  development 
engineer  at  Engelhard  Corporation  in  Edison, 
NJ. 

Stephen  Wheaton  is  a  systems  program- 
mer with  Beckman  Laboratory  Automation 
Operations  in  Waldwick,  NJ. 

David  Wheeler  has  joined  General 
Dynamics-Electric  Boat,  North  Kingstown. 
RI.  He  is  currently  employed  in  construction 
management. 

Scott  Wheeler  works  for  GTE- 
Communication  Systems  in  Needham 
Heights,  MA. 

Warren  Wheeler  has  accepted  a  post  at 
Raytheon. 

2/Lt.  Mark  White  has  graduated  from  the 
U.S.  Army  engineer  officer  basic  course  at 
Fort  Belvoir,  VA. 

Beth  Whiteside  is  a  graduate  student  at 
Boston  College. 

2/Lt.  Jonathan  Williams  has  completed  a 
signal  officer  basic  course  at  the  U.S.  Army 
Signal  School  in  Fort  Gordon,  GA.  He 
received  instruction  in  military  leadership  and 
tactics,  tactical  and  radio  communications 
systems  and  communications  center  opera- 
tions. He  is  now  stationed  with  the  San  Fran- 
ciso  MT  Detachment  at  the  Presidio  of  San 
Francisco  in  California. 

Charles  Wright  is  on  the  technical  staff  at 
TRW  Inc..  Redondo  Beach.  CA. 

Paul  Wyman  has  joined  D.W.  Clark  and 
Company,  East  Bridgewater,  MA,  as  a  qual- 
ity control  engineer. 

Kuo-Kai  Yang,  who  has  his  MS  in  chemi- 
cal engineering  from  WPI,  serves  as  a  project 
manager  for  W.S.  Yuan  in  Taiwan. 

Arra  Yeghiayan  is  now  with  GenRad. 

Chue-San  Yoo  continues  as  a  graduate  stu- 
dent in  chemical  engineering  at  WPI. 


Thomas  Zaccari  works  for  Kaman  Avi- 
dyne. 

David  Zaterka  has  joined  Mitsubishi.  He 
writes,  "I  expect  to  be  in  Japan  until  June 
1987." 

Michael  Zizza  is  with  the  United  States 
Army. 

Douglas  Zuklie  has  joined  AVCO  Lycom- 
ing Division. 


School  of 

Industrial  Management 

Robert  Blackmar  '72,  director  of  produc- 
tivity services  at  Norton  Co.,  Worcester, 
spoke  on  employee  incentives  at  a  meeting  of 
the  Milford/Amherst,  NH,  Chamber  of  Com- 
merce in  November.  With  Norton  for  25 
years,  during  the  past  10  he  has  been  respon- 
sible for  incentive,  work  measurement  and 
productivity  improvement  programs  at  the 
firm.  He  is  the  author  of  many  articles  on 
productivity  and  has  been  a  guest  speaker  at 
Harvard  Business  School's  Graduate  Pro- 
gram. He  is  a  graduate  of  Alfred  University. 
.  .  .  Paul  Henderson  '78  has  been  named 
vice  president  of  operations  of  Pennsylvania 
Gas  and  Water  Co.  (PG&W).  He  joins  the 
company  after  having  served  as  director  of 
distribution  and  engineering  for  Common- 
wealth Gas  Co.,  Southboro,  MA.  The  past 
chairman  of  the  construction  and  maintenance 
committee  of  the  New  England  Gas  Associa- 
tion, he  holds  an  associate  degree  in  mechani- 
cal engineering  and  a  BS  in  industrial  engi- 
neering from  Northeastern  University.  The 
Hendersons,  who  reside  in  the  Back  Moun- 
tain area  of  northeastern  Pennsylvania,  have  a 
son,  Brian,  and  a  daughter,  Deborah. 


Natural  Science  Program 

Sr.  Louise  Lataille  '70  has  been  named 
principal  of  St.  Laurent  School,  a  parochial 
school  in  Meriden,  CT.  She  holds  a  BA  in 
mathematics  from  Anna  Maria  College  and  is 
currently  working  on  her  master's  degree  in 
Christian  leadership  from  Boston  College. 
Prior  to  going  to  Meriden,  she  had  taught 
middle  school  students  during  the  day  and 
adults  in  the  evening  in  a  rural  community  in 
Vermont.  Earlier,  she  had  taught  in  several 
towns  in  Massachusetts.  During  her  leisure 
time,  Sr.  Louise  enjoys  bicycle  riding,  play- 
ing the  guitar  and  singing. 


COMPLETED  0\REERS 


Roger  M.  Lovell  '18  died  at  his  home  in 
Greenfield,  MA,  on  October  7,  1985,  at  the 
age  of  88.  He  was  born  in  West  Boylston, 
MA,  on  March  25,  1897,  and  graduated  as  a 
civil  engineer  from  WPI. 

A  registered  professional  engineer,  he  was 
with  New  England  Power  Co.  for  42  years, 
retiring  in  1963  as  manager  of  real  estate. 
After  retirement,  he  was  employed  for  several 
years  by  Gordon  Ainsworth  Associates  of 


South  Deerfield,  MA. 

Mr.  Lovell  was  past  national  president  of 
the  American  Right-of-Way  Association.  He 
belonged  to  the  Congregational  Church  and 
Sigma  Phi  Epsilon.  During  World  War  I,  he 
served  with  the  U.S.  Army. 

Howard  A.  McConville  '19  died  in  Schenec- 
tady, NY,  on  September  22,  1985,  at  the  age 
of  91.  A  graduate  chemist,  he  was  a  native  of 


58       WPI  JOURNAL 


Florence,  MA. 

In  1965,  he  retired  as  a  chemist  for  General 
Electric  following  25  years  of  service.  Ear- 
lier, he  had  worked  for  Rolls  Royce  in 
Springfield,  MA,  for  several  years. 

He  belonged  to  the  General  Electric  Quar- 
ter Century  Club  and  St.  Thomas  the  Apostle 
Church.  He  was  a  past  president  of  the 
Schenectady  County  Historical  Society  and 
the  Dutch  Settlers  of  Albany.  For  a  number  of 
years,  he  was  involved  with  the  Boy  Scouts  of 
America  in  the  Schenectady  area. 

Roland  A.  Crane  '25  of  Los  Osos,  CA,  died 
on  October  13,  1985.  A  native  of  East 
Longmeadow,  MA,  he  was  born  on  Novem- 
ber 30,  1901. 

Following  his  graduation  as  an  electrical 
engineer,  he  worked  for  Electrical  Research 
Products  and  the  Radiation  Laboratory  at  the 
University  of  California  at  Berkeley.  For 
many  years,  he  was  a  service  inspector  with 
Altec  Service  Co.  in  San  Francisco.  He 
belonged  to  ATO  and  had  served  as  president 
of  the  Northern  California  Chapter  of  the 
Alumni  Association.  He  was  an  Army  veteran 
(Corps  of  Engineers)  of  World  War  II. 

David  J.  Minott  '25  of  West  Allenhurst,  NJ, 
died  November  1 1 ,  1985. 

He  was  born  on  March  10,  1902,  in  Port- 
land, ME.  In  1925,  he  received  his  B.S.E.E. 
from  WPI.  For  many  years,  he  was  with  the 
U.S.  Army  Electronics  Command,  from 
which  he  was  retired.  He  was  a  member  of 
Theta  Chi  Fraternity  and  the  father  of  John 
Minott  '57. 

Edmund  J.  McGarrell  '26  died  at  his  home 
in  Knoxville,  TN,  on  September  5.  1985.  He 
was  born  in  Worcester  on  Jan.  4,  1903. 

After  graduating  as  an  electrical  engineer, 
he  moved  to  Elmira,  NY,  where  he  worked 
for  many  years  with  the  New  York  State  Elec- 
tric and  Gas  Corporation.  He  later  became 
general  manager  of  J.  Scott  Baldwin  Refriger- 
ation and  Air  Conditioning  Co.  in  Elmira.  In 
1968,  he  retired  as  a  senior  designer  at  the 
Newport  News  Shipbuilding  and  Dry  Dock 
Co.  in  Virginia.  A  licensed  professional  engi- 
neer, for  a  time  he  taught  at  Pennsylvania 
State  University. 

Mr.  McGarrell  was  a  former  member  of  the 
legislative  committee  of  the  Retired  Men's 
Club  of  Virginia. 

Harry  E.  Stratton  '26  of  Peterborough,  NH, 
passed  away  last  November.  He  was  born  on 
December  13,  1901,  in  Fitchburg,  MA,  and 
later  studied  civil  engineering  at  WPI. 

During  his  career,  he  was  with  Wm.  P.  Ray, 
C.E.,  McCauliff  Quarry  Co.,  Seaboard  Quar- 
ries Inc.,  Stone  Mountain  Granite  Corp., 
Rollstone  Granite  Co.  and  Haskell  Granite 
Co.  In  1939,  he  joined  HE.  Fletcher  Co., 
West  Chelmsford,  MA,  from  which  he  retired 
as  plant  engineer.  He  belonged  to  Sigma  Phi 
Epsilon. 

George  B.  Emerson  '32.  a  retired  marine 
engineer,  died  at  his  home  in  Sarasota,  FL.  on 
November  1 1 ,  1985,  at  the  age  of  76.  He  was 
born  in  Columbia,  MO,  and  received  his 
BSME  from  WPI. 
In    1947-1948  he  attended  the  Oakridge 


School  of  Reactor  Technology.  During  his 
career,  he  was  with  the  Bethlehem  Shipbuild- 
ing Corp.,  Quincy,  MA,  the  Monsanto 
Chemical  Corp.  and  the  Bureau  of  Ships 
(Navy  Department)  in  Washington,  DC, 
where  he  was  principal  engineer. 

A  member  of  the  American  Society  of 
Naval  Engineers  and  the  Society  of  Profes- 
sional Engineers,  he  helped  to  develop  the 
world's  first  nuclear  submarine.  Nautilus. 

C.  Bradford  Newell  '33  died  November  8, 
1985,  in  Memorial  Hospital.  Worcester,  at  the 
age  of  73.  A  Worcester  native,  he  studied 
mechanical  engineering  at  WPI,  where  he 
was  a  member  of  Theta  Chi. 

Mr.  Newell  was  president  and  treasurer  of 
Howard  Products,  a  sheet-metal  fabrication 
firm  in  Worcester,  which  he  founded  in  1948. 
He  retired  in  1976.  Previously,  he  was  a  pro- 
duction manager  at  the  former  Hey  wood  Boot 
&  Shoe  Company  in  Worcester  for  15  years. 

He  served  on  the  chancel  committee  of  the 
First  Baptist  Church.  In  Holden,  he  was  a 
member  of  the  Dawson  School  building  com- 
mittee, a  former  director  of  the  Grove  Ceme- 
tery Corp.  and  the  Holden  Hospital  Corp. 

Robert  B.  Gurry  '34  died  September  1 1 . 
1985,  in  Oakdale  (MA)  Nursing  Home  at  the 
age  of  74.  He  was  born  in  Portland,  ME. 

For  many  years,  he  was  a  claims  manager 
for  Merchants  Mutual  Insurance  Company, 
from  which  he  retired  ten  years  ago.  He  was  a 
senior  warden  of  his  local  Episcopal  Church, 
a  past  master  of  the  Masons  in  East  Douglas, 
MA,  and  a  member  of  the  Worcester  Art 
Museum,  where  he  was  a  security  guard  and 
docent.  Other  interests  were  the  Holden  (MA) 
Senior  Citizens  group  and  the  Boy  Scouts. 

John  A.  Crane  '36,  a  retired  advertising  con- 
sultant, died  suddenly  on  October  30,  1985, 
at  Framingham  (MA)  Union  Hospital.  He 
was  born  in  Framingham  and  was  a  graduate 
mechanical  engineer. 

He  was  a  former  business  manager  of  the 
Framingham  News,  which  later  became  the 
South  Middlesex  News,  from  1957  to  1971. 
More  recently  he  was  employed  as  an  adver- 
tising consultant  for  the  Milford  Daily  News 
before  retiring  in  1983.  Earlier  posts  were 
with  Air  Conditioning  Engineering  Co.,  Cur- 
ran  &  Burton  Inc.,  Geo.  T.  Stevens  Co.  and 
Worcester  Stamped  Metal  Co. 

At  one  time  associated  with  the 
Framingham  Historical  District  Commission, 
he  was  also  a  member  of  the  local  Congrega- 
tional Church.  He  belonged  to  Sigma  Phi 
Epsilon. 

John  J.  O'Donnell  '36  recently  died  in  Wor- 
cester at  the  University  of  Massachusetts 
Hospital.  He  was  71,  a  graduate  electrical 
engineer  and  a  native  of  Worcester. 

Prior  to  retiring  in  1 97 1 ,  he  had  been  a  sales 
engineer  for  33  years  with  Johns-Manville 
Corp.  in  New  York  City.  He  had  also  been 
associated  with  Postal  Telegraph  in  New 
York,  Arter  Grinding  Machine  Co.,  Worces- 
ter, and  Underground  Products,  Detroit. 

Active  with  alumni  affairs,  he  had  served  as 
president  of  the  New  York  chapter  of  the 
Alumni  Association,  as  well  as  having  been  a 
member  of  the  Alumni  Council,  a  contact 


man  for  the  Alumni  Fund,  a  member  of  the 
Committee  on  Students,  chairman  of  the 
Nominating  Committee,  class  agent,  and  a 
captain  in  the  Capital  Gifts  Campaign.  He 
was  a  member  of  the  Poly  Club  and  IEEE. 

Joseph  A.  Stead  '36.  a  retired  chief  struc- 
tural engineer  of  Riley  Stoker  Corp. ,  Worces- 
ter, died  October  25,  1985.  He  was  born  in 
Millbury,  MA.  on  May  17,  1915. 

After  receiving  his  BSCE.  he  graduated 
from  the  School  of  Industrial  Management  in 
1960.  From  1936  to  1939,  he  was  a  designer 
with  U.S.  Steel  Corporation  (American  Steel 
&  Wire  Co.).  In  1939,  he  joined  Riley  Stok- 
er's structural  steel  department  as  a  structural 
engineer.  In  1948,  he  was  named  assistant 
chief  structural  engineer.  In  1966,  he  was  pro- 
moted to  chief  structural  engineer  of  Riley 
Stoker  Corp.  He  retired  in  1978  after  39  years 
with  the  company. 

Mr.  Stead,  who  had  served  as  class  agent, 
belonged  to  the  Tech  Old-Timers  and  Theta 
Chi.  A  registered  professional  engineer  in 
Massachusetts,  he  was  registered  in  Texas 
and  Indiana  as  well.  He  was  a  member  of  the 
American  Institute  of  Steel  Construction. 
From  1950  to  1956,  he  was  a  member  and 
chairman  of  the  board  of  selectmen  of  the 
Town  of  Millbury.  where  he  had  also  served 
on  the  board  of  registrars.  He  belonged  to  the 
Millbury  Federated  Church  and  the  Golden 
Age  Club,  and  had  been  a  member  of  the 
Millbury  Historical  Society.  He  was  a  former 
cubmaster  for  the  local  Scouts. 

A.  Hallier  Johnson  '37  of  Chesapeake  City, 
MD.  died  on  January  22,  1986,  in  Christiana 
Hospital  at  the  age  of  70.  He  was  born  in 
Hopedale.  MA,  and  received  his  BSME  from 
WPI. 

He  joined  Du  Pont  directly  after  gradua- 
tion, remaining  with  the  firm  for  34  years.  In 
1972,  he  retired  from  the  design  division  at 
Louviers. 

Mr.  Johnson,  who  was  a  member  of  Sigma 
Xi,  also  belonged  to  the  Wilmington  Power 
Squadron  (past  commander  and  life  member) 
and  the  Elk  River  Yacht  Club,  Elkton,  MD. 
which  he  served  as  past  commodore. 

John  V.  Quinn  '41  died  at  his  home  in 
Framingham,  MA,  on  August  28,  1985,  at 
the  age  of  65 .  He  was  a  native  of  Worcester. 

A  mechanical  engineer,  for  14  years  he  was 
the  cost  engineer  manager  in  the  equipment 
division  laboratory  at  Raytheon  Co.  in  Way- 
land,  MA.  Previously,  he  was  manager  of 
military  products  operations  at  General 
Instrument  Corp.,  Chicopee,  MA,  and  plant 
manager  for  Raytheon  in  Waltham.  Other 
posts  were  manufacturing  manager  at  Norden 
Co.,  Norwalk,  CT,  operations  manager  at 
Bendix  Corp.,  Towson,  MD.,  and  superinten- 
dent of  manufacturing  at  Leland-Gifford  in 
Worcester. 

In  1953.  he  graduated  from  WPI's  School 
of  Industrial  Management.  He  was  a  member 
of  Phi  Kappa  Theta. 

John  L.  Perkins  III,  '43,  of  Old  Saybrook, 
CT.  passed  away  at  his  home  on  November  4, 
1985.  He  was  born  in  New  York  City  on  Feb- 
ruary 8,  1920. 
During  World  War  II,  he  enlisted  in  the 


MAY  1986       59 


Army  Air  Corps,  serving  as  a  first  lieutenant. 
He  was  a  flight  instructor  at  Bryant  Field  in 
Texas. 

After  the  war,  he  became  vice  president  of 
sales  at  B.F.  Perkins  and  Sons,  now  a  division 
of  Standard  International.  He  also  worked  for 
The  Torrington  Co.  in  Chicago  and  Peoria, 
IL.  At  the  time  of  his  retirement,  he  was  fore- 
casting manager  of  the  Torrington  needle 
bearing  division. 

Mr.  Perkins  belonged  to  the  Society  of 
Automotive  Engineers,  the  International 
Oceanographic  Association,  the  Menunkete- 
such  Yacht  Club  and  the  Quinnepiac  Club  of 
New  Haven,  as  well  as  the  Hartford,  Old  Say- 
brook  and  Mystic  Power  Squadrons. 

J.  Francis  Sullivan  '43  of  Holyoke,  MA, 
died  on  September  20,  1985.  He  was  born  on 
Oct.  4,  1921,  in  Worcester,  and  later  gradu- 
ated from  WPI  as  a  chemical  engineer. 

For  many  years,  he  was  with  Plastic  Coat- 
ing Corp.,  Holyoke,  MA,  which  he  had 
served  as  purchasing  agent.  Later,  he  was 
manager  of  purchasing  at  Scott  Graphics. 
Holyoke.  He  was  a  member  of  SAE,  the 
American  Chemical  Society  and  the  AIChE. 

James  W.  Knight  '46  of  Longmeadow.  MA, 
passed  away  recently.  A  native  of  Buffalo. 
NY,  he  was  born  on  March  29,  1913,  and 
later  studied  chemistry  at  WPI. 

During  his  career,  he  was  with  Springfield 
Federal  Land  Bank,  New  England  Telephone 
&  Telegraph  Co.,  and  Downing  Taylor  Co. 
For  a  number  of  years,  he  was  a  self- 
employed  broker  in  the  insurance  and  invest- 
ments business.  He  graduated  from  Indiana 
University  and  took  evening  courses  at  North- 
eastern University.  He  was  a  U.S.  Army  vet- 
eran, and  a  member  of  the  Masons,  Scottish 
Rite  Bodies  and  the  Shrine  in  Springfield, 
MA.  He  belonged  to  Lambda  Chi  Alpha. 

Sherwood  S.  Vermilya  '46  and  his  wife, 
Marquerite,  of  East  Hartford,  CT,  were  killed 
in  an  auto  accident  last  September.  He  was 
born  in  College  Point,  NY,  on  Aug.  18,  1924, 
and  studied  civil  engineering  at  WPI. 

He  was  president  of  United  Appraisal  Com- 
pany, East  Hartford,  CT.  Earlier,  he  had  been 
a  field  supervisor  for  J.M.  Cleminshaw  Co., 
Appraisal  Engineers,  and  an  industrial 
appraiser  and  partner  in  the  L.E.  Thomas 
Co.,  Cleveland,  OH.  He  belonged  to  SAE 
and  the  Elks.  In  World  War  II,  he  served  with 
the  U.S.  Navy. 

Robert  W.  Cook  '49  died  in  Cape  Cod  Hos- 
pital, Hyannis,  MA,  on  October  5,  1985,  at 
the  age  of  61.  The  Boston  native  received  his 
BSME  from  WPI. 

From  1949  to  1958,  he  served  as  sales  engi- 
neer for  the  Boston  office  of  Minneapolis 
Honeywell.  From  1958  to  1974,  he  was  the 
New  England  Division  sales  manager  for 
Gould  Inc.,  an  electronics  manufacturing  firm 
located  in  Cleveland,  OH.  During  World  War 
II,  he  was  a  second  lieutenant  and  fighter  pilot 
with  the  Army  Air  Corps. 

George  Crompton  III,  '49,  of  Chapoquoit 
Island,  West  Falmouth,  MA,  died  December 
17,  1985,  at  Falmouth  Hospital  following  a 
long  illness.  The  Worcester  native  was  64. 


After  attending  Harvard  University  for  a 
year,  Mr.  Crompton  was  drafted  into  the  U.S. 
Army  during  World  War  II.  As  a  corporal 
with  an  anti-aircraft  battery,  he  took  part  in 
the  Battle  of  the  Bulge  and  the  crossing  of  the 
Rhine  River  at  Remagen.  He  was  also  at  the 
Elbe  in  1945,  where  the  Allies  met  the  Rus- 
sians. In  1949,  he  received  his  B.S.  in  chem- 
istry from  WPI,  and  in  1951 ,  his  MS. 

As  a  chemical  engineer  for  Uniroyal  Com- 
pany of  Naugatuck,  CT,  he  went  to  the  Malay 
Peninsula  early  in  the  1960s.  Later,  he 
worked  for  Atlas  Buchron  Tire  in  Detroit  and 
the  Lord  Chemical  Company  in  Ohio.  He  was 
also  chief  chemist  for  Barry  Controls,  Water- 
town,  MA.  He  belonged  to  Sigma  Xi. 

Tejinder  C.  Singh  '50  of  Bombay,  India, 
died  in  a  fatal  car  accident  on  August  29, 
1985.  A  native  of  Rawalpindi,  India,  he  was 
bom  on  April  14,  1927. 

Following  graduation  as  a  chemical  engi- 
neer, he  was  with  Koppers  Co.  Inc.  for  a  year. 
After  working  for  a  year  at  Power  Gas  Corpo- 
ration (U.K.),  he  joined  Burman  Shell,  which 
he  served  as  terminal  manager  in  Bombay.  At 
the  time  of  his  death,  he  was  general  manager 
of  Bharat  Petroleum  Corp.  in  Bombay.  He 
belonged  to  Pi  Delta  Epsilon  and  the  AIChE. 

S.  Charles  Kaplan  '55SIM  died  September 
12,  1985,  at  the  University  of  Massachusetts 
Medical  Center  in  Worcester.  He  was  73  and 
a  native  of  Framingham,  MA. 

For  43  years,  he  was  with  H.H.  Brown 
Shoe  Company  in  Worcester.  He  retired  three 
years  ago  as  quality  assurance  superintendent. 
In  the  1930s,  he  toured  New  England  with  the 
Dennison  Company  basketball  team. 

Mr.  Kaplan,  who  belonged  to  Shaarai 
Torah  Sons  of  Abraham  Synagogue  East,  was 
a  contributing  member  to  the  Jewish  Home 
for  the  Aged. 

Richard  G.  Edwards  '59  died  at  Strong 
Memorial  Hospital  in  Rochester,  NY,  on 
November  27,  1985,  at  the  age  of  50.  Born  in 
South  Weymouth,  MA,  he  was  a  graduate 
civil  engineer. 

He  was  a  former  supervisor  for  the  Town  of 
Nassau,  NY,  and  a  sales  representative  for  the 
Ward  Cabin  Manufacturing  Co.  In  addition, 
he  had  been  employed  as  a  civil  engineer  by 
the  State  Department  of  Transportation  in 
Albany  from  1959  until  1979,  when  he 
assumed  the  post  of  regional  traffic  engineer 
for  Region  6  of  the  department. 

During  the  Korean  War,  he  served  in  the 
U.S.  Army  Signal  Corps.  He  was  a  member 
of  the  local  American  Legion,  the  New  York 
State  Association  of  Highway  Engineers, 
Sigma  Phi  Epsilon  and  the  Poly  Club. 

George  R.  Barney  '60  died  September  30, 
1985,  in  Nashua,  NH.  He  was  born  in  White- 
field,  NH,  on  August  8,  1938. 

He  was  a  graduate  of  Wentworth  Institute 
and  had  studied  at  WPI  and  the  University  of 
Rochester  in  New  York.  Early  in  his  career, 
he  was  with  Xerox  Corp.  At  the  time  of  his 
death,  he  was  an  engineer  with  Kollsman 
Instruments  Co.,  Merrimack,  NH.  He 
belonged  to  the  Nashua  Lodge  of  Elks,  had 
served  on  the  Amherst  Planning  Board  and 
was   a   communicant   of   St.    Patrick's    in 


Milford.  He  was  a  U.S.  Army  veteran. 

Justin  J.  Kelley  '63MNS,  a  Worcester  native 
and  chemistry  teacher  at  Doherty  High 
School,  Worcester,  died  in  November. 

With  the  Worcester  school  system  for  30 
years,  he  retired  in  1981.  He  had  also  taught 
science  at  Worcester  Memorial  Hospital 
School  of  Nursing. 

Mr.  Kelley  graduated  from  Holy  Cross  Col- 
lege in  1950  and  received  a  master's  degree  in 
education  from  Clark  University  in  1957.  He 
belonged  to  the  Education  Association  of 
Worcester  and  the  MA  Teachers  Association. 

Joan  M.  Shea  '64MNS,  a  science  educator, 
died  December  7,  1985,  at  the  Dana  Farber 
Cancer  Institute  in  Boston,  following  a  long 
illness.  She  was  born  in  Worcester  and  gradu- 
ated from  Our  Lady  of  the  Elms  College  in 
Chicopee,  MA. 

During  her  career,  she  worked  at  Cutler 
Laboratories  in  California  and  the  Worcester 
Foundation  for  Experimental  Biology,  prior 
to  teaching  science  at  Millbury  (MA)  High 
School.  She  taught  at  Barnstable  (MA)  High 
School  for  many  years,  becoming  the  head  of 
the  school's  science  department. 

She  belonged  to  the  Massachusetts  Teach- 
ers Association,  the  National  Education  Asso- 
ciation and  the  Barnstable  County  Education 
Association.  She  was  a  communicant  of  St. 
Pius  X  Church,  South  Yarmouth,  MA. 

Robert  H.  Jacoby  '65,  sales  manager  for 
Electro-Flex  Heat  Inc.,  died  August  13, 
1985,  in  Hartford,  CT.  He  was  42,  a  native  of 
Bridgeport,  CT,  and  a  graduate  mechanical 
engineer. 

Prior  to  joining  Electro-Flex,  Bloomfield, 
CT,  he  was  a  sales  engineer  with  Superior 
Plating  Co.  in  Fairfield.  He  served  as  an  Air 
Force  captain  in  Vietnam  and  was  active  in 
South  Windsor  (CT)  youth  baseball,  hockey, 
football  and  soccer.  He  belonged  to  Phi 
Sigma  Kappa. 

Ernest  Poulias  '78.  a  native  of  Worcester, 
died  October  16,  1985,  in  Hartford  (CT)  Hos- 
pital at  the  age  of  30. 

After  receiving  his  BSME,  he  worked  for 
Boston  Digital  in  Hopkinton,  MA.  For  the 
past  five  years,  he  was  a  manufacturing  engi- 
neer at  Combustion  Engineering  in  Windsor, 
CT.  He  was  a  member  of  the  Greek  Orthodox 
Church. 

Wilber  C.  Rathbun  '85  died  at  the  Park 
View  Nursing  Home,  Providence,  RI,  on 
October  21,  1985.  He  was  22  and  a  Provi- 
dence native. 

A  former  electrical  engineering  student  at 
WPI,  he  had  worked  part  time  in  drafting  and 
design  for  Matrix  Inc.,  East  Providence,  for 
two  years.  Previously,  he  worked  for  New- 
port Creamery  in  Warwick,  RI,  and  Worces- 
ter. He  belonged  to  the  Baptist  Church. 

Correction  In  the  WPI  Journal  obituary  of 
Harry  P.  Storke  (February  1986),  we  mistak- 
enly named  Dr.  Edmund  T.  Cranch  as  Presi- 
dent Storke 's  successor.  Dr.  George  W.  Haz- 
zard  succeeded  President  Storke  in  1969.  Dr. 
Cranch  succeeded  Dr.  Hazzard  in  1978.  Our 
apologies  to  all  concerned. 


60       WPI  JOURNAL 


THE  LAST  WORD 


on  the  State  of  the  WPI  Journal 


In  1987,  the  WPI  Journal  will  be  90 
years  old.  That's  more  than  400 
times  that  news  of  WPI  and  its  peo- 
ple has  left  Boynton  Hill  bound  for  all 
corners  of  the  globe.  In  fact,  at  last  count 
we  are  sending  the  magazine  to  readers 
in  74  nations.  India  ranks  first  in  number 
of  foreign  readers,  with  Taiwan  a  distant 
second. 

The  August  1986  issue  will  part  ways 
with  one  element  of  the  magazine  that 
has  been  a  tradition  for  years  and  years. 
Here's  what  we  plan,  and  why. 

Commencing  with  the  August  issue, 
Class  Notes,  Completed  Careers  (obitu- 
aries) and  News  from  the  Hill  will  no 
longer  appear  in  the  Journal.  How  then, 
you  may  ask,  will  I  get  to  read  what  I — 
and  most  other  alumni — normally  turn  to 
first  in  the  Journal:  news  of  our  college- 
mates? 

Fear  not.  Eliminating  that  news  alto- 
gether is  the  last  thing  we'd  ever  con- 
sider. But  we  think  we've  come  up  with  a 
better  solution  for  publishing  the  grow- 
ing volume  of  class  notes  and  campus 
news  generated  by  all  of  you. 

In  July  1986,  we  plan  to  launch  a  new 
publication— a  tabloid.  Why?  Because 
currently  Ruth  Trask,  our  alumni  infor- 
mation editor,  produces  far  more  class 
notes— in  both  breadth  and  depth— than 
the  Journal  can  now  or  in  the  future 
accommodate.  As  a  result,  for  several 
years  we've  been  struggling  to  lessen  the 
backlog  of  class  notes  we've  wanted  to 
publish,  but  for  which  we  simply 
haven't  had  the  space. 


The  tabloid  will  enable  us  to  expand 
our  alumni  news  coverage.  There  will  be 
more  news  and  photos  of  more  alumni. 
We'll  be  adding  to  the  short  profiles  now 
offered  throughout  the  pages  of  the  Jour- 
nal class  notes  section.  We'll  also  be 
publishing  much  more  in  the  way  of 
campus  news;  faculty,  student  and  staff 
profiles;  alumni,  campus  and  sports  cal- 
endars; and  the  countless  odds  and  ends 
that  characterize,  enrich  and  recall  the 
WPI  experience  for  all  of  us. 

In  short,  the  tabloid  will  provide  a  con- 
tinuing, expanded  chronicle  of  the  WPI 
community  for  the  benefit  of  alumni, 
parents  and  friends,  as  well  as  the  current 
campus  community,  selected  members 
of  the  media  and  other  individuals. 

But  what  of  the  Journal,  you  may  be 
wondering.  In  the  past  few  years,  we've 
made  a  major  effort  to  improve  both  the 
content  and  the  visual  appeal  of  the  mag- 
azine. We've  added  pages,  enabling  us 
to  paint  with  a  finer  brush  a  portrait  of 
the  initiatives,  and  the  people  behind 
them,  that  make  WPI  what  it  is  today. 

If  you  like  what  you've  been  reading 
in  the  Journal,  we  think  you  will  be 
pleased  with  the  "new"  magazine. 
Removing  alumni  notes,  obituaries  and 
campus  news  from  the  Journal  will  sim- 
ply provide  more  pages  for  the  kinds  of 
stories  you've  said  in  readership  surveys 
you'd  like  to  see.  Each  piece  will  reach 
you  quarterly,  to  keep  news  and  views 
current. 

One  other  development  to  report:  In 
conjunction  with  the  changes  I've 
described,  WPI  will  conclude  publica- 
tion of  Newsbriefs,  the  quarterly  news- 
letter of  the  college.  Much  of  the  content 


of  Newsbriefs  will  appear  in  the  tabloid 
in  expanded  form:  faculty  and  staff 
appointments  and  promotions,  student 
project  profiles  and  news  of  the  campus 
community. 

Both  the  Alumni  Publications  Com- 
mittee and  the  Executive  Committee  of 
the  Alumni  Association  endorse  these 
changes.  My  thanks  especially  to  Wil- 
liam J.  Firla  '60,  Publications  Commit- 
tee chair,  and  the  Committee  members 
for  their  time,  efforts  and  encouragement 
on  behalf  of  our  plans. 

We  view  these  changes  as  an  inte- 
grated opportunity  to  enhance  our  ability 
to  communicate  to  WPI's  many  publics 
the  news  of  an  organization  and  its  peo- 
ple that  are  constantly  on  the  move,  a 
dynamic  community  of  16,500  alumni 
and  more  than  6,000  students,  faculty 
and  staff  that  is  helping  society  reach  for 
the  next  frontiers  of  science,  engineering 
and  management. 

We're  excited  about  all  this,  and  we 
look  forward  to  sending  the  first  issues  of 
our  "new"  quarterlies  later  this  summer. 

Meanwhile,  why  not  use  the  coupon 
on  page  57,  joining  so  many  of  your 
classmates  who  regularly  apprise  us  of 
what's  new  with  them.  You'll  be  in  great 
company! 

Kenneth  L.  McDonnell 
Editor 


R-E-U-N-I-ON 


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1926,  '31,  '36,  '41,  '46,  '51,  '56,  '61,  '66 


Institute  Day,  June  7,  Theme— 

BIOTECHNOLOGY: 

The  Science,  Engineering  and  Business  of  Biology 

SEE    YOU    THERE! 


The  Inauguration  of  Jon  C.  Strauss     •     AI  on  the  Hi! 


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WORCESTER  POLYTECHNIC  mr  INSTITUTE 


acations 


AUGUST  1986 


FROM  THE  EDITOR 


At  the  Inauguration  of  her  husband  as 
13th  President  of  WPI  on  May  10,  Jean 
Strauss  receives  a  bouquet  of  roses  from 
Jeanne  Benjamin,  representing  the 
Class  of  1986. 

The  Inauguration 

Inaugurations  are  not  everyday  occur- 
rences on  college  campuses.  Prior  to 
the  investiture  of  Jon  C.  Strauss  as 
WPI's  13th  president  on  May  10,  we 
hadn't  witnessed  an  inauguration  since 
1978,  when  Edmund  T.  Cranch  took  the 
oath  of  office.  And  it  was  another  nine 
years  before  that  that  George  W.  Haz- 
zard  was  inducted  as  eleventh  president. 

So  an  investiture  is  a  major  event  for 
the  entire  campus  and  the  extended  WPI 
community.  For  besides  the  pomp,  cir- 
cumstance, and  celebration  of  the  occa- 
sion, the  event  offers  us  a  moment  to 
reflect  on  the  importance  of  the  college 
president  as  defender  and  preserver  of  a 
mission  and  a  way  of  life  that  is  today 
threatened  as  never  before. 

We  call  upon  our  college  presidents  to 
wear  a  growing  number  of  hats.  One  is 
that  of  financial  acrobats,  balancing  a 
multitude  of  budgets  and  behaving  like 
Wall  Street  tycoons  while  serving  as  their 
institutions'  key  breadwinners. 

At  a  college  the  size  of  WPI,  my  fund- 


raising  friends  tell  me,  everyone  wants  to 
see  the  president.  Straight  to  the  top.  So 
the  president  must  also  don  the  hat  of  the 
institution's  front-line  spokesperson.  He 
or  she  must  fill  the  role  with  tact,  in  pub- 
lic and  in  private,  and  be  still  more  tact- 
ful as  traffic  cop,  referring  some  visitors 
to  the  "proper  channels." 

I  once  saw  Edmund  Cranch  field  a 
phone  call  from  an  irate  neighbor  of  a 
fraternity  after  the  main  switchboard  had 
closed  on  Friday  afternoon.  Hanging  up, 
I  heard  him  mutter,  in  good  humor,  to  no 
one  in  particular,  "They  never  told  me 
about  this  part  of  the  job." 

Then  there's  the  celebrity  hat.  One 
Drury  Lane  is  as  much  a  place  for  gra- 
cious entertaining  as  it  is  the  residence  of 
the  presidential  family.  In  their  first  year 
at  WPI,  now  completed,  Jon  and  Jean 
Strauss  have  become  acquainted  with 
hundreds  of  alumni,  friends,  faculty,  and 
staff  members  and  their  spouses  over 
luncheon,  dinner,  and  hors  d'oeuvres  at 
One  Drury  Lane.  Nothing  unusual  here. 
It  goes  with  the  territory. 

Meanwhile,  back  on  campus,  we 
expect  the  president's  mortarboard  to  fit 
with  nary  a  lock  of  hair  askew.  He  or  she 
ought  to  both  set  the  academic  agenda 
for  the  institution  and  be  ready  to  articu- 
late and  defend  the  priorities  of  this  mis- 
sion before  all  who  would  seek  to  enfee- 
ble it. 


In  short,  it  would  appear  that  the  presi- 
dent must  be  all  things  to  all  people.  But 
with  a  mere  24  hours  in  the  day  with 
which  to  perform  the  miracles  expected 
of  him,  it's  a  wonder  anyone  would  want 
the  job  at  all— let  alone  excel  in  it.  It 
ain't  for  the  money,  any  college  prexy 
will  assure  you. 

But  a  handful  of  institutions  are 
fortunate— or  clever— enough  to  attract 
presidents  who  seem  to  respond  to  the 
challenge  of  the  job  with  the  vigor  of 
thoroughbreds,  persons  who  have  devel- 
oped the  capacity  at  least  to  appear  to  be 
all  things  to  all  people. 

Yet  it's  been  neither  fortune  nor  sleight 
of  hand  that  has  enabled  WPI  to  remain  a 
member  of  this  elite  group  of  institu- 
tions: capable  of  attracting  the  leadership 
and  vision  we  found  in  George  Hazzard, 
in  Edmund  Cranch— and  now  in  Jon 
Strauss.  These  matches  and  those  before 
them— between  the  personal  character  of 
the  president  and  the  heritage  of  a  great 
institution— are  by  no  means  accidental. 
They  are  earned,  by  both  sides. 

A  Word  About  the 
Journal 

No,  your  copy  of  the  Journal  is  not  miss- 
ing pages— at  least  not  pages  that  might 
contain  Class  Notes.  As  we  announced 
in  the  May  issue,  we  have  simply  moved 
Class  Notes  and  obituaries— not  to  some- 
where else  in  the  magazine,  but  to  a  new 
publication,  to  a  tabloid  we  are  calling 
The  Wire. 

We  assume  that  by  now  you  have 
received  your  copy  of  The  Wire.  If  not, 
we'll  be  a  little  embarrassed  but  more 
than  eager  to  send  you  a  copy.  Published 
quarterly,  The  Wire  contains  lots  more 
news  of  alumni  than  we  could  sardine 
into  the  Journal,  plus  more  news  from 
the  Hill,  profiles,  special  features,  cam- 
pus and  alumni  calendars,  sports,  and 
opinion,  as  well  as  alumni  and  presi- 
dent's annual  reports.  And  more. 

Meanwhile,  we  have  given  the  Journal 
a  minor  facelifting.  We  hope  you  notice 
and  like  the  changes— both  in  this  maga- 
zine and  in  launching  The  Wire.  Please, 
let  us  hear  from  you— your  opinions, 
your  news,  or  just  to  say  hello.  And 
thank  you  for  your  support  and  encour- 
agement. 

Kenneth  L.  McDonnell 


Editor 


Staff  of  The  WPI  JOURNAL: 

Editor,  Kenneth  L.  McDonnell  • 
Alumni  Information  Editor,  Ruth 
S.  Trask  •  Sports  Editor,  Roger 
Crimmins 

Alumni  Publications  Commit- 
tee: William  J.  Firla,  Jr.  '60, 
chairman  •  Judith  Nitsch  75, 
vice  chairman  •  Paul  J.  Cleary 
'71  •  Carl  A.  Keyser  '39  • 
Robert  C.  Labonte  '54  •  Samuel 
Mencow  '37  •  Maureen  Sexton 
'83 

The  WPI  Journal  (ISSN  0148- 
6128)  is  published  quarterly  for 
the  WPI  Alumni  Association  by 
Worcester  Polytechnic  Institute 
in  cooperation  with  the  Alumni 
Magazine  Consortium,  with  edi- 
torial offices  at  the  Johns 
Hopkins  University,  Baltimore, 
MD  21218.  Pages  l-XVI  are 
published  for  the  Alumni  Maga- 
zine Consortium  (Franklin  and 
Marshall  College,  Hartwick  Col- 
lege, Johns  Hopkins  University, 
Villanova  University,  Western 
Maryland  College,  Worcester 
Polytechnic  Institute)  and 
appear  in  the  respective  alumni 
magazines  of  those  institutions. 
Second  class  postage  paid  at 
Worcester,  MA,  and  additional 
mailing  offices.  Pages  1-18, 
35-52  ®  1986,  Worcester  Poly- 
technic Institute.  Pages  l-XVI  ® 
1986,  Johns  Hopkins  University. 
Staff  of  the  Alumni  Magazine 
Consortium:  Editor,  Mary  Ruth 
Yoe  •  Wrap  Designer  and  Pro- 
duction Coordinator,  Amy 
Doudiken  •  Assistant  Editor, 
Leslie  Brunetta  •  Core 
Designer,  Allen  Carroll. 
Advisory  Board  of  the  Alumni 
Magazine  Consortium:  Frank- 
lin and  Marshall  College,  Bruce 
Holran  and  Linda  Whipple  • 
Hartwick  College,  Merrilee 
Gomillion  •  Johns  Hopkins  Uni- 
versity, B.J.  Norris  and  Elise 
Hancock  •  Villanova  University, 
Eugene  J.  Ruane  and  Joan 
DelCollo  •  Western  Maryland 
College,  Joyce  Muller  and  Pat 
Donohoe  •  Worcester  Polytech- 
nic Institute,  Donald  F.  Berth 
and  Kenneth  L.  McDonnell. 
Acknowledgments:  Typeset- 
ting, BG  Composition,  Inc.; 
Printing,  American  Press,  Inc. 

Diverse  views  on  subjects  of 
public  interest  are  presented  in 
the  magazine.  These  views  do 
not  necessarily  reflect  the  opin- 
ions of  the  editors  or  official  poli- 
cies of  WPI.  Address  correspon- 
dence to  the  Editor,  The  WPI 
Journal,  Worcester  Polytechnic 
Institute,  Worcester,  MA  01609. 
Telephone  (617)  793-5609. 
Postmaster:  If  undeliverable 
please  send  form  3579  to  the 
address  above.  Do  not  return 
publication. 


WPI  JOURNAL 
Volume  XC    No.  1 
August  1986 

2  Ten  Months  Late,  but  Oh! 
What  an  Inauguration.  Kenneth  McDonnell 

Dr.  Jon  C.  Strauss  becomes  WPI's  13th  president. 


10  But  Will  It  Do  Windows? 


Paul  Susca 


WPI's  Artificial  Intelligence  Research  Group  works  on 
vision,  reason,  and  common  sense. 

/  The  World's  Greatest  Inventions 

Readers  are  invited  to  rate  the  best. 

II  The  Jury  is  Still  Out  Leslie  Brunetta 

on  how  an  onslaught  of  law  suits  and  federal  regulations 
will  affect  campus  life. 

IX  A  Cook's  Tour  of  Vacations 

A  vacation  package  to  read  on  the  plane,  on  the  beach,  or 
on  the  back  porch. 

35  On  the  Fault  Line  William  R.  Gwgan  '46 

The  evolution  of  the  WPI  Plan. 


40  The  Binary  Gateway 
to  Graduation 


Kenneth  McDonnell 


WPI's  Competency  Exam  reigned  for  15  years.  Now, 
things  have  changed. 

44  The  Entrepreneurial  Spirit: 

First  Alert!  Michael  Shanley 

Duane  Pearsall  and  the  home  fire  detector. 

46  Life  Beyond  Whoopie  Evelyn  Herwitz 

How  and  why  WPI  student  life  is  changing. 


Page  IX 


Cover:  In  an  Atwater  Kent  laboratory, 

Professor  Peter  Green  and  Stephen  J.  Oullette  '86 

discuss  the  design  of  a  sensing  mount  for  the  yet-to-walk 

Mobil  Robot,  one  program  under  way  by  the  WPI 

Artificial  Intelligence  Research  Group.  Story  on  page  10.  Photo  by  Michael  Carroll. 


Page  46 


AUGUST  1986       1 


Ten  Months  Late— but,  Oh! 


'You  may  be  assured  that  your  trust 
will  not  be  misplaced." 

With  these  words,  Jon  Calvert 
Strauss  accepted  the  charge  of 
Howard  G.  Freeman  '40,  trustee 
chairman,  to  serve  as  13th 
president  of  WPI. 


It  had  been  121  years  on 
May  10— Charter  Day 
and  the  Inauguration— 
since  the  Institute's 
Charter  from  the  Common- 
wealth of  Massachusetts  had 
been  recorded  in  the  secretary 
of  state's  office,  creating  the 
school  known  in  1865  as  the 
Worcester  County  Free  Insti- 
tute of  Industrial  Science. 

And  as  President  Strauss 
noted  in  his  inaugural  address 
(text  begins  on  page  4),  he 
had  already  served  more  than 
10  months  as  president.  The 
reason  for  an  inauguration 
this  late,  he  quipped,  might 
have  been  to  give  the  trustees 
and  the  faculty  opportunity 
for  second  thoughts.  "If  there 
are  second  thoughts  now,"  he 
said,  "we'll  have  to  schedule 
a  inauguration." 

It's  difficult  to  imagine  a 
more  splendid  day  for  one  of 
WPI's  most  memorable 
events.  Not  known  for  its  pre- 
dictability in  the  spring,  the 
weather  was  ideal— crisp  sun- 
shine with  temperatures 
around  70. 

The  investiture  was  a  fam- 
ily affair,  since  it  capped  a 
three-month  tour  by  Jon  and 
Jean  Strauss  to  acquaint  them- 
selves with  hundreds  of 
alumni  in  some  20  cities 
nationwide.  In  fact,  a  healthy 
proportion  of  the  500  attend- 
ees to  the  inaugural  ceremony 
were      Worcester     County 


alumni,  who  had  been  invited 
to  the  Inauguration— in  a 
sense,  their  event  on  the  tour. 

In  his  address  to  his  atten- 
tive Alden  Memorial  audi- 
ence, Strauss  echoed  the 
words  of  WPI's  sixth  presi- 
dent, Ralph  Earle:  "The  state 
of  the  college  is  excellent,  but 
of  course  it  can  never  be  even 
satisfactory,  for  if  we  stop 
progressing  or  changing,  we 
will  atrophy." 

Today,  in  the  sciences  and 
engineering,  Strauss  said, 
with  the  half-life  of  technical 
knowledge  less  than  five 
years,  it  is  even  more  impera- 
tive in  1986  than  it  was  50 
years  ago  that  WPI  continue 
to  evolve  in  order  to  avoid  the 
atrophy  which  President  Earle 
so  prudently  cautioned 
against.  He  went  on  to  outline 
a  strategy  for  moving  WPI 
toward  the  2 1  st  century. 

The  day-long  Charter 
Day  and  Inaugura- 
tion began  with  a 
symposium  in  the 
morning.  Richard  H.  Gal- 
lagher, vice  president  and 
dean  of  the  faculty,  moder- 
ated as  three  experts 
addressed  the  many  issues 
contained  in  the  relationship 
between  "Scholarship  and 
Technology." 

Sharing  the  Alden  Memo- 
rial stage  with  Gallagher  were 
Joan  T.   Bok,   chairman  of 


New  England  Electric  Sys- 
tem; J.  Wesley  Robb,  profes- 
sor of  religion  at  the  Univer- 
sity of  Southern  California; 
and  David  S.  Saxon,  chair- 
man of  the  Corporation  of 
Massachusetts  Institute  of 
Technology.  After  individu- 
ally addressing  the  audience 
on  an  element  of  the  larger 
topic,  the  trio  fielded  lively 
and  at  times  provocative 
questions  from  each  other  and 
from  members  of  the  audi- 
ence. (Excerpts  from  each 
panelist's  address  appear  on 
page  7.) 

Following  a  relaxing  lunch- 
eon in  Harrington  Auditorium 
for  the  hundreds  of  invited 
guests,  the  assemblage 
returned  to  Alden  Memorial 


for  the  balance  of  the  business 
at  hand. 

They  were  greeted  by  a 
trumpet  fanfare,  performed 
by  the  WPI  Brass  Choir, 
under  the  baton  of  Douglas 
G.  Weeks.  This  served  also  as 
the  cue  for  the  stage  party, 
trustees,  faculty  members, 
and  visiting  representatives  of 
other  academic  institutions  to 
make  final  adjustments  to 
their  regalia  in  preparation  for 
the  colorful  academic  proces- 
sion. Led  by  honorary  mar- 
shal David  Cyganski,  associ- 
ate professor  of  electrical 
engineering,  the  procession 
handsomely  replayed  the 
centuries-old  tradition  hon- 
ored around  the  world. 

J.   Wesley  Robb,   who  in 


2       WPI  JOURNAL 


What  an  Inauguration* 


Photos  by 
Robert  S.  Arnold 


June  1985  had  presided  at  the 
wedding  of  Jon  and  Jean 
Strauss,  offered  the  invoca- 
tion. Following  the  National 
Anthem,  James  P.  Hanlan, 
associate  professor  of  history, 
gave  perspective  to  the  Char- 
ter Day  observance  with  an 
address  on  the  early  days  at 
WPI  and  how  those  times 
helped  create  the  WPI  of 
today.  (See  the  text  of  Profes- 
sor Hanlan 's  talk  on  page  8.) 

Greetings  and  expressions 
of  good  wishes  to  the 
Strausses  were  next,  from 
Kevin  J.  Szeredy  '87,  Student 
Government  president;  from 
Paul  W.  Bayliss  '60,  Alumni 
Association  president;  and 
from  John  B.  Anderson, 
Mayor  of  Worcester.    The 


Jon  and  Jean  Strauss 
emerge  from  the  investiture 
to  a  throng  of  well-wishers. 

greetings  of  Messrs.  Bayliss 
and  Anderson  appear  on 
pages  3  and  9. 

Following  a  musical  inter- 
lude by  the  combined  Men's 
Chorus  and  Women's  Cho- 
rale, under  the  direction  of 
Professor  Louis  J.  Curran  and 
Malama  Robins,  respectively, 
and  accompanied  by  the  Brass 
Choir,  Jean  Strauss  offered 
her  thoughts  on  "The  Fabric 
of  the  Community."  The 
reflections  on  WPI  and  Wor- 
cester by  this  transplanted 
native  Californian  were 
revealing  both  of  her  sensitiv- 
ity and  of  her  enthusiasm  for 
her  adopted  community. 

Presiding  over  the  investi- 
ture was  Howard  G.  Freeman 
'40,  chairman  of  the  Board  of 
Trustees.  Assisting  were 
Helen  G.  Vassallo,  associate 
professor  of  management  and 
of  biology  and  biotechnology, 
who  presented  to  Dr.  Strauss 
the  Charter  of  WPI;  and  Paul 
W.  Davis,  professor  of  math- 
ematical sciences,  who 
placed  the  ceremonial  medal- 
lion over  Strauss'  head,  signi- 
fying the  presidency  of  the 
Institute.  Also  seated  on  the 
stage  were  Presidents  Emeriti 
Edmund  T.  Cranch,  Strauss' 
immediate  predecessor;  and 
George  W.  Hazzard,  who 
served  from  1969-78;  as  well 
as  Dean  Richard  H.  Gal- 
lagher. 

After  Dr.  Strauss'  inaugural 
message  and  a  second  musi- 
cal interlude,  Reverend  John 
E.  Brooks,  S.J.,  president  of 
the  College  of  the  Holy 
Cross,  gave  the  benediction. 


Then,  in  reverse  order  to  the 
procession,  the  stage  party 
and  gowned  members  of  the 
audience  marched  out  of  the 
hall,  much  as  they  had 
entered  earlier,  but  now  with 
a  sense  that,  once  again,  the 
circle  had  been  completed. 

As  the  day  drew  to  a 
close,  a  reception  at 
the  lovely  Higgins 
House  property  of- 
fered to  all  in  attendance  the 
opportunity  to  bid  Jon  and 


Jean  Strauss  personal  best 
wishes  for  the  months  and 
years  ahead. 

The  late  afternoon  sunshine 
of  that  day  in  May— ideal  not 
only  meteorologically  but  in 
the  spirit  of  the  event  as 
well— through  the  tall  pines 
and  hardwoods  of  the  Higgins 
House  lawn  brought  to  a  fes- 
tive conclusion  one  of  WPI's 
most  momentous  events  in  a 
long  time,  and  one  that  WPI's 
first— and  extended— families 
will  not  likely  soon  forget. 


Greetings        1 1 

From  Paul  W.  Bayliss  '60,           R 
President,                             h 
WPI  Alumni  Association            f$ 

Dr.  and  Mrs.  Strauss,  Distinguished  Guests,  Trustees, 
Faculty,  Students,  Fellow  Alumni,  and  Friends.   I'm 
honored  to  represent  the  more  than  16,000  alumni  whom 
you,  Jon,  have  placed  such  emphasis  on  addressing. 

Shortly  after  you  got  here,  you  joined  the  President's 
Advisory  Council.  (I  guess  we  couldn't  keep  the  presi- 
dent out  of  the  President's  Advisory  Council,  but  we  did 
appreciate  the  money.) 

You  also  joined  us  in  addressing  the  Alumni  Council 
and  were  elected  to  honorary  membership  in  the  Alumni 
Association.  And  you  undertook  an  extensive  tour  of  the 
country,  visiting  more  than  20  cities  to  meet  with  alumni, 
reaching  from  Boston  to  Los  Angeles,  from  San  Fran- 
cisco to  Tampa. 

It  was  my  pleasure  to  participate  with  you  in  a  portion 
of  that  tour.  During  that  tour  I  heard  you  challenge  us  to 
take  pride  in  the  excellence  of  this  institution,  which  is 
our  common  heritage,  and  to  be  vocal  and  active  in 
expressing  that  pride. 

I  want  to  assure  you  that  your  challenge  will  not  go 
unheeded.  I  pledge  the  support  of  the  Alumni  Associa- 
tion in  working  for  the  betterment  of  the  college,  its 
faculty,  students,  and  alumni. 

Therefore,  on  behalf  of  the  Alumni  Association,  I 
extend  to  you  our  welcome,  our  best  wishes  for  your 
continued  success,   and  our  thanks  for  placing  such 
importance  on  the  words,  "the  WPI  family." 

AUGUST  1986 


Scholarship: 

The  Vital  Link 


The  Inaugural  Address 
of  Dr.  Jon  C.  Strauss 

Chairman  Freeman,  trustees,  distinguished  guests, 
alumni,  faculty,  students,  friends,  and  particularly  my 
two  predecessors  Ed  Cranch  and  George  Hazzard— 
thank  you  for  joining  Jean  and  me  on  this  important  day  for  us 
andforWPI. 

Ladies  and  gentlemen,  today  I  will  develop,  the  thesis  that 
enhancement  of  scholarship  will  be  the  vital  link  in  moving 
Worcester  Polytechnic  Institute  from  being  known  in  engineer- 
ing circles  as  a  very  good  school  to  being  recognized  nationally 
for  the  excellence  of  our  teaching,  our  scholarship,  and  our 
graduates. 

It  seems  almost  anticlimatic  to  be  inaugurated  today  as  the 
13th  president  of  WPI  after  having  already  served  in  that  capac- 
ity for  more  than  10  months.  Jean  and  I  have  now  participated 
in  a  year's  worth  of  trustee  meetings,  have  recruited  a  new 
class,  have  led  one  graduation  and  are  about  to  lead  another, 
and  we  have  seniority  over  25  percent  of  the  students  and  some 
10  percent  of  the  faculty.  Why  then  an  inauguration  now? 

Early  on,  as  the  trustees,  my  senior  faculty  colleagues,  and  I 
discussed  how  best  to  make  the  inauguration  meaningful  and 
effective,  we  decided  that  we  needed  a  different  model.  All  too 
often  college  inaugurations  are  characterized  by  crowds  of  rep- 
resentatives from  other  institutions  garbed  in  academic  regalia, 
caught  up  with  the  pomp  and  circumstance  of  the  occasion,  but 
with  little  understanding  of  the  institution  and  the  reason  for  the 
ceremony. 

We  felt  that  this  inauguration  should  be  different;  it  should 
celebrate  WPI  for  what  it  is  and  what  it  can,  and  will,  become. 
Moreover,  it  should  be  a  celebration  for  those  who  have  a  direct 
stake  in  WPI:  our  trustees,  faculty,  students,  alumni,  friends, 
and  the  direct  academic  community. 

Recognizing  that  many  of  these  members  of  the  extended 
WPI  family  would  not  be  able  to  attend  a  celebration  in  Wor- 
cester, we  scheduled  the  inauguration  in  late  spring  to  provide 
sufficient  time  for  Jean  and  me,  as  well  as  key  members  of  my 
staff,  to  travel  across  the  country  carrying  the  inaugural  mes- 
sage to  our  extended  family.  The  spirit  of  our  celebration  today 
has  been  shared  from  San  Francisco  to  Washington,  DC,  from 
Tampa  to  Detroit,  with  alumni  from  the  Class  of  1918  to  the 
Class  of  1985,  and  with  many  friends,  parents,  corporations, 
and  foundations.  The  only  thing  missing  in  these  many  meet- 
ings was  our  academic  regalia.  And,  of  course,  the  free  lunch. 

Another  reason  for  scheduling  the  inauguration  this  late  in 
the  year  might  also  have  been  to  give  the  trustees  and  faculty 
opportunity  for  second  thoughts.  Not  surprisingly,  they  didn't 
share  that  notion  with  me.  Regardless,  we  appear  to  have 
passed  that  hurdle.  If  there  are  second  thoughts  now,  we'll 
have  to  schedule  a  "denauguration." 

In  addition  to  the  inauguration,  today  we  celebrate  the  121st 


anniversary  of  the  signing  of  our  charter.  It  was  just  after  the 
Civil  War  that  our  founders  established  WPI,  then  the  Worces- 
ter County  Free  Institute  of  Industrial  Science.  The  school  was 
created  to  serve  the  needs  of  a  rapidly  growing  Worcester  with 
particular  emphasis  on  Worcester  industry.  This  emphasis  was 
captured  in  the  German  phrase  in  our  coat  of  arms:  Lehr  und 
Kunst—  Learning  and  the  Skilled  Arts  and  embodied  in  the 
original  Two  Towers— Boynton  Hall  for  academics  and 
Washburn  Shops  for  practical  learning. 

The  "Two  Towers"  tradition  has,  of  course,  evolved  over 
the  years,  adapting  to  changes  in  both  society  and  technology. 
Both  the  United  States  and  the  world  of  today  are  vastly  differ- 
ent from  the  years  of  Reconstruction  when  WPI  was  con- 
ceived. Even  though  our  civilization  has  been  transformed, 
WPI  today  is  still  characterized  by  a  strong  academic  program 
closely  aligned  to  the  real  work  of  the  world.  Our  unique, 
project-oriented  undergraduate  curriculum,  the  WPI  Plan,  pre- 
pares young  men  and  women  for  careers  of  leadership  in  engi- 
neering, science,  and  management  with  an  effectiveness  only 
aspired  to  by  peer  institutions.  Moreover,  our  faculty  and  stu- 
dents still  test  the  relevance  of  their  academic  work  not  only 
with  Worcester  industry,  but  with  the  real  problems  of  industry 
and  society  the  world  over. 

The  Nobel  Laureate,  Albert  Camus,  once  noted,  "An 
achievement  is  a  bondage.  It  binds  one  to  a  greater  achieve- 
ment." 

WPI,  too,  is  bound  to  its  past  achievements.  The  standards 
of  the  college  today  present  exciting  challenges  for  the  future. 
And,  as  we  build  upon  the  achievements  of  the  past  and 
present,  scholarship  will  be  our  vital  link. 

When  I  mention  scholarship,  many  will  assume  that  I  am 
looking  to  a  WPI  modeled  after  such  research  universities  as 
MIT,  Harvard,  and  Stanford.  While  such  an  outcome  would 
hardly  be  undesirable— that  is,  after  all,  pretty  exciting 
company— that  is  not  the  future  that  I  or  our  faculty  envision 
for  WPI.  Rather,  we  see  our  primary  emphasis  continuing  to  be 
the  enhancement  of  our  extraordinary  undergraduate  program. 

However,  to  do  that  well,  our  faculty  must  be  excited  about 
the  world  of  ideas  and  convey  that  excitement  in  their  teaching. 
To  teach  well,  one  must  love  to  learn.  Faculty  transmit  that 
love  of  learning,  that  excitement  for  ideas,  in  every  interaction 
with  students.  That  love  of  learning  and  that  development  of 
ideas,  their  presentation  to  others  verbally  and  in  writing,  and 
their  defense  before  one's  peers  is  what  I  mean  by  scholarship. 

I  am  indebted  to  my  colleagues,  Joan  T.  Bok,  chair  of  New 
England  Electric  System  and  president  of  the  Harvard 
Board  of  Overseers;  David  S.  Saxon,  chairman  of  MIT; 
and  J.  Wesley  Robb,  professor  of  religion  at  the  University  of 
Southern  California,  for  joining  us  this  morning  and  sharing 
their  views  on  scholarship.  You  will  find  them  to  be  in  accord 
with  my  message  this  afternoon.  (See  page  7.) 

It  is  the  mission  of  a  college  to  create  and  disseminate  knowl- 
edge, and  the  faculty  is  the  backbone  of  that  mission.  Enhanc- 
ing the  environment  for  scholarship  at  WPI  is  the  foundation  of 
our  strategies  for  the  future. 

This  thrust  for  renewal  and  advancement  is,  of  course,  noth- 
ing new.  In  1935,  Ralph  Earle,  WPI's  sixth  president,  captured 
an  important  element  of  my  message  today  when  he  noted, 
"The  state  of  the  college  is  excellent,  but  of  course  it  can  never 
be  even  satisfactory,  for  if  we  stop  progressing  or  changing,  we 
will  atrophy." 


4       WPI  JOURNAL 


WPI's  13th  president  following  his  inaugural  address. 

As  in  1935,  the  state  of  the  college  in  1986  is  indeed  excel- 
lent as  demonstrated  by  the  following  observations: 

•  Our  curriculum,  the  WPI  Plan,  is  recognized  as  one  of  the 
most  innovative  and  appropriate  of  any,  with  particular  kudos 
for  the  articulateness,  communication  and  problem-solving 
skills,  and  confidence  of  our  graduates. 

•  Our  faculty  members  come  from  first-rate  institutions,  have 
demonstrated  excellence  in  teaching,  and  are  improving  their 
recognition  for  scholarship  and  research. 

•  Our  students  are  independent,  well-motivated,  and  score 
very  well  on  national  scholastic  tests. 

•  Our  staff  is  loyal  and  hard-working. 

•  Our  alumni  are  generous  of  both  their  time  and  their  finan- 
cial support  and  are  justifiably  proud  of  their  alma  mater. 

•  Our  trustees  are  excellent  stewards  of  the  college  both  as  a 
corporation  and  as  a  living  institution. 

•  Local  and  national  foundations  and  corporations  as  well  as 
many  individuals  are  very  generous  in  their  support  of  the 
college. 

•  Our  physical  plant  is  first-rate.  Many  of  the  buildings  are 
old,  but  all  have  been  renovated  and  maintained  to  the  most 
modern  standards. 

•  Our  finances  are  in  very  good  shape:  borrowing  is  low,  and 
the  endowment  of  almost  $70  million  is  quite  respectable  for  a 
college  of  our  size. 

However,  with  the  half-life  of  engineering  knowledge  now 
estimated  to  be  less  than  five  years,  it  is  far  more  imperative  in 
1986  than  it  was  in  1935  that  we  not  consider  this  status  to  be 
satisfactory.  To  avoid  the  atrophy  of  which  President  Earle 
warned,  Dick  Gallagher,  our  dean  of  faculty,  and  I  are  working 
with  the  deans,  department  heads,  and  faculty  to  develop  our 
strategies  for  excellence  for  the  future  WPI.  These  strategies 
are  not  final,  and,  of  course,  in  the  spirit  of  President  Earle, 
they  never  will  be;  they  must  continue  to  evolve. 

Five  key  strategies,  which  should  work  for  us  for  some  time, 
are  as  follows: 

Identify  existing  strengths. 

The  WPI  Plan  is  a  major  strength.  The  curriculum  is  outcome 
oriented  by  design;  and  the  outcomes— our  graduates— are 
absolutely  first  rate.  The  Plan  stresses  the  importance  of  quality 
teaching,  and  our  faculty  has  responded  to  that  challenge. 


In  a  recent  study,  the  American  Management  Society  found 
that  American  industry  was  seeking  graduates  with  the  abilities 
to: 

Appreciate  cultural  differences, 
Organize  work  into  doable  tasks, 
Relate  ideas  from  different  areas. 
Work  in  teams  to  solve  problems,  and 
Maintain  currency  into  the  future. 

Interestingly,  when  one  looks  at  not  only  the  objectives  of  the 
WPI  Plan  but  also  its  actual  accomplishments,  one  could  not 
find  an  educational  protocol  better  designed  to  develop  these 
abilities.  Moreover,  there  are  many  areas  of  excellent  scholar- 
ship at  WPI  today,  at  least  one  in  each  department  and  several 
in  some.  Without  meaning  to  be  exhaustive,  a  list  would  have 
to  include  the  following  areas  of  excellence,  so  worthy  of 
acknowledgment: 

Gene  structure  and  function  in  biology 
Non-invasive  sensors  and  physiological  modeling  in  bio- 
medical engineering 

Catalysis  and  biochemistry  in  chemical  engineering 
Photochemistry  and  spectroscopy  in  chemistry 
Construction  management  in  civil  engineering 
Artificial  Intelligence  in  computer  science 
Image  processing  and  power  systems  in  electrical  engineer- 
ing 

Analytic  design  in  fire  protection  engineering 
History,  music,  and  ethics  in  humanities 
Information  systems  and  manufacturing  in  management 
Robotics  in  manufacturing  engineering 
Applied  mathematics  in  mathematical  sciences 
Computational  mechanics,  fluid  dynamics,  laser  hologra- 
phy, and  materials  in  mechanical  engineering 
Optics  in  physics 
Policy  analysis  in  social  science 
What's  particularly  exciting  is  that  in  those  areas  we  are 
absolutely  first  rate. 


Reinforce  existing  strengths  with  resources. 

Stanford  University  refers  to  such  areas  of  strength  as  "Stee- 
ples of  Excellence."  Stanford's  rise  to  preeminence  following 
World  War  II  was  based  on  a  strategy  of  identifying  these 
"Steeples  of  Excellence,"  building  on  those  peaks  with  addi- 
tional faculty  and  resources,  and  then  filling  in  the  valleys 
between  peaks  starting  where  the  synergy  was  greatest.  This 
strategy  worked  well  for  Stanford.  It  will  work  even  better  at 
WPI. 

Encourage  faculty  to  improve  personal  scholarship. 

The  faculty  members  who  comprise  the  areas  of  excellence  I 
have  mentioned  all  have  active  personal  scholarship,  here  ori- 
ented toward  research.  Many  other  of  our  faculty,  not  as  well 
known  for  research,  also  have  active  scholarship  oriented  in 
many  instances  toward  professional  practice  and  education.  We 
may  not  all  be  sponsored  researchers,  but  as  members  of  the 
academic  community  we  all  should  be  scholars.  Scholarship,  in 
whatever  is  our  major  interest,  is  our  common  ground;  it  is 
what  binds  us  together. 

James  Freedman,   president  of  the  University  of  Iowa, 
recently  captured  the  excitement  of  scholarship  when,  writing 
in  the  Chronicle  of  Higher  Education,  he  stated, 
"The  reward  that  animates  every  scholar  is  the  joy  of 
discovery— the  satisfaction  of  finding  out  what  no  one  else 


AUGUST  1986       5 


knows  and  of  making  that  knowledge  available  to  others.  At  the 
heart  of  that  joy  is  the  sublime  delight  of  getting  something 
absolutely,  unmistakably  right.  That  is  the  joy  that  laboratory 
scientists  feel  when  they  devise  an  experiment  that  not  only 
works  the  first  time,  but  that  can  also  be  flawlessly  replicated 
and  verified  by  others.  That  is  the  joy  that  mathematicians  feel 
when  they  know  that  their  colleagues  will  recognize  their  theo- 
rems and  proofs  as  'elegant. ' 

"Presidents  as  well  as  professors  must  understand  that  the 
measure  of  the  scholar 's  thought  is  the  source  of  a  university's 
vitality  and  the  standard  by  which  it  must  judge  itself." 

Improve  student  recruiting. 

WPI  offers  an  excellent  education,  with  demonstrable  out- 
comes at  a  competitive  price.  Prospective  students  and  their 
families  recognize  this  well  for  we  have  just  recruited  the  larg- 
est and  most  talented  freshman  class  in  our  history.  However, 
the  number  of  high  school  graduates  is  going  to  decline  by 
more  than  40  percent  during  the  next  decade  in  the  Northeast 
(more  than  20  percent  nationally).  Consequently,  we  at  WPI 
must  increase  dramatically  our  market  share  in  order  to  main- 
tain enrollment  and  to  continue  to  enhance  student  quality. 

This  strategy  of  increasing  market  share  is  unassailable  until 
one  finds  that  the  strategy  of  virtually  every  other  of  the  3,500 
colleges  and  universities  in  this  country  is  exactly  the  same. 
Obviously,  we  can't  all  succeed.  WPI,  however,  has  a  unique 
advantage— the  WPI  Plan.  The  Plan  is  not  for  everyone.  To 
succeed,  students  must  be  independent,  self-motivated,  and 
industrious.  For  those,  however,  WPI  is  exactly  right. 

To  provide  perspective  on  this  enrollment  challenge,  as  well 
as  to  develop  specific  strategies  for  the  future,  I  have  recently 
chartered  an  enrollment  task  force  with  representation  from  the 
trustees,  the  faculty,  the  students,  and  the  alumni  bodies.  This 
task  force  is  now  considering  strategies  to  assure  that  our  prod- 
uct is  specified  properly,  delivered  superbly,  packaged  appro- 
priately, and  presented  to  the  right  audience.  Part  of  these 
strategies  will  surely  involve  greater  participation  by  faculty, 
alumni,  and  students  in  student  recruiting;  for  no  one  can 
present  the  excitement— and  advantages— of  WPI  as  well  as 
those  who  are  involved  directly.  As  this  work  continues,  I  am 
confident  that  WPI  will  join  that  small  group  of  select,  high 
quality  institutions  that  weathers  this  demographic  storm  with 
the  desired  enrollments  of  increasing  quality. 

Improve  our  recognition. 

WPI,  like  Worcester— our  home  and  partial  namesake— is 
not  as  well-known  as  our  quality  deserves.  We  have  here  some- 
thing of  a  "chicken  and  egg"  situation.  To  secure  the  resources 
we  need  to  develop  the  programs  and  recruit  the  faculty  and 
students  necessary  to  maintain  and  enhance  our  reputation  for 
quality,  we  need  to  be  better  recognized. 

We  believe  that  with  your  help  and  the  proper  implementa- 
tion of  the  strategies  I've  outlined,  we  can  break  what  appears 
to  be  a  closed  loop  and  turn  it  into  an  expanding  spiral  of 
greater  quality,  leading  to  greater  recognition,  leading  to 
greater  resources,  and  so  on.  It  is  the  case  that  individuals, 
foundations,  and  corporations  do  not  give  to  abject  need;  rather 
they  invest  in  projects  they  consider  to  be  relevant,  performed 
by  people  and  institutions  they  recognize  and  respect.  Recogni- 
tion, in  all  its  facets,  is  a  key  element  of  our  future  strategies. 
But,  recognition  begins  at  home!  Others  will  not  recognize  our 
quality  for  what  it  is,  and  will  become,  until  we  do  so  our- 


selves. We  all  have  a  stake  in  the  outcome  and  a  major  role  to 
play  in  improving  our  recognition. 

We  are  about  to  embark  on  a  major  fund  drive  to  raise 
the  resources  necessary  to  implement  the  strategies 
for  excellence  that  I  have  outlined  here  today.  While 
today  is  not  the  time  for  fund  raising,  we  hope  and  expect  that 
all  members  of  the  WPI  family  will  join  us  in  this  effort  to 
make  WPI  all  that  it  can  be. 

Here  we  are,  talking  once  again  about  change  as  we  so  often 
seem  to  do  in  higher  education.  One  thing  that  is  so  exciting 
about  our  profession,  however,  is  that  the  more  we  adapt  to  the 
changing  needs  of  society,  the  more  we  stay  the  same.  This 
observation  is  well  supported  by  noting  that  of  the  66  institu- 
tions in  the  western  world  that  have  survived  in  essentially  their 
same  form  since  the  time  of  the  Reformation  in  1530,  62  are 
universities.  The  other  four  are  the  Catholic  Church,  the 
Lutheran  Church,  and  the  Parliaments  of  Iceland  and  the  Isle  of 
Man. 

These  are  demanding,  yet  exciting,  times  for  WPI.  When 
WPI  was  chartered  121  years  ago,  Alexander  Bullock,  then 
governor  of  the  Commonwealth,  noted,  "This  school  comes  to 
us  at  the  right  time."  Being  "right"  in  1865  was  but  a  precursor 
for  being  "very  right"  in  1986.  Our  ability  to  ignite  new  enthu- 
siasm for  scholarship  will  be  the  link  to  insuring  our  being 
"even  more  right"  for  the  future. 

John  Naisbitt,  author  of  Megatrends,  notes,  "The  old  Taoist 
formula  for  leadership  was  to  find  the  parade  and  get  in  front  of 
it." 

In  what  I  have  shared  with  you  today,  you  will  note  my 
strong  personal  affinity  for  this  formula  for  leadership.  You, 
members  of  the  extended  WPI  family,  make  up  an  exciting 
"parade"  toward  an  exciting  and  productive  future  for  WPI.  It 
is  Jean's  and  my  pleasure  and  privilege  that  you  have  asked  us 
to  "get  in  front  of  this  parade." 

Therefore,  Chairman  Freeman  and  fellow  trustees,  it  should 
come  as  no  great  surprise  that  I  formally  accept  the  charge  you 
have  given  to  me. 

You  may  be  assured  that  your  trust  will  not  be  misplaced. 


The  combined  choral  and  brass  choir  groups  performing 
Handel's  Let  Thy  Hand  Be  Strengthened. 


WPI  JOURNAL 


Three  Voices  Unite 


Charter  Day's  Inauguration  was  more  than  an  investiture.  At  a  Saturday 

morning  symposium,  with  Richard  H.  Gallagher,  vice  president  and  dean  of 

the  faculty,  moderating,  three  experts  brought  their  experience  and  views 

to  bear  on  the  issues  surrounding  the  topic,  "Scholarship  and  Technology." 


Before  opening  the  dis- 
cussion to  questions 
from  the  standing- 
room-only  Alden  Memorial 
audience,  each  panelist  ad- 
dressed a  portion  of  the  larger 
theme.  Here  are  excerpts 
from  that  forum. 

Is  scholarship  relevant  to 
today's  industry?  Joan 
T.  Bok,  chairman,  New 
England  Electric  System. 
Scholarship  is  indeed  relevant 
to  the  needs  of  industry.  For 
industry  to  fulfill  its  role  of 
providing  goods  and 
services— and  doing  so  in  a 
way  that  we  hope  will  make  a 
profit— industry  needs  the 
development  and  application 
of  new  technologies,  and  the 
people  who  can  understand 
and  use  these  new  technolo- 
gies in  socially  feasible  ways. 
Our  universities,  in  turn,  have 
a  role  in  preparing  students 
for  these  roles;  and  academe 
needs  enlightened,  socially- 
aware  faculties. 

In  my  industry,  for  exam- 
ple, we  are  faced  with  solving 
problems  in  an  imperfect 
world.  We  need  problem 
solvers  who  have  an  apprecia- 
tion of  nontechnical  issues — 
of  history,  culture,  the  politi- 
cal aspects  of  society,  and  of 
the  humanities.  Although  the 
mission  and  cultural  environ- 
ments of  academe  and  indus- 
try may  differ,  our  common 
purpose  is  the  same:  to  serve 
our  fellow  man. 

It  is  scholarship  at  our  engi- 
neering and  science  institu- 
tions that  will  largely  determine 
the  technological  advances  on 
which  industry  will  capitalize 


Symposium  participants  (L.  to  R.)  were  moderator  Richard 
H.  Gallagher,  vice  president  and  dean  of  the  faculty;  and 
panelists  David  S.  Saxon,  chairman  of  the  Corporation, 
Massachusetts  Institute  of  Technology;  Joan  T.  Bok,  chair- 
man, New  England  Electric  System;  and  J.  Wesley  Robb,  pro- 
fessor of  religion,  University  of  Southern  California. 


in  tomorrow's  world.  It  is 
here,  too,  that  the  bright,  cre- 
ative men  and  women  must 
be  prepared  to  deal  with  tech- 
nological issues  in  the  broad 
social  context. 

Are  scholarship  and  tech- 
nology compatible? 

J.  Wesley  Robb,  professor  of 
religion,  University  of  South- 
ern California. 

Unless  there  is  compatibility, 
technology  can  be  a  negative 
force,  especially  if  it  stands 
alone  without  the  moral 
insight,  understanding,  and 
sensitivity  that  the  scholarly 
temper  should  bring  to  the 
applied  sciences. 

So  little  in  the  educational 
process  addresses  where  we 
fit  into  the  nature  of  things. 
Too  often,  this  assessment  is 
left  to  the  conventional  and 
often  unexamined  beliefs  we 
have  been  conditioned  to 
accept. 


I  am  convinced  that  what 
modern  persons  need  is  an 
attitude  that  respects  other 
disciplines  and  approaches  to 
knowledge.  This  involves 
what  Einstein  once  called  a 
"holy  curiosity,"  which  is 
always  seeking  a  more 
enriching  and  complete 
understanding  of  ourselves  as 
human  beings. 

Is  scholarship  necessary  in 
today's  technological  educa- 
tion? David  S.  Saxon, 
chairman  of  the  Corporation, 
Massachusetts  Institute  of 
Technology. 

Today,  science  is  our  great 
intellectual  adventure.  No 
educated  person  can  afford  to 
be  ignorant  of  the  character 
and  limits  of  science.  Yet  sci- 
entific and  technological  illit- 
eracy is  so  pervasive  that  the 
great  majority  of  otherwise 
intelligent,  educated,  inquisi- 
tive people  are  quite  unable  to 


bring  informed  judgment  to 
bear  on  almost  any  question 
connected  with  science  and 
technology.  Most  rely  instead 
on  the  testimony  and  asser- 
tions of  others.  If  this  perva- 
sive illiteracy  is  to  be 
addressed,  it  places  clear  and 
heavy  responsibility  on  the 
kind  of  education  our  liberal 
arts  colleges  and  comprehen- 
sive universities  offer  stu- 
dents. 

I  am  more  than  a  little 
uneasy  at  the  prospect  of  a 
future  which  could  depend  on 
experts  too  narrowly  trained, 
on  mere  technicians,  on  peo- 
ple who  are  less  broadly  edu- 
cated than  they  are  capable  of 
being,  on  those  who  don't 
understand  that  knowledge 
must  be  tempered  by  wisdom, 
on  those  who  believe  that  all 
problems  have  solutions. 

The  best  scientific  and 
technological  preparation  is 
broad,  not  narrow,  and  cer- 
tainly not  merely  vocational. 
Over  the  half  century  that  lies 
ahead  for  today's  students  of 
science  and  engineering,  their 
knowledge  of  the  arts,  philos- 
ophy, and  history  will  prove 
more  valuable  than  the  purely 
vocationally  oriented  courses 
in  differential  equations  or 
computer  science  which  these 
students  are  too  often  advised 
to  take. 

WPI's  requirement  that 
each  student  complete  a  Suffi- 
ciency in  the  humanities  is 
well  designed  to  overcome 
the  attitude  too  prevalent  in 
science  and  engineering  that 
nonscientific  thinking  is 
somehow  second  rate  or  infe- 
rior. 


AUGUST  1986       7 


Charter  Day: 

WPI  at  the  Beginning 

An  Inaugural  message 
from  James  P.  Hanlan, 
Associate  Professor  of  History 


One  hundred  twenty-one  years  ago  today— on  May  10, 
1865— the  institution  that  we  know  as  WPI  came  into 
existence  when  the  school's  Charter  from  the  Com- 
monwealth of  Massachusetts  was  recorded  in  the  secretary  of 
state's  office.  The  Charter  had  previously  been  passed  by  the 
House  on  May  6  and  passed  by  the  Senate  and  signed  by  the 
governor  on  May  9.  That  Charter,  which  will  today  be  both 
physically  and  symbolically  entrusted  to  Jon  Strauss,  autho- 
rized the  establishment  of 

an  institution  to  aid  in  the  advancement,  development,  and 
practical  application  of  science  in  connection  with  arts,  agri- 
culture, manufactures,  mercantile  business,  and  .  .  .  other 
kindred  branches  of  practical  education. 

WPI  was  then  known  as  the  Worcester  County  Free  Institute 
of  Industrial  Science.  As  the  name  implied,  tuition  was  free  to 
residents  of  Worcester  County.  Others  paid  $60  per  year.  The 
institution  was  begun  as  a  result  of  the  generous  offer  of  John 
Boynton,  who  set  aside  $100,000  to  establish  a  school  in  which 
young  people  could  acquire  understanding  of  the  "principles  of 
science  applicable  to  mechanics,  manufacturers,  and  farmers." 

Boynton's  offer  had  one  significant  string  attached.  He 
required  that  the  citizens  of  Worcester  provide  land  and  a  build- 
ing for  the  new  school.  The  citizens  of  Worcester  did  so,  rais- 
ing initially  $63,000  to  get  the  school  off  the  ground  and  fol- 
lowed that  fund-raising  effort  with  many  others  over  the 
years— usually  spearheaded  by  prominent  Worcester  citizens, 
many  of  whose  names  we  see  on  buildings  around  the  campus. 

John  Boynton's  vision  was  that  of  the  traditional  academy 
with  stress  on  the  scientific.  His  vision  was  not  shared  by 
Ichabod  Washburn,  a  prominent  local  manufacturer  who  saw 
the  value  of  schooling  but  stressed  the  practical  application  of 
learning. 

As  construction  proceeded  on  the  granite  building  that  would 
come  to  bear  Boynton's  name,  an  adjacent  building  went  up, 
paid  for  entirely  by  Ichabod  Washburn  and  constructed  of 
strong,  common-sense  brick.  Washburn's  building  would  be 
designed  for  shops  to  assure  the  inclusion  in  the  curriculum  of 
the  practical  learning  that  Washburn  so  valued.  These  two 
buildings  would  come  to  symbolize  the  school's  recognition  of 
both  the  theoretical  and  the  practical  aspects  of  education. 

By  1868,  the  two  buildings  were  completed,  and  the  Worces- 
ter County  Free  Institute  of  Industrial  Science  was  ready  to 
accept  its  first  class.  The  trustees  had  hired  Charles  O.  Thomp- 
son as  the  first  president— they  called  him  principal— and  a 
fledgling  faculty  had  been  recruited.  Advertisements  were 
placed,  and  young  men  aged  14  to  21  were  invited  to  take 
entrance  examinations  in  mathematics,  geography,  and  the  his- 
tory of  the  United  States.  As  a  result  of  these  examinations,  32 


young  men  were  admitted  to  study  mechanical  engineering, 
civil  engineering,  physics,  chemistry,  drawing,  French,  Ger- 
man, and  English. 

To  Charles  Thompson  and  his  faculty  fell  the  task  of  instruc- 
tion. There  are  two  ways  to  view  the  tasks  facing  Thompson. 
The  optimist's  view  holds  that  Thompson,  who  himself  carried 
a  full  teaching  load  as  professor  of  chemistry,  undertook  an 
ambitious  and  energetic  program  with  a  faculty  of  four  capable 
men  and  one  equally  capable  woman. 

I  must  admit,  however,  that  not  all  historians  are  optimists. 
One  pessimistic  view  described  Thompson  as  aided  only  by  his 
sister-in-law,  a  young  instructor  (and  "young"  was  not 
intended  as  a  complimentary  term  here),  and  a  part-time  artist. 
If  this  particular  historian  meant  to  cast  aspersions  with  the 
term  "young,"  I  shall  leave  it  up  to  you  what  was  intended  by 
the  term  "artist." 

As  WPI's  first  president,  Charles  Thompson  did  his  job  well 
under  difficult  circumstances.  There  were  never  sufficient 
funds,  the  faculty  was  overworked,  and  the  equipment  and 
library  facilities  were  sorely  lacking.  Curiously  enough,  there 
is  no  record  that  Thompson  complained  about  or  apologized  for 
anything— with  one  exception.  He  did  express  disappointment 
that  inadequate  facilities  did  not  allow  for  the  admission  of 
women.  Thompson  promised  to  admit  both  sexes  "as  soon  as 
possible."  But,  as  we  all  know,  it  would  be  over  100  years 
before  WPI  would  admit  women. 

The  trustees  made  sure  that  Thompson  and  his  faculty  did 
their  jobs.  On  what  we  are  told  was  an  unbearably  hot  day  in 
July  of  1871,  the  new  school  held  its  first  graduation  ceremony. 
A  future  WPI  president  whom  I  shall  decline  to  name  tells  us 
that  15  young  men  "suffered  through  the  interminable  tortures 
of  a  graduation  exercise  which  lasted  all  day." 

The  morning  was  taken  up  with  each  graduate  reading  his 
entire  senior  thesis  at  a  program  to  which  the  public  was 
invited.  Each  young  man  was  then  publicly  examined  by  com- 


History  Professor  James  P  Hanlan  recounts  WPI's  beginnings. 


8       WPI  JOURNAL 


mittees  of  the  Board  of  Trustees  who  also  saw  to  it  that  the  first 
graduates  were  put  through,  and  I  quote  the  same  future  presi- 
dent here,  "other  proper  and  exacting  ordeals  to  prove  beyond 
a  shadow  of  a  doubt  that  each  was  fully  qualified  for  his 
degree." 

When  WPI  came  into  existence  the  United  States  was,  as 
described  by  one  prominent  historian,  "a  second-rate  industrial 
country  with  industrial  production  considerably  less  than  that  of 
England  and  probably  less  than  that  of  France  and  Germany  as 
well."  By  1890  U.S.  industrial  production  would  almost  equal 
that  of  England,  France,  and  Germany  combined.  Only  slightly 
more  than  1.5  percent  of  college-aged  young  people  attended 
college  when  WPI  began,  and  there  were,  indeed,  only  563 
colleges  in  the  country. 

Worcester,  in  1865,  was  a  community  of  30,000  people 
poised  on  the  edge  of  a  great  expansive  growth.  It  was  served 
by  seven  railroads  and  had  a  broad  and  varied  industrial  base. 
Worcester  was,  or  would  become,  a  city  of  some  importance  in 
the  production  of  wire,  in  manufacture  of  machinery,  in  the 
machine  tool  industry,  in  carpet  weaving,  in  abrasives,  and  in  a 
variety  of  other  industrial  fields. 

By  the  time  Charles  Thompson  left  WPI  in  1882,  both  the 
college  and  the  city  had  prospered.  The  college  would  boast  a 
faculty  of  eight  professors,  two  assistants,  and  a  number  of 
lecturers  varying  between  one  and  11.  The  mechanical  engi- 
neering program  had  grown  to  a  three-and-a-half-year  pro- 
gram, and  the  school  boasted  of  four  classes  totaling  123  stu- 
dents. Five  hundred  twelve  students  had  attended  the  school 
under  its  first  president,  and  207  had  graduated.  The  college 
catalog  had  grown  to  69  pages  and,  as  college  catalogs  are 
wont  to  do,  included  accounts  of  many  esoteric  aspects  of 
college  life.  My  own  two  particular  favorites  are  the  sample 
entrance  exam  question:  "Name  the  nouns  in  this  sentence  and 
state  the  case  of  each";  and  an  advertisement  for  the  products 
of  the  Washburn  Shops  which  offered  "the  patented  improved 
adjustable  [lecture]  stand"  which  was  proclaimed  as  "substan- 
tial, ornamental,  convenient,  and  cheap."  And,  I  might  add, 
still  in  use. 

The  college  catalog  for  the  year  Thompson  left  WPI  gives  us 
some  idea  of  the  extent  to  which  the  Institute's  first  president 
succeeded.  Some  of  the  school's  graduates,  we  are  told,  had 
gone  to  graduate  school,  some  had  become  senior  engineers, 
some  had  become  plant  foremen,  some  had  become  partners  in 
business  firms.  More  than  95  percent  of  the  school's  graduates 
were  actively  engaged  in  the  occupations  or  professions  for 
which  they  had  been  educated. 

There  remained,  and  would  remain  for  many  years,  some 
tension  between  the  ideal  of  Boynton  and  the  ideal  of 
Washburn— that  is,  between  the  theoretical  and  the  practical. 
The  catalog  tells  us  that  the  school  was  a  place  where  the  best 
tradition  of  the  academy  and  the  best  tradition  of  the  shop 
combined:  "The  academy  inspires  its  intelligence  into  the  work 
of  the  shop,  and  the  shop,  with  eyes  open  to  the  improvements 
of  productive  industries,  prevents  the  monastic  dreams  and 
shortness  of  vision  that  sometimes  paralyze  the  profound  learn- 
ing of  a  college." 

By  the  turn  of  the  century,  the  school  had  become  known  as 
WPI  and  had  enjoyed  considerable  growth  in  educational 
sophistication  as  well  as  in  numbers  of  faculty  and  students. 
There  was  no  longer  a  backhanded  apology  for  the  purely  aca- 
demic aspect  of  learning.  The  senior  theses  of  1900  give  some 
idea  of  the  growing  respect  for  scholarship  and  learning.  Senior 


theses  ranged  from  the  highly  technical  ("Oxidation  of  Sulfides 
to  Sulfates  by  Oxygen  and  Metallic  Oxides,"  by  a  chemistry 
student,  and  "The  Dielectric  Strength  of  Oils  Under  High 
Potential  Stress,"  by  an  EE  student)  to  the  political  and  societal 
("Ratification  of  the  Federal  Constitution  in  Worcester 
County,"  and  "The  Establishment  of  the  Industrial  Training 
and  Technical  High  School  for  the  City  of  Indianapolis,  Indi- 
ana"). 

The  WPI  of  today  is  in  many  ways  different  from  the  school 
in  its  earliest  years.  WPI  now  enjoys  a  large  and  learned  faculty 
of  devoted  scholars  and  teachers.  We  enjoy  a  capable  and  hard- 
working support  staff.  We  enjoy  a  diverse,  bright,  and  ener- 
getic student  body.  We  enjoy  the  support  of  loyal  and  generous 
alumni  and  benefactors.  We  enjoy  first-rate  facilities  and  an 
attractive  campus.  We  enjoy  all  of  this  because  of  the  rich 
heritage  passed  down  to  us. 

We  look  forward  today  to  entrusting  this  heritage  to  Jon 
Strauss.  We  wish  him  success,  just  as  WPI's  first  president 
enjoyed  success.  We  wish  him  the  vision  and  the  energy  of  his 
predecessors.  We  wish  him  faith  in  the  school  and,  perhaps 
more  importantly,  faith  in  the  future. 

We  look  forward  to  his  innovative  leadership  as  WPI  con- 
tinues a  long  tradition  of  excellence  in  scholarship,  in  teaching, 
and  in  service. 


Welcome  to  Worcester 

From  John  B.  Anderson,  Mayor  of  the  City 

Distinguished  Guests, 

What  a  pleasure  it  is  for  me  to  extend  the  greetings  of  the 
City  of  Worcester  and  the  people  of  Worcester  on  this 
happy  occasion. 

We  celebrate  the  inauguration  of  WPI's  new  President, 
Jon  Strauss,  and  in  doing  so  welcome  another  in  the  line 
of  distinguished  educators  to  this  institution. 

Jon  Strauss,  your  career  has  been  that  of  a  traveler  and 
learner.  You  have  gone  from  Midwest  to  East  and  to 
Europe  and  to  the  Far  West  and  now  to  New  England. 
You  have  mastered  electrical  engineering  and  computer 
science  and  that  more  obscure  science  of  university  bud- 
gets and  administration.  You  have  built  a  career  that  is  a 
model  of  those  words  Lehr  und  Kunst  (Learning  and 
Skilled  Art)  which  are  WPI's  motto.  You  are  strikingly  at 
home  here. 

And  so,  too,  is  WPI.  We  in  Worcester  rejoice  that  this 
institution  carries  our  name  for  it  is  so  much  a  Worcester 
institution— not  in  any  limiting  sense,  but  rather  in  the 
sense  that  like  WPI,  Worcester  is  a  place  of  learning  and 
skilled  arts;  and  like  WPI,  Worcester  is  growing  and 
changing  and  addressing  new  areas  of  inquiry  while 
retaining  our  values.  WPI's  college  halls  are  a  litany  of 
Worcester's  rich  history  of  learning  and  skilled  arts: 
Alden,  Higgins,  Fuller,  Washburn,  Morgan,  Daniels, 
Harrington,  Salisbury,  Stoddard.  WPI  and  Worcester 
share  dozens  of  elements  of  intimate  linkage— we  grow 
and  thrive  together. 

Mr.  President,  with  joy  and  respect,  I  extend  the  hand 
of  friendship  and  welcome  you  on  behalf  of  all  our  citi- 
zens. 


AUGUST  1986 


/ 


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WTI  JOURNAL 


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But  will  it 
do  windows? 


Computers  may  have  vision,  intelligence,  and  even 
common  sense  in  the  future,  if  WPI's  Artificial  Intelli- 
gence Research  Group  has  its  way. 

by  Paul  Susca 


-  ometime  late  next  year  it  will  be 
stalking  the  halls  of  Atwater 
Kent  Laboratories.  Low  to  the 
ground,  its  body  twice  the  size 
of  a  large  dog.  its  neck  as  long 
as  your  arm.  it  will  edge  intently  toward 
its  goal.  Electrical  Engineering  Professor 
Peter  Green  is  responsible  for  its  pres- 
ence. He  and  about  two  dozen  students, 
graduate  and  undergraduate,  will  have 


designed  and  built  its  many  integrated 
systems— navigation,  steering,  drive, 
and  decision  making.  //  will  be  the 
Mobile  Robot,  representing  the  next  gen- 
eration of  computer-aided  systems  hav- 
ing the  ability  to  "think  on  their  feet." 

Ambitious  as  the  Mobile  Robot  Project 
is,  it  is  but  a  sample  of  what's  happening 
in  WPI's  program  in  Artificial  Intelli- 
gence, or  AI.  For  three  decades,  the  AI 


Illustration  bv  Richard  Giedd 


AUGUST  1986        11 


Lee  Becker,  below,  associate  professor 
of  computer  science:  "Industry  is  pre- 
dicting the  need  for  thousands  of 
knowledge  engineers  in  the  years 
ahead." 


field  itself  has  attracted  computer  scien- 
tists trying  to  find  ways  to  make  com- 
puters think  and  learn  the  way  humans 
do.  Everybody  knows  that  computers  are 
good  at  manipulating  piles  of  numbers, 
scanning  databases,  storing  and  retriev- 
ing information,  and  even  performing 
some  complex  tasks  such  as  playing 
chess  or  diagnosing  diseases.  But  the 
challenge  of  AI  today  is  to  teach  com- 
puters to  perform  seemingly  simple  tasks 
that  come  naturally  to  us  humans,  things 
like  understanding  speech,  recognizing 
images,  and  making  quick  decisions 
based  on  fuzzy  information. 

Students  and  faculty  with  WPI's  AI 
Research  Group  (AIRG)  are  learning  to 
tackle  all  of  these  challenges,  coaxing 
computers  to  perform  more  intelligently 
in  areas  such  as  vision,  medical  diagno- 
sis, real-time  decision  making,  teaching, 
understanding  languages,  and  the  learn- 
ing process  itself. 

Some  of  the  computer  software  that 
makes  these  accomplishments  possible  is 
here  now.  and  optimistic  investment  ana- 
lysts predict  that  AI  will  become  a 
multibillion-dollar  business  within  a  dec- 
ade. Amidst  all  the  excitement.  WPI  has 
been  building  its  own  AI  program,  bring- 
ing together  WPI  talent  and  rising  stars 
from  other  recognized  centers  of  AI 
activity,  and  giving  students  a  chance  to 
participate  in  leading-edge  research  and 
system  development. 

A  clear-cut  definition  of  artificial  intel- 
ligence is  hard  to  come  by.  but  most  of 
WPI's  AI  devotees,  including  Computer 
Science  Professor  David  C.  Brown, 
think  a  useful  description  is  "intelligent 
human  activity  that  we  don't  yet  know 
how  to  do  using  a  computer."  In  other 
words,  says  Brown,  AIRG  chairman,  if 
someone  has  figured  out  a  way  to  get  a 
computer  to  do  something,  it's  not  AI. 
Facetious  as  that  distinction  may  sound. 
"AI  methods"  refers  to  that  which  is  not 
AI  but  used  to  be.  or  that  which  is  based 
on  what  used  to  be  AI. 

By  that  definition.  Professor  Green's 
work  with  systems  such  as  the  mobile 


robot  falls  into  the  AI  methods  category. 
AI  scientists  have  long  tried  to  figure  out 
how  to  program  computers  to  make  diffi- 
cult decisions  based  on  lots  of  indistinct 
data  under  tight  time  pressure.  Recently, 
using  system  architectures  modeled  after 
that  of  the  human  brain,  they  have  begun 
to  make  strides  toward  that  end.  The 
result  is  a  generation  of  systems  that  can 


find  their  way  to  a  goal  without  being 
given  directions. 

Green  explains,  "Instead  of  telling  the 
robot.  'Go  down  the  hallway  and  turn 
right,  etc.,'  what  we'll  tell  it  is,  'Go  to 
the  coffee  lounge,'  and  it  has  to  figure  out 
how  to  get  there  based  on  what  it  knows 
about  the  layout  of  the  building,  avoiding 
obstacles,  and  so  on." 

Partly  through  a  two-year,  S50.000 
grant  from  Westinghouse  Educational 
Foundation,  early  versions  of  the  robot 
will  "simply"  be  expected  to  navigate 
the  building  and  avoid  obstacles,  he 
says.  But  enhancements  could  include 
artificial  vision  systems,  radio  communi- 
cations, and  other  add-ons,  all  linked 
into  the  robot's  real-time  decision-mak- 
ing system.  Real-time.  Green  explains, 
is  the  ability  of  the  computer  to  make 


decisions  in  restricted  amounts  of  time 
while  the  situation  is  changing  continually. 
Green  hopes  the  robot  project  will 
develop  into  a  means  of  training  students 
in  the  emerging  field  of  real-time  AI,  a 
field  in  which  WPI's  group  is  among  the 
nation's  best.  "All  the  students  get 
exposed— at  the  appropriate  level— to  the 
techniques  and  methodologies  of  real- 
time AI,"  Green  says.  WPI  is  also  offer- 
ing what  Green  believes  to  be  the  first 
course  in  real-time  AI  in  the  country. 

He  is  talking  a  blue  streak,  one 
AI  topic  leading  to  another. 
You  have  to  interrupt  Peter 
Green  sometimes  to  get  a 
word  in,  but  he's  good-natured 
about  it.  Where  do  real-time  systems  fit 
into  the  AI  field?  Where  are  the  applica- 
tions to  be  found?  Right  now,  real-time 
AI  is  a  very  small  part  of  the  overall  AI 
field,  Green  answers,  but  that,  he 
believes,  will  change  in  the  near  future. 
Applications  range  from  automated  bat- 
tlefield vehicles  to  inventory  manage- 
ment systems. 

Green,  who  had  17  years  of  experience 
in  the  computer  industry  before  coming 
to  WPI  two  years  ago,  got  involved  in 
real-time  AI  while  working  at  MIT's 
Lincoln  Laboratories  on  a  real-time  sys- 
tem for  tracking  aircraft.  Gangly, 
bearded,  and  usually  grinning,  Green 
projects  a  sort  of  father  image.  You  can 
also  sense  his  exuberance  about  being  on 
the  frontier.  One  of  the  things  he  finds 
appealing  about  the  real-time  AI  field, 
Green  says,  is  that  any  advance  repre- 
sents real  progress  in  the  field.  And  even 
a  small  research  group  like  WPI's  can 
stay  in  the  forefront. 

But  Green's  group  is  not  all  that  small, 
especially  considering  that  he  has  been  at 
WPI  for  only  two  years.  Some  of  his 
grad  students,  commenting  that  he  can't 
bear  to  turn  away  a  student  who  wants  to 
work  with  him,  marvel  at  the  size  of 
Green's  program  and  at  his  ability  to 
manage  so  many  students.  The  Mobile 
Robot  Project  alone  involved  about  10 


. 


12       WPI  JOURNAL 


Major  Qualifying  Project  (MQP)  stu- 
dents last  year,  another  1 1  this  year,  and 
two  M.S.  students.  That's  in  addition  to 
M.S.  and  Ph.D.  students  working  on  AI 
topics  ranging  from  new  computer  archi- 
tectures to  systems  that  play  multi- 
dimensional tic-tac-toe. 

The  common  element  in  most  of  these 
projects  is  real-time  decision  making.  "It 
turns  out  that  there's  a  whole  class  of 
real-world  problems  that  you  can't  solve 
with  conventional  approaches,"  Green 
says.  There  is  too  much  data  for  the  com- 
puter to  evaluate,  too  many  possible 
directions  to  take  in  solving  the  problem, 
and  too  little  time. 

One  approach  to  real-time  problem 
solving  is  to  do  what  a  human  being 
does:  set  priorities,  make  tentative  deci- 
sions, stay  within  the  bounds  of  the 


"brain  power"  you  have  available. 
Without  this  approach,  he  says,  "I  have 
seen  computers  sit  there  and  procrasti- 
nate all  day  rather  than  solve  a  problem." 
The  computer  keeps  analyzing  how  to 
approach  the  problem  without  getting 
down  to  work. 

A  whole  new  class  of  computers  is 
needed  to  perform  well  on  real-time 
problems,  Green  says.  One  of  his  Ph.D. 
students,  Bill  Michaelson,  on  part-time 
leave  from  Raytheon  Company,  in  Sud- 
bury, MA,  is  working  on  the  design  of 
such  computers.  These  systems  may 
comprise  a  thousand  or  more  processors 
all  connected  in  a  ring,  grid,  or  other 
network  so  they  can  share  information 
while  they  each  work  on  a  different 
aspect  of  a  problem.  It's  this  scheme  of 
increasing  the  connections  between  pro- 


DavidC.  Brown,  left,  assistant  profes- 
sor of  computer  science  and  chairman 
of  the  WPI  Artificial  Intelligence 
Research  Group:  "If  someone  has  fig- 
ured out  a  way  to  get  computers  to  do 
something,  that  something  is  not  AI." 

David  P.  Henry  '86,  right,  and  Stephen 
J.  Oullette  '86  consult  with  Computer 
Science  Professor  Peter  Green  on 
details  of  the  WPI  Mobil  Robot. 

cessors  that  models  the  connections 
between  nerve  cells  in  the  brain. 

Green  and  his  students  are  also  work- 
ing on  a  public  demonstration  of  this 
approach  (called  activation  networking) 
to  computer  systems  that  are  modeled 
after  human  neural  networks.  The 
project  will  be  part  of  a  major  exhibit  put 
together  by  the  Boston  Museum  of  Sci- 
ence. Using  the  neural  network  approach 
and  computers  donated  by  AT&T, 
Green's  team— including  Ph.D.  student 
Weigen  Shi,  Stephan  Wyss  '86  M.S., 
and  a  large  number  of  MQP  students- 
has  been  developing  a  system  that  will 
play  multi-dimensional  tic-tac-toe  with 
museum-goers. 

The  purpose  of  the  exhibit  is  to  dem- 
onstrate the  "thinking"  process  of  a  real- 
time problem-solving  system,  which  will 
comprise  a  "community  of  experts," 
each  working  on  a  different  aspect  of  the 
tic-tac-toe  game.  Museum-goers  can 
watch  each  of  the  computer  experts 
develop  recommendations  and  see  how 
the  whole  system  works  together  to  make 
decisions  undertime  pressure.  The  "Age 
of  Intelligent  Machines"  exhibit  will  tour 
science  museums  all  over  the  country 
between  1987  and  1990. 


Graduate  students  Reynold  Dobson  '85. 
left,  and  Andrew  Cott  '85.  right,  in  the 
image  processing  laboratory  with  Asso- 
ciate Professor  of  Electrical  Engineer- 
ing David  Cyganski. 


Human  thinking  and  decision 
making  arc  not  the  onl\  pro- 
cesses  that  AI  researchers 
have  attempted  to  emulate. 
Vision,  or  image  processing, 
is  just  as  difficult  to  accomplish  as  real- 
time decision  making  because,  for  one 
thing,  the  natural  vision  paxess  is  not  a 
conscious  effort. 

"Vision  is  an  intrinsically  difficult 
thing  to  do,"  says  David  Cyganski  '75. 
associate  professor  of  electrical  engi- 
neering, about  the  work  that  he  shares 
with  EE  Professor  John  Orr.  "In  a  frac- 
tion of  a  second  humans  can  pull  in  a 
complete  situation  by  taking  a  glance." 
Cyganski  adds.  "No  computer  vision 
system  comes  anywhere  near  that."" 
Existing  artificial  vision  systems  used  in 
industry  can  only  compare  images  they 
see  with  what  they  already  know,  he 
explains.  The  computer  might  know 
what  a  particular  object  looks  like  from 
one  angle,  but  a  slight  change  in  orienta- 
tion or  positioning  can  make  it  unrecog- 
nizable. 

That's  where  Cyganski  and  Orr  have 
been  extending  the  frontiers  of  their  sci- 
ence. They  have  already  developed  a 
system  that  can  recognize  a  wider  range 
of  flat  objects  faster  than  any  other  exist- 
ing system.  Their  more  advanced  work 
has  involved  processing  more  complex 
images  such  as  satellite  photos  of  land 
masses  and  pseudo-transparent  three- 
dimensional  objects. 

It's  easy  to  tell  that  there's  something 
about  image  processing  that  possesses 
David  Cyganski.  Animated,  smiling, 
laughing— out  of  sheer  enjoyment  of  the 
subject,  it  seems— Cyganski  gets  turned 
on  by  image  processing  because  he's  a 
mathematician  at  heart.  But  the  branch 
of  math  that  Cyganski  and  Orr  use  in 
their  image  processing  work,  called  ten- 
sor theory,  is  so  arcane  that,  although 
Albert  Einstein  used  it  to  express  his  the- 
ory of  relativity,  theirs  is  the  first  con- 
crete application  of  tensors  that  Cyganski 
knows  of. 
Before  he  returned  to  WPI  in  1979  to 


14       WPI  JOURNAL 


Peter  Green,  below,  EE  professor: 
"I've  seen  conventional  computers 
just  sit  there  and  procrastinate 
all  day  rather  than  solve  a  problem. 
They  can 't  always  set  priorities  in  really 
difficult  problems. " 


work  on  his  Ph.D.,  Cyganski  got  his 
kicks  applying  math  to  design  problems 
at  Bell  Laboratories.  After  becoming 
proficient  in  one-dimensional  signal  the- 
ory in  his  Bell  Labs  work,  Cyganski 
turned  his  attention  to  two-dimensional 
signal  theory  which,  he  found,  has  appli- 
cations in  image  processing. 

Although  he  had  already  begun  the 
transition  from  communications  engi- 
neering to  image  processing  before  he 
came  to  WPI,  Cyganski  still  teaches 
communications  courses  today.  "I'll  turn 
out  hundreds  of  communications  engi- 
neers to  a  handful  of  AI  people,"  he  says, 
"which  is  good,  because  that's  roughly 
the  ratio  in  which  they're  needed  right 
now."  That  ratio,  however,  may  become 
better  balanced  before  long. 

Not  completely  consumed  by  his 
attraction  to  high-level  math  and  his 
achievements  in  image  processing 
research,  Cyganski  has  a  passion  for 
teaching,  too— a  passion  that  led  to  his 
being  named  WPI's  teacher  of  the  year  in 
1984  by  the  Board  of  Trustees.  Underly- 
ing this  dedication  is  a  belief  that  many 
of  the  world's  problems  result  largely 
from  ignorance— of  science  as  well  as  of 
humanity.  He  sees  education  as  the  an- 
swer. "They  won't  throw  bombs  if  they 're 
educated,"  he  hopes,  "and  if  our  science 
gets  good  enough  maybe  we'll  find 
that  we  don't  need  bombs  anymore." 

Cyganski 's  boyish  smile  fades  some- 
what when  he  talks  about  topics  like 
societal  issues  and  education.  These  sub- 
jects are  fraught  with  difficult  dilemmas. 
Cyganski  notes,  "It's  unfortunate  that  as 
a  society  we're  very  often  pushing 
toward  deeper  and  deeper  knowledge  of 
subjects  without  making  sure  that  more 
people  have  some  knowledge  about 
everything."  Maybe  he  is  more  keenly 
aware  of  this  problem  because  of  the  eso- 
teric nature  of  his  own  image  processing 
work,  where  undergraduates  are  usually 
unable  to  make  a  contribution  because 
the  mathematics  are  far  beyond  them. 

Instead,  Cyganski  coaches  undergrads 
on    projects    involving    AI    methods. 


"There,  you're  not  trying  to  make  break- 
throughs of  a  theoretical  nature— you're 
trying  to  make  new  applications.  There's 
a  difference,"  he  explains.  "You  can 
bring  undergrads  far  enough  along  so 
that  they  can  apply  AI  methods  in  new 
ways."  During  the  past  year  these 
projects  have  involved  the  use  of  AI 
approaches  in  analyzing  circuit  designs 
and  a  system  that  uses  simplified  AI 
methods  to  recognize  handwritten  char- 
acters. 

John  Orr,  Cyganski 's  partner  in  image 
processing,  recalls  the  work  that  led  to 
their  fruitful  collaboration.  The  two  pro- 
fessors were  co-advising  a  couple  of 
M.S.  projects  dealing  with  the  recogni- 
tion of  objects'  location  and  orientation. 
"We  started  out  with  a  method  which  I 
think  we  both  would  agree  now  was 
pretty  naive.  It  failed  in  all  sorts  of  inter- 
esting ways,"  Orr  remembers,  "and  that 
led  Dave  to  recall  his  experience  with 
tensors  and  think  about  applications  of 
that  to  the  same  problem."  Their  work  in 
object  location  and  orientation  just  kept 
branching  out  from  there,  Orr  says. 

Orr  had  had  experience  with  image 


processing  problems  before.  Advising  an 
MQP  at  the  University  of  Massachusetts 
Medical  Center  (UMMC),  in  Worcester, 
Orr  and  his  student  were  looking  for  an 
automated  means  of  determining  the 
stroke  volume  of  the  hearts  of  cardiac 
patients.  The  heart  volume  project  didn't 
succeed,  but  it  did  pique  his  interest  in 
image  processing,  he  says.  The  object 
location  and  orientation  work  followed. 

Orr,  displaying  only  a  faint  smile  when 
he  recalls  his  early  attempts  at  image 
processing,  comes  to  life  when  he  talks 
about  the  connection  between  teaching 
and  research.  As  long  as  you're  doing 
research,  Orr  believes,  you're  a  student, 
and  a  person  who  is  a  student  himself 
often  makes  a  better  teacher. 

Orr  knows  about  teaching  from  way 
back.  "I  had  always  wanted  to  try  teach- 
ing," he  says  about  his  pre-WPI  days. 
"It's  hard  to  know  exactly  why,  except 
that  everyone  in  my  family  is  a  teacher." 
He  immediately  volunteers  some  obser- 
vations on  the  teaching  challenge.  One 
of  the  problems  is  figuring  out  how  much 
guidance  to  provide,  beyond  leading  stu- 
dents through  the  sticking  points.  Some- 
times, he  believes,  the  most  effective 
way  to  learn  is  the  way  he  did.  "If  you 
figure  something  out  yourself,"  he  says, 
"you  have  a  better  understanding  of  it." 

One  of  the  hallmarks  of  artificial 
intelligence  research,  accord- 
ing to  Computer  Science  Pro- 
fessor James  M.  Coggins,  is 
making  decisions  based  on 
fuzzy  data— disorderly,  incomplete, 
inaccurate,  ambiguous,  misleading,  dis- 
torted, or  noisy  information.  Something 
about  Coggins  himself  seems  disorderly, 
or  at  least  unsettled— his  office  is  more 
disheveled  than  most;  he  keeps  his  wind- 
breaker  on  for  the  entire  hour-long  inter- 
view. Maybe  it's  because,  although  he  is 
part  of  WPI's  Computer  Science  Depart- 
ment, Coggins'  laboratory  is  across  town 
at  the  UMass  Medical  Center,  where  he 
and  graduate  student  Kenneth  Fogarty 
are  developing  an  image  processing  sys- 


AUGUST  1986        15 


tem  to  aid  in  physiology  research. 

Coggins'  work  is  a  good  example  of 
how  AI  methods  come  in  handy  in  inter- 
disciplinary applications.  "'This  project 
starts  with  the  physiologists  and  the 
chemists  who  are  making  the  radioactive 
dyes  that  they  put  into  a  cell  to  make  the 
protein  glow."  he  says  with  a  vestige  of  a 
South  Carolina  accent.  The  glowing  of 
the  fluorescent  dye  is  picked  up  on  film, 
image  processing  techniques  are  then 
employed  to  make  sense  out  of  the  fuzzy 
pictures,  and  the  results  are  displayed 
with  the  3-D  graphics  system. 

'Tt*s  the  artificial  visual  system  that 
interprets  the  3-D  images."  Coggins  con- 
tinues, "picking  out  these  protein  bodies 
and  measuring  their  angles."  The  pur- 
pose of  the  whole  system  is  to  aid  in  the 
study  of  a  protein,  alpha  actinin.  which 
has  a  role  in  the  contraction  of  muscle 
fibers.  The  end  product  of  Coggins'  and 
Fogarty's  work  is  an  interactive,  three- 
dimensional  color  image  of  protein  bun- 
dles represented  by  capsule-shaped 
bodies  in  perspective  against  a  dark 
background. 

Although  undergrads  have  not  been 
able  to  participate  in  the  core  of  Coggins' 
work  on  the  artificial  visual  system 
(which  involves  applying  mathematical 
"filters"  to  process  the  images),  there 
has  been  room  for  undergrads  on  related 
projects.  Susan  Abramson  and  Beth  Tha- 
len.  for  example,  developed  the  system's 
3-D  graphics  cursor,  or  pointer,  that 
enables  researchers  to  interact  with  the 
processed  images  of  protein  bundles. 

Interdisciplinary  work  like  the  UMMC 
project  is  a  favorite  of  Coggins'.  "I  hang 
around  with  humanities  and  social  sci- 
ence professors,  just  for  the  stimulation 
of  hearing  people  talk  about  different 
kinds  of  problems,"  he  says.  One  of  his 
projects— with  John  Wilkes,  associate 
professor  of  social  science  and  policy 
studies— involved  using  an  intelligent 
indexing  and  retrieval  system  in  non- 
quantitative  research.  It  was  because  of 
his  need  for  variety  that  Coggins  came  to 
WPI.  "Every  day  is  different  here,"  he 


In  a  laboratory  deep  in  the  University  of 
Massachusetts  Medical  School,  Jeanne 
Travers  '86  works  on  an  image  process- 
ing experiment  using  an  interactive 
graphics  system  to  analyze  protein  dis- 
tribution inside  single  cells.  Software 
for  the  system  was  designed  by  Com- 
puter Science  Assistant  Professor 
James  M.  Coggins. 


says,  "You  have  projects  at  various  lev- 
els, at  various  stages  of  completion  with 
the  students.  Then  you  have  your  own 
projects.  It's  exciting." 

Making  decisions  in  real- 
time and  using  fuzzy  data 
are  part  of  the  AI  picture, 
but  equal  excitement  over 
applications  for  AI  has 
centered  around  expert  systems,  another 
area  that  WPI  is  covering  well. 

"There  are  at  least  three  ways  you  can 
look  at  the  AI  field,"  David  Brown  says. 
"One  way,"  he  explains,  "is  to  simulate 
the  result  without  caring  too  much  about 
how  you  get  there— we're  not  interested 
in  that  approach.  A  second  approach 
involves  simulating  the  method,  trying  to 
capture  how  the  human  expert  does  it.  A 
third  way  is  to  simulate  a  human  expert's 
thinking  mechanisms,  which  is  closer  to 
the  neural  level,"  Brown  explains.  He  is 
interested  in  the  second  of  these 
approaches. 

In  addition,  Brown  is  studying  how 
people  design  things.  Capturing  the 
human  expert's  method  of  designing  is 
the  focus  of  Brown's  work  with  M.S. 
student  Teresa  Chiang,  in  which  she  is 
building  a  system  designed  to  interrogate 
experts  about  the  design  process.  A 
related  project  by  M.S.  student  Douglas 
S.  Green  seeks  to  model  the  way  humans 
think  about  how  things  fit  together- 
qualitative  rather  than  quantitative  rea- 
soning. Yet  another  project,  conducted 
by  M.S.  student  Robert  Breau,  involves 
using  DSPL,  a  language  developed  by 
Brown  for  use  in  expert  design  systems, 
to  model  the  way  designers  integrate 
their  knowledge  so  that  the  designing  job 
becomes  routine. 

So  far,  all  of  Brown's  work  with  his 
students  has  focused  on  the  routine 
design  of  relatively  simple  components. 
But  you  have  to  take  one  step  at  a  time  in 
expert  systems,  Brown  cautions.  "Some- 
times you  have  to  be  more  pessimistic 
than  optimistic  because  there's  been  a  lot 
of  hype  about  expert  systems.   So  it's 


».%    i.%  u* 


"*  u.%   v%  *.%  m* 


xnv  .*« 


tt'A    Y7.%-»-»      % 


•*3*    •* 


much  better  to  say  that  they  can't  do  half 
the  things  people  claim  they  can,"  he 
says. 

"That  needs  to  be  done  on  the  under- 
grad  level  too  because  a  lot  of  students 
latch  onto  the  sci-fi  aspects  of  AI,"  he 
says.  "You  have  to  try  not  to  be  too  opti- 
mistic because  they  have  their  optimism 
built  in  already." 

Brown  chooses  his  words  carefully; 
the  tidiness  of  his  office  reflects  his 
highly  systematic  thinking.  He  expects 
his  students  to  be  rigorous,  too,  often 
pressing  them  in  class  to  back  up  their 
assertions  with  better  logic— no  sloppy 
reasoning  allowed  here.  But  the  other 
side  of  his  high  expectations  of  his  stu- 
dents is  that  he  grants  free  rein  when  they 
are  ready  to  handle  it.  Students  also  seem 
to  appreciate  his  evenhandedness;  he  lis- 
tens and  gives  equal  weight  to  their 
ideas.  But  his  quickness  and  the  step, 
jab,  step  back,  thrust  again  of  his  speech 
remind  you  that  he  happens  to  be  WPI's 
fencing  coach. 

Brown  also  coached  fencing  at  Ohio 
State  University,  where  he  earned  his 
Ph.D.  in  1984.  But  it  was  at  the  Univer- 


16       WPI  JOURNAL 


/: 


sity  of  Kent  in  his  native  England,  where 
his  thesis  dealt  with  question-answering 
systems,  that  Brown  became  hooked  on 
Artificial  Intelligence.  Since  then,  his 
academic  work  has  focused  mainly  on 
design  processes,  especially  routine 
design. 

How  do  you  get  this  knowledge  from 
the  designer  into  the  expert  system?  You 
start  by  immersing  yourself  in  the 
domain  of  the  designer.  Brown  says,  to 
learn  the  vocabulary  and  acquire  a  gen- 
eral familiarity  with  the  material.  What 
follows  is  a  long  series  of  interviews  with 
an  expert  designer,  going  over  examples, 
asking  questions,  probing  to  reveal  the 
thinking  behind  each  decision.  Then  you 
try  to  construct  a  system,  run  some  sam- 
ple problems  on  the  computer,  show  the 
results  to  the  expert,  and  go  through  the 
cycle  again  and  again.  "Knowledge 
acquisition  is  one  of  the  major  problems 
at  the  moment  in  the  development  of 
expert  systems,"  Brown  says  matter-of- 
factly,  "People  are  trying  to  find  ways  to 
automate  the  process  because  it's  so 
painful." 

So  painful  and  time-consuming  is  it,  in 


fact,  that  some  people  predict  a  demand 
for  thousands  of  knowledge  engineers  in 
the  coming  years,  according  to  Com- 
puter Science  Professor  Lee  Becker. 
Building  an  expert  system  can  take  a  year 
and  a  half  of  the  knowledge  engineer's 
time  and  maybe  an  additional  half-year 
of  the  human  expert's  time,  Becker  says. 
And  time  is  money.  One  way  around  this 
problem  is  to  have  an  expert  system  that 
will  interrogate  the  human  expert, 
thereby  eliminating  the  knowledge  engi- 
neer's job.  But  Becker,  who  has  a  ten- 
dency to  answer  questions  before  you're 
finished  asking  them,  has  doubts  about 
that  approach. 

Instead,  he  is  concentrating  on  using 
less  of  the  expert's  time.  He  does  this  by 
using  what  he  calls  "traces."  records  of 
the  diagnostic  process  that  a  physician 
follows  in  interpreting  examination  and 
test  results.  Using  CSRL,  a  computer 
language  for  expert  diagnostic  systems, 
developed  at  David  Brown's  alma  mater, 
Ohio  State,  Becker  is  working  on 
"machine  learning,"  building  knowledge 
from  observing  a  process  rather  than  ask- 
ing questions  about  it. 


He  shares  his  interest  in  knowledge 
acquisition  processes  with  Brown. 
Becker  also  works  with  Peter  Green  on 
data  interpretation  and  diagnostic  pro- 
cesses for  real-time  AI  systems.  Becker 
brings  to  his  collaborations  a  background 
in  linguistics  and  cognitive  psychology, 
and  so  serves  as  the  expert  on  the  human 
cognitive  process  and  its  neural  models. 
Becker  continues  to  apply  AI  techniques 
to  language  problems  as  a  way  of  hark- 
ing back  to  his  years  as  a  linguist.  His 
students  have  done  work  in  that  area. 
too.  MQP  students  Sharon  E.  Tauben- 
feld  '87.  Ronald  S.  Avisa  '88.  and  Caleb 
A.  Warner  '88  recently  designed  an 
intelligent  computer-aided  instruction 
(ICAI)  system  for  teaching  German. 

Other  ICAI  projects  under  Becker  may 
someday  make  his  own  job  easier.  Mas- 
ter's student  Xiaoyi  Huang,  for  example, 
is  working  under  Becker's  guidance  to 
build  an  expert  system  that  teaches  a 
course  in  database  systems.  In  addition 
to  containing  the  knowledge  that  it  is  try- 
ing to  teach,  the  expert  system  will  con- 
tain a  model  of  the  student's  knowledge 
and  a  set  of  common  misconceptions  that 


AUGUST  1986       17 


M.  S.  students  Teresa  Chiang  and 
Douglas  S.  Green  are  working  with 
Computer  Science  Assistant  Professor 
David  Brown  on  developing  computer 
systems  that  will  model  the  mental  pro- 
cesses by  which  designers  and  other 
experts  solve  problems. 


students  can  be  expected  to  have. 

Lee  Becker's  enjoyment  of  his  work 
shows  in  his  casual  but  voluble  manner. 
Sometimes,  however,  he  has  a  tendency 
to  stray  a  bit  off  the  subject,  maybe  being 
pulled  by  the  centrifugal  forces  of  his 
interests.  But  he  manages  to  keep  stu- 
dents awake  through  long  evening 
classes,  says  one  grad  student,  with  his 
animated  and  often  droll  chalk  talk. 
"There  are  aesthetic  aspects  to  the  sub- 
ject that  I  like  to  impart  to  the  students." 
he  says  wryly. 

Becker  became  interested  in  expert 
systems  while  teaching  linguistics  at 
Indiana  University.  There,  he  took  his 
first  computer  science  course  and  imme- 
diately began  seeing  applications  in  com- 
putational linguistics.  "Linguists  gather 
data  by  interrogating  someone  who 
speaks  a  language;  they  then  look  for 
generalities  and  changes  of  sounds  in  dif- 
ferent contexts."  Becker  explains.  So  he 
started  working  on  an  expert  system  to 
do  descriptive  phonology,  involving  the 
analysis  of  sound  patterns  in  natural 
speech.  Becker  was  hooked.  He  soon 
began  using  computers  in  semantics,  try- 
ing to  develop  an  algorithm  that  could 
deduce  the  meanings  of  words  and  other 
linguistic  knowledge  through  context. 

Expert  systems  have  absorbed  most  of 
Becker's  energy  for  the  past  two  years. 
He  is  fascinated  by  the  possible  uses  of 
computers  in  testing  theories  about  the 
human  cognitive  process.  "The  com- 
puter is  a  tool  that  allows  you  to  formu- 
late explicit  theories,"  he  says.  "It  shows 
you  whether  you  could  learn  jc  by  this 
method  y  with  a  particular  input  z" 

But  AI.  and  expert  systems  in  particu- 
lar, are  not  without  their  critics.  Some 
argue  that  true  experts,  rather  than  fol- 
lowing rules  or  defined  patterns  of  deci- 
sion making,  function  largely  on  intui- 
tion, something  computers  can  never  do. 
Becker  takes  issue  with  these  nay-sayers. 
"I  believe  that  all  those  problem  areas 
are  areas  where  cognitive  psychology 
has  not  yet  proposed  any  good  hypothe- 
ses," he  replies.  "If  we  can  do  a  cogni- 


tive task,  a  computer  can  do  a  cognitive 
task." 

Perceptual  tasks  are  another 
matter,  concedes  David 
Brown.  Image  processing 
research,  for  example,  is  only 
beginning  to  model  human 
perception.  And  neural  network  methods 
for  computers  represent  only  the  most 
rudimentary  aspects  of  human  thinking. 

Brown  offers  one  final  perspective  on 
AI:  "Artificial  intelligence  is  more  than 
a  set  of  tools  and  techniques  that  can  be 
used  in  computer  engineering.  It's  an 
approach  to  investigating  the  knowledge 
and  reasoning  that  underlie    intelligent 


activity.  AI  is  but  one  of  many  tools  that 
will  be  used  in  the  future  to  build  'intelli- 
gent' computer  systems." 

As  for  the  prospects  for  employment  in 
this  emerging  field,  he  adds,  the  shortage 
of  AI  specialists  is  major  and  growing, 
reflecting  industry's  surge  to  avoid  being 
left  out  in  the  cold.  And,  with  salaries  for 
Ph.D.s  in  AI  hovering  around  the 
$50,000  level,  the  next  few  years  may 
well  find  other  colleges  and  universities 
hard  pressed  to  catch  up  with  students' 
demands  for  programs  focusing  on  the 
latest  generation  of  AI. 

Paul  Susca  is  a  freelance  writer  living  in 
Rindge,  NH. 


18       WPI  JOURNAL 


o w  did  we  ever  get 
along  before  they 
invented  the 


,? 


Those  whose 
answers  are  chosen 
to  appear  in  these 
pages  will  receive 
$100.  (How  does 
money  rate  as  an 
invention?)  We'll 
accept  essays,  of  500 
words  or  less,  until 
October  1,  1986. 
Please  send  them  to 
the  magazine,  in 
care  of  the  editor, 
and  marked 
"Inventions." 


f  you  were  raring  the  world's  greatest 
inventions — from  the  wheel  (or  before)  up 
to  the  compact  disc — what  would  head 
your  list? 


ould  it  be  a  device  prompted  by 
Mother  Necessity,  urging  her  children  to 
solve  some  problem  with  an  ingenious 
thought  or  experiment? 


ould  it  be  like  a  Slinky — 

something  whose  utility  doesn't 

immediately  spring  to  mind? 

Or  would  it  be  something  like  those 

sticky  yellow  paper  things — which  solved 

a  problem  you  didn't  know  you  had? 


ame  your  candidate  for  World's 
Best  Invention,  and  tell  us  why. 


ALUMNI  MAGAZINE  CONSORTIUM       I 


; 


ri>\  ■ij 


, 


f   * 


II       AUGUST  1986 


THE 
JURY  IS 
STILL 
OUT 

on  how  an  onslaught  of  law- 
suits and  federal  regulations 
will  affect  the  basic  fabric 
of  campus  life. 

By  Leslie  Brunetta 


After  a  night  of  heavy  drinking,  a  student 
tries  some  acrobatics  on  a  trampoline 
parked  in  a  fraternity 's  front  yard.  An 
accident  happens:  the  student  is  confined 
to  a  wheelchair.  A  jury  finds  his  univer- 
sity entirely  liable  and  awards  the  stu- 
dent $5.2  million. 

A  graduate  student  fails  his  preliminary 
doctoral  examination.  The  failure  is  not 
due  to  his  own  lack  of  scholarship,  he 
claims,  but  to  the  hostility  of  his  profes- 
sors toward  his  ideas.  He  sues  the  uni- 
versity for  $4  million  for  depriving  him  of 
his  education  and  future  career 
opportunities.  At  first,  the  claim  is  dis- 
missed, but  later  a  partial  appeal  is 
granted. 

A  university  appoints  a  new  president. 
Fourteen  faculty  members  bring  suit, 
charging  that  the  appointment  violates  a 
consent  decree  settling  an  earlier  class- 
action  sex  discrimination  suit.  The  suit 
asks  that  the  appointment  be  rescinded 
and  the  candidate  barred  from  a  new 
nationwide  search. 


Aca, 


cademic  deans  today  have  to  have 
lawyers  at  their  sides,"  says  Estelle 

— .Fishbein,  general  counsel  at  Johns 
Hopkins  University.  This  wasn't  always 
the  case:  before  about  1960,  suits  against 


ALUMNI  MAGAZINE  CONSORTIUM       III 


universities  were  extraordinary  occur- 
rences. When  Fishbein  began  her  du- 
ties as  special  assistant  attorney  general 
for  the  University  of  Maryland  in  1968, 
she  sat  down  to  read  all  the  past  cases 
involving  higher  education:  "It  took  me 
just  two  and  a  half  days.  Now  I  get  a 
thick  journal  quarterly,  full  of  higher  ed- 
ucation cases." 

Statistics  kept  by  the  National  Associa- 
tion of  College  and  University  Attorneys 
(NACUA)  back  up  Fishbein.  Between 
1946  and  1956,  about  150  cases  concern- 
ing higher  education  were  reported. 
That's  an  average  of  15  cases  per  year. 
Today,  nearly  every  issue  of  the  weekly 
Chronicle  of  Higher  Education  reports 
two  or  three  cases.  Since  its  founding  in 
1961,  NACUA  has  grown  from  a  mem- 
bership representing  fewer  than  50 
schools  to  one  representing  about  1,200. 
NACUA  member  Roderick  Daane,  gen- 
eral counsel  to  the  University  of  Michi- 
gan, notes  that  since  1972,  the  percent- 
age of  colleges  and  universities 
employing  in-house  counsel  has  doubled 
and  that  70  percent  of  schools  whose  an- 
nual budgets  top  $50  million  consider  in- 
house  counsel  necessary. 

Why  do  colleges  and  universities  to- 
day face  legal  problems  in  their  dealings 
with  students  and  faculty  that  seemed  un- 
thinkable 30  years  ago?  And  what  hap- 
pens when  these  problems  impinge  upon 
educational  decisions? 

Traditionally,  universities  have  ex- 
isted as  a  world  apart  from  non- 
academic  society.  Students  and 
faculty  members  subjected  themselves  to 
the  absolute  authority  of  their  academic 
elders  in  exchange  for  protection  from 
outside  authority.  Attendance  at— and 
employment  by— a  college  or  university 
was  considered  a  privilege  rather  than  a 
right,  and  courts  were  reluctant  to  inter- 
fere. 

The  relationship  between  student  and 
college  was  further  cemented  by  the  con- 
cept of  in  loco  parentis:  most  students 
had  not  yet  reached  the  legal  age  of  ma- 
jority and  were  viewed  by  the  courts  as 
having  been  committed  by  their  parents 
to  the  institution's  care.  In  the  1913  Gott 
v.  Berea  College  case,  the  court  affirmed 
the  common  notion  that  since  colleges 
had  the  same  aims  as  parents,  ".  .  .we 
are  unable  to  see  why,  to  that  end,  they 
may  not  make  any  rule  or  regulation  for 
the  government  or  betterment  of  their  pu- 
pils that  a  parent  could  for  the  same  pur- 
pose." 


"A  GOVERNMENT  INTEREST  FOR  FAIRNESS 
AND  A  PRIVATE  INTEREST  FOR  QUALITY  ARE 
BUTTING  UP  AGAINST  EACH  OTHER.  THEY 
SHOULDN'T  BE  MUTUALLY  EXCLUSIVE,  SO 
THE  QUESTION  IS  HOW  CAN  THE  TWO 
COEXIST?" 


After  World  War  II,  things  changed. 
Returning  soldiers,  women,  and  students 
from  wider  social,  ethnic,  and  economic 
backgrounds  began  to  flood  campuses 
and  to  question  the  value  of  many  aca- 
demic traditions  and  assumptions.  And 
when  student  uprisings  broke  out  in  the 
'60s,  the  schools  themselves  went  be- 
yond the  campus  perimeter  to  seek  legal 
redress.  Students  followed  suit- 
literally. 

Court  decisions  reflected  these  chang- 
ing moods,  and  in  turn  helped  to  encour- 
age them.  In  1961,  the  Fifth  Circuit 
Court  of  Appeals  served  notice  to  public 
universities  that  the  hermetic  seal  around 
in-house  disciplinary  procedures  had 
been  ruptured.  In  Dixon  v.  Alabama 
State  Board  of  Education,  students  who 
had  been  expelled  for  misconduct 
claimed  that  they  should  have  a  right  to 
sufficient  notice  and  a  hearing,  and  won. 
From  then  on,  state  schools,  as  govern- 
ment agencies,  would  have  to  extend 
constitutional  rights  of  due  process  to 
students  accused  of  misconduct. 

The  case  set  a  precedent:  in  1969,  rul- 
ing on  Tinker  v.  Des  Moines  Indepen- 
dent School  District  (high  school  stu- 
dents sued  to  wear  black  armbands  in 
protest  of  the  Vietnam  War),  a  court 


found  that  students  don't  "shed  their 
constitutional  rights  to  freedom  of 
speech  or  expression  at  the  schoolhouse 
gate." 

"Privilege"  rang  more  loudly  on  pri- 
vate campuses.  But  it  was  inevitable  that 
private  schools  too  would  have  their  day 
in  court.  The  concept  that  lawyers  and 
judges  eventually  formulated  to  tackle 
the  private  education  sector  was  native  to 
the  private  business  sector:  the  contract. 
Since  the  first  half  of  the  century,  the 
contract  theory  (stating  that  school  and 
student  were  legally  bound  to  behave  in 
specified  ways)  had  occasionally  been 
used  by  schools  to  defend  their  own 
rules.  But  by  the  early  1970s,  students 
began  to  see  that  two  could  play  the 
game.  Students  who  failed  to  gain  admis- 
sion, flunked  out,  or  faced  a  multitude  of 
other  problems  charged  that  the  schools 
had  violated  the  contracts  implied  in 
their  brochures,  catalogs,  or  other  mate- 
rials. And  the  courts  often  backed  them 
up. 

In  the  1976  case  of  Steinberg  v.  Chi- 
cago Medical  School,  for  instance,  the 
Appellate  Court  of  Illinois  found  that 
when  the  medical  school  accepted 
Robert  Steinberg's  application  and  $15 
fee,  it  entered  into  an  enforceable  con- 


IV       AUGUST  1986 


tract  with  him  to  stick  to  the  admissions 
criteria  stated  in  its  admissions  bulletin. 
While  this  is  an  unusual  case  (the  courts 
have  usually  found  that  the  relationship 
between  institution  and  student  is  con- 
tractual in  nature,  rather  than  that  an 
actual  contract  exists),  it's  a  precedent 
that  colleges  continue  to  view  with  some 
alarm. 

On  top  of  these  judicial  challenges  to 
traditional  academic  relationships  have 
come  legislative  ones.  Any  college  or 
university  receiving  federal  funds  has  to 
comply  with  executive  orders,  legislative 
acts,  and  amendments  to  acts  prohibiting 
discrimination  against  students  and 
employees  on  the  basis  of  race,  color, 
sex,  national  origin,  handicap,  or  reli- 
gion. With  the  stakes  high — loss  of  even 
a  portion  of  federal  funding  can  force  an 
institution  into  straitened  circumstances 
—colleges  and  universities  have  formal- 
ized admissions  and  hiring  procedures  to 
an  extent  unthinkable  by  pre-war  stan- 
dards. And  they  have  become  zealous 
record-keepers  in  the  hopes  that  chal- 
lenges under  the  regulations  can  be 
fended  off  with  strong  evidence  of  the 
institution's  fairness.  Even  so,  nearly 
any  admissions,  financial  aid,  or  hiring 
decision  made  by  administrators  can  be 
fraught  with  anxiety. 

From  the  time  a  college  begins  to 
court  applicants,  problems  can 
arise.  "The  whole  atmosphere  has 
pricked  our  legal  conscience,  particu- 
larly when  we  publish  admissions  mate- 
rial," says  Philip  Calhoun,  vice  president 
for  admissions  and  administration  at 
Franklin  and  Marshall  College.  "We 
have  to  consider  carefully  what  we  say 
and  then  to  fulfill  the  promises  that  we 
make."  The  Steinberg  case  and  others 
have  made  administrations  so  leery  about 
the  contractual  nature  of  their  relation- 
ship with  students  that  they  may  be 
tempted  to  undersell  their  institutions. 
"We  constantly  ask  ourselves,  'What  can 
we  say  to  students  who  are  applying?'" 
says  Robert  Chambers,  president  of 
Western  Maryland  College.  "All  of  us 
make  claims  about  the  wonders  of  a  lib- 
eral education.  What  happens  if  some 
kid  says,  T  heard  you  say  that  and  now  I 
can't  get  a  job.'" 

Once  a  student  is  enrolled,  there  are 
other  possible  dangers  to  face.  The  vigi- 
lance applied  to  admissions  materials  is 
reapplied  to  course  catalogs,  descriptions 
of  programs  and  facilities,  and  any  other 
publications  a  student  might  rely  on  for 


Liability:  A  lot  to  pay,  a  lot  to  lose 


"We  make  tempting  deep-pocket  tar- 
gets," says  Jon  C.  Strauss,  president 
of  Worcester  Polytechnic  Institute. 
Unlike  other  corporations,  which  tend 
to  have  assets  tied  up  in  buildings  and 
machinery,  colleges  and  universities 
usually  have  a  major  portion  of  their 
assets  in  endowments,  a  highly  liquid 
form.  And  since  the  current  legal  sys- 
tem often  forces  the  most  vulnerable 
defendant— even  if  found  only  par- 
tially liable — to  pay  the  entire  settle- 
ment, colleges  have  a  lot  to  lose. 

With  liability  insurance  coverage  in 
short  supply  nationwide,  many  insti- 
tutions have  become  even  more  vul- 
nerable. WPI,  for  instance,  like  most 
other  universities,  does  research  for 
products  that  eventually  turn  up  in  the 
marketplace.  In  the  past,  the  school 
held  errors  and  omissions  (E&O) 
insurance,  covering  it  against  claims 
that  its  research  was  either  faulty  or 
deficient.  But  as  the  policy's  expira- 
tion date  drew  near  last  year,  now 
retired  vice  president  for  business 
affairs  David  Lloyd  knew  that  obtain- 
ing a  new  policy  would  be  difficult: 
"Our  annual  cost  was  going  to 
increase  by  over  2,500  percent." 

That  was  the  insurance  industry's 
left  jab.  Next  came  the  right  hook:  the 
school  could  obtain  only  about  16 
percent  of  the  umbrella  liability  cov- 
erage it  had  formerly  held,  and  that  at 
the  cost  of  grossly  inflated  premiums. 
Furthermore,  Lloyd  says,  "The  new 
exclusions  were  so  dramatic  that  it 
meant  we  had  virtually  no  E&O  cov- 
erage and  no  directors  and  officers 
coverage.  It  boiled  down  to  a  tradi- 
tional personal  injury  and  liability 
policy."  To  protect  its  endowment, 
WPI  has  decided  to  require  indemni- 
fication by  corporate  sponsors  and  to 
incorporate  separately  the  Alden 
Research  Lab.  That  way,  any  claims 
made  against  work  done  in  the  lab 
should  be  limited  to  the  lab's  own 
assets.  "It's  ridiculous,"  says  Joaquim 
S.S.  Ribeiro,  Lloyd's  successor,  "that 
after  100  years  the  facility  has  to  be 
separated  from  the  college." 

Other,  mostly  larger,  institutions 
have  been  more  fortunate  in  their  cov- 


erage. Johns  Hopkins  University,  for 
instance,  in  collaboration  with  1 1 
other  schools  including  Brown  and 
Princeton,  formed  a  captive  insurance 
company  in  Bermuda  in  1982.  Cap- 
tive companies  (usually  based  in  Ber- 
muda or  the  Bahamas  to  take  advan- 
tage of  more  favorable  tax  laws) 
allow  members  to  pool  their  resources 
to  form  a  reserve  against  claims.  "It 
gives  each  member  the  advantage  of 
being  part  of  a  large  group,"  says  T. 
Jesse  Buhite,  Johns  Hopkins's  risk 
and  insurance  manager.  "It  also 
means  we  have  the  clout  of  a  big  cor- 
poration in  terms  of  premiums 
volume — insurance  companies  will 
take  notice  of  us  together  where  they 
might  not  singly.  We  find  we've  been 
able  to  hold  the  line  on  costs  and 
maintain  coverage." 

Not  that  the  captive  company  has 
solved  all  of  the  university's  insur- 
ance problems.  "We'll  accept  liabil- 
ity for  our  own  negligence,"  says 
Buhite,  "but  not  for  that  of  others." 
The  university,  like  other  businesses, 
tries  to  transfer  risk  in  all  of  its  every- 
day contracts.  If  it  hires  a  building 
contractor,  it  will  place  an  indemnity 
clause  in  the  contract  (absolving 
Hopkins  from  any  negligence  on  the 
part  of  the  builder)  and  make  sure  that 
the  contractor  is  properly  insured.  But 
since  contractors  are  having  as  much 
trouble  as  everyone  else  getting  cov- 
erage, the  situation  has  become  com- 
plicated. "A  lot  of  companies  can't 
afford  to  abide  by  these  rules  any- 
more," says  Buhite.  "It  flushes  peo- 
ple out  of  the  marketplace." 

Risk  transfer  is  one  way  of  dealing 
with  potential  problems.  Risk 
avoidance— foregoing  any  activity 
that  may  incur  risk  of  being  found 
liable— is  another.  At  Villanova  Uni- 
versity, cheerleaders  were  asked  to 
cut  some  stunts  that  might  lead  to 
injuries.  And  the  Rev.  Robert  Martin, 
O.S.A.,  assistant  to  the  vice  president 
for  student  life,  wonders  what  educa- 
tional activities  may  have  to  be  cut  in 
the  future:  "I  should  think  that  many 
colleges  are  thinking  about  curtailing 
study  abroad  programs."  —LB 


ALUMNI  MAGAZINE  CONSORTIUM       V 


information.  "Our  college  handbook  is 
reviewed  by  a  legal  solicitor,"  says  Philip 
Calhoun.  "The  intent  remains  the  same 
in  terms  of  describing  the  college's 
courses,  but  we  have  to  make  sure  there 
are  no  loopholes." 

As  the  country's  general  level  of  con- 
sumer awareness  has  risen,  so  has  that  of 


students.  "In  the  late  '60s  and  early  '70s, 
students  were  issue  oriented,"  notes 
John  Shirk,  F&M's  college  solicitor. 
"Now  they're  more  self-focused,  more 
likely  to  sue  over  a  personal  problem 
than  a  principle."  A  study  by  Donald 
Gehring,  a  University  of  Louisville  pro- 
fessor, of  more  than  600  suits  brought  by 


Alcohol:  responsible  drinkers, 
responsible  administrators 


"Up  until  the  mid-  to  late  '70s,  alco- 
hol was  an  ongoing,  itchy  problem  on 
campuses,"  says  the  Rev.  Robert 
Martin,  O.S.A.,  assistant  to  the  vice 
president  for  student  life  at  Villanova 
University.  "Now  we  perceive  it  as 
part  of  the  whole  national  redefinition 
of  alcohol  as  a  problem.  And  because 
of  the  third-party  liability  cases,  col- 
leges are  much  more  inclined  to  think 
through  their  alcohol  policy  from  a 
legal,  rather  than  from  a  purely  edu- 
cational, point  of  view." 

The  fact  that  students  legally  reach 
maturity  in  all  other  areas  of  their  aca- 
demic and  social  lives  two  to  three 
years  before  they  reach  the  legal 
drinking  age  has  created  a  new  area  of 
tension  between  student  and  school. 
On  the  one  hand,  most  colleges  con- 
sider it  part  of  their  obligation  to 
teach  students  to  handle  alcohol 
responsibly.  On  the  other,  schools 
must  abide  by  state  laws,  and,  in  an 
attempt  to  avoid  liability,  must  police 
activities  in  a  way  that  is  welcome  to 
neither  school  nor  student. 

At  Worcester  Polytechnic  Institute, 
for  instance,  as  at  many  other 
schools,  problems  with  liability  insur- 
ance led  to  the  demise  of  the  college 
pub.  According  to  Joaquim  S.S. 
Ribeiro,  vice  president  for  business 
affairs  and  treasurer,  "When  we 
could  only  get  $1  million  in  liquor 
liability  coverage— down  from  the 
previous  $60-million  coverage— we 
felt  we  had  to  close  our  pub."  While 
this  may  lessen  the  legal  responsibil- 
ity of  a  school,  it  doesn't  lessen  the 
perceived  educational  responsibility: 
"Raising  the  drinking  age  has  driven 
drinking  behind  closed  doors  or  off 
campus,"  says  Robert  Chambers, 
president  of  Western  Maryland  Col- 


lege. "I'd  rather  have  them  drinking 
where  we  can  supervise  them." 

It  would  seem  that  the  simplest  and 
safest  measure  a  college  could  take  in 
such  circumstances  would  be  to  ban 
alcohol  consumption  by  students  all 
together.  Guess  again:  once  schools 
take  such  absolute  measures,  the 
courts  have  found  them  to  have  vol- 
untarily assumed  a  duty  to  make  sure 
that  no  students  drink,  and  therefore 
to  be  liable  when  injuries  as  a  result  of 
student  drinking  occur.  Instead,  col- 
leges have  to  come  up  with  a  broad- 
based  program  protecting  both  them- 
selves and  students.  "We  tell  students 
the  realities,"  says  Rita  Byrne,  dean 
of  student  affairs  at  Franklin  and  Mar- 
shall College.  "We  list  Pennsylvania 
laws  on  drinking  and  drugs  and  make 
them  aware  of  the  liability  problems. 
These  are  intelligent  young  people— 
if  you  explain  the  risks  to  them, 
they're  wary  about  accepting  the 
responsibility." 

Even  so,  at  F&M,  restrictions  exist 
to  protect  the  college:  no  staff  mem- 
ber can  buy  alcohol  for  students,  and 
the  spaces  allotted  for  student  parties 
on  campus  are  limited.  And  with  the 
host  laws— laws  that  hold  the  server 
of  alcohol  responsible  for  the  damage 
caused  by  his  intoxicated  guests- 
becoming  more  severe,  the  college  is 
carefully  watching  its  pub,  where 
beer  is  occasionally  available  to  those 
students  over  21.  Although  the  col- 
lege makes  sure  its  patrons  are  of 
legal  age,  administrators  worry  about 
what  might  happen  if  someone  over 
21  passes  on  a  drink  to  someone 
under  the  legal  age.  "The  courts  seem 
to  impose  even  heavier  penalties," 
says  Byrne,  "when  someone  under- 
age is  involved."  —LB 


students  against  their  schools  between 
1970  and  1985  backs  up  Shirk.  The  piv- 
otal year,  according  to  Gehring,  is  1975: 
cases  about  individual  admissions  deci- 
sions, grades,  and  financial  aid  begin  to 
overtake  cases  concerning  civil  rights. 

"Given  the  demographics,"  says  Brad- 
ley Dewey,  F&M's  vice  president  for  ac- 
ademic affairs  and  dean  of  the  college, 
"students  and  parents  are  more  in  the 
driver's  seat  than  they  used  to  be,  so 
they're  more  emboldened."  Dewey  also 
believes  that  the  tighter  job  market 
makes  students  and  their  parents  think  an 
awful  lot  rides  on  the  difference  between 
a  B+  and  an  A-.  And  the  increasing  cost 
of  an  education  at  a  good  independent 
college  or  university  just  aggravates  mat- 
ters. "People  want  to  get  their  money's 
worth,"  says  Chambers.  "With  prices  as 
they  are,  if  there's  a  glitch  somewhere, 
they  can  think,  'I've  got  a  legal  stake  in 
this."' 

But  this  wrangling  for  perceived  in- 
creases in  a  degree's  value  can  ultimately 
backfire,  according  to  administrators. 
"Private  institutions  have  a  right  to  set 
up  their  own  expectations  about  aca- 
demic standards,"  says  Rita  Byrne,  dean 
of  student  affairs  at  F&M.  Supposedly, 
as  courts  seem  to  recognize,  these  stan- 
dards are  what  attract  students  in  the  first 
place.  In  almost  all  cases  addressing  aca- 
demic evaluations  where  the  school  can 
prove  that  nothing  unusual  has  hap- 
pened, the  courts  have  declined  to  doubt 
the  institution's  judgment. 

In  the  meantime,  though,  schools  have 
had  to  expend  time,  effort,  and  money 
that  could  have  been  used  more  produc- 
tively. There  lies  the  intimidation  factor: 
is  it  worth  going  to  court,  or  should  the 
grade  be  bumped  up  just  this  time?  "We 
-can't  afford  to  be  intimidated,"  says 
Fishbein,  "because  then  our  degree  is 
cheapened." 

Courts  may  take  a  hands-off  stance  on 
academic  cases,  but  they're  more  willing 
to  get  involved  in  disciplinary  ones. 
With  the  dismantling  of  the  in  loco 
parentis  framework  for  student-school 
relations,  colleges  and  universities  have 
often  found  themselves  caught  in  a  dou- 
ble bind.  On  the  one  hand,  they  are 
obliged  to  treat  students  as  adults— to 
spell  out  regulations,  state  in  advance  the 
mechanics  of  disciplinary  proceedings, 
and  then  guarantee  that  due  process  is 
allowed  in  those  proceedings.  On  the 
other,  schools  are  often  held  accountable 
for  the  injuries  resulting  from  actions 
taken  on  a  student's  own  initiative. 


VI       AUGUST  1986 


"Students  are  not  exactly  in  our  care," 
says  the  Rev.  Robert  Martin,  O.S.A., 
assistant  to  the  vice  president  for  student 
life  at  Villanova  University,  "but  they 
may  need  instruction  on  how  to  live  as 
adults  away  from  home."  Villanova's  at- 
titude is  part  of  a  general  educational 
philosophy  predating  the  liability  crisis— 
that  the  whole  student,  not  just  the  part 
that  studies,  should  be  educated.  That 
philosophy,  as  it  turns  out,  fits  the  sphere 
of  legalities  quite  well:  if  a  school  can 
prove  that  it  has  given  students  reason- 
able information  about  the  consequences 
of  dangerous  or  frowned-upon  activities, 
the  courts  may  be  less  likely  to  find  the 
school  at  fault  for  those  actions. 

Perhaps  the  most  frequently  encoun- 
tered discipline  problems  having  legal 
ramifications  are  those  involving  alco- 
hol. Many  states  have  raised  the  drinking 
age  to  21.  Some  courts  have  found  the 
seller  or  host  serving  alcohol  responsible 
for  the  damage  caused  by  the  drinker. 
And  then  there's  the  difficulty  of  obtain- 
ing liability  insurance.  College  adminis- 
trators have  had  to  think  long  and  hard 
about  how  to  deal  with  the  problem. 
"Because  of  the  tightening  up  of  alcohol 
laws,  we've  had  to  tighten  up,"  says 
Chambers.  "Last  year  we  had  15  stu- 
dents separated  from  the  college  for  dis- 
ciplinary reasons,  and  virtually  every 
case  was  related  to  alcohol." 

Seemingly  extreme  precautions  against 
injury  and  unjust  accusations  are  legally 
necessary,  many  administrators  agree. 
But  many  also  feel  that  some  students 
miss  out  on  a  vital  lesson:  adults  are  re- 
sponsible for  their  own  actions.  If  a  dis- 
ciplinary case  reaches  the  courts, 
whether  or  not  a  student  is  guilty  of 
breaching  college  rules  is  rarely  any 
longer  at  issue.  The  burden  of  proof  is 
usually  on  the  school  to  demonstrate  that 
channels  for  due  process  were  in  place, 
and,  more  importantly,  that  these  pro- 
cesses were  followed. 

"You  can't  summarily  dismiss  people 
anymore  and  get  away  with  it,"  says 
Fishbein.  "We've  all  had  to  clean  up  our 
procedures,  which  is  a  good  thing.  But 
it's  gone  too  far."  John  Shirk  thinks  that, 
in  many  cases,  everybody  loses: 
"Because  the  courts  often  focus  on  tech- 
nicalities rather  than  on  whether  or  not 
the  student  did  what  he  was  accused  of, 
students  learn  a  lot  about  technicalities 
and  not  much  about  correcting  their 
behavior.  I  worry  that  the  lesson,  that 
there  are  limits  to  acceptable  behavior, 
won't  carry  over  into  later  life." 


With  the  advent  of  constitutional  guar- 
antees against  many  forms  of  discrimina- 
tion in  the  1970s  and  the  tightening  of  the 
academic  job  market  in  the  1980s,  suits 
filed  by  faculty  members  against  their 
employers  have  also  become  a  regular 
feature  of  the  academic  landscape.  Says 
Shirk,  "Today  most  employment  prob- 


impossible  to  fire  someone  with  tenure 
today,"  says  Chambers.  "It  probably 
wouldn't  stand  up  in  court."  So  the  insti- 
tution has  a  lifelong  investment  (in  mon- 
etary terms,  often  over  $1  million  per 
person  in  salary  and  benefits)  in  the  supe- 
rior performances  of  its  tenured  faculty. 
The  anti-discrimination  laws  exist  to 


"IT  USED  TO  BE  THAT  A  DEAN  WOULD  SEND 
AN  ENCOURAGING  NOTE  TO  A  JUNIOR  FAC- 
ULTY MEMBER  AFTER  A  GOOD  LECTURE. 
NOW  YOU  DON'T  BECAUSE  IT  COULD  SHOW 
UP  IN  COURT  AS  INDICATING  A  PROMISE  FOR 
TENURE." 


lems  are  accompanied  by  some  kind  of  a 
discrimination  claim." 

Since  the  1960s,  when  tenured  aca- 
demic jobs  were  easier,  at  least  statisti- 
cally, to  come  by,  the  relationship 
between  colleges  and  universities  and 
their  faculty  members  has  changed  mark- 
edly. Young  faculty  taking  a  place  on  the 
tenure  track  know  that  the  numbers  are 
stacked  against  them,  that  they  must 
make  a  mark  with  both  their  teaching  and 
their  research,  and  that  they  may  work 
hard  and  steadily  for  up  to  seven  years 
only  to  be  told  that  there  is  no  permanent 
place  for  them  at  their  institution.  Find- 
ing another  suitable  position  may  be  dif- 
ficult. The  tenure  decision  thus  becomes 
the  most  important  event  in  their  profes- 
sional lives. 

Faculty  tenure  decisions  are  also 
among  the  most  important  events  in  the 
corporate  life  of  a  university.  The  deci- 
sion is  virtually  irrevocable:  "It's  almost 


protect  minorities  from  blatant  hiring 
discrimination  as  well  as  to  encourage 
active  broadening  of  the  nation's  once 
nearly  all-white,  all-male  faculty  pool. 
College  and  university  administrators 
say  that  they  agree  with  these  aims  but 
that  the  regulations  are  often  simply  an 
excuse  to  vent  disappointed  faculty 
members'  frustrations.  The  courts  seem 
to  side  with  the  administrators'  view:  a 
study  conducted  by  Lee  and  George 
LaNoue  of  the  University  of  Maryland 
Baltimore  County  found  that  between 
1972  and  1984,  39  cases  of  academic 
discrimination  were  filed  and  tried  to 
conclusion  in  federal  court.  Only  three 
were  won  by  the  plaintiffs. 

However,  supporters  of  those  filing 
discrimination  suits  charge  that  this  is 
another  issue  in  which  judges  have 
tended  to  bow  to  scholars'  academic 
judgments— if  a  smoking  gun  indicating 
discrimination  doesn't  turn  up,  judges 


ALUMNI  MAGAZINE  CONSORTIUM       VU 


"THERE'S  ALWAYS  THE  TEMPTATION  TO  DO 
THE  SAEE  THING  RATHER  THAN  TO  MAKE 
THE  ACADEMICALLY  WISE  DECISION." 


usually  trust  the  assessments  of  those 
making  the  tenure  decision.  And,  these 
supporters  say,  the  plaintiffs'  cases  are 
crippled  by  their  inability  to  gain  access 
to  many  of  the  documents  central  to  the 
tenure  decision. 

Most  administrators  stand  firm  against 
a  complete  exposure  of  the  procedure: 
they  assert  that  reviews  written  by  peers, 
senior  faculty,  and  outside  reviewers 
must  remain  confidential.  If  they  do  not, 
they  say,  future  reviewers  will  be  less 
candid  and  therefore  less  reliable.  And 
the  result  will  be  arbitrary  appointments 
and  a  weaker  faculty  body.  "Tenure  is  a 
unique  arrangement,"  says  Shirk.  "And 
in  judging  candidates  there  isn't  an 
objective  standard.  The  government 
enforcement  agencies  tend  to  think  there 
is  and  that  the  records  will  reveal  it." 

In  February,  F&M  petitioned  the  U.S. 
Supreme  Court  to  review  the  United 
States  Court  of  Appeals  for  the  Third 
Circuit's  decision  on  just  such  a  case.  At 
issue  was  whether  the  college  should  have 
to  hand  over  confidential  peer  review 
documents  to  the  Equal  Employment  Op- 
portunity Commission  (EEOC),  which 
is  investigating  allegations  by  a  former 
assistant  professor  that  he  was  denied  ten- 
ure because  of  his  foreign  origin.  The  col- 
lege argues  that  no  discrimination  took 
place  and  has  either  turned  over  to  or 
made  available  for  inspection  all  the  docu- 
ments requested  by  the  EEOC  except  the 
confidential  peer  reviews. 

The  college  petitioned  for  the  writ  be- 
cause the  administration  believes  that 
there  isn't  a  consistent,  established  legal 


standard  upon  which  an  order  to  produce 
these  confidential  documents  can  be 
based.  The  Court  of  Appeals  for  the 
Third  Circuit— which  ordered  F&M  to 
turn  them  over  to  the  EEOC  simply  be- 
cause they  were  relevant  to  the 
investigation — went  against  decisions 
laid  down  by  the  Seventh  Circuit  (which 
ruled  that  the  person  alleging  discrimina- 
tion must  show  a  strong  and  particular 
need  for  these  documents)  and  the  Sec- 
ond Circuit  (which  ruled  that  this  person 
must  show  that  his  or  her  need  for  the 
documents  outweighs  the  interest  of  the 
college  in  keeping  them  confidential). 

The  college  also  holds  that  the  Third 
Circuit's  decision  runs  counter  to  pre- 
vious decisions  handed  down  by  the  Su- 
preme Court  which  give  First  Amend- 
ment protection  to  these  documents.  "A 
government  interest  for  fairness  and  a 
private  interest  for  quality  are  butting  up 
against  each  other  in  these  cases,"  says 
John  Shirk.  "They  shouldn't  be  mutually 
exclusive,  so  the  question  is  how  can  the 
two  coexist?"  The  Supreme  Court  de- 
cided in  June  not  to  hear  the  case,  so 
F&M  will  have  to  hand  the  documents 
over  to  the  EEOC.  Other  colleges  and 
universities,  as  well  as  F&M,  will  now 
have  to  reconsider  the  tenure  review 
process  and  decide  how  to  reconcile  their 
desire  for  confidentiality  with  the  courts' 
desire  for  evidence. 

Like  doctors  who  are  afraid  to  do 
procedures  because  they're  worried 
about  malpractice  suits,   college 
administrators  fear  that  some  basic  edu- 


cational functions  may  be  edged  out  by 
defensive  legal  maneuvers.  "College 
administrators  of  necessity  have  had  to 
become  more  management  oriented," 
says  Dewey.  "The  problem  is  achieving 
a  balance  between  the  hardnosed  legal 
and  economic  realities  and  educational 
idealism."  Potential  legal  problems  have 
to  be  headed  off  before  they  can  get 
started,  and  that  often  means  less  sponta- 
neity, less  openness,  more  suspicion  on 
the  campus.  "There's  always  the  tempta- 
tion," says  Fishbein,  "to  do  the  safe 
thing  rather  than  to  make  the  academi- 
cally wise  decision." 

But  doing  the  safe  thing  sometimes 
seems  necessary.  Doubts  about  liability 
coverage  have  gnawed  at  the  essential 
activities  of  the  university:  "It  worries 
me  that  we  may  have  to  limit  our 
research  to  limit  our  liability  exposure," 
says  Jon  C.  Strauss,  president  of  Wor- 
cester Polytechnic  Institute.  "It's  con- 
trary to  the  concept  of  academic  free- 
dom, that  you  investigate  what  needs  to 
be  investigated  without  consideration  for 
the  risks."  Basic  relationships  have  suf- 
fered, too.  "It  used  to  be  that  a  dean 
would  send  an  encouraging  note  to  a 
junior  faculty  member  after  a  good  lec- 
ture," says  Dewey.  "Now  you  don't 
because  it  could  show  up  in  court  as  indi- 
cating a  promise  for  tenure.  That's  bound 
to  take  a  toll."  And  Robert  Chambers 
laments  traditional  rites  of  passage:  "A 
professor  can't  even  have  a  beer  with  a 
student  anymore,"  he  says.  "That  used 
to  be  a  cherished  event." 

Administrators  point  out  that  the  fed- 
eral anti-discrimination  regulations  have 
greatly  helped  to  make  campuses  more 
accessible  to  minorities  and  women.  And 
the  re-examination  of  administrative  pol- 
icies has  undoubtedly  put  a  stop  to  many 
arbitrary  decisions  based  on  favoritism 
and  preconceived  ideas.  "We  can't  let 
ourselves  get  bogged  down  and  discour- 
aged by  these  issues,"  says  Dewey. 
"There's  lots  of  good  educating  going  on 
in  spite  of  these  problems." 

The  key  to  surmounting  them,  say  the 
administrators,  is  to  remember  that  the 
primary  mission  of  the  institution  is  edu- 
cation and  then  to  build  a  strategy  around 
that  keystone  by  eliminating  as  many 
legal  risks  as  possible.  "You  can  do  too 
much,"  says  Father  Martin.  "You  can 
put  on  so  many  bandages  that  the  patient 
dies." 

Leslie  Brunetta  is  assistant  editor  of  the 
Alumni  Magazine  Consortium. 


Vffl       AUGUST  1986 


A  COOK'S  TOUR  OF 


VACATIONS 


Eight  fact-filled  pages. 

Four  Roz  Chast  cartoons. 

A  Hugh  Kenner  essay. 

Hexes  a  vacation  package  to  read  on  the  plane, 

on  the  beach,  or  on  the  back  porch. 


VACATION 
(va  ka'shan) 
n. 


In  Sabine,  Italy,  Vacuna  was  the  goddess 
who  granted  vacations.  Joel  Farber,  pro- 
fessor of  classics  at  Franklin  and  Mar- 
shall College,  says  her  name— and  hence 
our  word  vacation— probably  came  from 
the  Latin  root  vaco,  meaning  to  be  empty 
or  void.  Vacatio  means  an  immunity  or 
freedom  from  something. 

Not  a  great  deal  is  known  about 
Vacuna.  The  best  representation  of  her 
was  found  at  the  ancient  site  of  Monte- 
buono.  The  goddess  stands  solemnly 
above  a  throne  surrounded  by  nude  gen- 
ies,  holding  torches  she  has  lit  for  them. 

She  seems  to  have  had  connections 
with  water,  agriculture,  healing,  and  lei- 
sure. Elizabeth  Evans  writes  in  The  Cults 
of  the  Sabine  Territory  that  Vacuna 's 
name  may  refer  to  the  purgative  quality 


of  mineral  waters;  she  may  have  freed 
people  from  disease.  Worshipped  on  the 
floating  island  at  Aquae  Cutiliae  (a 
famous  health  resort  frequented  by 
Roman  emperors),  Vacuna,  Evans  sug- 
gests, may  have  been  some  divine  Lady 
of  the  Lake. 

Vacuna  was  also  the  goddess  to  whom 
farmers  looked  for  blessing  and  rest.  In 
ancient  Rome,  country  laborers  held  a 
festival,  called  Vacunalia,  in  her  honor 
each  December  after  the  crops  were 
gathered  and  the  lands  were  tilled.  Then 
they  rested. 

—Rhonda  Watts 


WHEN 
YOU  NEED 
A  VACATION, 
TAKE  ONE 


"One  of  the  most  stressful  things  life 
offers  is  coping  with  the  same  things  day 
in  and  day  out,"  says  Daniel  Ziegler,  a 


psychologist  at  Villanova  University 
who  runs  a  stress  management  program. 
"The  same  work,  the  same  people,  the 
same  house,  the  same  family,  the  same 
friends.  Sameness  can  provoke  stress." 
Unfortunately,  change  can  cause  stress, 
too.  And  so  do  overwork  and  under- 
work, too  much  stimulus  and  too  little — 
in  fact,  the  list  includes  an  endless  col- 
lection of  opposites. 

Sometimes  stress  produces  physical 
strain:  heart  disease,  ulcers,  and  high 
blood  pressure.  Sometimes  the  strain  is 
psychological:  depression,  helplessness, 
hopelessness,  conflicts  in  the  family  and 
on  the  job.  "The  people  who  work  tre- 
mendous hours  and  never  take  vaca- 
tions," says  Daniel  Rees,  a  Western 
Maryland  College  sociologist  who  stud- 
ies employee  productivity,  "are  the  same 
people  who  get  inefficient,  don't  make 
decisions  well,  are  intolerant  of  their  col- 
leagues, and  whose  productivity  has 
fallen  off." 

Ziegler's  advice:  "People  should  give 
themselves  a  break."  Helen  Vassallo, 
who  teaches  biology  and  management  at 
Worcester  Polytechnic  Institute,  seconds 


ALUMNI  MAGAZINE  CONSORTIUM       IX 


VACATIONS 


the  motion:  "It's  important  to  get  away. 
My  college  says  that  even  if  you  teach  at 
summer  school,  you  should  take  a  month 
off." 

Ziegler  doesn't  like  to  generalize  about 
what  type  of  vacation  people  should 
take.  "The  peace-and-quiet-no-phones- 
few-people  kind  of  vacation  I  love,"  he 
says,  "would  drive  some  people  up  the 
wall.  Those  people  need  to  fly  some- 
place and  ski,  and  fly  someplace  else  and 
gamble,  and  fly  someplace  else  again." 

Whatever  vacation  you  like,  Ziegler, 
Vassallo,  and  Rees  have  some  advice: 
First,  take  the  kids  about  half  the  time. 
"Families  need  to  do  things  together," 
says  Rees.  "Teens  need  to  stay  in  the 
family,  too— and  they  don't  always  have 
to  bring  along  a  friend.  But  don't  take  a 
child-oriented  vacation,  don't  spend  the 
whole  time  at  Disneyland  or  Busch  Gar- 
dens. Parents  need  time  alone  together." 
Ziegler  says  parents  need  to  balance  pri- 
vate vacations  with  family  vacations:  "If 
you  can  afford  it  financially  and  emo- 
tionally, do  both." 

Second,  separate  vacations  for  spouses 
may  not  be  such  a  great  idea,  although, 
as  Vassallo  notes,  "constant  companion- 
ship produces  its  own  stresses."  Ziegler 
suspects  that  a  desire  for  separate  vaca- 
tions might  be  a  symptom  of  insufficient 
separateness  during  everyday  life.  Sepa- 
rate vacations  are  sometimes  suggested 
for  couples  having  serious  tough  times. 
"They  might  be  better  as  therapy,"  says 
Ziegler,  "than  as  routine." 

Third,  don't  work  late  the  night 
before,  slam  everything  together  the  next 
morning,  and  insist  on  leaving  the  house 
by  10  a.m.  or  the  world  ends.  "The  tran- 
sition from  work  to  play,"  argues  Rees, 
"is  itself  stressful.  Make  the  transition 
gradually,  rehearse  the  change."  On  the 
stress  scale  where  the  death  of  a  spouse 
rates  100,  just  going  on  vacation  checks 
in  at  around  10.  "Plan  for  the  stress  of 
leaving,"  says  Ziegler,  "pack  ahead  of 
time,  loaf  along." 

Finally,  take  as  much  vacation  as  you 
can  get.  Experts  disagree  on  whether 
your  annual  leave  should  be  split  into 
several  vacations  or  taken  all  at  once. 
"You  don't  want  to  pack  a  whole  year's 
relief  into  one  vacation,"  says  Vassallo. 
On  the  other  hand,  says  Rees,  "It  can 
take  four  days  just  to  relax." 

The  main  thing,  says  Rees,  is  that  peo- 


ple get  sufficient  vacation  time— a  mini- 
mum of  three  weeks  a  year. 

—Ann  Finkbeiner 


FICTION 

OF 

FREE-FALL 


E.M.  Forster's  A  Room  With  a  View 
starts  with  people  arriving  in  Italy  on 
vacation.  Nothing  new  there;  fiction  was 
always  about  people  on  vacation— peo- 
ple in  free  fall.  Don  Quixote  was  not 
punching  a  time  clock.  The  great  genre 
that  extends  from  the  Odyssey  to  The 
Adventures  of  Augie  March — the  pica- 
resque, the  tale  of  the  unattached  wan- 
derer—is a  saga  of  what  we  have  learned 
to  call  vacation  (interruption  of  routine). 
But  Homer  along  with  Saul  Bellow 
(before  Chicago's  Committee  on  Social 
Thought  flypapered  him)  could  see  it  as 
the  normal  shape  of  human  life,  a  taking 
of  things  as  they  come.  Here  "Vacation" 
means   "back  to  normal." 


It  was  the  glory  of  Henry  James  that 
his  people  didn't  "work."  That  meant: 
being  free  from  predictable  and  fairly 
uninteresting  pressures,  they  could 
expand,  stretch,  and  dart  fire.  Some 
were  dull,  true,  but  if  they  were  you 
could  see  the  cause— and  expect  a  most 
interesting  pathology— in  them,  and  not 
in  their  subjection  to  "9  to  5." 

And  the  Hemingway  hero— Robert 
Jordan  in  For  Whom  the  Bell  Tolls— has 
been  cut  loose  to  think  about  blowing  up 
a  Spanish  bridge  the  way  he  might  be 
thinking  about  damming  a  stream  some 
footloose  July,  up  in  Michigan. 

Fiction,  19th-century  British  fiction 
especially,  has  its  gridded  and  inelucta- 
ble particulars— the  clock,  the  calendar, 
the  railway  timetable,  the  city  plan,  in 
fact  just  about  everything  that  pedantry 
assigns  to  "structure"— because  as  foot- 
ball needs  its  grid  to  persuade  you  may- 
hem is  rule-bound,  so  the  untrammeled 
bouncing  about  of  human  volition  needs 
a  look  of  containment  before  we'll 
acknowledge  a  writer's  tidy  job.  For  of 
writers  we  expect  "Plot,"  and  plot  is 
chaos.  "Plot,"  come  to  think  of  it,  is 
foreshadowed  in  the  Odyssey,  when  the 
winds  of  Aeolus  come  out  of  their  bag, 


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X       AUGUST  1986 


VACATIONS 


and  the  scheme  of  any  novel  is: 

BEGIN 
Let  the  winds  loose. 
(Chapters  of  blowing  about.) 
A  show  of  rebagging  them. 

END 
I  once  heard  the  novelist  Richard  Stern 
confide  that  he  began  Golk,  the  saga  of 
Herbert  Hondorp,  by  "cutting  Hondorp 
loose." 

David  Lodge  wrote  a  story  some  years 
back  about  an  English  family's  unsuc- 
cessful vacation.  Their  idyll  had  begun, 
it  belatedly  turns  out,  with  the  dog  get- 
ting mortally  run  over,  and  the  rest  of  the 
story  was  of  the  same  texture  (sunburn, 
seasickness).  The  story's  subtext  seemed 
to  be  that  vacations  are  without  excep- 
tion unsuccessful,  something  it  needed 
the  dog's  demise  to  bring  home.  That  is  a 
bourgeois  perspective  (Lodge's  point). 
Following  the  Trojan  War,  Odysseus  has 
a  10-year  vacation  of  spectacular  unsuc- 
cess,  losing  his  ships  and  crewmen, 
being  humiliated  by  Cyclopes  worse  than 
mosquitoes,  tied  to  the  mast  while  listen- 
ing to  song  (which  you'd  not  put  up  with 
in  the  Acapulco  Hilton),  and  having  his 
dog  drop  dead  the  minute  he's  back  in 
Ithaca.  Paraphrased,  the  Odyssey  might 
be  the  stand-up  monologue  of  a  nebbish 
comedian,  and  such  a  thing  may  have 
crossed  James  Joyce's  mind. 

Fiction  tells  us  that  to  be  on  vacation  is 
mankind's  natural  state.  That  it's  normal 
to  be  accountable  for  every  moment  is  a 
potent  counter-fiction,  endorsed  by  the 
IRS  as  by  all  listers  of  figures.  Thus  real 
fiction  rejects  figures.  They  pertain  to 
the  anti-world.  The  moment  Bellow 
starts  mentioning  numbers  he's  clawing 
us  down  into  unreality,  and  the  deadpan 
listing  of  Bloom's  budget  for  the  day  is 
one  of  the  high  comic  moments  of 
Ulysses. 

Fiction,  the  hammock:  those  are  sym- 
biotic, as  the  New  York  Times  Book 
Review  knows.  Eyes  always  on  figures 
(#1?  #2?  #7  last  week?),  the  Review 
stands  in  for  an  industry.  No  member  of 
a  holiday  crowd  is  more  alert  than  the 
pickpocket. 

—Hugh  Kenner 

Hugh  Kenner  teaches  English  at  Johns 
Hopkins.  He  is  the  author  of  The  Pound 
Era  and  A  Colder  Eye:  The  Modern  Irish 
Writers,  as  well  as  many  other  books. 


(/W  B? 


,    ■  - 


/ac«fi»n     (c>! 


A  SHORT 
HISTORY 
OF 
VACATIONS 


"We  Westerners  have  a  funny  way  of 
dividing  our  time,"  says  Sidney  Mintz,  a 
Johns  Hopkins  University  anthropolo- 
gist. "We  think  of  work  and  play  as  polar 
opposites."  That  peculiar  schism,  says 
Mintz,  produced  the  Western  idea  of 
vacationing— getting  away  from  work. 

But  the  idea  is  an  old  one.  Aristotle 
talked  about  vacations  in  his  Politics: 
"We  do  without  leisure  only  to  give  our- 
selves leisure."  And  Romans  had  more 
than  100  "Roman  Holidays"  on  the  cal- 


endar. Ostensibly  religious  observances, 
the  holidays  were  festivals  of  over- 
drinking, over-eating,  and  cheering  on 
fights  to  the  death.  Gladiator  fights  and 
wild  animal  baiting  figured  as  major 
attractions.  By  the  close  of  Caesar's 
reign,  some  of  these  holidays  lasted  two 
to  three  weeks. 

Medieval  Europeans  reverted  to  a 
vacation  schedule  based  on  sowing  and 
reaping.  Between  harvests  people  were 
free  to  do  as  they  pleased  for  days  at  a 
time.  Although  they  couldn't  travel  far 
(ordinary  people  needed  infrequently 
granted  passports  to  travel  even  short 
distances),  they  could  gather  at  nearby 
fairs,  such  as  the  Stourbridge  Fair  near 
Cambridge,  which  lasted  three  weeks 
every  September,  to  eat  and  drink,  trade 
goods,  play  games,  dance,  and  tell  tales. 

When  the  Industrial  Revolution  started 


ALUMNI  MAGAZINE  CONSORTIUM       XI 


VACATIONS 


WISH  YOU  WERE  HERE 

In  1865,  a  German  and  an  Austrian 
independently  decided  that  there  must 
be  a  cheaper  way  to  mail  messages. 
Their  idea:  a  piece  of  card  that  could 
be  posted  at  a  reduced  rate.  The  Aus- 
trian Post  Office  liked  the  idea  and 
issued  its  first  card  in  1869;  other 
countries  soon  followed  suit. 

The  first  cards  weren't  much  to 
write  home  about.  They  had  a  stamp, 
and  room  for  the  address  on  the  front, 
and  the  message  on  the  back.  Privately 
printed  cards  depicting  interesting 
scenes  were  already  being  sold  as 
travel  souvenirs  when  the  plain  post 
office  cards  came  out.  It  didn't  take 
long  before  people  began  to  drop  them 
into  the  mail.  But  the  post  offices  were 
stingy:  any  cards  but  their  own  had  to 
pay  the  normal  letter  rate. 

The  U.S.  Post  Office  got  wise  in 
1893,  issuing  picture  cards  for  the 
World's  Columbian  Exposition.  By 
1898— realizing  that  not  many  tourists 
would  spring  for  the  two-cent  cards 
and  so  probably  wouldn't  mail  any- 
thing at  all— they  allowed  private 
cards  at  the  reduced  rate. 

But  no  messages  were  allowed  on  the 
address  side;  people  had  to  write  in 
spaces  left  around  the  picture.  It 
wasn't  until  1907  that  senders  could 
flip  to  the  address  side  and  write 
"Wish  you  were  here." 

— Leslie  Brunetta 


« ***** 


\\\ 


C>'\fla 


"/  wouldn  't  send 
this  card,"  says 
post  card  collector 
Ray  Norris  of 
Catonsville,  Md., 
"but  in  the  '00s  and 
'10s,  card  buyers 
liked  pictures  of 
fires  and  lynchings, 
too." 


During  prohibition, 
there  was  more  than 
one  reason  to  go  on 
vacation. 


gathering  steam  in  the  late  1700s, 
rhythms  of  work  and  play  changed  dra- 
matically. Factory  owners  needed  reli- 
able bodies  on  the  job,  bodies  that 
wouldn't  hear  the  call  of  local  fairs  and 
other  diversions.  And  the  best  way  to 
insure  that,  the  owners  figured,  was  to 
institute  long  days  and  long  weeks.  In 
England,  for  example,  bank  holidays 
(national  days  off)  dwindled  from  47  in 
1761  to  4  in  1834.  The  Factory  Act  of 
1 833  guaranteed  children  eight  half-days 
off  a  year  in  addition  to  Christmas  and 
Good  Friday.  (The  weekend  hadn't  been 
invented  yet;  only  Sunday  was  a  regular 
day  off.)  The  act  wasn't  popular  among 
owners,  who  thought  it  too  liberal. 
Americans  weren't  much  better  off: 
Their  standard  work  week  in  1870  was 
about  70  hours  long. 
Still,  on  those  few  days  off,  workers 


who  could  afford  vacations  took  them. 
English  train  excursions  to  public  execu- 
tions were  popular,  sometimes  boosting 
the  local  crowds  to  mobs  of  50,000  peo- 
ple. And  some  factory  owners  and 
churches  organized  daylong  excursions 
for  their  workers  to  the  seaside,  major 
cities,  and  country  pleasure-spots. 

The  king  of  excursions,  Thomas  Cook 
(who  gave  his  name  to  the  Cook's  Tour), 
started  out  as  a  temperance  pamphlet 
printer  who  organized  a  public  train 
excursion  from  Leicester  to  a  large  tem- 
perance meeting  in  Loughborough  in 
1841.  He  soon  began  to  arrange  bigger 
and  better  excursions  around  the  north  of 
England,  mainly  to  church  and  temper- 
ance conventions,  and  managed  to  get 
165,000  people  to  London's  Great  Exhi- 
bition of  1851.  Cook  wasn't  satisfied: 
"We  must  have  RAILWAYS  FOR  THE 


MILLIONS,"  was  his  motto.  By  1856, 
he  had  organized  his  first  grand  tour  of 
Europe  and  soon  became  an  agent  for  the 
sale  of  tickets  to  independent  travelers. 

But  the  big  vacation  breakthrough 
came  about  when  working  people  gained 
longer  holidays  with  pay.  One-,  two-, 
and  three-day  excursions  were  all  very 
well,  but  they  were  often  more  tiring 
than  rejuvenating.  The  labor  movements 
in  most  Western  countries  started  agitat- 
ing for  paid  holidays  after  gaining 
shorter  work  days  in  the  late  1800s,  but  it 
wasn't  until  the  1930s  that  paid  holidays 
became  common.  In  England,  for 
instance,  about  1.5  million  wage  earners 
had  holidays  with  pay  in  the  1920s,  com- 
pared to  about  11  million  by  1939.  As 
the  number  of  vacationers  rose,  so  did 
the  number  of  seaside  vacation  camps 
(where  campers  were  organized  into 


XII       AUGUST  1986 


Many  early  cards, 
including  this 
Japanese  one,  were 
collected  as  pieces 
of  decorative  art 
rather  than  mailed 
as  souvenirs. 


'"Greetings  from 
the  Mudbath '  is 
from  1921,"  Morris 
says.  "It  lets  you 
know  the  period's 
sense  of  humor." 


L-L 


>ERUN; 


- 


"  'Gruss  aus '  means 
'greetings  from,'" 
says  Norris,  who 
has  over  10,000 
cards.  "Most  turn- 
of-the-century 
travel  cards  copy 
this  design." 


It    %#&L 


"Whom  marriage  ties 

together, 
Only  time  can  tell. 
Sometimes  they 

charm  forever, 
And  others— not  so      §\ 

well."  •• 

sports  and  entertainment  teams),  tours 
around  the  country  and  abroad,  and 
camping  grounds  in  national  parks  and 
near  popular  historic  sites. 

The  car  reinvented  the  American  vaca- 
tion. In  Henry  Ford's  affordable  automo- 
biles, the  middle  and  working  classes 
took  to  the  roads  in  droves,  on  short  Sun- 
day drives  and  long  camping  trips.  In 
1910,  a  few  tens  of  thousands  of  people 
had  visited  the  country's  national  parks, 
but  by  1935  about  34  million  had  stopped 
in,  almost  all  transported  by  private  car. 
With  some  canvas,  and  a  lantern  and 
stove,  holidays  could  be  do-it-yourself 
affairs— much  less  expensive  than  trains 
and  hotels,  and  for  many  people,  much 
less  intimidating  than  dealing  with  super- 
cilious bellhops  and  deskclerks. 

From  makeshift  roadside  stops  sprang 
campsites  equipped  with  showers  and 


toilets.  Next  came  campsites  equipped 
with  small  sheds  sharing  communal 
facilities,  then  small  cabins  equipped 
with  many  of  the  comforts  of  home— the 
first  motels.  Or  you  could  pull  your  lodg- 
ings with  you,  as  trailer  homes  devel- 
oped from  homemade  wooden  cabins  on 
wheels  to  the  silver-bullet  Airstream 
Clipper. 

The  airplane  soon  made  foreign  travel 
a  possibility  for  those  not  yet  satisfied.  In 
1936,  Pan  American  Airways  offered  the 
China  Clipper,  the  world's  first  trans- 
oceanic passenger  flight,  from  San  Fran- 
cisco to  Manila.  The  Clipper  was  for 
economic  high-flyers  willing  to  pay  S950 
for  speed:  The  trip  took  six  days  (60 
hours  flying  time  with  overnight  stops  at 
islands  along  the  way)  rather  than  the 
three  weeks  ships  took. 

The  propeller-set  became  the  jet-set 


^f; 


when  British  Overseas  Airways  Corp. 
introduced  jet  service  from  London  to 
Johannesburg  in  1952.  Added  speed  and 
comfort— and  gradually  decreasing 
costs— made  flight  increasingly  popular. 
Today,  about  30  million  passengers  a 
year  leave  the  U.S.  on  flights  bound  for 
foreign  destinations.  With  deregulation 
of  the  airline  industry  making  cut-rate 
fares  and  updated  versions  of  Cook's 
excursions  commonplace,  even  college 
students  can  afford  the  Grand  Tour. 

But  students  are  among  the  privileged 
few  who  can  also  afford  the  time  to  take 
leisurely  vacations.  Although  98  percent 
of  the  American  workforce  receives 
some  paid  vacation,  an  Industrial  Age 
work  ethic  still  rules.  Even  after  five 
years  with  the  same  employer,  according 
to  the  U.S.  Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics, 
the  average  worker  has  just  12.7  days  off 


ALUMNI  MAGAZINE  CONSORTIUM       XIII 


VACATIONS 


WHICH    £  lAJH/Cf/ 


1 


\\  r  lcfl*\. 


^ 


1  6 


lit  Y>  Si& 


fYW%i  * 


a,  H.-fc-H- 


a  year:  after  10  years,  15.9  days  off. 
Weekends  are  great,  but  they  end  too 
soon.  To  really  relax,  you  need  a  whole 
chunk  of  time.  We  have  a  long  way  to  go 
before  we  catch  up  with  the  Romans. 

—Leslie  Brunetta 


WHERE 
THEY  GO, 
WHAT 
THEY  DO 


Like  many  things  Western,  vacations 
have  caught  on  big  around  the  globe. 

In  India,  for  example,  the  government 
now  reimburses  the  rail-travel  costs  of 
every  government  employee's  biennial 
"haoya  badal"  ("change  of  breeze"). 
The  government  largesse  has  its  draw- 
backs, such  as  a  flourishing  black  market 
that  furnishes  phony  rail-receipts  to 
unscrupulous  employees,  but  still,  the 
nation's  vacation  industry  is  booming. 

"A  century  ago,  the  concept  of  a  vaca- 
tion was  entirely  absent  in  India,"  says 
Amit  Mitra,  an  economics  professor  at 
Franklin  and  Marshall  College.  The  only 
excuse  for  leaving  home  was  to  make  a 
religious  pilgrimage  to  one  of  India's 
plethora  of  shrines— "to  pave  your  way 
to  Heaven,"  Mitra  says— and  that  often 
meant  hitching  up  your  camel,  and  risk- 
ing death  and  starvation  during  a 
months-long  trek  through  the  Himalayas. 

Then  the  British  brought  railroads, 
office  life,  and,  of  course,  vacations. 
And  when  the  new  educated  upper- 
middle  class  Indians  began  to  emulate 
the  British,  they  combined  their  vaca- 
tions with  the  old  idea  of  making  reli- 
gious pilgrimages. 

The  practice  still  holds.  For  the  lower- 
middle  class,  it  might  just  be  a  weekend 
trip— the  Taj  Express  gets  you  from 
Delhi  to  the  Taj  Mahal  in  just  three 
hours,  with  overnight  accommodations 
as  part  of  the  package.  Wealthier  people, 
such  as  business  executives  in  Bombay, 
might  take  a  jaunt  to  the  Caribbean-like 
nude  beaches  at  Goa  and  Puri,  but 
they're  just  as  likely  to  tie  in  a  beach  trip 
with  a  visit  to  the  religious  shrine  at 
Kovalam,  at  the  southern  tip  of  India 


XIV       AUGUST  1986 


.OJ 


VACATIONS 


near  Sri  Lanka,  where  there  also  happen 
to  be  several  five-star  hotels  built  into  the 
face  of  the  sea-cliffs. 

"All  the  most  beautiful  temples  in 
India  seem  to  be  near  the  sea,"  Mitra 
says.  "I  suppose  the  ocean  provides  eas- 
ier access  to  God." 

Religion  is  out  of  vogue  in  the  Soviet 
Union,  but  as  in  India,  the  government  is 
gung  ho  in  its  support  of  vacationing. 
The  Soviet  Constitution  has  recently 
been  amended  to  guarantee  workers  in 
most  industries  four  weeks  of  leisure 
time  per  year,  and  the  railroads  are 
cheap.  (Aeroflot,  the  government  air- 
line, is  also  cheap,  but  somewhat  unreli- 
able. "Everything's  a  secret— they  don't 
publish  schedules,"  says  Hartwick  Col- 
lege political  science  professor  John  Lin- 
dell,  a  veteran  of  travel  in  the  Soviet 
Union  and  the  Orient.  "Basically,  you'll 
get  a  call  at  your  hotel  and  a  voice  will 
say,  'It's  time  to  go.'  ") 

Museums  and  war  monuments  are 
favorite  short-term  destinations  for  the 
Soviets— the  Hermitage  Museum  in  Len- 
ingrad is  considered  one  of  the  world's 
finest.  Beaches  become  the  mecca  during 
the  short  summer  months. 


"The  Black  Sea,  with  cities  like  Sochi, 
Yalta,  and  Odessa,  is  an  area  that  has 
elements  of  the  California  Gulf  coast  and 
the  Northeastern  Atlantic,"  Lindell  says. 
"Its  latitude  is  comparable  to  Minneso- 
ta's, so  the  summer  is  brief  but  very 
warm  and  beautiful."  The  beaches  are 
also  beautiful,  but  not  always  the  most 
comfortable;  to  fight  erosion,  the  gov- 
ernment has  removed  all  the  sand  at  the 
Sochi  and  Yalta  beaches  and  replaced  it 
with  pebbles. 

The  Soviets  are  group-  and  family- 
oriented  when  it  comes  to  vacationing; 
factories  and  businesses  often  maintain 
low-priced  vacation  villas  on  the  Black 
Sea  for  their  employees,  and  often  two  or 
three  families  will  book  a  villa  together. 

The  Soviets  are  also  fond  of  river 
cruises  on  the  Dnieper,  the  Volga,  and 
the  Don.  But  Lindell  quickly  dispels  a 
Twainesque  vision  of  latter-day  steam- 
boats. "It's  like  'Love  Boat,'  only  less 
elegant,"  he  says. 

Lindell  adds  that  traveling  abroad  is  an 
option  only  for  a  certain  elite  in  Soviet 
society. 

"The  system  is  rigidly  stratified,"  he 
says.  "People  in  the  industrial,  military, 


or  educational  elite  can  travel  within  the 
Eastern  Bloc— you  know,  Poland  or 
Czechoslovakia.  Higher  up,  you  can 
maybe  go  as  far  as  Yugoslavia,  the 
Mideast.  And  when  you  reach  the 
pinnacle— if  you're  a  superstar  athlete  or 
performer  with  the  Bolshoi— you  get  to 
go  to  the  West." 

The  hardest  of  the  hard-core  tourists 
appear  to  be  the  Japanese,  who  also  fall 
within  Lindell's  purview.  "They  go 
everywhere,  en  masse,  by  the  busload, 
by  the  planeload,"  he  laughs.  Whole 
offices  will  book  train  and  hotel  reserva- 
tions together,  and  "at  any  turn  in  the 
road  where  there's  a  gift  shop,  they'll 
stand  on  a  platform  and  get  their  picture 
taken." 

Every  Buddhist  and  Shinto  shrine  is 
jammed  starting  in  the  spring,  when  the 
high  schools  make  their  annual  trips  to 
Kyoto  and  Tokyo,  and  they  stay  that  way 
all  through  the  summer.  December  and 
January  are  heavy  traveling  months,  too, 
because  the  Japanese,  "about  99  percent 
of  whom  are  Buddhist  or  Shinto,"  says 
Lindell,  have  adopted  Christmas  as  their 
favorite  holiday.  "It  has  nothing  to  do 
with  religion,"  Lindell  says.  "They  just 


*reqS  ? 


ALUMNI  MAGAZINE  CONSORTIUM       XV 


VACATIONS 


like  the  tree  and  giving  gifts."  (Doesn't 
sound  much  different  from  the  West.) 
January  brings  "Adult  Day."  when 
young  people  turning  21  in  the  year 
ahead  travel  to  their  local  shrines  to  get 
blessed.  (Shinto,  by  the  way,  is  an  indig- 
enous, state-oriented  religion  influenced 
by  Buddhism  and  Confucianism  which 
emphasizes  "the  spirit  of  things,"  Lindell 
says,  "such  as  the  environment,  not  pol- 
luting it— though  of  course,  they  do  a  lot 
of  that") 

For  honeymooners  and  other  romanti- 
cally inclined,  the  red-dyed  hot  baths  at 
the  resort  city  of  Beppu,  on  the  island  of 
Kyushu,  are  a  big  attraction.  Abroad, 
Guam  and  Hawaii  are  the  hot  spots  for 
those  with  money.  During  the  winter,  ski 
vacations  in  Sappuro  are  the  rage.  "A 
typical  worker  in  Tokyo  can  catch  the  ski 
train  Friday  afternoon,  ride  all  night 
sleeping  sitting  up,  be  on  the  slopes  the 
next  morning  and  all  day  Sunday,  then 
ride  back  all  night  and  be  at  work  Mon- 
day morning,"  Lindell  says. 

Socialist  France  is  also  very  supportive 
of  vacationers— the  average  French 
worker  gets  five  weeks,  usually  taking 
one  in  the  winter  and  four  in  the  summer. 
The  Riviera  has  become  so  jammed  in 
the  summer — there  are  many  trailer 
parks,  some  just  outside  St.  Tropez— that 
the  southwest  Mediterranean  has  become 
the  more  popular  beach  escape  among 
the  French  themselves,  says  Johns 
Hopkins  graduate  student  and  Marseilles 
native  Christian  Fournier.  Fournier  says 
that  the  Spanish  Riviera  is  the  favorite 
French  vacation  spot  abroad,  in  part 
because  it  is  so  inexpensive.  In  general, 
not  that  many  French  travel  abroad, 
Fournier  says,  although  there  is  a  certain 
holdover  of  "'70s  adventurousness" 
among  young  people.  "There  are  tour 
and  charter  companies  such  as  'Nouvelle 
Frontiere'  "  (yes,  the  name  is  borrowed 
from  John  F.  Kennedy)  "which  will 
organize  a  safe  adventure  for  you  trek- 
king in  the  Andes,  that  kind  of  thing,"  he 
says.  "They  still  have  a  branch  organiza- 
tion in  New  York  City." 

For  the  majority  who  remain  in 
France,  the  goal  is  often  to  find  an  out- 
of-the-way  place  in  the  countryside. 
"Families  like  to  stay  with  local  people 
at  a  farm  in  beautiful  rural  areas  such 
as  Perigord,  or  Anjou,"  he  says.  The 
wealthier  have  adopted  the  practice  of 


maintaining  a  "secondary  residence" 
(weekend  and  summer  house),  such  as  a 
renovated  farmhouse  in  Provence  or  the 
Luberon,  a  "gentrified"  area  of  old  stone 
buildings  made  over  into  villas  and  man- 
sions. Americans  often  rent  in  these 
areas,  too,  and  Fournier  says  "it's  not  so 
expensive  as  in  the  U.S." 

—Joe  Levine 


DON'T  DRINK 
THE  WATER 


Travel  agencies  offer  exotic  tours  these 
days.  You  could  have  had  a  cruise  to  the 
equator  for  a  clearer  glimpse  of  Halley's 
Comet.  How  about  hiking  in  the  Hima- 
layas? Or  an  African  safari?  Words  of 
warning  from  Bradley  Sack  and  Alan 
Rabinowitz:  Adventurous  destinations 
call  for  specialized  health  precautions. 

Sack  directs  the  Johns  Hopkins  Inter- 
national Travel  Clinic,  and  Rabinowitz 
(a  1974  Western  Maryland  College  grad) 
spends  two  out  of  every  three  years  in  the 
wilds  of  Central  America  and  Asia 
studying  endangered  species  for  Wildlife 
Conservation  International.  Travel  agen- 
cies, they  agree,  are  not  always  the  best 
advisors  about  what  health  precautions  to 
take. 

Rabinowitz  has  travel  health  tips 
learned  from  experience.  Over  the  last 
10  years,  he's  contracted  a  variety  of  par- 
asitic diseases:  hookworms,  round 
worms,  amoebic  dysentery,  typhoid,  and 
even  a  parasite  that  gets  under  the  skin 
and  eats  its  way  out  through  flesh. 

The  most  important  precaution  on  his 
list  is  to  avoid  mosquito  bites.  Mos- 
quitoes carry  yellow  fever  and  malaria, 
which  can  be  fatal  if  not  treated.  Wearing 
a  long-sleeved  shirt  in  dense  forest  areas 
and  always  sleeping  under  a  mosquito 
net  are  good  preventive  measures. 

Some  African  strains  of  malaria,  notes 
Sack,  are  even  resistant  to  chloroquine,  a 
standard  medication  for  preventing  the 
disease.  He  agrees  with  Rabinowitz:  The 
best  bet  for  avoiding  mosquito-carried 
diseases  is  not  to  be  bitten.  Use  a  good 
mosquito  repellent. 

For  travel  to  Northern  Europe,  Austra- 


lia, and  Japan,  Sack  says,  immunizations 
are  seldom  necessary.  But  for  travel  in 
Central  America,  Asia,  and  Africa,  be 
immunized  for  hepatitis  B,  typhoid,  teta- 
nus, diptheria,  and  polio.  Visitors  to 
China  also  need  a  vaccination  for  Japa- 
nese encephalitis.  Although  most  travel 
agencies  still  recommend  cholera  vac- 
cines before  traveling  in  developing 
countries,  Sack  says  that  "in  most  cases, 
the  cholera  vaccines  haven't  proved  use- 
ful so  we  don't  usually  recommend 
them." 

Diarrhea  is  a  common  health  problem 
when  traveling  in  developing  countries. 
The  best  defense  is  taking  preventive 
medication  and  carefully  selecting  food 
and  drink.  In  Rabinowitz's  travels  in 
Trinidad,  Thailand,  and  Central  Amer- 
ica, he's  found  that  the  natives  don't 
always  cook  the  food  thoroughly,  and 
their  livestock,  especially  pigs,  are 
infected  with  bacteria.  He  doesn't  eat 
meat  unless  he  knows  it's  been  cooked 
thoroughly,  and  he's  careful  about  who 
serves  the  food.  Sack's  basic  food  rule  is 
to  avoid  anything  that  can't  be  peeled  or 
cooked. 

As  for  water,  in  Asia  and  Central 
America,  Rabinowitz  emphasizes, 
"Never,  never  drink  the  tap  water!"  He 
either  filters  or  boils  water  or  treats  it 
with  Halizone  tablets.  (Ice  isn't  safe 
either.)  Tea  or  coffee  are  safe  to  drink 
(the  water  has  been  boiled),  and  bottled 
water  is  a  safe  choice. 

He  can't  always  follow  his  own 
advice,  however.  "My  problem  is  that  I 
often  drink  untreated  stream  water," 
Rabinowitz  says.  In  Trinidad,  where  he 
studies  vampire  bats,  or  in  Central 
America,  where  he  set  up  the  first-ever 
game  preserve  for  jaguars,  he  has  to  live 
like  the  locals.  "If  I  put  tablets  in  my 
water  to  purify  it,  the  natives  might  not 
talk  to  me." 

Swimming  in  fresh  water  in  Africa, 
Asia,  the  Caribbean,  and  the  Mediterra- 
nean is  not  a  good  idea,  Sack  warns. 
Schistosomiasis,  so-called  "snail  fever," 
is  caused  by  a  parasitic  worm  that  breeds 
in  fresh-water  snails.  The  parasites  can 
penetrate  healthy  skin  and  can  damage 
vital  organs  if  undetected  for  a  long 
period  of  time.  Swimming  in  the  sea  is 
okay,  says  Sack,  because  salt  water 
doesn't  contain  the  parasites. 

—Rhonda  Watts 


XVI       AUGUST  1986 


On  the 
Fault  Line 


To  evaluate  the  status  of  the  WPI 
Plan  today,  it  is  essential  to  place 
its  operation  in  perspective  relative 
to  the  proposed  objectives  of  the  under- 
taking. The  most  authoritative  summary 
of  those  objectives  lies  in  the  planning 
document  itself,  called  Two  Towers  IV— 
A  Plan. 

The  last  of  four  major  planning  reports 
to  the  faculty  and  trustees,  it  was  Two 
Towers  /Kthat  the  faculty  voted  to  accept 
as  the  basis  for  revising  WPI's  entire 
educational  program.  The  faculty  vote 
came  in  May  1970,  and  its  action  was 
endorsed  by  the  trustees  at  the  annual 
meeting  the  following  month.  The  future 
educational  program  of  WPI  had  already 
been  the  subject  of  intense  discussion  by 
students,  faculty,  and  trustees  for  more 
than  a  year  and  a  half. 

Following  its  endorsement,  the  various 
features  of  the  Plan  were  gradually 
phased  in  over  a  period  of  seven  years. 
Each  year  saw  more  and  more  students 
pursuing  the  new  degree  requirements 
while  the  number  of  students  enrolled  in 
the  traditional  program  was  gradually 
reduced.  By  1976,  over  90  percent  of  the 
entire  senior  class  graduated  under  the 
new  program.  Fall  1977  saw  all  of  the 
students  at  WPI  pursuing  their  degrees 
under  the  new  program. 

The  seventies  were  heady  years  for 
WPI,  just  as  the  years  since  the  Plan's 
implementation  have  been.  But  those 
times  were  somehow  different. 

They  were  years  of  intensive  planning 
and  fund  raising.  Proposal  writing  and 
course  modification  committees  were 
everywhere.  New  programs— like  Inter- 
session,  off-campus  project  centers,  and 
independent  study— were  conceived  and 
implemented. 

Between  1970  and  1978  the  under- 
graduate student  body  grew  from  1,600 
to  2,400,  while  the  faculty  increased  in 
size,  by  25  percent,  to  175.  Today  the 
faculty  numbers  215,  and  enrollment  has 
plateaued  at  just  over  2,600. 

WPI's  new  program  called  for  the 
elimination  of  all  required  courses  and 


The  Evolution 
of  the  WPI  Plan 


Today,  5,446  students 
have  graduated  under  the 
WPI  Plan.  But  in  the  past 
several  years,  change  has 
come  to  the  Plan.  Is  the 
Plan  dead,  as  some  critics 
on  and  off  campus  have 

maintained?  Or  is  the 
program  simply  evolving 

to  meet  the  changing 

needs  of  higher  education 

and  the  society  it  serves? 


By  William  R.  Grogan  '46 


the  institution  of  four  performance-based 
requirements  for  graduation: 

1.  The  Sufficiency  in  an  area  of  the 
humanities  consisting  of  five  themati- 
cally  related  courses  followed  by  an 
independent  research  activity  synthesiz- 
ing them  through  a  mini-thesis. 

2.  The  Interactive  Qualifying  Project 
(IQP),  one-quarter  year  minimum, 
involving,  where  possible,  an  off- 
campus  field  component  relating  science 
or  technology  to  social  concerns  or 
human  values  and  involving  interaction 
with  people  other  than  scientists  or  engi- 
neers. 

3.  The  Major  Qualifying  Project 
(MQP),  one-quarter  year  minimum, 
involving  the  solution  of  a  significant 
problem  in  the  student's  major  field, 
often  with  industrial  cooperation. 

4.  The  Competency  Examination,  a 
week-long  written  and  oral  examination 
of  the  student's  ability  to  perform  in  his 
or  her  discipline. 

Other  changes  were  made  at  WPI  to 
support  the  new  program  including  a 
change  from  the  traditional  A,  B,  C,  D, 
F  grading  system  to  one  involving  two 
passing  grades,  Distinction  and  Accept- 
able, with  no  record  of  failures,  quality- 
point  averages,  or  class  rank. 

Yet  tension  has  existed  at  WPI  since 
1969  between  the  Plan's  original  concept 
of  total  curricular  responsibility  in  the 
hands  of  students  (with  accountability 
maintained  exclusively  through  terminal 
performance),  and  the  commonly  prac- 
ticed concept  of  a  college  assuming 
much  of  that  responsibility  through  cur- 
ricular requirements  along  the  way. 

Over  the  years  the  internal  manage- 
ment of  the  Plan  required  adoption  of 
various  procedures  and  definitions,  while 
external  constituents  (for  example, 
financial  aid  programs)  demanded  a  type 
of  on-going  quantification  of  effort 
which  the  terminal-performance  concept 
did  not  provide.  Unfortunately,  every 
definition  required  quantification,  and 
every  quantification  required  defini- 
tion—each element  in  turn  bringing  a 


AUGUST  1986       35 


new  constraint  to  the  students. 

To  some  of  those  who  devoted  their 
energies  so  intensely  in  the  hope  that  the 
ideal  Plan  (especially  in  its  emphasis  on 
unrestricted  individual  program  forma- 
tion) would  endure  essentially 
unchanged,  the  years  have  been  bitter 
ones,  producing  a  seemingly  endless 
series  of  compromises,  constantly  erod- 
ing the  ideal,  making  its  ultimate  attain- 
ment more  and  more  improbable.  Most 
of  the  faculty,  while  seeing  the  Plan  as  an 
ideal,  accepted  the  accommodations  as 
the  unavoidable  adjustments  required  of 
a  living  system. 

The  academic  catalog  is  now  full  of  all 
sorts  of  regulations,  all  in  one  way  or 
another  limiting  the  freedom  and  flexibil- 
ity the  original  concept  envisaged,  but 
necessary,  I  believe,  for  the  reasonable 
administrative  operation  of  the  college. 

Within  the  past  three  years  three  major 
changes  were  made:  One,  a  grading 
change,  which  was  thought  philosophi- 
cally minor,  drew  great  attention;  the 
second,  a  distribution  requirement— a 
major  philosophical  retreat— was 
accepted  quietly;  while  the  third  (a  direct 
result  of  the  second),  replacement  of  the 
Competency  Examination,  again  caused 
much  student  and  faculty  reaction. 

Grades 

In  the  early  planning  days  when  it  was 
proposed  that  WPI  have  only  pass/fail 
grades,  it  was  felt  that  such  grades  would 
doom  graduate  school  applicants  and  fail 
completely  to  recognize  accomplishment 
of  the  outstanding  students.  A  compro- 
mise system  was  developed  resulting  in 
two  passing  grades:  Distinction  (AD)  and 
Acceptable  (AC).  Unacceptable  work 
would  have  no  record  (NR)  except  in  cer- 
tain project  situations. 

Since  the  grading  system  involves 
communication  with  external  agencies, 
however,  there  was  a  chronic  problem  of 
explaining  adequately  what  the  AD  I  AC 
really  meant.  There  was  growing  evi- 
dence that  graduate  schools  which  were 
not  familiar  with  WPI  were  not  giving 
WPI  students  the  consideration  they 
deserved. 

Many  parents  were  concerned  about  a 
grading  system  they  often  confused  with 
a  pass/fail  system  (although  prospective 
students  themselves  were  ambivalent 
about  the  system.)  Moreover,  the  lack  of 
a  B  grade  meant  that  many  students  who 
were  not  going  to  attain  AD  (essentially 
A)  would  tend  to  reduce  their  effort  to 
make  an  AC  rather  than  look  for  a  possi- 


ble B  recognition. 

It  was  an  objective  of  the  Plan  to 
reduce  the  excessive  grade-grubbing  that 
haunts  so  many  colleges  and,  in  WPI's 
case,  would  likely  have  a  negative  effect 
on  group  project  work,  which  requires  a 
great  deal  of  cooperation  and  peer  assis- 
tance. 

Accordingly,  it  was  not  proposed  that 
WPI  return  to  quality  point  averages  and 
published  class  ranks,  but  simply  change 
the  AD/AC  designations  to  the  widely 


understood  A/B/C  notation,  which 
involved  the  insertion  of  a  third  passing 
grade  (B  level).  Thus,  we  felt,  WPI's 
transcripts  might  be  better  understood  by 
external  users  and  WPI  would  still  record 
only  passing  work  and  not  the  penalty 
grade  of  F. 

The  change  in  the  grading  system, 
which  was  enacted  in  1985,  proved  to  be 
a  highly  personal  issue  with  the  students, 
while  some  faculty  who  opposed  the 
change  saw  in  it  a  major  retreat  from  the 
Plan. 

To  other  faculty  members,  however, 
the  change  seemed  more  cosmetic  than 
substantive,  and  they  did  not  feel  that  it 
would  have  a  major  impact  on  the  nature 
of  the  educational  program.  I  actually 
proposed  adding  a  third  grade  in  1982, 
and  I  was  not  prepared  for  the  intense 
emotional  linking  which  eventually 
erupted  between  the  grading  system  and 
the  Plan's  survival. 

The  strong  anti-grade-change  reaction 
was  apparently  the  confluence  of  three 
factors:  a  conviction  that  the  change 
would  damage  the  positive  peer-support 
environment  at  WPI;  a  sense  of  loss  in 
that  the  change  reduced  WPI's  unique- 
ness,  something  that  had  been  made 


highly  visible  through  its  grading  sys- 
tem; and  a  strong,  delayed  transferred 
resentment  of  the  distribution  require- 
ments just  adopted  (see  below)  which 
were  unpopular  but  over  which,  unlike 
the  grade  changes,  many  students  and 
faculty  members  felt  they  had  little  con- 
trol. 

The  change  in  the  grading  system  was 
an  internal  matter,  not  required  by  any 
academic  accrediting  agency,  and  had  it 
not  occurred  there  would  have  been  no 
crisis. 

Coming  as  it  did  after  the  distribution 
requirements,  the  action's  timing  turned 
out  to  be  unfortunate.  It  did  seem  to  most 
faculty  that  in  the  long  run  better  external 
understanding  of  WPI's  measurement  of 
accomplishment  would  be  attained  with 
the  change  to  A/B/C/NR.  The  change 
will  be  effective  in  the  fall  of  1986  for 
new  freshmen  (Class  of  '90),  and 
optional  for  others. 

Distribution  Requirements 

Initially,  under  the  Plan  the  opportunity 
for  a  student  to  design  a  highly  creative 
educational  program  was  extraordinary. 
There  have  been  many  exciting 
students— some  of  whom  might  never 
have  come  to  WPI  were  it  not  for  the 
Plan— who  created  programs  and 
recorded  accomplishments  that  would 
have  been  virtually  impossible  at  any 
other  college  of  engineering. 

The  Plan  did  not,  however,  fundamen- 
tally change  human  nature.  To  WPI  also 
came  many  students  of  good  motivation 
and  ability,  but  inclined  to  do  basically 
only  what  was  required  of  them. 

A  case  in  point  was  the  study  of  basic 
science  on  the  part  of  engineering  stu- 
dents. Prior  to  the  Plan,  specific,  rigidly 
prescribed  courses  in  physics  and  chem- 
istry were  required.  The  Plan  did  not 
require  but  strongly  encouraged  study 
and  exploration  in  the  sciences,  and  it 
was  generally  felt  that  engineering  stu- 
dents would  logically  take  such  courses 
since  engineering  flowed  from  the  funda- 
mentals established  in  the  sciences. 

When,  however,  students  discovered 
that  they  could  perform  quite  well  in 
both  the  MQP  and  the  Comp  and  in 
upper-level  engineering  courses  without 
science  courses,  as  may  well  be  the  case 
in  much  professional  practice,  it  was  not 
long  before  the  student  grapevine  took 
over,  and  the  number  of  students  satis- 
factorily completing  science  courses 
started  to  drop.  The  study  of  mathemat- 
ics and  some  areas  of  engineering  sci- 


36       WPI  JOURNAL 


ence  were  also  affected,  although  not  as 
significantly. 

Accreditation  of  engineering  programs 
is  established  by  the  Accreditation  Board 
of  Engineering  and  Technology  (ABET). 
WPI  has  four  applicable  engineering  pro- 
grams: chemical,  civil,  electrical,  and 
mechanical  engineering.  Students  in 
these  programs  account  for  75  percent  of 
the  undergraduate  student  body.  Whether 
or  not  basic  science  courses  are  really 
needed  for  engineers  is  a  matter  for  dis- 


cussion elsewhere,  but  ABET  believes 
that  they  are  needed  and  today  will  not 
grant  professional  accreditation  without 
them. 

In  fact,  ABET  specifically  requires 
precise  minima  of  a  half  year  of  sci- 
ences, a  half  year  of  mathematics,  one 
year  of  engineering  science,  and  a  half 
year  of  design— none  of  which  were 
specified  within  WPI's  performance- 
based  program. 

The  faculty  was  aware  of  ABET's 
expectations,  but  the  ABET  guidelines 
also  said  that  experimentation  was 
encouraged.  The  feeling  at  WPI  was  that 
if,  by  the  time  the  degree  was  awarded, 
the  graduates  could  do  everything  that 
the  graduates  of  the  ABET-prescribed 
program  could  do— and  hopefully 
more— then  equivalency  would  be  estab- 
lished. That  was  not  the  way  ABET 
eventually  approached  the  case,  how- 
ever. 

The  ABET  Saga.  The  ABET  saga  began 
with  the  first  Plan  accreditation  visit  in 
1976.  The  blue-ribbon  visiting  commit- 
tee of  that  year  (including  two  members 
of  the  National  Academy  of  Engineer- 
ing) gave  great  encouragement  to  pursuit 


of  the  new  WPI  program,  carefully 
examined  the  results  of  MQPs  and  Com- 
petency Examinations,  and  gave  cursory 
note  to  the  transcripts  in  a  manner  con- 
sistent with  the  Plan  design.  In  the  end 
they  provided  WPI  with  a  full  six-year 
reaccreditation. 

In  1982  another  visit  occurred.  This 
time  a  committee  comprising  members 
of  a  more  traditional  bent  examined  the 
transcripts  in  detail,  compared  them  with 
ABET's  distribution  criteria,  and  deter- 
mined there  was  significant  variance  in 
expected  course  completions. 

A  long  series  of— let  us  say- 
discussions  took  place  between  WPI  and 
ABET  on  the  matter  of  recognizing 
experimentation  in  engineering  educa- 
tion in  accordance  with  ABET's  guide- 
lines. WPI  had  taken  ABET's  published 
statement  on  encouragement  of  experi- 
mentation in  engineering  education  liter- 
ally and  had  been  reinforced  in  its  inter- 
pretation by  the  1976  visit.  But  it  has 
become  painfully  apparent  that  the 
experimentation  now  tolerated  by  ABET 
is  limited  to  that  which  can  be  accommo- 
dated within  its  prescriptive  program  cri- 
teria. 

After  the  1982  visit,  WPI  was  reac- 
credited  for  three  years.  For  two  years 
following  the  visit,  the  faculty  and  the 
Committee  on  Academic  Policy  went 
through  agonizing  discussions  leading 
eventually  to  a  motion  that  would  allow 
all  WPI  departments  the  option  of  estab- 
lishing 10  units  (30  courses  or  equivalent 
work  in  projects)  in  designated  generic 
areas  (for  example,  science,  mathemat- 
ics, etc.)  for  their  programs. 

For  the  engineering  programs,  these 
would  encompass  the  minimum  ABET 
criteria.  Such  requirements  would  apply 
to  students  entering  WPI  after  May  1984 
(the  Class  of '88). 

Late  in  1984  a  new  team  of  ABET  vis- 
itors arrived  and  reviewed  transcripts  of 
graduates  in  even  more  detail  than 
before.  The  new  distribution  require- 
ments, which  applied  only  to  the  class 
that  had  just  entered,  did  not  affect  what 
they  found.  In  general  they  were 
unhappy  that  the  faculty  had  taken  two 
years  to  establish  the  distribution  require- 
ments following  the  1982  reaccredita- 
tion. Now  ABET  wanted  the  distribu- 
tions that  were  adopted  even  further 
tightened  and  defined  to  meet  the  mini- 
mum ABET  criteria  more  precisely. 

While  the  second  round  of  changes 
adopted  by  the  faculty  were  relatively 
minor,  they  caused  further  emotional 


reaction.  The  practical  effect  was  that, 
by  expanding  the  specific  requirements, 
the  flexibility  of  the  overall  program  was 
further  reduced.  As  of  October  1985,  a 
maximum  of  seven  courses  remain  com- 
pletely unspecified  in  engineering  pro- 
grams, except  that  the  need  for  chemistry 
in  chemical  engineering  further  reduces 
any  flexibility  in  that  program. 

Following  the  1984  visit  ABET  reac- 
credited  all  four  engineering  programs 
with  reviews  expected  in  1988. 


Dean  William  R.  Grogan  '46,  one  of 
the  architects  of  the  Plan,  WPI's 
"Academic  Outward  Bound." 

The  IQP:  Deserving  of  Special 
Mention 

The  Interactive  Qualifying  Project  is 
the  most  unusual  degree  qualification 
of  the  WPI  Plan  and  is  unique  in 
American  higher  education.  This 
project  introduces  science  and  engi- 
neering students  to  the  priorities  and 
concerns  of  nontechnical  elements  of 
society  as  they  carry  out  research  and 
undertake  the  solution  of  complex 
interdisciplinary  problems. 

For  some,  the  IQP  has  been  the 
most  stimulating  element  of  their  edu- 
cational experience  at  WPI.  For 
example,  more  than  550  students  and 
nearly  50  faculty  members  have  car- 
ried out  IQPs  at  WPI's  well-known 
Project  Center  in  Washington,  DC.  In 
1986-87,  a  similar  project  center  will 
open  in  London,  England. 

With  the  advent  of  Distribution 
Requirements,  the  IQP  remains  the 
major  degree  requirement  which  the 
student  undertakes  from  a  remarkably 
wide  spectrum  of  choices.  Individual- 
istic in  its  selection  and  execution,  the 
IQP  meets  many  of  the  original  objec- 
tives WPI  established  for  its  educa- 
tional program. 


AUGUST  1986       37 


Beyond  ABET.  While  ABET  was  an 
important  driving  force  for  change,  and 
probably  caused  more  extensive  changes 
than  desired,  there  were  other  pressures 
mounting  that  would  make  some  modifi- 
cation of  the  Plan  inevitable.  The  very 
idealism  that  caused  such  profound 
change  to  take  place  at  WPI  in  the  first 
place  would  eventually  lose  credibility  if 
not  tempered  by  the  acceptance  of 
change  itself. 

In  conceiving  the  Plan,  WPI  had  delib- 
erately moved  away  from  the  Strasbourg 
Goose  process  of  trying  to  stuff  the  stu- 
dents full  of  every  fact  needed  in  their 
lifetime  to  that  of  providing  key  concepts 
in  a  highly  motivational  atmosphere  with 
performance  criteria  for  graduation. 

Time  was  proving,  however,  that  the 
knowledge  gained  through  study  of  basic 
science  serves  a  very  different  purpose 
than  that  in  the  applications-oriented 
engineering  courses.  In  August  1982,  I 
proposed  to  the  faculty  that  before  taking 
the  Competency  Examination,  students 
in  engineering  programs  must  have  com- 
pleted two  units  of  work  [6  courses]  in 
the  basic  sciences,  the  course  or  project 
work  to  be  determined  by  the  student 
with  assistance  of  his  or  her  adviser. 

My  recommendation  concluded:  "I 
know  [these  recommendations]  unfortu- 
nately tend  to  have  the  unpopular  flavor 
of  adding  more  fabric  to  the  system,  but 
this  is  what  I  think  is  needed  to  maintain 
and  strengthen  the  knowledge  base  of 
our  graduates,  and  yet  keep  insofar  as 
possible  the  ultimate  responsibility  for 
their  own  education  in  their  own  hands  in 
a  flexible  system  with  terminal  responsi- 
bility." 

The  extent  to  which  "fabric"  was 
again  desired  by  most  faculty  and  the 
severity  of  the  problem  of  then  temper- 
ing departmental  forces  which  would 
over-design  the  curricula  once  more, 
were  indicated  by  the  fact  that  while  only 
the  four  engineering  programs  were 
responsible  to  ABET,  all  major  degree- 
granting  departments  except  physics 
elected  to  use  immediately  their  new 
option  of  establishing  10  units  of  distri- 
bution requirements,  some  of  them  going 
beyond  the  engineering  departments  in 
the  specificity  of  their  new  distributions. 


The  Competency  Examination 
Reconsidered 

What  eventually  came  to  be  called  the 
Competency  Examination  was  not  in  the 
earliest,  most  ideal  concept  of  the  Plan. 


Originally,  the  Plan  proposed  no  course 
requirements  but  rather  based  all  perfor- 
mance evaluation  on  project  work.  How- 
ever, many  faculty  members  feared  that 
degree  requirements  which  lacked  some 
measure  of  evaluation  directly  related  to 
course  work  would  lack  external  aca- 
demic credibility. 

Thus  a  week-long,  open-access  exami- 
nation to  test  students  individually  in 
problem  solving  and  to  assure  a  certain 
breadth  of  learning  was  designed.  (Lin- 
gering and  never-resolved  ambiguities 
about  the  breadth  vs.  depth  goal  of  the 
exam  were  reflected  in  the  change  of  its 
title  from  "comprehensive"  to  "compe- 
tency") 

Given  the  conflict  between  "compre- 
hensive" and  "competency,"  the  Com- 
petency Exam,  or  Comp,  has  remained 
the  most  difficult  degree  requirement  to 
handle  effectively.  Like  other  features  in 
the  program,  the  exam  is  faculty-labor 
intensive.  With  an  "all  or  nothing"  out- 
come, the  exam  has  been,  from  the  start, 
a  highly  emotional  experience  for  stu- 
dents and  faculty. 


Creating  individual  exams  which  can 
measure  four  years  of  learning  for  indi- 
vidual students  proved  to  be  extremely 
difficult.  The  traumatic  problem  of  deal- 
ing with  as  high  as  a  30-percent  failure 
rate  in  the  spring  of  the  senior  year  was 
never  satisfactorily  resolved. 

Too  frequently,  students  who  pass  the 
Comp  feel  little  motivation  to  continue 
their  studies  seriously.  Perhaps  most 
important  was  the  student  perception  that 
only  those  topics  likely  to  be  covered  on 
the  exam  really  had  to  be  studied  in  ear- 
lier course  work. 

On  the  positive  side,  the  Comp  indeed 
encouraged  retention  of  information 
likely  to  be  included  on  the  Exam;  it  did 
force  an  intensive  and  beneficial  review 
of  one's  entire  major  subject  area.  Sur- 
veys of  alumni  suggest  that  passing  it 
instills  an  enormous  sense  of  confidence 
on  the  part  of  successful  students. 

But  whatever  the  other  merits  of  the 
Examination,  it  was  becoming  increas- 
ingly apparent  to  many  of  us  that  an 
untenable  situation  was  brewing  relative 
to  the  expectation  that  engineering  stu- 


38       WPI  JOURNAL 


dents  meet  all  the  conforming  distribu- 
tion requirements  (which  alone  would 
qualify  them  for  an  engineering  degree 
anywhere  else)  and  then  face  possible 
denial  of  their  degree  should  they  fail 
this  single  unvalidated  examination  in 
the  spring  of  their  senior  year. 

Thus,  on  April  10,  1986,  after  another 
year  of  consideration  in  the  Committee 
on  Academic  Policy,  the  faculty  voted  to 
eliminate  the  Competency  Examination 
as  a  degree  requirement  for  students  who 
must  meet  the  distribution  requirements 
of  their  respective  programs.  Students  in 
the  Classes  of  '86  and  '87,  for  whom 
distribution  requirements  were  not  yet 
mandatory,  were  given  the  option  of 
graduating  by  either  the  distribution  or 
the  competency  requirement  route.  Pro- 
grams such  as  humanities,  interdiscipli- 
nary programs,  physics,  and  social  sci- 
ences, which  did  not  have  stated 
distribution  requirements,  retained  the 
Competency  Examination. 

Immediately,  a  number  of  students 
vocally  expressed  their  surprise  and 
opposition  to  the  dropping  of  the  Comp. 
"The  Plan  is  Dead"  banners  appeared  in 
dorm  windows;  Newspeak,  the  student 
newspaper,  fumed;  and  the  Worcester 
newspapers  dispatched  reporters  to  the 
campus. 

Over  the  years  the  Examination  had 
established  a  real  esprit  de  corps  among 
some  students  and  alumni,  and  they  were 
alarmed  at  the  prospect  of  future  genera- 
tions not  sharing  in  what  had  become  a 
WPI  rite  of  passage. 

Perhaps,  however,  the  real  signifi- 
cance of  the  negative  reaction  lay  more 
in  the  realization  that  the  faculty  had  now 
officially  bypassed  the  most  prominent 
symbol  of  a  halcyon  era  during  which 
WPI  tried  very  hard  to  establish  a  truly 
flexible,  competency-based  educational 
program.  Now  was  the  dramatic  recogni- 
tion of  what  had  been  reality  for  three 
years:  the  distribution  requirement  had 
replaced  the  Comp  as  the  new  show  in 
town. 

There  were  many  undergraduates  not 
heard  from  this  spring  who  now  quietly 
admit  that  they  had  breathed  a  very  deep 
sigh  of  relief  at  the  prospect  of  no  longer 
having  to  face  what  was  about  to  become 
for  them  a  double-jeopardy  situation  in 
their  senior  year. 

If  any  organizational  generality  can  be 
demonstrated  in  this  overall  experience, 
it  might  be  that  reluctance  to  accept 
minor  modifications  early  in  the  opera- 
tion of  a  new  system  will  almost  cer- 


tainly bring  about  an  unwanted  degree  of 
major  change  later.  (See  accompanying 
story  for  more  on  the  Competency 
Examination.) 

Is  the  "Plan"  Alive? 

If  the  "Plan"  is  defined  as  a  system  of 
education  wherein  students,  free  of  the 
usual  curricular  constraints,  are  encour- 
aged to  pursue  learning  as  they  them- 
selves see  fit  with  their  accomplishment 


certifiable  only  through  performance 
requirements,  then  the  Plan  lives  only  to 
the  extent  that  within  the  distribution 
requirements  there  is  choice  in  specific 
courses  and  in  their  scheduling. 

It  would  be  neither  fair  nor  accurate, 
however,  to  dismiss  the  importance  of 
the  radical  educational  •  approach 
attempted,  or*  the  courage  and  faith  that 
accompanied  it,  or  to  pass  off  as  vision- 
ary and  unimportant  the  profound  educa- 
tional impact  it  would  have  had  were  it 
not  for  the  realities  of  communal  atmos- 
phere, external  tolerance,  and,  above  all, 
human  nature  that  placed  beyond  WPI's 
reach  the  extraordinary  educational  Uto- 
pia its  faculty  originally  sought  to 
achieve. 

The  sweep  of  The  Plan  is  so  great, 
however,  that — if  one  looks  beyond  the 
disappointments  in  the  area  of  an  ideal 
student-directed  learning  system  and 
looks  back  instead  on  the  overall  objec- 
tives of  Two  Towers  IV—  one  can  find 
overwhelming  evidence  that  most  of  the 
other  original  objectives  are  indeed  being 
met  today  in  the  WPI  system  of  educa- 


tion. The  results: 

•  To  provide  intellectual  breadth  and  a 
better  understanding  of  themselves,  their 
cultures,  and  their  heritage,  every  WPI 
student  now  completes  a  Humanities 
Sufficiency. 

•  To  provide  an  understanding  of  the 
priorities  of  other  sectors  of  society, 
develop  the  ability  to  communicate 
effectively  with  disparate  groups,  orga- 
nize and  derive  solutions  to  complex 
problems,  and  gain  an  awareness  of  the 
interrelationships  between  technology 
and  people,  every  WPI  student  com- 
pletes an  Interactive  Qualifying  Project. 

•  To  provide  a  capstone  experience  in 
the  professional  discipline,  to  develop 
design  creativity,  instill  self-confidence, 
enhance  ability  to  communicate  ideas, 
and  synthesize  fundamental  concepts, 
every  student  now  completes  a  Major 
Qualifying  Project.  To  provide  for  learn- 
ing through  an  academic  program  with 
fabric  and  balance  while  encouraging 
individual  student  choices  within  that 
framework,  most  majors  have  distribu- 
tion requirements. 

Whether  it  is  still  appropriate  to  call 
WPI's  present  educational  program  "The 
WPI  Plan"  is  a  matter  of  personal  inter- 
pretation. Most  of  it  is  in  place  and  thriv- 
ing, but  the  original  open  curriculum,  to 
the  extent  that  it  actually  existed,  is  now 
largely  constrained.  Still,  the  unique 
degree  qualifications  outlined  above  do 
indeed  produce  for  our  graduates  a  broad 
educational  experience  with  many  of 
those  qualities  sought  for  in  Two  Towers 
IV 

While  the  totality  of  the  objectives  has 
not  been  achieved,  the  remarkable 
achievements  of  the  past  decade  and  a 
half  have  not  passed  without  producing 
an  enduring  legacy  of  great  value.  WPI 
today  has  a  unique,  dynamic  educational 
program.  Its  projects  and  non-technical 
expectations  provide  WPI  students  the 
opportunity  for  a  truly  outstanding  edu- 
cational experience. 

In  the  final  report  of  the  NSF  advisory 
panel,  Dr.  John  Whinnery,  of  the  Uni- 
versity of  California  at  Berkeley, 
summed  it  all  up  this  way:  "The  search 
for  the  ideal  educational  experience,  like 
the  Greek  philosophers'  search  for  truth, 
is  in  some  ways  easy  and  in  some  ways 
hard.  It  is  easy  in  that  one  cannot  miss 
the  goal  completely,  and  hard  in  that  one 
cannot  attain  it  perfectly." 

William  R.  Grogan  is  dean  of  under- 
graduate studies  at  WPI. 


AUGUST  1986       39 


The  Binary  Gateway  to  Graduation 

"An  academic  outward-bound"  is  how  Harvard  University's  David  Riesman,  a  member  of  a  visiting 

National  Science  Foundation  advisory  committee,  once  described  the  Competency  Examination.  For 

almost  15  years,  the  Comp  (in  the  common  parlance)  served  as  the  capstone  of  a  WPI  education,  testing 

the  mettle  of  every  student  in  11th  hour,  all-or-nothing  fashion.  But  no  longer. 


By  Kenneth  L.  McDonnell 


From  the  beginning,  the  Compe- 
tency Examination,  WPFs 
academic-hell  week,  had  been  the 
troubled  sibling  of  the  three  other  degree 
requirements  constituting  the  WPI  Plan. 
Neither  the  Major  Qualifying  Project, 
nor  the  Interactive  Qualifying  Project, 
nor  the  Humanities  Sufficiency  has  suf- 
fered like  the  Comp.  Nor  have  these  Plan 
components  created  among  students  the 
apprehension— or  perhaps  misunder- 
standing—that the  Comp  has  generated. 

But  all  that  is  behind  us  now.  For  on 
April  10,  at  an  open  meeting  of  faculty 
and  students,  the  faculty  voted  to  disown 
this  troubled  child  for  most  departments, 
doing  away  with  what  many  students  and 
faculty  consider  an  original  and  integral 
element  of  the  Plan,  and  replacing  the 
Comp  with  a  degree  requirement  based 
on  the  passing  of  prescribed  "distri- 
bution"—or    curriculum— requirements. 

According  to  the  proposal  on  which 
the  faculty  voted,  students  who  entered 
WPI  after  May  1984,  and  who  are 
required  to  meet  published  distribution 
requirements  (DRs)  in  their  major  areas 
of  study,  no  longer  have  to  pass  the 
Comp  requirement.  Students  in  this  cate- 
gory who  entered  prior  to  May  1984  may 
elect  to  satisfy  those  DRs  in  lieu  of  pass- 
ing the  Comp.  Only  students  majoring  in 
humanities,  interdisciplinary  programs, 
social  science,  and  physics  have  no  pub- 
lished DRs. 

"For  too  long  and  for  too  many  stu- 
dents, the  Comp  had  been  a  black  cloud 
on  the  horizon,"  contends  William  R. 
Grogan  '46,  dean  of  undergraduate  stud- 
ies. 

Administrative  expediency?  Or  a 
rational  and  overdue  response  to  a 
changing  world?  On  page  35,  Grogan 
explains  the  influences— both  internal 
and  external  to  the  WPI  community— 
that  contributed  to  the  Comp  and  other 
key  Plan  changes  in  recent  years.  As  far 


as  the  Comp  is  concerned,  Grogan  says, 
ABET's  (the  Accreditation  Board  for 
Engineering  Technology)  call  for  more 
closely  defined  distribution  requirements 
for  graduation  in  WPI's  four  engineering 
departments  finally  influenced  the  fac- 
ulty vote  on  the  Exam. 

It  is  the  noon  hour.  Four  faculty  mem- 
bers are  seated  at  a  long  table.  They 
shuffle  papers,  reviewing  the  written 
portion  of  the  Competency  Examination 
submitted  by  the  senior  with  whom  they 
are  about  to  meet.  It  numbers  in  the 
scores  of  pages.  One  panel  member 
munches  a  sandwich.  Time  is  tight  dur- 
ing Comp  Week  for  students  and  faculty 
alike:  In  the  more  populous  departments, 
professors  often  serve  on  12-15  Comp 


The  Competency  Examination:  Where 
every  student  must  demonstrate  his  or 
her  ability  to  integrate  fundamental 
principles  in  solving  open-ended  prob- 
lems under  severe  time  limits.  Here, 
Scott  G.  Young  '86  CE  is  scrutinized 
during  his  Comp  orals  by  (I.  to  r.)  CE 
Professors  Fattah  A.  Chalabi,  Kris 
Keshavan,  and  Guillermo  E  Salazar. 

committees  four  times  a  year. 

A  knock  at  the  door.  Through  it  walks 
a  student  carrying  his  copy  of  the  Comp. 
He  looks  as  if  he  is  merely  visiting  this 
planet,  unsure  of  whether  the  next  hour 
will  contain  his  last  breath  of  life. 

"Please  have  a  seat,  Scott,"  the  com- 
mittee chairman  says,  trying  to  break  the 
ice.  The  attempt  is  only  partly  effective. 


40       WPI  JOURNAL 


"Ah,  no,  over  here,  please."  Rod  Serling 
would  have  had  a  field  day  with  this 
scene. 

And  so  it  begins:  the  oral  portion  of 
the  Competency  Exam— WPI's  rite  of 
passage  to  the  future  itself.  Or  so  it 
seems  to  most  students  as  they  approach 
the  final  hurdle  in  the  long  race  to  grad- 
uate "on  time,"  in  May  with  the  class- 
mates with  whom  they  began  their  aca- 
demic careers  three  and  a  half  years 
earlier.  To  undergraduates  the  Comp 
looms  larger  than  life  somewhere  down 
the  road.  Now,  as  seniors,  down  the  road 
is  staring  them  squarely  in  the  face. 

What  then  takes  place  for  Scott  is  an 
experience  he  may  never  forget.  Each 
committee  member  will  discuss  with  him 
areas  of  his  written  exam  which  seemed 
to  give  him  problems— and  the  areas  that 
they  found  especially  strong.  He'll  have 
a  chance  to  redeem  himself— or  to  dig 
himself  deeper  into  a  hole. 

If  redemption  is  in  sight,  he  hopes  his 
examiners  will  allow  him  to  go  beyond 
his  written  answers  to  explore  with  them 
areas  of  his  discipline  that  specially 
interest  him,  so  that  he  can  demonstrate 
further  his  comprehension  of,  and  com- 
petency in,  his  chosen  field  of  study. 

Somehow,  he  will  realize  later,  the 
hour  passes.  He  has  had  his  opportunity. 
Now  it's  up  to  the  committee  to  vote  on 
his  performance.  He  leaves,  visibly 
shaken  by  the  experience,  unsure  of  his 
success.  It  has  not  gone  well,  he  is  cer- 
tain. 

A  brief  discussion  among  the  commit- 
tee members  follows.  Each  has  his  or  her 
own  perspective  on  Scott's  Comp  perfor- 
mance compared  with  his  grades  in 
classes  and  on  projects.  The  chairman 
mentions  that  the  two  are  not  consistent 
for  all  students. 

They  agree  on  a  grade:  AC.  Accept- 
able. A  passing  grade.  Having  com- 
pleted his  other  degree  requirements, 
Scott  will  graduate  in  May.  In  his  case, 
with  honors. 

It  is— or  was— a  scene  repeated  for  all 
WPI  students,  etched  into  their  minds  as 
fully  as  few  other  experiences  in  their 
lives. 

The  format  of  the  Comp  varied 
between  academic  departments,  but  its 
elements  were  fairly  consistent:  a  one-  to 
two-day  written  portion,  often  address- 
ing design  problems,  followed  by  the 
orals  and,  in  physics,  a  15-minute  pre- 
sentation on  some  further  aspect  of  the 
student's  area  of  emphasis. 

Those  who  failed  the  Comp— some  30 


percent  in  each  of  WPI's  four  Comp 
periods  each  year— were  required  to 
repeat  the  Exam  during  a  subsequent 
Comp  period  in  order  to  graduate. 

In  theory,  say  most  faculty  members 
and  students,  it  was  a  fine  idea. 
"How  can  anyone  argue,"  David 
Cyganski  '75,  associate  professor  of 
electrical  engineering,  asks  rhetorically, 
"about  a  system  that  was  designed  to 
ensure  that  each  graduate  has  demon- 
strated a  mastery  of  fundamentals  in  his 
or  her  field  of  study,  a  system  that  pro- 
vided quality-control  feedback  to  the  fac- 
ulty? Where  is  the  controversy  regarding 
the  Comp?" 

Last  year,  Cyganski,  a  member  of  the 
Committee  on  Academic  Policy,  posed 
these  questions  in  the  preface  of  a  report 
he  had  submitted  to  the  Committee  on 
departmental  perceptions  of  the  Comp. 
What  he  found  in  his  research,  and  what 
becomes  abundantly  clear  when  one 
talks  to  students  and  professors  alike,  is 
that  the  controversy  surrounding  the 
Comp  prior  to  its  demise  in  April  at  the 
hands  of  the  faculty  did  indeed  reach  to 
the  furthest  corners  of  the  WPI  commu- 
nity. 

What  follows  here  is  a  sampling  of  the 
comments  I  obtained  in  an  independent, 
wholly  unscientific  survey  of  faculty  and 
students.  The  evidence  is  anecdotal,  but 
it  seems  to  verify  the  vote  of  the  faculty 
on  this  vitally  important  issue.  One  thing 
stood  out  in  all  my  discussions:  no  one 
has  no  opinion  about  the  Comp.  Feelings 
run  deep  on  this  issue.  They  always 
have. 

Ronald  R.  Biederman 

Professor  of  Mechanical  Engineering 

In  ME,  I  believe  we  handled  the  Comp 
in  a  fair  way  and  in  the  spirit  of  the  Plan. 
Students  learned  the  material,  and  they 
integrated  it  in  an  open-ended  problem, 
one  with  more  than  one  solution—the 
type  of  situation  in  which  engineers  find 
themselves  in  industry— like  designing  a 
new  product. 

My  problem  with  the  Comp  was  its 
mechanics.  We'd  get  bogged  down  in 
testing  students'  fundamentals  rather 
than  asking  whether  they  had  the  tools  to 
attack  a  problem. 

I'm  totally  for  the  concept  of  the 
Comp,  but  we  need  a  yardstick  to  iden- 
tify problems  along  the  way— before  the 
senior  year.  "Why  didn't  I  know  about 
these  problems  sooner,"  parents  would 
ask,  but  it  was  an  unusual  case  for  a  stu- 


dent to  get  good  grades  and  then  fail  the 
Comp. 

Still,  standards  are  standards— you 
have  to  meet  them  to  become  a  licensed 
professional  engineer,  or  an  M.D.,  or  to 
pass  the  Bar. 

Linda  A.  Blackmar  '86 

My  feelings  are  mixed.  The  Comp  was  a 
good  quality  control,  but  it  caused  me 
lots  of  mental  anguish.  It  did  force  me  to 
draw  upon  and  integrate  all  my  knowl- 
edge, but  its  time  constraints  were  too 
demanding.  I'd  vote  to  keep  the  Comp 
because  I  want  to  see  the  Plan  stay. 

John  M.  Boyd 

Professor  of  Mechanical  Engineering 

Traditional  engineering  education  tries  to 
prevent  anyone  from  learning  anything. 
Our  technological  society  desperately 
needs  a  different  kind  of  educational  pat- 
tern. Students  need  to  be  encouraged  to 
think  about  the  implications  of  their  tech- 
nologies. In  my  opinion,  WPI  is  one  of 
the  only  U.S.  colleges  to  bridge  this  gap. 

The  Comp,  together  with  projects,  was 
one  of  the  first  times  students  got  to  deal 
with  problems  whose  answers  aren't  at 
the  end  of  the  book.  In  ME,  we  provided 
open-ended  questions  which  didn't 
require  expertise  per  se,  but  demanded 
that  students  exercise  literacy  and 
process:  you  start  someplace,  make 
assumptions,  channel  your  thinking, 
come  to  some  reasonable  conclusions, 
and  argue  your  case. 

Still,  it  created  too  much  anxiety;  stu- 
dents hated  it.  And  now,  because  of  dis- 
tribution requirements,  it's  an  anachro- 
nism. WPI  needs  more  of  the  type  of 
education  embodied  in  the  Comp: 
emphasis  on  educational  process,  rather 
than  on  mere  content. 

Wilbur  B.  Bridgman 

Professor  Emeritus  of  Chemistry 

The  best  students  learn  regardless  of  the 
system.  But  for  marginal  students,  who 
can  slide  along  for  three  years,  the  day  of 
reckoning  came  too  late  with  the  Comp 
in  place. 

In  chemistry,  the  Exam  was  never 
intended  as  a  comprehensive  test,  but 
rather  one  of  students'  abilities  to  tackle 
new  problems,  using  skills  one  would 
need  for  an  initial  assignment  in  indus- 
try. 

The  distribution  requirements  [DRs] 
would  alleviate  some  problems,  such  as 
the  senior  slump  that  many  students  suf- 
fered following  the  Comp.    Had  the 


AUGUST  1986       41 


Comp  remained,  DRs  would  have 
helped  better  prepare  our  students  for 
facing  the  Comp. 

Kevin  A.  Clements 

Electrical   Engineering   Department 

Head 

In  EE,  the  Comp  was  an  attempt  to  give 
students  an  open-ended  problem  experi- 
ence, simulating  a  professional  chal- 
lenge, except  that  the  time  frame  and 
scope  of  the  Comp  problems  were  neces- 
sarily narrower. 

The  Comp  enabled  us  to  gain  a 
broader  view  of  students'  understanding 
of  EE  fundamentals.  The  problem  was 
that  it  came  so  late  in  students'  academic 
careers  that  there  was  little  time  for 
remedial  action  for  those  who  failed. 
Mastery  of  late  sophomore-  and  early 
junior-year  courses  are  most  critical. 

My  vote  would  have  moved  the  Comp 
to  the  junior  year  and  focused  on  the 
basics,  perhaps  requiring  passage  of  the 
Comp  before  students  could  begin  their 
Major  Qualifying  Projects. 

David  Cyganski  '75 
Associate  Professor  of  Electrical  Engi- 
neering 

Failing  30  percent  of  students  on  the 
Comp  is  a  terrible  thing  to  do  to  them  in 
their  senior  year.  We  wanted  the  Comp 
to  just  go  away,  but  without  the  Exam,  I 
question  whether  we  won't  be  turning 
out  students  just  as  every  other  college 
does. 

Stephen  N.  Jasperson 
Physics  Department  Head 

In  physics  we  have  no  published  distribu- 
tion requirements,  so  the  Comp  will  con- 
tinue to  be  a  crucial  element  of  our 
degree  requirements.  It  ensures  that  at 
the  B.S.  level  our  students  are  prepared 
for  professional  or  graduate  school  chal- 
lenges. It  measures  quality  in  ways  that 
are  different  but  complementary  to 
project  work.  It's  an  integrative  look  at 
what  has  gone  on  during  the  student's 
career. 

The  Comp  also  provides  a  unique 
glimpse  at  what  is  and  should  be  taking 
place  in  courses.  It's  impossible  not  to 
realize  this  when  you  see  student  perfor- 
mance in  the  Comp. 

It  gives  students  an  opportunity  to  deal 
with  a  complex  situation— to  strip  away 
the  complexities  and  superficial  elements 
of  a  problem,  deal  with  fundamentals, 
and  finally  return  the  complexities  to  the 
equation  in  order  to  arrive  at  a  solution. 


"Seniors  had  built  up  to  this 
crescendo— like  an  afternoon 
at  the  bullfight— but  after  the 
comp  they  couldn't  bring  them- 
selves to  ever  study  that  hard 
again."  William  R.  Grogan  '46, 
Dean  of  Undergraduate  Studies 


John  J.  McLaughlin  '86 

In  the  absence  of  the  Comp,  I  don't  think 
I  would  have  learned  any  less.  And  I 
question  whether  collectively  Comp 
grades  reflect  class  performance. 

Monday  night  of  my  three-day  Comp 
period,  I  did  get  some  sleep,  but  Tuesday 
night  I  had  to  pull  an  all-nighter— this  in 
spite  of  the  fact  that,  as  soon  as  I  picked 
up  my  written  problems  on  Monday,  I 
knew  I  could  pass  it.  I  knew  what 
resources  to  tap  and  how  to  approach  the 
questions. 

Still,  I  don't  think  it's  fair  to  prevent 
seniors  from  graduating  if  they  fail  the 
Comp.  It  should  be  given  earlier— in  the 
junior  year.  Besides  that,  selection  of 
faculty  members  for  the  Comp  boards 
seems  almost  as  prone  to  chance  as  a 
roulette  wheel. 

Walter  F.  Precourt  '86 

The  mistakes  I  made  on  the  written  por- 
tion of  my  Comp  were  simply  careless 
mental  lapses.  But  in  my  orals,  I  was  so 
tense  that  I  just  seemed  to  dig  a  deeper 
and  deeper  hole  for  myself.  But  in  the 
end,  I  got  through  it. 

I  believe  the  Comp  did  simulate  a  pro- 
fessional assignment,  but  with  more  anx- 
iety attached.  The  Exam  forced  you  to 
review  material  of  your  previous  three 
years,  but  I  think  Comp  grades  should  be 
pass  or  fail.  The  AC  [acceptable]  doesn't 
always  connote  proper  recognition. 

Richard  D.  Sisson  Jr. 

Associate   Professor   of  Mechanical 

Engineering 

I  served  as  chairman  of  the  Committee 
on  Academic  Policy  in  1983  and  1984, 
during  earlier  discussions  of  the  Comp. 
The  Comp's  intent,  in  ME  at  least,  was 
to  serve  as  the  capstone  of  one's  educa- 
tion, demonstrating  to  the  faculty  that 
you  are  capable  of  an  entry-level  engi- 
neering position  in  industry.  That's  a 
good  idea.  My  problem  was  with  the 
dynamics  of  the  Comp.  I  contend  that, 
had  I  wanted  to,  I  could  have  failed  any 


student.  It  was  such  an  emotional  experi- 
ence; it  wasn't  uncommon  to  see  stu- 
dents shaking  and  teary-eyed  during  the 
orals. 

Writing  Comp  questions  was  tricky— 
they  needed  to  be  difficult,  but  not  too 
difficult,  where  seniors  could  demon- 
strate their  competence,  such  as  specify- 
ing the  materials  and  processing  required 
to  make  an  all-polymer  lawn  mower. 
The  Comp  consumed  huge  amounts  of 
faculty  time— time  that  might  be  better 
spent  on  other  activities. 

Then  there's  the  common  macho  per- 
ception that  passing  the  Comp  built  con- 
fidence. I'm  not  so  sure  that's  a  good 
attitude.  Still,  I  could  understand  par- 
ents' concern  over  having  paid  three  and 
a  half  years'  worth  of  tuition  and  sud- 
denly being  told,  "Sorry,  your  child 
can't  graduate." 

Diane  D.  Skee  '86 

I  definitely  benefited  from  the  Comp.  It 
forced  me  to  pull  together  everything  I'd 
done  academically  up  to  that  point.  It 
was  like  a  hazing.  I  wouldn't  be  sur- 
prised if  most  Plan  graduates  would  want 
to  maintain  the  Comp. 

I  spent  the  first  half  of  my  senior  year 
preparing  for  the  Comp.  I  audited  basic 
EE  courses,  for  example.  Probably  my 
regular  courses  suffered  as  a  result. 
Some  sort  of  formal  review  process 
would  have  helped. 

I  hope  the  rationale  for  the  Comp  was 
to  test  for  understanding  of  fundamentals 
rather  than  for  students'  ability  to  think 
on  their  feet  or  solve  problems  under 
pressure. 

John  van  Alstyne 

Dean  of  Academic  Advising 

Four  of  the  best  students  in  the  Class  of 
1986  told  me  that  the  Comp  was  the  best 
thing  they  had  ever  done  academically, 
but  that  they  wouldn't  want  anyone  else 
to  have  to  go  through  what  they  had. 
Underclassmen  seem  to  be  relieved  that 
they  won't  have  to  endure  what  their 
friends  did. 

It's  a  mistake  to  consider  the  Comp  as 
a  central  element  of  the  Plan.  The  essen- 
tial parts  of  the  program— projects  and 
the  Humanities  Sufficiency— remain 
securely  intact.  The  new  distribution 
requirements  ensure  the  credibility  of  the 
Plan,  so  there's  no  longer  a  need  for  the 
Comp. 

The  Comp  was  similar  to  joining  the 
Marines:  you  were  proud  that  you  had 
done  something  few  others  had. 


42       WPI  JOURNAL 


Douglas  W.  Woods 

Social   Science  and   Policy   Studies 

Department  Head 

I'm  skeptical  about  the  notion  that  pass- 
ing the  Comp  was  indicative  of  students' 
abilities  to  perform  as  professionals  in 
their  fields.  In  courses,  students  were 
tested  on  the  material  covered  in  seven 
weeks,  but  the  Comp  tested  you  on  mate- 
rial covered  over  three  and  a  half  years. 
This  is  ridiculous!  No  wonder  students 
found  the  experience  traumatic. 

The  Comp  did  teach  students  that  the 
material  taught  in  courses  might  come  up 
again  on  the  Comp,  which  is  positive. 
But  the  ability  to  integrate  fundamentals, 
to  bring  together  concepts  from  several 
sometimes  unrelated  courses— essential 
for  success  on  the  Comp— is  better  left  to 
project  work  or  a  senior  seminar. 

With  the  Comp  in  place,  we  were  left 
with  a  degree  requirement  that  did  little 
in  the  way  of  quality  control— the  impact 
on  student  behavior  and  how  students 
choose  specific  programs  of  study— to 
say  nothing  of  the  costs  in  terms  of  stu- 
dent trauma  and  faculty  effort. 

Donald  N.  Zwiep 

Mechanical  Engineering  Department 

Head 

WPI  should  be  proud  of  its  success  with 
the  Comp,  at  the  same  time  recognizing 
that  as  a  unique  degree  requirement,  it 
had  trade-offs.  It  was  one  of  the  best 
measures  we  had  for  assessing  the  degree 
to  which  students  are  capable  of  handling 
an  independent  study  activity  on  a  short- 
term  basis,  to  demonstrate  that  they  can 
handle  new  problems.  If  this  goal  of 
"learning  on  a  need-to-know  basis"  can 
be  accomplished,  then  the  half-life  of 
individuals  as  scientists  or  engineers  is 
infinite.  It  also  provided  excellent  feed- 
back to  the  faculty  on  their  own  work  as 
teachers. 

One  of  the  Comp's  less  distinguishing 
factors  was  that  it  came  so  late  in  the 
academic  career,  creating  a  less  than 
optimal  opportunity  for  remedial  feed- 
back to  students  who  failed. 

To  say  that  students  experienced  anxi- 
ety over  the  Comp— yes,  of  course,  just 
as  they  would  over  any  formal  examina- 
tion process.  The  Comp  was  no  more  or 
less  anxiety-producing  than  final  exams 
would  be. 

In  a  traditional  system,  it's  far  more 
traumatic  for  students  and  their  families 
to  deal  with  a  failed  required  course  in 
the  final  days  of  the  final  semester  than 
with  a  failed  Comp  in  January. 


AUGUST  1986       43 


THE  ENTREPRENEURIAL  SPIRIT 


FOURTH  IN  A  SERIES 


First  Alert! 


By  Michael  Shanley 


In  1984,  structure  fires  in  the  United 
States  numbered  848,000,  down  from 
1,065,000  in  1980,  and  869,000  in 
1983,  according  to  the  National  Fire  Pro- 
tection Association  (NFPA).  Consider- 
ing the  fact  that  these  figures  reflect  only 
those  fires  in  homes,  factories,  offices, 
and  other  structures  to  which  firefighters 
were  called,  the  improvement  is  substan- 
tial. How  many  more  "close  calls"  go 
unreported  is  anyone's  guess. 

One  reason  for  the  decline,  experts 
observe,  is  the  widening  use  of  fire 
detectors,  especially  in  dwellings.  In 
fact,  in  1985  a  Louis  Harris  poll  found 
that  74  percent  of  U.S.  households  have 
at  least  one  detector,  and  many  have  more. 

Fire  detectors  are  proven  life-  and  property-savers.  Accord- 
ing to  a  U.S.  Fire  Association  study,  people  who  have  home 
fires  and  lack  detectors  are  twice  as  likely  to  die  from  the  fire  as 
are  people  who  are  protected  by  the  devices.  And  early  warning 
often  enables  residents  to  douse  flames  without  the  help  of 
firefighters. 

But  it  wasn't  until  the  late  1960s  that  home  fire  detection 
overcame  the  hurdles  that  had  stymied  widespread  use  for  40 
years:  technology,  cost,  and  visibility. 

Much  of  the  credit  for  developing  the  technology  for  an 
effective,  low-cost  residential  fire  detector  rests  with  Duane 
Pearsall,  a  member  of  WPI's  Firesafety  Board  of  Advisors, 
who  is  considered  the  father  of  the  home  smoke  detector.  And 
like  many  inventions,  his  was  born  of  brilliance— and  no  small 
supply  of  luck. 

"Actually,  we  were  trying  to  develop  a  device  to  control 
static  in  photographic  darkrooms  when  an  odd  thing  hap- 
pened," says  Pearsall,  63,  from  his  office  in  one  of  the  many 
new  buildings  that  have  sprouted  on  the  plains  south  of  Denver. 


Fire  detectors  make  homes 

twice  as  safe  as 

unprotected  dwellings 

from  fire  deaths,  thanks 

largely  to  the  inventive 

good  fortunes  of  Duane 

Pearsall,  a  key  advocate  of 

WPPs  Fire  Protection 

Engineering  Program. 


"We  accidentally  discovered  that  the 
instrument  was  very  sensitive  to  smoke. 
Every  time  someone  smoked  near  it,  the 
meter  would  react." 

When  Pearsall  mentioned  this  to  a  rep- 
resentative from  the  Honeywell  Corp., 
makers  of  firesafety  systems,  he  was  told 
to  forget  about  static  control  and  focus 
on  smoke  detection. 

Soon  thereafter,  in  1966,  Honeywell 
offered  Pearsall's  company,  Statitrol,  a 
contract  to  develop  15,000  detectors. 
The  detectors  were  intended  for  commer- 
cial use,  as  supplements  to  sprinkler  sys- 
tems. 

After  the  Honeywell  contract  was 
completed  in  1970,  Pearsall  and  Lyman 
Blackwell,  a  local  inventor,  came  up  with  an  idea  that  would 
make  smoke  detectors  available  to  every  homeowner.  They 
planned  a  device  that  would  eliminate  the  two  problems  thwart- 
ing previous  attempts  to  develop  an  inexpensive,  practical 
detector:  false  alarms  and  "the  battery  problem." 

Statitrol's  new  ionization-type  model  took  care  of  the  first 
problem— it  was  sensitive,  reliable,  and  not  prone  to  false 
alarms.  The  second  problem— the  danger  of  dead  batteries 
leaving  the  alarm  powerless  in  an  emergency— was  solved  by 
Blackwell's  new  mechanism  that  sounded  a  warning  when  the 
batteries  were  low. 

These  developments  turned  out  to  be  key  in  lowering  the  cost 
of  home  fire  detection,  and  the  new  detector  made  widespread 
acceptance  of  the  technology  by  homeowners  and  builders 
alike  a  reality. 

As  late  as  1972,  complete  detector  protection  may  have 
added  $700  to  $1 ,200  to  the  cost  of  a  new  home,  partly  because 
an  NFPA  standard  dictated  not  only  smoke  detectors  outside  all 
sleeping  areas  but  also  heat  detectors  in  all  other  rooms.  So  to 


44       WPI  JOURNAL 


]DQ 


protect  your  home  and  family  with  in-home  detectors  would 
have  run  about  the  same  as  today's  estimated  cost  for  complete 
home  sprinkler  protection.  Pearsall's  work  changed  all  that. 
Tests  found  that  the  power  of  the  new  smoke  detectors  made 
additional  heat  detectors  unnecessary. 

The  next  major  step  was  to  gain  widespread  acceptance, 
which  meant  getting  the  detector  incorporated  into  the  model 
building  code.  This  took  some  time.  "We  had  to  educate  peo- 
ple about  the  importance  of  an  early  warning  system,"  says 
Pearsall.  "That's  the  value  of  the  detector.  It  doesn't  put  out 
fires— it  saves  lives." 

But  public  service  television  announcements  promoting  the 
new  technology  did  little  at  first  to  broadcast  the  word,  coming 
as  they  usually  did  in  the  wee  hours  of  the  morning.  Detector 
installations  reflected  Nielson  ratings:  until  1974,  the  number 
of  homeowners  installing  the  devices  hovered  around  the  10 
percent  mark  nationally. 

Yet  Pearsall  continued  to  lobby  tirelessly  for  the  detector. 
Still,  not  until  American  manufacturers  recognized  the  poten- 
tial market  for  the  new  technologies  did  they  begin  to  advertise 
aggressively,  buying  prime-time  pitches  by  celebrities  such  as 
William  Conrad  and  Danny  Thomas. 

These  initiatives,  together  with  competitive  pricing,  packag- 
ing, and  in-store  promotion  turned  the  tide.  Detector  levels  of 
1975  were  double  those  for  1974,  and  1975  sales  were  tripled  a 
year  later.  By  1977,  only  12  percent  of  respondents  to  a 
national  survey  did  not  know  that  fire  detectors  were  available 
for  home  use.  Nearly  twice  this  number  had  already  installed 
them. . 

"Even  with  1,000  employees  working  in  two  plants,  we 
couldn't  keep  up  with  the  demand,"  says  Pearsall.  And  other 
companies  were  trying  to  pick  up  the  slack.  When  Pearsall  sold 


D, 


'uane  Pearsall  in  his  Denver  office:  "Discovery  of  the  tech- 
nology that  led  to  the  home  fire  detector  was  almost  an  acci- 
dent." 

Statitrol  to  Emerson  Electric  in  1977,  there  were  54  companies 
in  the  smoke  detector  business. 

In  1983,  37  states  had  at  least  some  smoke  detector  require- 
ments for  dwellings  and  apartments,  compared  with  only  19  in 
1977.  Moreover,  16  states  had  made  the  installation  of  the 
device  Pearsall  had  pioneered  mandatory  in  residential  con- 
struction and  called  for  retrofitting  existing  dwellings  in  some 
situations.  The  trend  shows  no  signs  of  reversing  itself. 

It  was  in  1980,  while  he  was  in  Boston  to  receive  the  Fire 
Protection  Man  of  the  Year  Award  from  the  National  Soci- 
ety of  Fire  Protection  Engineers,  that  Pearsall  heard  about 
WPI.  "Dave  Lucht,  director  of  the  FPE  Program,  told  me 
about  the  Institute's  new  undertaking." 

Pearsall,  no  longer  in  the  business  but  still  interested  in  the 
progress  of  firesafety  in  America,  made  a  proposal:  he  would 
match  any  gifts  to  the  program,  up  to  $10,000  a  year  for  five 
years. 

"I  looked  at  it  as  giving  something  back  to  an  industry  that 
gave  me  the  opportunity  to  be  successful,"  says  Pearsall,  refer- 
ring to  the  fire  protection  community's  support  for  the  home 
smoke  detector. 

Since  1978,  Pearsall  has  been  an  advocate  for  small  busi- 
nesses. He  was  named  national  Small  Business  Person  of  the 
Year  in  1976  and  has  testified  a  number  of  times  before  House 
and  Senate  subcommittees. 

He  is  currently  one  of  four  general  partners  in  Columbine 
Venture  Fund,  Ltd.,  one  of  the  largest  venture  capital  compa- 
nies in  the  Rocky  Mountains— and  is  still  putting  out  fires,  no 
doubt. 

Michael  Shanley  is  a  freelance  writer  living  in  Holden,  MA. 


AUGUST  1986       45 


LIFE 


BEYOND 


Life  on  Boynton  Hill  has  changed  recently,  due 
to  tighter  controls  on  fraternities  and  a  crack- 
down on  drinking.  But  once  the  dust  settled, 
students  started  making  the  changes  work.  It's 
tomorrow's  freshmen  who  may  well  reap  the 
greatest  benefits.  By  Evelyn  Herwitz 

46       WPI  JOURNAL 


For  Campus  Police  Chief 
Alfred  T.  Whitney,  WPI  is 
like  a  small  town:  "It's  the 
kind  of  place  where  you  get  to 
know  people,  a  place  where 
the  students— even  the  troublemakers — 
come  back  to  visit  after  they've  gradu- 
ated to  let  you  know  how  they're  doing." 

These  past  few  years  have  been  pretty 
quiet  ones  for  WPI's  13-person  police 
force,  especially  when  compared  with 
the  turmoil  of  the  Vietnam  era.  Whitney 
welcomes  the  peace.  But  the  lack  of  pro- 
tests doesn't  mean  his  officers  aren't 
busy. 

For  one  thing,  there  has  been  the  Com- 
monwealth's new  higher  drinking  age  to 
deal  with.  And  there  have  also  been  the 
fraternities.  In  this  small  town  where 
everyone's  "occupation"  is  a  demanding 
academic  curriculum,  WPI's  12  fraterni- 
ties play  a  dominant  role  in  breaking  the 
tension — more  often  than  not  with  par- 
ties. 

Though  the  Greek  houses  are  by  no 
means  the  only  party  hosts  on  campus, 
their  fetes  have  long  dominated  WPI's 
social  life  and  continue  to  overshadow 
events  sponsored  by  SOCCOMM,  the 
student  Social  Committee. 

In  the  past  fraternity  parties  always 
meant  lots  of  students  and  a  fair  share  of 
alcohol.  But  since  the  drinking  age  in 
Massachusetts  was  raised  to  21  in  1985, 
Whitney  has  been  faced  with  the  task  of 
enforcing  policies  which  change  the 
entire  nature  of  campus  social  life. 
Besides  the  tighter  age  guidelines  on 
drinking,  there  are  new  limits  on  party 
size,  and  guests  are  admitted  by  invita- 
tion only. 

For  the  most  part,  Whitney  is  pleased 
that  students  in  both  fraternities  and  resi- 
dence halls  have  cooperated  with  the 
new  rules.  But  the  transition  has  not  been 
altogether  smooth.  And  with  the  recent 
closing  of  the  Goat's  Head  Pub,  even 
more  students  have  been  turning  to  the 
fraternities  for  entertainment. 

For  Whitney,  the  new  guidelines  have 
meant  a  need  to  monitor  more  closely  the 


"People  complain  about  the  social  life  here, 
but  that's  hard  to  buy  when  you  realize  how 
many  extracurricular  activities  are  available." 
—Michael  Wagner  '88 


pulse  of  student  social  activities,  though 
he  says  he  has  noted  improvements  in  the 
number  of  alcohol-related  problems  on 
campus. 

But  for  students,  the  changes  in  cam- 
pus policy  have  had  much  more  funda- 
mental ramifications.  The  demise  of  the 
Pub,  long  a  popular  watering  hole,  cou- 
pled with  revised  party  guidelines  have 
left  some  students  with  the  feeling  that 
social  life  at  WPI  is  not  what  it  once  was. 

"People  used  to  call  WPI, 
'Whoopie,'"  says  Jeanne  Travers  '86. 
"But  it's  definitely  not  a  party  school 
anymore." 

It  was  Travers  and  her  classmates  who 
felt  the  impact  of  the  new  policies  most 
directly.  First  came  rules  about  party 
posters,  then  guidelines  on  how  many 
people  could  attend  parties  and  who 
could  be  served  alcohol.  Finally,  the 
school  found  it  could  no  longer  afford  to 
carry  liquor  liability  insurance  and  for- 
feited its  liquor  license  for  the  Pub. 

In  its  stead,  Gompei's  Place  opened  in 
the  spring  of  this  year,  serving  up  non- 
alcoholic beverages,  pizza,  and  live 
entertainment.  Pub  aficionados  find  it  a 
weak  substitute  for  the  old  hangout.  But 
they  also  admit  that  those  who  never 
knew  the  Pub  will  probably  enjoy  Gom- 
pei's. 

"I  couldn't  come  back  here  as  a  fresh- 
man knowing  what  it  used  to  be  like,  but 
I  could  come  in  as  a  freshman  and  enjoy 
WPI  for  what  it  is."  says  Mary  Allen 
'86.  "There's  a  lot  of  downgrading 
WPI's  social  life  by  upperclassmen  who 
knew  how  things  used  to  be.  But  if  you 
come  in  with  the  new  guidelines,  you 
won't  mind  it  because  you  won't  know 
what  you've  missed." 

To  a  large  extent,  what  stu- 
dents will  miss,  or  feel 
they  haven't  missed, 
depends  on  where  they 
choose  to  live  after  fresh- 
man year.  While  freshmen  are  guaran- 
teed a  room  on  campus,  upperclassmen 
select   from   three   options:    residence 


halls,  Greek  houses,  or  off-campus 
apartments.  Of  those  who  decide  to 
remain  on  campus,  about  20  percent 
pledge  with  fraternities  and  sororities, 
and  the  rest  remain  independent. 

While  housing  doesn't  define  student 
social  life,  the  decision  to  join  a  frater- 
nity or  stay  independent  can  make  a 
major  difference  in  how  a  student  feels 
about  fitting  into  the  campus  social  envi- 
ronment. 

"If  you  really  want  to  be  known  as  an 
active  person,  it's  a  little  easier  if  you're 
a  Greek,"  says  Jeanne  Travers,  who  last 
year  represented  independents  and  com- 
muters on  the  Executive  Council  of  Stu- 
dent Government.  "You  can  accomplish 
this  if  you're  an  independent,  but  you 
may  have  to  work  harder  at  it." 

Living  in  residence  halls  for  three 
years  and  then  off  campus  during  her 
senior  year.  Travers  decided  to  remain 
independent  because  of  experiences  dur- 
ing high  school.  "I  come  from  a  small 
town  where  there  were  many  cliques." 
she  says.  "Fortunately.  I  was  in  the 
'right'  group.  But  I  saw  what  happened 
to  those  who  weren't,  and  I  didn't  like  it. 
WPI  has  its  share  of  cliques,  and  I  just 
wanted  to  avoid  that  here  as  much  as  I 
could." 

Mary  Allen's  decision  to  remain  an 
independent  reflects  Travers 's  views:  "I 
have  a  lot  of  friends  in  all  three  sororities 
here,  and  I  was  afraid  that  if  I  joined  one, 
I'd  lose  some  of  them." 

Allen's  solution  was  to  get  involved  in 
campus  life  in  other  ways,  including 
becoming  a  student  hall  director. 
Travers,  in  rum,  became  active  in  intra- 
mural swimming  and  volleyball,  last 
year  serving  as  captain  of  the  women's 
volleyball  team.  And  both  built  friend- 
ships that  crossed  Greek  lines.  "It's  such 
a  small  campus  that  you  always  know 
someone  in  the  fraternities.  Your  friends 
are  there  as  well  as  in  the  dorms  and 
apartments,"  says  Allen. 

At  the  same  time,  both  admit  that 
being  women  in  a  mostly  male  college 
facilitated  their  inclusion  in  social  activi- 


AUGUST  1986       47 


At  the  signing  of  the  Fraternity  Bill  of 
Rights  and  Responsibilities  in  November 
1985,  below,  Brian  D.  Huntley  '80,  left, 
a  member  of  the  Alumni  Interfraternity 
Council;  Michael  Gonsor  '86,  Interfra- 
ternity Council  past  president;  and  Kim- 
be  rly  M.  Fay  '86,  Panhellenic  Associa- 
tion past  president  show  the  document. 
Joyce  Kline  '87,  Panhellenic  Associa- 
tion president. 


ties.  "As  a  female  independent,  you're 
still  invited  to  the  fraternity  parties,  and 
you  know  many  of  the  women  in  sorori- 
ties," says  Allen.  "But  it's  probably 
harder  for  the  male  independents." 

By  choosing  to  live  in  a  residence  hall, 
male  independents  like  Michael  Wagner 
'88  know  that  they  may  be  closing  them- 
selves out  of  fraternity  parties.  Since 
campus  party  rules  dictate  that  guests 
must  be  invited  and  numbers  limited, 
most  independent  men  are  automatically 
excluded  from  fraternity  functions. 

Wagner  doesn't  mind  that,  however, 
since  he  says  he  doesn't  find  much  pur- 
pose in  fraternities  anyway,  and  is  look- 
ing forward  to  rooming  in  the  Stoddard 
residence  complex  again  in  the  fall. 

Wagner's  alternative  for  relief  from  the 
academic  grind  is  the  Lens  and  Lights 
Club,  which  is  responsible  for  lighting 
and  visual  effects  at  many  campus 
events.  "People  sometimes  complain 
about  the  lack  of  social  events  at  WPI," 
he  says.  "But  there  are  so  many  clubs 
and  so  much  money  poured  into  them, 
everyone  should  make  use  of  them. 
They're  a  great  way  to  make  friend- 
ships." 

Clubs— everything  from  chess  to 
drama  to  scuba— together  with  varsity 
and  intramural  athletics,  professional 
societies,  and  student  life  programs  like 
SOCCOMM  and  the  Student  Alumni 
Society,  are  of  course  open  to  all  stu- 
dents, independent  and  Greek  alike.  In 
all,  nearly  100  extracurricular  activities 
are  played  out  during  the  academic  year. 
Beyond  all  this,  there  are  the  friend- 
ships that  grow  in  shared  living  space. 
And  to  some  extent,  the  architectural 
design  and  personality  of  each  residence 
environment  influences  how  those 
friendships  form. 

Take  the  campus  residence  centers. 
There  are  the  old,  spacious  doubles  and 
singles  in  Sanford  Riley  Hall,  which  are 
transformed  each  year  into  mini- 
apartments  with  bedroom  lofts;  the  13- 
year-old  Ellsworth-Fuller  apartments, 
two-story  townhouse  suites  which  open 


onto  an  interior  courtyard;  the  small  but 
quiet  doubles  and  singles  in  the  Stoddard 
complex;  two  houses  on  Trowbridge 
Street,  one  for  men  and  one  for  women, 
which  afford  independents  a  fraternity- 
like living  environment;  World  House, 
for  a  small  number  of  international  stu- 
dents; and  the  latest  upperclass  housing 
addition,  Founders  Hall,  completed  in 
1985,  with  its  self-sufficient  suites,  its 
own  dining  room,  and  amenities  like  a 
country  kitchen  and  weight  training 
room. 

But  unless  and  until  Gompei's  Place 
catches  on,  independents  are  currently 
without  any  central  gathering  place, 
other  than  the  "Wedge,"  a  snack  bar  and 
lounge  between  Morgan  and  Daniels 
Halls. 

But  all  that  may  change  in  the  not- 
distant  future.  Says  Jon  C.  Strauss,  WPI 
president,  "We  have  a  plan  underway  to 
turn  Alden  Memorial  into  a  shared  envi- 
ronment, to  help  meet  the  Institute's 
pressing  needs  for  a  setting  that  can  cre- 
ate a  spirit  of  community  among  our  stu- 
dents, faculty,  and  staff." 

Still,  as  things  stand  now,  that  sense  of 
being  dispersed  and  disunited,  in  spite  of 
small  group  attachments  formed  in  resi- 
dence halls,  clubs,  or  intramural  teams, 
can  create  a  feeling  of  isolation  for  even 
the  most  active  independents. 

"It's  definitely  difficult  to  go  to  a 
school  that's  so  Greek  oriented,"  says 
Travers.  "Everyone  feels  like  an  outsider 
occasionally.  I  get  frustrated  when  I  see 
things  like  'Greek  of  the  Week'  in  News- 
peak,  the  student  newspaper,  instead  of 
'Student  of  the  Week.'  There  are  a  lot  of 
independents  who  are  just  as  active. 

"Even  when  you  sign  forms  here,  say 
for  a  loan,  they  ask  if  you're  a  member 
of  a  sorority  or  a  fraternity.  Sometimes  I 
think  if  you  write  'no,'  they  assume  you 
don't  do  anything." 

"Nothing  unites  the  independents 
except  becoming  alumni,"  says  Allen. 
Adds  Travers:  "The  Greeks  have  their 
letters  and  we  have  ours.  They  call  us 
'GDI's'-'goddamn  independents.'"  But 


48       WPI  JOURNAL 


for  many  independents,  the  distinction  is 
one  they  wear  proudly. 

Like  the  residence  halls, 
WPI's  15  Greek  societies— 
12  men's  and  three 
women's — also  have  their 
own  distinct  personalities. 
Often  drawing  together  students  with 
similar  interests,  the  houses  are  homes  to 
tightly  knit  groups  of  friends.  And  the 
stereotypes  abound.  Among  the  men, 
there  are  the  preppies  of  Phi  Gamma 
Delta,  the  soccer  players  of  Alpha  Tau 
Omega,  the  brains  at  Tau  Kappa  Epsilon, 
and  the  football  jocks  at  Sigma  Phi  Epsi- 
lon. But  the  fellowship  that  is  the  butt  of 
jokes  is  also  the  fraternities'  main  attrac- 
tion and  source  of  strength. 

WPI's  three  sororities  provide  women 
with  a  ready-made  social  community, 
though  none  owns  its  own  house.  One, 
Phi  Sigma  Sigma,  rents  a  building  with 
three  apartments,  and  the  others— Alpha 
Gamma  Delta  and  Delta  Phi  Epsilon— 
are  based  in  off-campus  apartments  that 
are  passed  on  to  members  from  year  to 
year. 

For  Joyce  Kline  '87,  a  member  of 
Alpha  Gamma  Delta  and  incoming  presi- 
dent of  the  Panhellenic  Association, 
comprising  representatives  of  each  soror- 
ity, joining  a  sorority  was  a  foregone 
conclusion:  "My  sister  belonged  to  a 
sorority  in  college,  and  she's  still  in  close 
contact  with  her  sisters,"  explains  Kline. 
"So  I  knew  I  wanted  to  be  part  of  the 
Greek  system  when  I  came  here." 

Mike  Gonsor  '86,  immediate  past 
president  of  the  Interfraternity  Council 
(IFC),  was  drawn  to  Sigma  Phi  Epsilon 
by  "similar  personalities"  and  common 
interests.  "A  fraternity  is  more  than  just 
a  place  a  live,"  says  Gonsor.  "I  devel- 
oped my  closest  friendships,  my  best 
experiences  at  WPI— my  best  memories 
through  the  fraternity." 

But  not  all  the  memories  are  good 
ones.  The  new  alcohol  and  party  policies 
received  mixed  reviews  from  many 
students— Greek     and     independents 


"People  used  to  call  WPI 
'Whoopie,'  but  it's  definitely 
not  a  party  school  anymore." 
— Jeanne  Travers  '86 


Daniel  J.  Sullivan  '87,  bottom  center, 
new  Interfraternity  Council  president, 
with  fraternity  brothers  Brian  A.  DeFlu- 
meri,  left,  and  chapter  president 
Michael  Skowron  '87  at  the  Phi  Kappa 
Theta  house  on  Institute  Road. 


• 


AUGUST  1986       49 


"I  couldn't  come  back, 
knowing  what  WPI  used  to 
be  like.  But  as  a  freshman,  I 
could  enjoy  the  place  for 
what  it  is." — Marv  Allen  '86 


alike— and  administrators  had  to 
respond. 

Things  came  to  a  head  early  in  1985. 
shortly  after  the  new  party  policies  went 
into  effect,  and  the  brunt  of  the  situation 
seems  to  have  hit  Sigma  Phi  Epsilon  fra- 
ternity: "It  was  the  first  week  of  the  new 
rules.*'  says  Mike  Gonsor.  We  had  to 
have  a  guest  list  in  by  Wednesday  for 
Saturday  night,  so  we  put  down  75  to 
100  names— and  150  showed.  A  WPI 
police  officer  was  outside,  counting  the 
number  of  people  going  in  and  out.  We 
felt  as  if  the  school  was  looking  for 
someone  to  bag— and  we  got  caught." 

The  penalty  was  social  probation — no 
parties  for  the  rest  of  the  year.  Then,  a 
couple  of  days  later,  a  group  of  Sig  Ep 
pledges  were  dropped  off  in  an  unpopu- 
lated area  away  from  campus  and  told  to 
find  their  way  back.  No  one  was  injured 
during  the  hazing  episode,  but  local 
police  were  called  in  to  round  up  the  stu- 
dents. 

"The  hazing  was  the  culmination  of 
several  incidents  over  a  12-month 
period."  says  Dean  of  Students  Janet 
Begin  Richardson.  "We  decided  that 
some  serious  action  had  to  be  taken." 

In  May  of  1985.  the  Sig  Ep  Alumni 
Corporation— graduate  brothers  who 
serve  as  volunteer  advisers  to  the 
fraternity— announced  that  Sig  Ep's  WPI 
chapter  would  be  suspended  for  three 
years. 

"At  first,  nobody  could  believe  they'd 
closed  it  down."  says  Joyce  Kline.  "The 
announcement  followed  the  residence 
hall  selection  period,  so  Sig  Ep  members 
had  to  find  homes  under  pretty  difficult 
circumstances,  considering  Worcester's 
housing  crunch."  (See  box.) 

*'0ur  fraternities  are  not  'Animal 
Houses."  but  they  knew  someone  would 
get  it  sometime."  says  Mary  Allen.  "I 
think  the  school  needed  to  say,  'We're 
not  just  talking  anymore."  And  if  the 
alumni  advisers  hadn't  closed  them 
down,  the  school  might  have." 

Roger  Perry,  WPI  director  of  public 
relations  and  an  alumni  adviser  to  his  fra- 


ternity. Theta  Chi.  agrees.  "When  one 
house  closed,  the  others  realized  that  the 
college  meant  business."  he  sa\  s. 

For  Mike  Gonsor.  it  meant  finding 
another  place  to  live  during  his  senior 
year.  But  it  also  meant  participating  in  a 
concerted  effort  by  man\  of  his  brothers 
and  their  parents  to  reverse  the  alumni 
council's  decision.  After  a  year  of  work. 
not  only  by  the  members  of  Sig  Ep.  but 
also  by  other  fraternities,  parents, 
administration,  faculty,  and  alumni,  the 
fraternity's  charter  was  reinstated  as  of 
this  fall,  and  a  new  set  of  responsibilities 
were  defined  for  the  Greek  system. 

"Over  the  past  few  years,  the  frater- 
nity system  at  WPI  hasn't  been  looked 
upon  very  highly."  admits  Gonsor. 
Though  no  one  ever  seriously  discussed 
the  idea  of  closing  all  fraternities,  as  was 
done  at  Amherst  and  Colby  colleges,  he 
says,  "we  were  headed  down  that  road. 
We  realized  the  situation  was  real,  and 
we  had  to  turn  it  around." 

One  of  the  first  steps,  already  planned 
before  Sig  Ep  was  suspended,  was  a 
retreat  for  new  fraternity  presidents  in 
March  of  1985.  Roger  Perry,  one  of  the 
retreat's  organizers,  says  the  one-day 
session  focused  on  fraternity  responsibil- 
ities and  the  problems  that  had  devel- 
oped: "By  the  end  of  the  day.  we  had 
laid  the  groundwork  for  a  real  change  in 
attitudes."  recalls  Perry.  "I  think  the  par- 
ticipants realized  that,  for  some  fraterni- 
ties, things  had  hit  the  skids." 

In  November  1985.  another  special 
one -day  event  was  held,  this  time  for 
new  fraternity  members.  The  so-called 
"membership  fair"  drew  600  students, 
and  was  designed  to  welcome  freshmen 
pledges  into  the  Greek  system,  rather 
than  into  a  particular  house.  Activities 
culminated  in  the  signing  of  a  fraternity 
members'  Bill  of  Rights  and  Responsi- 
bilities. 

Also  in  November,  WPI  President  Jon 
C.  Strauss  commissioned  a  task  force  to 
define  standards  for  fraternities  and 
sororities  regarding,  among  other  things, 
the  responsible  use  of  alcoholic  bever- 


50       WPI  JOURNAL 


WANTED: 

Clean  Apartment  Close  To  Campus 


It's  a  well-known  fact  in  Worces- 
ter that  housing  is  at  a  premium. 
Enjoying  a  development  boom 
that  has  been  a  long  time  coming,  the 
city  is  experiencing  increased  demand 
for  living  accommodations  at  a  time 
when  the  vacancy  rate  for  rental  space 
is  less  than  one  percent. 

And  while  local  officials  and  pri- 
vate developers  scramble  to  provide 
enough  new  living  space  to  meet  the 
demand,  this  fall  WPI  will  be  experi- 
encing a  housing  crunch  of  its  own. 

To  the  surprise  of  campus  officials, 
a  record-high  number  of  freshmen 
decided  to  come  to  WPI  this  fall. 
"We  had  targeted  640  students."  says 
Bernard  H.  Brown,  vice  president  for 
student  affairs.  "But  we  ended  up 
with  744  acceptances." 

While  Brown  says  that  number  will 
"melt"  over  the  summer,  he  still 
expects  there  to  be  an  extra  60  to  70 
freshmen  arriving  on  campus  for  ori- 
entation. 

Those  numbers  represent  success  at 
a  time  when  the  number  of  high 
school  seniors  is  dropping  rapidly, 
especially  in  the  Northeast.  WPI's 
strong  showing.  Brown  says,  is  due  in 
part  to  revised  recruiting  publica- 
tions, an  intensified  direct  mail  cam- 
paign for  prospective  students,  and 
more  favorable  financial  aid  pack- 
ages. 

A  portion  of  the  Ellsworth-Fuller  Resi- 
dence Center. 


But  the  extra  students  also  mean 
that  freshman  housing  will  be  tight. 

To  fulfill  a  longstanding  WPI  pol- 
icy guaranteeing  on-campus  housing 
for  all  freshmen.  Dean  of  Students 
Janet  Begin  Richardson  says  that 
plans  include  tripling  doubles  and 
doubling  singles  in  freshman  resi- 
dence halls  this  fall. 

Among  other  options  are  the  use  of 
campus-owned  houses  adjacent  to 
WPI.  But  that  would  probably  be  a 
last  resort,  says  Brown:  "We  prefer  to 
keep  freshmen  together." 


Founders  Hall,  constructed  in  1985,  will 
ease  the  Institute 's  housing  crunch  with 
its  229  new  beds  for  upperclassmen. 

And  there  is  one  other  alternative. 
Though  freshmen  are  guaranteed 
housing,  they  are  not  required  to  live 
on  campus.  "If  they  wish  to  get  an 
off-campus  apartment,  that  will  be 
okay."  says  Richardson. 

Nonetheless,  because  of  the  hous- 
ing shortage  in  Worcester,  apartments 
near  WPI  are  in  limited  supply,  and 
rents  can  start  at  around  S650  a 
month,  plus  utilities.  Upperclassmen 
who  choose  to  live  off  campus  usually 
make  arrangements  in  January  or 
February,  long  before  the  beginning 
of  the  fall  term. 

So.  the  planning  to  fit  everyone  into 
campus  residence  halls  is  underway. 
Says  Paul  Outerson.  director  of  hous- 
ing, "There's  a  lot  of  tripling  up  on 
paper,  but  everything  keeps  changing 
up  to  the  last  minute." 

"We  encourage  freshmen  to  live  on 
campus  because  we  believe  it's  a 
valuable  experience."  says  Richard- 
son. And  that  policy  holds,  even  if  all 
744  members  of  the  Class  of  1990 
show  up.  "We  will  house  them."— EH 


AUGUST  1986       51 


ages  and  appropriate  relationships  with 
neighbors. 

Chaired  by  Trustee  William  Dens- 
more,  the  task  force  comprised  students, 
faculty,  administrators,  alumni,  parents, 
trustees,  and  neighbors. 

In  addition  to  outlining  the  personal 
and  legal  obligations  of  Greek  societies 
at  WPI,  the  task  force  suggested  criteria 
for  evaluating  fraternities'  and  sororities' 
behavior.  It  also  suggested  involving 
other  campus  organizations,  neighbors, 
alumni,  faculty,  and  parents  as  well  as 
the  fraternities  and  sororities  in  the  eval- 
uation process. 

According  to  the  suggested  review 
procedure,  those  sororities  and  fraterni- 
ties which  had  met  a  set  of  goals  for  all 
Greeks  would  receive  public  recogni- 
tion. "It's  as  important  to  recognize 
those  who  are  doing  a  good  job  as  it  is  to 
take  action  against  those  who  aren't," 
says  Chief  Whitney,  a  task  force  mem- 
ber. "Basically,  the  report  sets  up  a  stan- 
dard to  live  by.  If  the  recommendations 
are  adopted  and  we  get  some  steady 
reporting  on  each  fraternity,  good  or  bad, 
I  think  it  will  have  some  effect." 

"The  task  force  has  been  a  good 
thing,"  says  Joyce  Kline.  "President 
Strauss  has  made  it  known  that  fraterni- 
ties will  stay  on  campus,  and  that  every 
student  group  has  responsibilities  for 
improving  relations." 

Even  before  the  task  force 
issued  its  report,  the  Interfra- 
ternity  Council  had  adopted 
new  policies  aimed  at  con- 
trolling alcohol  consump- 
tion. Last  fall,  the  IFC  decided  to  have  a 
"semi-dry"  rush.  "No  alcohol  was 
served  at  the  informational  house  tours 
during  the  first  three  days  of  rush," 
explains  Mike  Gonsor.  "During  the  next 
six  weeks,  the  houses  could  serve  alco- 
holic beverages  at  any  rush  event  or 
party." 

This  fall,  Gonsor  says,  the  IFC  will  go 
even  further  and  ban  alcohol  from  all 
rush  events.  (Sororities  have  traditionally 


had  a  dry  rush.)  "No  freshman  will  be 
able  to  get  into  a  party  until  he's  received 
a  bid,  or  until  the  end  of  fall  term,"  Gon- 
sor says.  "That  way,  you  can't  go  to  a 
party  just  to  drink  in  order  to  get  people 
to  know  you." 

Another  rule  limiting  the  flow  of  beer 
and  liquor  is  a  new  IFC  policy  prohibit- 
ing fraternities  from  selling  alcohol  at 
parties.  Formerly  a  source  of  income  for 
many  Greek  houses,  alcohol  sales 
require  a  liquor  license — something 
which  the  houses  can  no  longer  afford, 
given  the  high  cost  of  liquor  liability 
insurance.  (For  more  on  the  insurance 
crisis  affecting  all  of  higher  education, 
see  story  beginning  on  page  II.) 

Fraternities  violating  the  rule  don't  do 
so  for  long.  "There's  a  lot  of  peer  pres- 
sure not  to  charge,"  says  Gonsor.  In 
addition,  though  there  is  no  formal  self- 
policing  effort  among  the  Greek  houses 
("It's  very  hard  for  us  to  set  it  up,"  says 
Gonsor),  IFC  leaders  have  made  an 
effort  to  help  keep  an  eye  on  things: 
"Last  year,  one  fraternity  was  generating 
repeated  complaints  by  a  neighbor  over 
party  noise,"  Gonsor  recalls.  "The  IFC 
vice  president  and  I  went  to  their  party  to 
help  keep  a  lid  on  things." 

Even  with  new  alcohol  rules  in  place, 
Chief  Whitney's  officers  will  have  to 
remain  vigilant.  "If  partyers  didn't  see 
the  police  cars,  it  would  be  more  of  a 


problem,"  he  says.  "There  have  been 
some  improvements  in  the  way  fraterni- 
ties are  handling  themselves,"  concludes 
Whitney.  "But  we  won't  really  be  able  to 
tell  until  this  fall." 

In  spite  of  the  problem  of  underage 
drinking,  however,  the  IFC's  Gonsor  is 
confident  that  the  groundwork  he  and 
others  laid  last  year  will  enable  the  Greek 
houses  to  measure  up  to  the  expectations 
of  Strauss,  Whitney,  and  others.  With 
Gonsor 's  graduation  in  May,  Daniel  J. 
Sullivan,  incoming  IFC  president,  and 
his  fraternity  officers  will  be  shouldering 
the  weight  of  responsibility  accepted  by 
their  predecessors. 

"In  the  past,  you  felt  that  every  house 
was  out  for  itself,"  Gonsor  says.  "But 
now,  with  a  strong  IFC,  the  houses  real- 
ize that  they're  part  of  a  system— and 
that  the  system  is  only  as  good  as  the 
houses  trying  to  promote  it." 

The  IFC's  efforts  have  not  gone  unno- 
ticed by  campus  administrators.  "Two 
years  ago,  when  alcohol  and  party 
restrictions  all  hit  at  once,  the  fraternity 
leaders  were  not  willing  to  regulate 
themselves,"  says  Bernard  H.  Brown, 
vice  president  for  student  affairs.  "But 
now,  they've  taken  back  that  responsibil- 
ity." 

Evelyn  Herwitz  is  a  free-lance  writer  liv- 
ing in  Worcester. 


52       WPI  JOURNAL 


The  Inauguration  luncheon  in  Har- 
rington Auditorium.  The  story  on  the 
investiture  of  Jon  C.  Strauss  begins  on 
page  2. 


£  S3SSi«35«5555 


With  pomp  and  circumstance,  WPI  inaugurates  its  13th  president, 
Dr.  Jon  C.  Strauss.  The  story  on  page  2. 


WPI  To.  irnal 


WORCESTER  POLYTECHNIC 


INSTITUTE 


OUTSTANDING: 

Dan  H.  Wolaver's 

Method 


From  the  Drawing  Board 
to  the  Marketplace 


The  Rise  and  Fall 
of  Autumn 


A  Special  Message  to  WPI  Alumni,  Parents,  and  Friends 


Over  the  past  few  weeks,  a  few  of 
I  us  here  in  University  Relations 
have  been  at  work  preparing 
brief  biographical  sketches  on  those  indi- 
viduals who  have  contributed  to  the 
endowment  of  WPI  over  these  past  12 
decades  of  our  history.  The  first  such 
donor,  of  course,  was  John  Boynton, 
who  anonymously  provided  the  chal- 
lenge to  "the  citizens  of  Worcester":  If 
they  would  construct  a  building  for  the 
new  school,  he  would  endow  the  college 
with  much  of  his  lifetime  savings.  In 
1865,  that  amount— $100,000— was  a 
handsome  sum,  for  at  that  time  the  barter 
system  served  as  the  means  of  exchange 
for  most  families. 

Those  sketches  tell  a  wonderful  story 
of  the  history  of  WPI,  one  different  from 
the  usual  "college  history"— the  study  of 
presidents,  the  development  of  academic 
departments,  and  the  evolution  of  the 
campus.  In  a  sense,  these  essays  on 
many  of  WPI's  benefactors  recount  the 
real  outcomes  of  the  WPI  experiment. 
That  experiment— Lehr  und  Kunst, 
teaching  and  skilled  art— has  come  to 
serve  so  well  so  many  of  us  during  our 
lifetimes. 

Many  of  those  donors  provided  gifts  of 
consequence  that  resulted  from  highly 
successful  careers.  Some  donors  had  lit- 
tle direct  connection  with  WPI.  And  with 
special  poignancy,  many  wives  left  much 
of  what  remained  of  their  inheritances 
(some  large,  some  small)  from  their 
"Tech  men"  to  the  institution  for  which 
their  husbands  had  had  a  special  affec- 
tion. 

Equally  striking  to  me  were  endow- 


ments that  came  from  individuals  who 
had  had  comparatively  modest  careers 
and  who,  by  frugality  and  at  times  self- 
denial,  returned  to  WPI  something  of 
what  they  felt  the  college  had  meant  to 
them.  This  history  of  WPI,  In  the  Found- 
ers' Footsteps,  will  be  published  in  late 
November.  I  hope  many  of  you  will  be 
interested  enough  to  write  to  me  for  a 
copy.  A  good  story  of  American  science 
and  technology  will  be  contained  within 
its  covers,  as  well  as  a  special  human 
history  of  the  builders  of  today's  WPI. 

Since  the  very  first  day  of  classes  on 
November  10,  1868,  WPI  has  quietly 
gone  about  the  business  of  educating 
young  men  (and  since  1968,  young  men 
and  young  women),  preparing  individ- 
uals for  careers  of  economic  worth  and 
social  value.  Some  118  years  ago  this 
month,  that  first  class  of  32  students 
faced  a  barren  hillside  with  two  lonely 
sentinels— Boynton  Hall  (dedicated  on 
November  11,  1868)  and  Washburn 
Shops— on  the  outskirts  of  what  was  to 
become  the  second-largest  city  in  New 
England.  But  as  the  years  ticked  by,  each 
successive  freshman  class  found  a 
campus  steadily  enriched  with  new 
resources:  a  growing  faculty,  better 
equipment,  new  buildings  and  playing 
fields,  more  books,  a  wider  variety  of 
student  activities,  and  more  scholarship 
and  financial  support. 

Whenever  each  of  us  may  have  passed 
through  what  Richard  W.  Lyman,  our 
1986  Commencement  speaker,  referred 
to  as  "our  pleasant  hilltop  campus,"  we 
benefited,  albeit  sometimes  unknow- 
ingly, from  the  beneficence  of  those  who 
passed  before  us.  Over  the  years,  what 
the  school  has  become  is  due  in  no  small 
measure  to  the  support  that  had  been  pro- 
vided by  the  countless  other  believers  in 
John  Boynton's  challenge.  Today,  as  our 
history  demonstrates,  if  an  institution  is 
to  grow  in  strength  and  stature,  it  must 
continue  to  attract  resources,  both  mate- 
rial and  human.  And  in  the  domain  of 
science  and  technological  education,  the 
Institute  had  better  not  stand  still! 

Very  shortly,  our  alumni  and  friends 
will  be  hearing  about  a  major  campaign 
for  support  as  WPI  prepares  for  its  125th 
anniversary  in  1990.  This  campaign  will 
seek  the  resources  required  to  make 
WPI— today  a  very  good  institution— 


into  an  excellent  one,  the  goal  articulated 
by  President  Jon  C.  Strauss  in  his  inau- 
gural address  last  May.  Thus  we  have 
launched  the  "Campaign  for  Excel- 
lence." Between  now  and  1990,  we  will 
be  seeking  $52,245  million,  no  mean 
sum. 

We  begin  this  effort  on  a  very  solid 
foundation.  WPI's  budgets  have  been 
balanced  for  11  consecutive  years.  And 
with  periodic  surpluses,  the  Institute  has 
been  able  to  acquire  property  along  its 
borders  for  future  expansion,  especially 
for  student  residences,  and  to  keep 
deferred  maintenance  on  our  physical 
plant  to  a  minimum. 

This  fall,  we  welcomed  an  oversub- 
scribed freshman  class— 740  strong.  In 
academic  achievement,  it  is  the  strongest 
in  at  least  a  generation.  More  than  60 
percent  of  these  young  men  and  women 
came  to  WPI  because  financial  aid  was 
provided.  Some  20  new  faculty,  a  full  10 
percent  of  their  total  numbers,  were 
recruited  in  the  past  year,  six  in  electrical 
engineering  alone.  And  fully  refurbished 
outdoor  athletic  and  recreation  facilities 
are  now  available  to  a  college  commu- 
nity that  is  perhaps  more  fitness-con- 
scious than  ever  before. 

This  foundation  is  the  legacy  of  our 
past  support:  donors  to  the  Annual 
Alumni  Fund;  individual  gifts;  planned 
gifts  and  bequests  from  alumni,  parents, 
and  friends;  and  grants  provided  to  us  by 
local,  regional,  and  national  businesses, 
corporations,  and  philanthropic  founda- 
tions. 

What  WPI  can  become  in  1990— our 
next  historic  milestone— depends  upon 
you.  If  WPI  means  as  much  to  you  as  it 
has  meant  to  those  represented  through- 
out In  the  Founders'  Footsteps,  it  will 
leave  me  in  great  confidence  that  the 
Campaign  for  Excellence  will  succeed, 
ensuring  that  WPI  will  continue  to  be 
the  vital,  progressive  institution  that  we 
are  today. 

All  of  us  are  going  to  be  asked  to  pull 
hard  on  the  oars! 

Best  wishes  to  all  our  readers  for  a 
year-end  holiday  season  filled  with  life's 
ti^h  blessings. 

DooaJ^)  F.  Berth  '57 

Vice  President  for  University  Relations 


Staff  of  The  WPI  JOURNAL: 

Editor,  Kenneth  L.  McDonnell  • 
Alumni  Information  Editor,  Ruth 
S.  Trask 

Alumni  Publications  Commit- 
tee: William  J.  Firla,  Jr.  '60, 
chairman  •  Judith  Nitsch  '75, 
vice  chairman  •  Paul  J.  Cleary 
'71  •  Carl  A.  Keyser  '39  • 
Robert  C.  Labonte  '54  •  Samuel 
Mencow  '37  •  Maureen  Sexton 
'83. 

The  WPI  Journal  (ISSN  0148- 
6128)  is  published  quarterly  for 
the  WPI  Alumni  Association  by 
Worcester  Polytechnic  Institute 
in  cooperation  with  the  Alumni 
Magazine  Consortium,  with  edi- 
torial offices  at  the  Johns 
Hopkins  University,  Baltimore, 
MD  21218.  Pages  l-XVI  are 
published  for  the  Alumni  Maga- 
zine Consortium  (Franklin  and 
Marshall  College,  Hartwick  Col- 
lege, Johns  Hopkins  University, 
Villanova  University,  Western 
Maryland  College,  Worcester 
Polytechnic  Institute)  and 
appear  in  the  respective  alumni 
magazines  of  those  institutions. 
Second  class  postage  paid  at 
Worcester,  MA,  and  additional 
mailing  offices.  Pages  1-18, 
35-52  ©  1986,  Worcester  Poly- 
technic Institute.  Pages  l-XVI 
©  1986,  Johns  Hopkins. 
Staff  of  the  Alumni  Magazine 
Consortium:  Editor,  Donna 
Shoemaker  •  Wrap  Designer 
and  Production  Coordinator, 
Amy  Doudiken  Wells  •  Assis- 
tant Editor,  Leslie  Brunetta  • 
Core  Designers,  Allen  Carroll 
and  Amy  Doudiken  Wells. 
Advisory  Board  of  the  Alumni 
Magazine  Consortium:  Frank- 
lin and  Marshall  College,  Linda 
Whipple  •  Hartwick  College, 
Merrilee  Gomillion  •  Johns 
Hopkins  University,  B.J.  Norris 
and  Elise  Hancock  •  Villanova 
University,  Eugene  J.  Ruane 
and  DM.  Howe  •  Western 
Maryland  College,  Joyce  Muller 
•  Worcester  Polytechnic  Insti- 
tute, Donald  F.  Berth  and 
Kenneth  L.  McDonnell. 

Acknowledgments:  Typeset- 
ting, BG  Composition,  Inc.; 
Printing,  American  Press,  Inc. 

Diverse  views  on  subjects  of 
public  interest  are  presented  in 
the  magazine.  These  views  do 
not  necessarily  reflect  the  opin- 
ions of  the  editors  or  official  poli- 
cies of  WPI.  Address  correspon- 
dence to  the  Editor,  The  WPI 
Journal,  Worcester  Polytechnic 
Institute,  Worcester,  MA  01609. 
Telephone  (617)  793-5609. 
Postmaster:  If  undeliverable 
please  send  form  3579  to  the 
address  above.  Do  not  return 
publication. 


CONTOIS 


WPI  JOURNAL 
Volume  XC  No.  2 
Fall  1986 


2  The  Importance  of  Private 
Higher  Education 


Jon  C.  Strauss 


A  message  from  the  President. 

4  Tech  101:  The  New  Curricula  Evelyn  Herwitz 

Lots  is  changing,  yet  some  things  remain  the  same. 

10  Drury  Lane  at  Regent  Street  Evelyn  Herwitz 

The  history  and  beauty  of  WPI's  "executive  residences." 

/  Higher  and  Higher  Education       Donna  Shoemaker 

Is  the  price  of  private  college  too  high? 

VII  Autumn  Fire  Jonathan  Richardson 

England's  languorous  fall  and  America's  dazzling 
display— the  difference  is  climate. 


XII  Of  Father  Time,  Mother  Nature, 
and  a  Newborn  Idea 

Could  science  be  sexist? 


Leslie  Brunetta 


35  The  Goal  Is  in  the  Striving  Shirley  Standring 

A  profile  of  Dan  H.  Wolaver,  Teacher  of  the  Year. 

42  The  Entrepreneurial  Spirit:  Michael  Shanley 

Insuring  Success 

Frederic  A.  Stevens  '61,  from  software  to  presort. 

46  To  Market,  To  Market  PaulSusca 

The  ups  and  downs  of  getting  new  product  ideas  into  the 
hands  of  the  consumer. 

Letters      Inside  back  cover 


Page  XII 


Page  42 


Cover:  Electrical  Engineering  Professor  Dan  H.  Wolaver  has 
been  honored  with  the  1986  WPI  Board  of  Trustees'  Award  for 
Outstanding  Teaching.  Story  on  page  35.  Photo  by  Michael  Carroll. 


FALL  1986       1 


THE  PRESIDENT'S  MESSAGE 


The  Importance  of 
Private  Higher  Education 


Recently.  I  had  the 
opportunity  to  speak 
with  a  prospective 
trustee  of  WPI  about  why  he 
should  take  on  the  responsi- 
bilities that  membership  on 
the  Board  involves.  I  spoke, 
of  course,  of  the  excitement  I 
found  at  WPI,  and  of  the 
rewards  of  service  to  young 
adults  and  the  community. 

I  also  emphasized  the 
importance  of  private  higher 
education  in  the  United  States 
and  its  contributions  to  our 
nation's  acknowledged 
worldwide  leadership  in  post- 
secondary  education.  Without 
our  independent  colleges  and 


universities.  I  postulated, 
higher  education  as  well  as 
the  nation  itself  would  never 
have  developed  as  rapidly  as 
it  has. 

As  Harvard  University,  the 
nation's  first  college,  recently 
celebrated  its  350th  anniver- 
sary, it  and  our  1 .800  other 
independent  colleges  and  uni- 
versities can  be  proud  indeed 
of  the  leadership  they  have 
provided.  For  at  private  insti- 
tutions such  as  WPI,  it  is 
merit  alone,  unfettered  by  the 
bureaucracy  of  government, 
that  decides  the  fate  of  curric- 
ulum content  and  process, 
scholarly  research,  and  insti- 


"Private  colleges  are  free  to  pursue 

educational  goals  in  an  environment  that  brings  together 

the  best  that  free  enterprise  and 

healthy  competition  have  to  offer." 


By  Jon  C.  Strauss 


WPI  JOURNAL 


tutional  administration.  We 
are  able  to  pursue  educational 
goals  in  an  environment  that 
can  be  characterized  as  the 
best  that  free  enterprise  and 
healthy  competition  offer. 

Most  experts  agree  that, 
were  it  not  for  the  quality 
standards  set  by  private  insti- 
tutions of  the  caliber  of  Har- 
vard or  Stanford,  the  nation's 
premier  public  institutions, 
like  the  University  of  Califor- 
nia or  the  University  of  Wis- 
consin, would  be  mere 
shadows  of  their  present 
forms. 

Moreover,  those  same 
experts  would  affirm  that  the 
Massachusetts  Institute  of 
Technology,  WPI,  and  our 
peer  institutions  provide  edu- 
cational innovation  and  qual- 
ity that  serve  as  models  for 
distinguished  engineering 
schools  at  public  institutions 
such  as  the  Universities  of 
Massachusetts  or  Illinois. 

Here  at  WPI,  the  Plan  is  a 
good  example  of  the  creative 
power  of  private  education. 
Emphasizing  outcomes  rather 
than  just  the  process  or  con- 
tent of  education— real-world 
problem  solving  rather  than 
lock-step  curricula— the  Plan 
serves  as  proof  of  principle 
for  engineering  and  science 
education  the  world  over. 

Understandably,  imple- 
mentation and.  more 
recently,  enhancement  of  the 
Plan  have  required  what 
accompanies  any  new  ven- 
ture: a  willingness  by  its  crea- 
tors to  take  risks,  together 
with  the  commitment  of  time. 
personal  sacrifice,  and  finan- 
cial resources  needed  to  make 
the  change  viable.  It  is 
unlikely  that  this  sort  of  inno- 


"The  continuing  success  of  our  public  colleges 

and  universities  depends  on  enhancing  the  quality 

of  our  private  institutions." 


vation  could  have  occurred  in 
the  typically  more  conserva- 
tive realm  of  public  higher 
education.  The  costs  would 
be  too  high,  the  changes  too 
severe.  But  at  WPI.  as  in 
business,  we  encourage  pru- 
dent risk  taking  and  success- 
ful innovation  in  the  pursuit 
of  knowledge. 

Some  will  argue  that  what 
appear  to  be  significantly 
lower  costs  of  public  higher 
education  portend  the  ulti- 
mate demise  of  our  private 
institutions.  Yet  this  view 
ignores  respected  studies 
indicating  that  the  publics  are 
often  less  cost  efficient  than 
the  privates. 

The  costs  of  tuition  and 
room  and  board  may  appear 
significantly  lower  at  public 
institutions,  but  this  is  due 
largely  to  the  substantial  sub- 
sidies which  publics  derive 
from  taxpayer  "contribu- 
tions." Still,  colleges  such  as 
WPI  cannot  ignore  the 
dynamics  of  the  marketplace, 
especially  in  these  days  of 
dramatic  reductions  in  the 
number  of  high  school 
seniors  nationwide.  [You  may 
be  interested  in  turning  to 
page  I,  for  a  story  entitled 
"Higher  and  Higher  Educa- 
tion," which  addresses  the 
issue  in  some  detail.] 


Let's  examine  the  sce- 
nario in  which  U.S. 
higher  education  is 
influenced  by  private  institu- 
tions. We  can  gain  some 
insight  into  this  situation  by 
looking  at  the  history  of  edu- 
cational systems  that  have  not 
benefited  as  directly  from  pri- 
vate institutions. 

Europe  is  a  good  example. 
The  great  public  univer- 
sities—The Sorbonne  and 
Heidelberg,  for  instance- 
while  known  for  their 
extraordinary  scholarship, 
have  been  far  less  influential 
in  the  societies  they  serve 
than  have  U.S.  universities. 
In  fact,  many  observers  con- 
tend that  U.S.  universities  are 
having  a  greater  impact  on 
Europe  than  many  of 
Europe's  own  institutions. 
Similarly,  universities  in 
Japan  and  other  Eastern 
nations  seem  to  have  remark- 
ably little  impact  on  the  soci- 
eties and  the  commerce  they 
serve.  This  situation  cannot 
be  fully  ascribed  to  the 
absence  of  a  healthy  private 
higher  education  sector  in 
Europe  and  the  Far  East,  but 
that  absence  is  certainly  a 
contributing  factor. 

Typically,  governments- 
state  or  federal— are  too  cum- 
bersome and  too  far  removed 


from  the  needs  of  academia  to 
be  permitted  to  be  solely 
responsible  for  standards  of 
higher  education.  Less  influ- 
ence on  education  by  the  pub- 
lic sector  leads  to  more  effec- 
tive responses  to  society's 
needs. 

Higher  education's  public 
sector,  however,  is  far  from 
an  intellectual  wasteland. 
Many  of  the  publics  enjoy 
hard-earned  reputations  for 
excellence  in  teaching  and 
research.  For  the  sake  of  the 
nation  and  the  world,  they 
had  better:  public  colleges 
and  universities  educate  more 
than  80  percent  of  the 
nation's  undergraduate  stu- 
dents and  perform  over  50 
percent  of  federally  spon- 
sored research.  To  extend  the 
argument  offered  above,  the 
continuing  success  of  these 
institutions  depends  in  no 
small  measure  on  enhancing 
the  quality  and  vitality  of  our 
private  institutions. 

As  we  face  this  challenge, 
it  is  vitally  important  that 
every  member  of  the  WPI 
community— trustees,  fac- 
ulty, students,  staff,  alumni, 
and  friends— recognizes  the 
special  trust  and  responsibili- 
ties thrust  upon  each  of  us  as 
members  of  private  higher 
education. 

And.  oh  yes.  the  prospec- 
tive trustee  with  whom  I  dis- 
cussed what  I've  shared  with 
you  is  now  the  newest  mem- 
ber of  the  Board.  As  such,  he 
has  accepted  the  responsibili- 
ties of  helping  the  Institute 
evolve  and  prosper  for  the 
years  and  generations 
ahead— for  the  benefit  of  WPI 
and  all  of  society,  at  home 
and  abroad. 


FALL  1986 


"In  our  schools  and  colleges,  the  aim  should  be  to  train  the  mind 

rather  than  to  impart  technical  information." 

It  was  in  1915  that  L.B.  Stillwell,  former  president  of  the 

American  Institute  of  Electrical  Engineers,  made  that  remark. 

Seventy-one  years  later,  Stillwell 's  belief  that  engineers  must 

learn  how  to  think,  not  just  how  to  do,  remains  a  challenge  to 

engineering  educators— the  central  theme  in  a  pedagogic  debate 

that  has  spanned  decades. 

But  accomplishing  this  balance,  at  a  time  when  innovations  in 

science  and  technology  can  become  obsolete  in  just  months,  calls 

upon  educators  to  be  inventive  themselves.  And  while  much  has 

changed  in  technological  education,  some  things  have  not. 


In  the  30  years  since  the  Soviets 
launched  Sputnik  and  spawned  the 
space  race,  technological  develop- 
ment has  intensified  to  the  point  that 
innovation  is  commonplace.  Engineering 
students  who  toil  four  and  sometimes 
five  years  to  master  a  body  of  rapidly 
changing  knowledge  often  find  their 
training  outdated  soon  after  graduation. 
The  dilemma  for  engineering  schools  is 
twofold:  how  to  stay  abreast  of  new 
developments  without  becoming  mired 
in  soon-to-be  obsolete  technology— and 
how  to  turn  out  engineers  and  scientists 
who  are  able  to  keep  current  long  after 
they  graduate. 

For  WPI,  meeting  the  challenges  of 
the  post-Sputnik  era  has  meant  renewed 
attention  to  the  values  L.B.  Stillwell 
expressed  at  the  turn  of  the  century, 
when  satellites,  robotics,  and  genetically 
engineered  organisms  were  still  the 
dreams  of  science  fiction  writers. 

"We've  moved  a  long  way  from  a 
"how  to'  orientation  toward  a  focus  on 
why  things  happen."  says  William  R. 
Grogan.  dean  of  undergraduate  studies. 
A  member  of  the  Class  of  1946  who 


returned  as  an  electrical  engineering 
instructor  after  World  War  II.  Grogan 
became  involved  in  efforts  to  adapt 
WPI's  curriculum  as  the  space  race  trig- 
gered a  shift  in  priorities  from  techniques 
to  engineering  science. 

"During  the  '50s  we  had  many,  many 
courses  that  were  handbook  oriented." 
recalls  Grogan.  "There  was  a  great  deal 
of  drill  and  repetition.  A  lot  of  the  labs 
were  simply  boring— 'do  this,  do  that, 
verify  the  principle."  There  wasn't  much 
creativity  involved,  and  reports  were 
often  copied  from  fraternity  files.  Stu- 
dents did  a  great  deal  of  analysis,  but 
very  little  synthesis." 

After  Sputnik,  however,  intensified 
research  efforts  created  a  "knowledge 
explosion"  which  Grogan  says  made  it 
impossible  for  students  to  remain  abreast 
of  the  latest  generation  of  technologies 
and  techniques.  "Practice  became  a 
moving  target,"  he  says.  "The  only 
things  that  remained  stable  were  the  fun- 
damentals." 

A  deep  shift  in  classroom  instruction 
and  laboratory  projects  from  current 
practice     to     underlying     principles 


resulted.  But  even  as  the  revised 
approach  enabled  engineers  to  function 
better  in  a  rapidly  changing  technologi- 
cal environment.  Grogan  says  it  also  cre- 
ated frustration  and  confusion.  "There 
was  a  much  longer  period  of  time  before 
students  saw  the  fruits  of  their  efforts," 
he  explains.  "Under  the  old  system,  they 
could  design  things  quickly.  Now  it  took 
longer  to  understand  subjects  like  phys- 
ics and  mathematics.  That  was  very  frus- 
trating for  some  students,  especially  if 
they  had  been  drawn  to  engineering  for 
the  hands-on  gratification." 

To  restore  that  lost  sense  of  progress 
and  tangible  outcomes,  Grogan  says  the 
WPI  Plan,  instituted  in  the  early  1970s, 
introduced  the  Interactive  Qualifying 
Project  and  Major  Qualifying  Project  as 
degree  requirements.  "The  projects  have 
been  extremely  effective,  both  in  ena- 
bling students  to  synthesize  ideas  and  in 
aiding  their  personal  growth,"  says  Gro- 
gan, who  discovered  the  motivational 
value  of  projects  in  his  own  classroom  as 
early  as  the  1950s. 

In  1973.  WPI  introduced  another 
change  in  curriculum  structure.  Seven- 


Tech  101: 

The  New  Curricula 


By  Evelyn  Herwitz 


WPI  JOURNAL 


week  terms  replaced  15- week  semesters, 
and  student  course  loads  shifted  from  a 
half-dozen  classes  per  semester  to  three 
per  term.  The  idea,  says  Grogan,  was  to 
help  students  concentrate  on  a  few  sub- 
jects at  a  time,  rather  than  "just  go  from 
course  to  course."  But  even  as  the  four- 
term  structure  better  enables  students  to 
focus  their  attention,  Grogan  admits  it  is 
still  an  imperfect  solution  to  an  age-old 
pedagogic  problem. 

"We  have  always  tried  to  teach  too 
much  in  too  short  a  period  of  time,  and 
we  always  will,"  says  Grogan,  "because 
I  think  students  have  an  enormous  capac- 
ity to  learn  that  is  not  often  tapped.  But 
sometimes  we  delude  ourselves  into 
thinking  that  if  we've  covered  something 
in  class,  the  students  understand  it.  You 
can  cover  a  barn  with  a  thin  coat  of 
paint— but  will  it  last  through  the  win- 
ter?" 

How  to  explain  fundamental, 
abstract  concepts  within  a  tight 
time  frame  is  of  particular  con- 
cern to  the  Physics  Department  faculty. 
Though  the  basic  subject  matter  in  fresh- 
man physics  has  not  changed  dramati- 
cally since  the  1930s,  a  renewed  empha- 
sis on  concepts  has  intensified  the 
challenge  of  explaining  ideas  that  contra- 
dict intuition. 

"In  the  late  1960s,  the  introductory 
physics  courses  were  far  and  away  the 
most  hated  courses  on  campus,"  says 
associate  professor  Van  Bluemel.  Along 
with  professor  Thomas  H.  Keil.  Bluemel 
is  teaching  freshman  physics  this  year. 
"When  we  came  here  in  the  mid- "60s. 
the  courses  were  very  drill  oriented," 
says  Keil.  "Since  then,  we've  been  try- 
ing to  place  greater  emphasis  on  con- 
cepts and  ideas,  rather  than  just  plugging 
in  variables  to  set  problems." 

That  shift  to  an  even  more  abstract 
focus,  however,  has  not  necessarily 
increased  enthusiasm  for  freshman  phys- 
ics. "Students  often  come  into  freshman 
physics  with  the  same  conceptual  biases 
as  Aristotle,"  says  Bluemel.  "To  really 
understand  the  discipline,  each  person 
must  go  through  an  intellectual  transition 
similar  to  the  historical  development  of 
classical  physics." 

The  basic  dilemma  can  be  illustrated 
with  a  simple  example:  "Imagine  you 
are  sitting  in  a  car  that  suddenly  starts 
moving  forward."  explains  Department 
Head  Stephen  N.  Jasperson.  "You  feel 
as  though  a  force  is  pushing  you  back 
against  the  seat.  But  actually,  what  you 


experience  is  a  force  moving  you  for- 
ward, when  your  body  wants  to  stay  at 
rest.  That's  why  Newtonian  physics 
seems  strange— because  the  principles 
seem  contrary  to  expectations  based  on 
your  experience  of  the  world." 
Even  more  alien  are  the  concepts 

In  the  Solid  State  Physics  Lab,  this  stu- 
dent built  a  capacitive  dilatometer  capa- 
ble of  taking  experimental  measure- 
ments at  extremely  low  temperatures. 
Using  advanced  technology  gives  stu- 
dents a  better  feel  for  the  abstract  con- 
cepts of  physics. 


underlying  Einstein's  theory  of  relativity, 
first  published  in  the  early  1900s.  "Of  all 
the  material  presented  in  introductory 
courses,"  says  Jasperson,  "relativity  is 
probably  the  most  unsettling  because  it's 
so  obviously  at  odds  with  experience.  If 
two  events  happen  simultaneously  for 
one  person,  we're  accustomed  to  believ- 
ing the  same  is  true  for  everyone  else. 
But  not  according  to  relativity." 

Although  these  contradictions  have 
been  plaguing  students  and  professors 
for  nearly  a  century,  pedagogic 
approaches  to  them  have  only  recently 
come  under  close  scrutiny.  So  strong  are 


FALL  1986 


Computers  have  reduced  part  of  the 
detailed  analytical  work  of  freshman 
chemistry  to  split-second  tasks,  freeing 
up  time  to  study  such  fields  as  quantum 
mechanics  and  thermodynamics. 
Learning  other  lessons,  however,  still 
requires  goggles  and  flasks. 

student  preconceptions  about  the  physi- 
cal world,  reports  recent  research  in  the 
American  Journal  of  Physics,  that  con- 


ventional   instruction,    regardless    of 
teaching  method,  typically  fails. 

"Learning  physics  is  a  lot  like  master- 
ing a  foreign  language,"  says  Keil.  "Not 
only  do  you  need  to  understand  English 
terms  that  are  used  in  a  very  different, 
specific  way  than  you're  accustomed  to, 
but  you  also  need  to  understand  mathe- 
matics and  graphics.  We  tend  to  translate 
quite  freely  among  the  three,  but  most 
freshmen  can't." 


Hoping  to  bridge  that  conceptual  bar- 
rier, Keil  has  developed  the  first  in  a 
planned  series  of  computer  modules  for 
freshman  physics.  "It's  designed  to  cre- 
ate a  kind  of  play  space  where  students 
can  experiment  with  physical  concepts," 
he  explains.  "The  module  starts  with  a 
projectile  on  top  of  a  cliff.  Students  can 
adjust  factors  like  height  and  speed,  and 
the  computer  records  the  trajectory  and 
other  data  about  the  projectile's  motion. 
It's  a  way  of  giving  students  a  world 
more  like  the  one  we're  trying  to  teach 
them  about." 

Unlike  the  world  of  physics,  the 
world  of  chemistry  is  readily 
observable.  Lab  experiments 
are  replete  with  bright  colors,  strong 
odors,  occasional  loud  noises  and  often 
unintended,  but  equally  instructive  les- 
sons in  phenomena  such  as  the  effect  of 
acid  on  denim  jeans. 

But  in  keeping  with  the  trend  among 
all  sciences  since  the  1950s,  chemistry  as 
a  discipline  has  become  more  quantita- 
tive. At  the  freshmen  level,  what  was 
once  a  course  in  descriptive  inorganic 
chemistry  now  includes  a  heavy  dose  of 
physical  chemistry. 

Subjects  such  as  quantum  mechanics 
and  thermodynamics,  which  provide  the 
theoretical  structure  for  analyzing  physi- 
cal properties  of  chemicals  and  chemical 
reactions,  are  now  central  to  a  curricu- 
lum that  once  emphasized  memorization 
of  formulas. 

"We  used  to  focus  on  problems  like 
what  a  substance  looks  like,  what  reacts 
with  what,  and  the  characteristics  of  the 
reaction,"  says  Nicholas  K.  Kildahl, 
associate  professor  of  chemistry,  who 
this  year  is  teaching  the  freshman  course. 
"Now  we  ask  questions  like  how  much 
energy  is  released  during  a  particular 
reaction,  rather  than  focusing  on  the 
reaction  itself.  Quantum  mechanics  has 
enabled  us  to  look  deeper,  beneath  the 
phenomenologic  observation,  to  explain 
why  things  happen." 

The  shift  away  from  descriptive  chem- 
istry, however,  has  sparked  some  criti- 
cisms. "Presumably,  the  theoretical 
approach  gives  you  a  background  for 
meeting  new  situations  and  gives  you  a 
basis  for  understanding  new  develop- 
ments as  they  come  along,"  says  Wilbur 
B.  Bridgman,  professor  emeritus  and  a 
physical  chemist.  "On  the  other  hand, 
theory  can't  explain  all  chemistry  yet. 
One  simply  has  to  learn  some  facts  as 
facts."  That  concern,  shared  by  many 


6       WPI  JOURNAL 


if 


Thirty  years  ago, 

many  labs  simply  bored 

students:  Do  this,  do 

that,  verify  the 

principle.  Lots  of 

analysis  but  little 

synthesis." 


chemists  who  fear  that  students  are  learn- 
ing theory  at  the  expense  of  mastering 
the  language  of  chemistry,  is,  according 
to  Kildahl,  prompting  a  "big  move"  to 
return  to  descriptive  chemistry. 
Nonetheless,  powerful  analytical  tools 


such  as  quantum  mechanics  are  now  an 
accepted  part  of  any  freshman  chemistry 
course. 

Labs,  too,  have  become  more  quanti- 
tative. And  the  demand  for  more  detailed 
data  observations  has  prompted  develop- 
ment of  a  whole  new  generation  of 
instrumentation  that  has  revolutionized 
the  chemistry  lab.  In  upperclass  and 
graduate  analytic  chemistry,  for  exam- 
ple, the  spectrometer,  which  reveals  the 
identity  of  chemical  components  by  ana- 
lyzing how  much  light  a  solution 
absorbs,  has  replaced  laborious,  "wet" 
techniques  for  isolating  substances. 

Freshmen  also  benefit  from  instru- 
ments such  as  electronic  balances. 
"Thirty  years  ago,  it  took  a  long  time  to 
weigh  things,"  says  Professor  Ladislav 
H.  Berka.  "Then,  you'd  record  the  scale 
reading  each  time  the  needle  stopped 
swinging  on  either  side  of  the  zero. 
Adjustments  with  weights  would  be 
made  until  the  initial  average  with  empty 
pans  was  again  obtained.  You  could  take 
as  many  as  eight  averages  in  one  weigh- 
ing. 

"Now  it  takes  about  two  seconds  to 
put  your  sample  on  an  electronic  balance 
and  simply  read  the  weight.  You  can  get 
a  lot  more  accomplished." 

Veteran  ME  Lab  Technician  John 
"Joe"  Gale  shows  his  welding  tech- 
niques. Below  left:  In  1915,  in  PC  (Pre- 
g   Computer)  days,  this  was  the  scene  in 
|  drafting  rooms.  Right:  Now,  PCs  hold 
|  sway  in  the  engineering  design  graphics 
*  course  taught  by  John  J.  Titus  (I)  and 
George  Y.  Jumper,  Jr. 


Much  as  the  tools  of  the  chemis- 
try lab  have  changed  in  the 
past  three  decades,  no  less 
dramatic  has  been  the  transformation  in 
the  drafting  classroom  of  WPI's  Mechan- 
ical Engineering  Department.  Once 
filled  with  rows  of  drafting  desks,  the 
large  room  in  Higgins  Laboratories  now 
houses  dozens  of  computer  work  sta- 
tions. In  front  stands  a  blackboard-sized 
screen  that  projects  a  view  of  the  instruc- 
tor's video  display. 

Demonstrating  how  the  system  works, 
Associate  Professor  George  Y.  Jumper, 
Jr.  instructs  the  computer  to  recall  a  sim- 
ple drawing  of  a  square  with  a  diagonal 
line  across  the  upper  right  corner.  As  he 
types  on  the  keyboard,  the  square  rotates 
through  different  planes,  revealing  the 
object's  true  identity:  a  cube  with  one 
corner  sliced  away. 

"The  student  creates  a  three-dimen- 
sional mathematical  model  of  the  object, 
and  then  the  computer  does  a  two- 
dimensional  representation  in  any  view 
the  student  selects,"  explains  Jumper. 
"The  results  are  very  professional.  At 
the  end  of  seven  weeks,  everyone  can 
make  a  fantastic,  polished  drawing." 

Evidence  of  the  computer's  power 
lines  the  classroom  walls.  Prominently 
displayed  is  a  student's  detailed  wire 
frame  drawing  of  a  can  crusher;  nearby, 
for  inspiration,  an  intricate  illustration 
supplied  by  Wyman-Gordon  Company 
of  a  forging  that  resembles  a  topographi- 
cal map. 

Initiated  last  fall,  the  micro-CADD  lab 
(short  for  microcomputer  aided  design 
drafting)  has  transformed  engineering 


FALL  1986       7 


design  graphics  from  a  course  that  most 
students  tried  to  avoid  to  one  of  the 
department's  most  popular  offerings. 
"They're  having  a  ball,  making  these 
drawings,"  says  Jumper,  as  he  deftly 
instructs  the  computer  to  turn  a  point  at 
the  tip  of  an  abstract  figure  into  a  red 
sphere.  "The  computer  eliminates  a  lot 
of  the  tedium." 

While  students  still  study  basic  sketch- 
ing techniques  and  design  standards, 
much  of  their  class  work  involves  learn- 
ing how  to  create  and  manipulate  engi- 
neering designs  on  the  computer. 
"Drawings  are  an  important  way  that 
engineers  communicate  with  each  other," 
says  Jumper.  "If  used  properly,  the  com- 
puter can  do  the  dog  work  of  drafting 
while  the  students  learn  to  address  the 
tough  conceptual  questions.  And  it 
allows  them  to  put  their  learning  into 
practice  the  way  it's  done  in  industry." 

That  strategy  of  using  state-of-the-art 
technology  to  increase  student  mastery 
of  fundamental  concepts  is  central  to  the 
mechanical  engineering  curriculum.  As 
in  other  scientific  and  engineering  disci- 
plines, the  trend  has  shifted  away  from 
what  Department  Head  Donald  N. 
Zwiep  calls  "information  transfer" 
toward  mastery  of  principles  basic  to  all 
engineering  problems.  Modern  computa- 
tional tools  like  CADD  encourage  that 
learning  process  by  increasing  the  stu- 
dent's ability  to  tackle  in-depth  prob- 
lems. 

But  Zwiep 's  basic  advice  to  new  ME 
majors  is  the  same  as  it  was  when  he 
joined  the  faculty  30  years  ago:  Develop 
a  strong  background  in  basic  math  and 
science,  a  working  knowledge  of  engi- 
neering science  and  design,  and  an 
understanding  of  the  humanities  and 
social  sciences. 

"Though  necessary,  information  trans- 
fer must  be  combined  with  the  ability  to 
learn  on  a  'need  to  know'  basis  in  a  pro- 
fessional atmosphere,"  says  Zwiep. 
"Then  the  half-life  of  the  engineering 
graduate  becomes  infinite  because  learn- 
ing becomes  a  continuous  rather  than  a 
finite  process. 

"Engineering  involves  a  lifetime  of 
learning.  Anyone  not  willing  to  dedicate 
himself  to  that  is  dead  in  the  water." 

Washburn  Shops  features  state-of-the- 
art  machining  tools  and  video  systems. 
Center  left:  The  PC  labs  in  Higgins  are 
usually  full.  Right:  ME  Department 
Head  Donald  N.  Zwiep  urges  learning 
on  a  "need  to  know  "  basis. 


WPI  JOURNAL 


Of  all  the  engineering  disciplines, 
one  of  the  most  dramatically 
affected  by  recent  technological 
developments  is  electrical  engineering. 
With  the  invention  of  the  transistor  in 
1948,  ever  smaller  and  more  efficient 
electronic  circuits  have  become  possible. 
Every  decade  has  brought  major  techno- 
logical breakthroughs:  digital  computers 
in  the  1950s,  integrated  circuits  in  the 
'60s,  microprocessors  in  the  '70s,  and 
very  large  scale  integrated  (VLSI)  cir- 
cuits in  the  1980s. 

In  the  EE  lab,  computer  work  stations 
have  replaced  benches  littered  with 
wires,  electronic  components  and  solder- 
ing irons.  With  a  few  keystrokes,  stu- 
dents can  design  schematic  diagrams  of 
integrated  circuits  on  a  color  monitor. 
Once  their  designs  are  complete,  they 
can  test  them  on  the  computer  using  sim- 
ulation tools.  The  debugged  design, 
recorded  on  disk,  can  then  be  sent  to  a 
chip  manufacturer  for  production. 

Beginning  this  fall,  partly  in  conjunc- 
tion with  Westboro-based  Massachusetts 
Microelectronic  Center  (M2C),  students 
learning  the  basics  of  VLSI  design  will 
have  access  to  an  even  more  convenient 
way  of  making  chips.  Called  electrically 
programmed  logic  devices— EPLD— the 
technology  uses  "small"  chips,  contain- 
ing 2,000  to  3,000  transistors  (in  contrast 
with  the  50,000  to  500,000  transistors 
found  in  microprocessors),  unconnected 
by  any  wiring. 

"You  plug  the  chip  into  a  program- 
ming board  connected  to  a  personal  com- 
puter," explains  Professor  Wilhelm 
Eggimann.  "You  can  then  program  the 
chip  to  do  what  you  want.  Then  you  sim- 
ply unplug  the  chip  and  try  it  out." 


The  Challenge  of  Faculty  Recruitment 


Recruiting  engineering  school  faculty 
in  the  post-Sputnik  era  has  often 
proved  as  challenging  as  striking  the 
right  pedagogic  balance  between 
principles  and  applications. 

In  recent  years,  competition  for  sci- 
ence and  engineering  Ph.D.s  has 
intensified,  as  high-technology  firms 
siphon  graduates  away  from  aca- 
demia.  In  addition,  says  Richard  H. 
Gallagher,  vice  president  and  dean  of 
the  faculty,  there  has  been  a  "dou- 
bling of  output"  from  engineering 
colleges,  increasing  competition 
among  universities  for  a  limited  sup- 
ply of  qualified  faculty  members. 

"Fifteen  years  ago,  40,000  stu- 
dents graduated   from  engineering 


schools  in  the  United  States,"  says 
Gallagher.  "Today,  the  figure  is 
somewhere  between  80,000  and 
90,000."  In  part,  he  says,  those  fig- 
ures represent  general  demographic 
shifts.  But  the  increase  in  engineering 
students  also  reflects  the  drawing 
power  of  a  high-tech  career  and  the 
influx  of  women  to  engineering  col- 
leges. 

With  more  students  to  teach,  the 
search  for  qualified  faculty  has  inten- 
sified. "It  has  always  been  difficult 
attracting  individuals  who  are  excel- 
lent teachers  with  some  commitment 
to  research,"  says  Gallagher.  "But  I 
think  the  WPI  record  shows  we've 
been  very  successful."  —EH 


Like  an  audio  cassette  that  continues  to 
play  a  message  until  erased  with  a  mag- 
net, the  chip  will  retain  the  programmed 
circuits  until  it  is  passed  under  ultraviolet 
light.  "If  the  program  works,  you  can 
make  a  dozen  chips  by  just  plugging 
them  into  the  program,"  says  Eggimann. 
"Instead  of  waiting  two  months  for  your 
chips  to  be  manufactured,  you  wait  just 
two  seconds." 

But  even  as  students,  anxious  to  learn 
the  latest  in  chip  design,  flock  to  take 
courses  in  what  is  now  WPI's  largest 
department,  EE  faculty  members  share 
their  colleagues'  pedagogic  priorities. 
"The  technological  applications  change 
about  every  10  years,"  says  EE  Professor 


Harit  Majmudar.  "We  choose  different 
problems.  But  the  principles  remain  the 
same." 

Like  ME's  Zwiep,  Majmudar  stresses 
the  need  for  engineering  students  to  mas- 
ter fundamentals,  rather  than  get  caught 
up  in  the  complexities  of  current  applica- 
tions: "Physics  and  math  are  technol- 
ogy-neutral, as  are  the  basic  principles  of 
engineering  analysis  and  problem  solv- 
ing. The  good  engineers  and  scientists 
who  will  do  research  and  be  leaders  have 
to  excel  in  thought  processes  and  prob- 
lem solving." 

Evelyn  Herwitz  is  a  free-lance  writer  liv- 
ing in  Worcester. 


Left:  Wilhelm  H.  Eggimann,  EE  associate  professor, 
shown  with  colleague  Ronald  J.  Juels  (r),  teaches 
VLSI  circuit  design.  Right:  Professor  Harit  Majmudar 
sums  up  that  EE's  fundamentals  remain  the  same. 


FALL  1986 


:  I 


DRURY 

LANE 

AT 

REGENT 

STREET 


There  was  no  question  now.  As  soon  as 
they  were  "settled,"  they  must  engage  a 
maid.  A  real  maid.  Not  a  hired-girl,  nor 
an  oafish  Mrs.  Lundstrom.  Something  to 
match  the  house.  A  black  uniform  and 
white  apron  for  dinner.  And  dinner 
would  be  at  night — not  at  noon. 

— Esther  Forbes,  Miss  Marvel 

They  were  still  newcomers,  by  Wor- 
cester standards.  Neither  descen- 
dants of  Revolutionary  War  heroes 
nor  city  founders,  they  hadn't  been  in 
town  long  enough  to  join  the  high- 
society  families  over  on  Elm  and  Cedar 
Streets.  But  they  had  been  in  town  long 
enough  to  make  more  money  in  a  year 
than  most  of  their  neighbors  would  earn 
in  a  lifetime. 

Men  with  a  knack  for  turning  inven- 
tions into  marketable  products,  they 
were  Worcester's  rising  industrial  elite. 
Their  fortunes  were  built  on  grinding 
wheels,  forging,  drawn  wire,  and  tex- 
tiles. And  they  intended  that  their  homes 
would  reflect  their  accomplishments. 

So  in  1899,  when  Worcester  partriarch 
Stephen  Salisbury  HI— a  WPI  trustee  and 
son  and  namesake  of  the  WPI  founder 
who  gave  the  land  on  which  the  college 


is  built— decided  to  subdivide  his  land  on 
the  hillside  west  of  Park  Avenue,  these 
up-and-coming  families  were  among  the 
first  in  line  for  parcels. 

Most  of  the  lots  along  newly  named 
Massachusetts  Avenue,  Drury  Lane,  and 
Regent  Street  were  small— an  acre  or 
less— and  expensive  by  turn-of-the- 
century  standards.  Parcels  sold  between 
1899  and  1901  went  for  $3,000  to 
$11 ,000,  depending  on  lot  size. 

But  the  houses  were  at  least  as  large  as 
the  owner's  budget  could  allow — and 
sometimes  larger.  Servants'  quarters 
were  considered  a  necessity,  and  the  lat- 
est innovations,  such  as  central  vacuum- 
ing systems,  were  touted  features. 

It  was  a  lifestyle  far  removed  from  the 
factory  floors  that  made  all  this  possible. 
As  families  like  the  Jeppsons,  Stoddards, 
and  Fullers  moved  in,  the  elegant  hillside 
neighborhood  behind  the  newly  con- 
structed American  Antiquarian  Society 
building  soon  replaced  Elm  and  Cedar 
Streets,  a  half-mile  to  the  south,  as  the 
nucleus  of  Worcester's  upper-class  estab- 
lishment. 

Although  the  lifestyles  of  their  owners 
may  have  changed,  the  19  homes  built 
between  1899  and  1919  in  what  is  now 


Worcester's  only  local  historic  district 
retain  the  grace  and  charm  of  that  pre- 
World  War  I  era.  And  at  least  three  of  the 
homes  have  been  preserved  in  much  the 
same  style  as  they  were  built.  Owned  by 
WPI,  the  Jeppson  House  at  1  Drury 
Lane,  Hughes  House  at  15  Regent 
Street,  and  Thayer  House  at  4  Regent 
Street  are  now  home  to  the  Institute's 
president,  vice  president  and  dean  of  fac- 
ulty, and  vice  president  of  student 
affairs,  respectively.  The  three  "execu- 
tive residences"  are  among  16  off- 
campus  buildings  owned  by  the  college. 

Donated  by  WPI  trustee  George  N. 
Jeppson  and  his  wife,  Selma,  in 
1941,  1  Drury  Lane  was  the  first 
of  the  Institute's  three  acquisitions  west 
of  Park  Avenue.  Now  home  to  Jon  and 
Jean  Strauss,  the  former  Jeppson  resi- 
dence was  a  later  addition  to  the  Massa- 
chusetts Avenue  neighborhood. 

Though  the  Jeppson  family  lived  in  the 
house  for  many  years,  the  original  owner 
was  Frank  O.  Woodland.  A  Swedish 
immigrant,  Woodland  bought  the  one- 
acre  tract  from  Stephen  Salisbury's  heir, 
the  Worcester  Art  Museum,  in  1912. 
Worcester  architect  Lucius  Briggs,  who 


10       WPI  JOURNAL 


The  Institute's  three 
homes  recall  the  spoils  of 
Worcester's  early  industrial 
growth.  They  are  among 
our  most  handsome  and 
heavily  used  facilities. 


By  Evelyn  Herwitz 
Photos  by  Michael  Carroll 


helped  design  the  Worcester  Auditorium 
and  War  Memorial,  drew  the  blueprints, 
and  contractor  E.J.  Cross  built  the  two- 
storied,  stuccoed,  Georgian  Revival 
mansion. 

Woodland  lived  in  the  house  for  only  a 
few  short  years.  Not  long  after  he  built 
his  home,  the  story  goes,  Woodland  suf- 
fered a  major  financial  loss  and  commit- 
ted suicide.  His  estate  sold  the  house  to 
Julia  C.  Brown  in  1916,  who  in  turn  sold 
it  to  Thilda  A.  Jeppson  two  years  later. 
Thilda  was  the  wife  of  John  Jeppson, 
George's  father.  As  was  the  custom  of 
the  times,  title  to  real  property  was  often 
placed  in  the  wife's  name. 

"There  was  a  crack  in  the  tile  in  the 
downstairs  bathroom,"  recalls  John  Jepp- 
son, son  of  George  and  Selma,  of  visits 
to  his  grandparents'  house.  "As  chil- 
dren, that's  where  we  thought  the  bullet 
went!"  Further  speculation  about  the 

Opposite  page:  This  solarium,  one  of 
two  in  Jeppson  House,  offers  an  infor- 
mal flavor  to  the  otherwise  public  feel 
of  the  main  floor  of  the  house.  Right: 
To  the  left  of  the  main  staircase  in 
this  executive  mansion  stands  a  door 
to  the  dining  room. 


FALL  1986       11 


demise  of  the  home's  unfortunate  first 
owner  was  "not  encouraged,"  however, 
adds  Mr.  Jeppson.  Still,  there  was  plenty 
to  do  and  explore  in  the  16- room  home  at 
1  Drury.  "We  had  great  visits  at  my 
grandparents'  every  weekend,"  says  Mr. 
Jeppson,  past  president  of  Norton  Com- 
pany, who  retired  in  1984  as  the  com- 
pany's honorary  chairman.  "My  grand- 
mother was  very  solicitous.  She  used  to 
feed  us  too  much  and  take  us  for  rides  in 
their  Pierce- Arrow." 

The  elder  John  Jeppson,  a  potter  by 
trade,  together  with  Milton  P.  Higgins, 
first  superintendent  of  the  Washburn 
Shops,  Professor  George  I.  Alden,  and 
others,  founded  Norton  Company.  Jepp- 
son died  when  young  John  was  only  five. 


The  Strausses  are  the  seventh  WPI  first 
family  to  live  at  1  Drury  Lane,  donated 
by  the  grandparents  of  John  Jeppson 
(left).  Opposite:  the  living  room. 

"He  worked  beautifully  with  his  hands," 
says  the  younger  Jeppson,  who  describes 
his  grandfather  as  a  "bearded  patriarch" 
who  kept  a  potter's  wheel  in  his  Norton 
office  to  make  mugs  and  vases  for 
friends  on  special  occasions. 

When  Thilda  died  in  1925,  a  few  years 
after  her  husband,  Mr.  Jeppson 's  father, 
George,  inherited  the  estate  and  moved 
in  with  his  wife  and  three  children.  For 
young  John  and  his  sisters,  Britta  and 
Betty,  nearby  Bancroft  Tower  Park  soon 
became  a  favorite  place  to  play.  And 
John  found  his  own  special  spot  on  the 
Drury  Lane  grounds:  a  stone  post  that 
proved  the  perfect  perch  for  watching 
WPI  baseball  games. 

The  house  itself  had  lots  of  doors  and 
corridors  to  inspect  and  an  attic  play- 
room. There  were  other  interesting  fea- 
tures too,  like  the  huge  dryer  in  the  base- 
ment, with  its  six-foot  racks  that  slid  in 
and  out  of  a  giant,  gas-heated  frame. 
And  the  north  and  south  porches  had 
heating  pipes  running  under  the  ceramic 
tile  floors,  "so  your  feet  would  stay 
warm  even  in  the  winter,"  says  Jeppson. 

For  the  most  part,  George  and  Selma 
Jeppson  made  only  minor  changes,  split- 
ting one  upstairs  bedroom  into  two,  and 
adding  a  poolroom  in  the  cellar.  An  avid 
gardener,  Selma  Jeppson  created  a  for- 
mal garden  off  the  south  porch  and  built 
a  terrace  to  the  east  of  the  garden. 

"The  house  was  very  Swedish— very 


light  and  neat  and  airy,"  says  Margaret 
Erskine,  who  grew  up  around  the  corner 
at  8  Massachusetts  Avenue  and  was  a 
schoolmate  of  Betty  Jeppson.  A  full 
compliment  of  Swedish  servants  discour- 
aged any  kind  of  horseplay,  she  recalls. 
"You  always  behaved  very  properly 
there.  It  was  a  pretty  posh  existence." 

Her  mother-in-law,  Katharine  Erskine, 
also  recalls  visiting  the  Jeppson  home.  A 
member  of  the  Bancroft  School's  board 
of  trustees,  which  George  Jeppson 
chaired,  she  was  once  invited  to  1  Drury 
for  a  smorgasbord  breakfast.  "The  house 
looked  very  much  as  it  does  today,"  says 
Mrs.  Erskine,  who  can  remember  walk- 
ing with  her  sister,  author  Esther  Forbes, 
through  the  fields  that  became  1  Drury 
Lane.  "It  was  a  very  handsome  home. 
We  always  looked  up  to  it  as  an  outstand- 
ing, attractive  addition  to  the  hillside." 

Bancroft  School  trustees  were  just 
some  of  the  many  guests  whom  the  Jepp- 
sons  welcomed.  Undoubtedly  their  most 
notable  visitor  was  Crown  Prince  Gustaf 
Adolf  of  Sweden.  "Worcester  was  one  of 
the  centers  of  Swedish  activity  in  this 
country,  and  he  was  making  his  rounds," 
says  John  Jeppson,  who  was  about  10  at 
the  time.  "He  was  a  tall,  dark-haired, 
good-looking  guy.  My  parents  had  a  tent 
set  up  on  the  Park  Avenue  side  of  the 
house,  and  we  had  invited  him  for 
lunch."  Other  than  that  impression,  Mr. 
Jeppson 's  most  salient  memory  of  the 
Crown  Prince's  visit  was  being  "very 
upset  at  having  to  wear  a  sailor  suit! " 

The  Jeppsons  continued  to  prosper 
during  the  1930s,  and  enlarged  a  country 
home  they  kept  in  Brookfield,  MA.  They 
also  acquired  a  house  in  Florida,  where 
George  Jeppson  had  hoped  to  retire. 

A  trustee  of  WPI,  George  Jeppson 
decided  to  donate  the  Drury  Lane  home 
to  the  Institute  in  1941.  At  the  time,  the 
assessed  value  of  house  and  property  was 
$46,000.  But  John  Jeppson  believes  the 
market  value  was  actually  closer  to 
$60,000.  Today,  estimates  David  Lloyd, 
former  WPI  treasurer  and  vice  president 
for  business  affairs,  the  estate  is  worth 
nearly  three-quarters  of  a  million  dollars. 

Despite  his  plans  for  retirement,  how- 
ever, George  Jeppson  stayed  on  at  Nor- 
ton longer  than  he'd  intended.  Having 
already  given  up  the  Drury  Lane  home, 
and  not  wanting  to  commute  from  the 
country  house  in  Brookfield,  George 
Jeppson  found  an  apartment  in  Worces- 
ter. Eventually  he  bought  another  house 
in  the  city,  which  he  sold  after  the  Sec- 
ond World  War  ended. 


FALL  1986       13 


The  center  of  Jeppson  family  activities 
is  now  their  Brookfield  country  home. 
And  the  house  once  visited  by  the  crown 
prince  of  Sweden  now  welcomes  WPI 
faculty,  staff,  students,  and  out-of-town 
guests. 

Following  a  tradition  established  by 
Admiral  Wat  Tyler  Cluverius,  the 
Strausses  are  the  seventh  presiden- 
tial family  to  reside  at  1  Drury  Lane. 

The  once  ivy-cloaked,  stuccoed 
facade,  with  its  broad  porte  cochere  on 
the  west  side,  is  now  painted  a  light  gray 
with  striking  maroon  trim.  Inside,  light 
grays  and  pastels  dominate,  recreating 
the  airy  feeling  that  once  characterized 
the  Jeppson  home. 

A  panelled  study  to  the  left  of  the  foyer 
provides  a  refuge  for  President  Strauss — 
his  "brainstorming  room,"  according  to 


his  wife,  Jean.  For  her,  the  cozy  study  is 
also  a  favorite  place  to  "curl  up  with  a 
good  book"  in  front  of  the  fireplace. 

The  foyer  opens  onto  a  large  living 
room  with  its  own  black  marble  fire- 
place. On  the  mantel  is  a  trombone,  one 
of  several  antique  brass  instruments  dis- 
played throughout  the  room.  Other  per- 
sonal touches  include  a  small  Shaker 
desk  in  the  foyer  that  stands  next  to  a 
skulling  trophy  won  by  George  Alden's 
grandson. 

Borrowed  from  WPI's  archives,  the 
trophy  has  special  significance  to  Jean 
Strauss,  a  former  national  singles  rowing 
champion  who  finished  eighth  in  the 
1980  Olympic  team  trials  for  skulling. 
Today,  she  and  the  president  keep  in 
shape  by  rowing  on  Lake  Quinsigamond. 
In  fact,  she  says,  "It  was  Jon's  interest  in 
learning  to  row,  while  we  were  both  liv- 


ing in  the  Los  Angeles  area,  that  helped 
bring  us  together." 

Enjoying  her  new  home  for  its  "cozi- 
ness"  in  spite  of  its  size,  Jean  says  she 
especially  likes  the  twin  solaria,  one  at 
either  end  of  the  house.  Both  decorated 
in  white  wicker  and  cool  pastels,  the 
green-tiled  north  patio  and  blue-tiled 
south  patio  provide  relaxing,  intimate 
spaces  that  balance  the  more  formal  cen- 
tral living  and  dining  rooms. 

The  south  patio,  she  says,  with  its 
sunny  bay  window  and  view  of  a  walled- 
in  garden,  is  her  favorite  room— "a  great 
place  to  enjoy  a  morning  cup  of  coffee." 
The  bay  window  is  also  a  favorite  perch 
for  one  of  the  Strausses'  pets,  L.A.  Alley 
Cat,  who  revels  in  a  good  stretch  in  the 
morning  sunshine.  Meanwhile,  the  cou- 
ple's two  dogs,  George  and  Grade,  make 
themselves  at  home  in  the  terrace  beyond 


14       WPI  JOURNAL 


the  walled  garden. 

Back  through  the  foyer  and  up  the 
curving  front  staircase,  past  an  antique 
grandfather  clock  presented  as  a  gift 
from  alumni  to  WPI,  is  the  master  bed- 
room suite.  There,  a  cozy  living  room 
with  a  white  marble  fireplace  opens  onto 
a  bedroom  with  private  bath.  "Some- 
times living  in  this  house  feels  like  living 
in  a  fishbowl.  It's  not  difficult,  but  it's 
different,"  says  Mrs.  Strauss.  "This  suite 
is  our  private  place." 

Of  the  remaining  eight  bedrooms,  the 
Strausses  have  combined  three  to  create 
a  suite  for  a  caretaker  who  watches  the 
house  and  animals  when  they  are  away. 

With  its  spacious  yet  comfortable  main 
rooms,  inviting  patios,  and  gracious 
grounds,  1  Drury  Lane  has  all  the  ele- 
ments for  a  variety  of  social  gatherings. 
More  than  3,000  guests,  including  mem- 
bers of  the  senior  class,  faculty,  staff, 
and  alumni,  have  visited  with  the 
Strausses  during  their  first  year  at  WPI. 
"I  love  entertaining  here,"  says  Jean 
Strauss. 

Just  across  the  street  from  the 
Strausses'  home,  at  15  Regent  Street, 
proudly  sits  the  Hughes  House.  Now 
home  to  WPI  Vice  President  and  Dean  of 
the  Faculty  Richard  H.  Gallagher  and  his 
wife,  Therese,  the  two-storied  brick 
house  was  donated  to  the  Institute  in 
1959  by  Earl  C.  Hughes  '14  and  his 
wife,  Mary. 

Built  in  1919  on  land  purchased  from 
the  Worcester  Art  Museum  by  a  Mr. 
Batchelder  in  1917,  the  house  was  the 
last  to  be  constructed  in  the  neighbor- 
hood. Also  designed  by  architect  Lucius 
Briggs,  the  home  is  believed  to  have 
been  constructed  by  E.J.  Cross.  With  its 
hipped  roof  and  balanced  chimneys  over 
a  central,  symmetrical  section,  the  house 
exemplifies  the  Regency  Revival  style 
popular  at  the  time.  Other  features  then 
in  vogue  were  the  small  portico  sup- 
ported by  Ionic  columns  and  dentilled 
cornice. 

In  1922,  Batchelder  sold  the  house  to 
John  F.  Tinsley,  vice  president  and  gen- 
eral manager  of  Crompton  and  Knowles, 

At  15  Regent  Street,  Dick  and  Terry 
Gallagher  stand  beside  the  foyer  stair- 
case that  curves  up  two  flights  (far  left). 
The  Regency  Revival  style  home  (right) 
was  a  gift  to  WPI  from  Earl  C.  Hughes 
'14  and  his  wife,  Mary.  The  house  fea- 
tures at  the  rear  a  latticed  entry  way 
and  garden  fence. 


and  his  wife,  Helen.  The  Tinsley s  lived 
at  15  Regent  Street  until  1954,  when  the 
home  was  sold  to  Earl  Hughes,  then  vice 
president  and  later  president  of  Bay  State 
Abrasives. 

"Mother  fell  madly  in  love  with  the 
Tinsley  house,"  recalls  Emma  King 
Hughes  Peterson.  Daughter  of  Mary 
Hughes  and  step-daughter  of  Earl 
Hughes,  Mrs.  Peterson  was  already  mar- 
ried by  the  time  her  parents  moved  to 
Regent  Street  from  the  house  they'd  built 
in  1927  on  Salisbury  Street.  With  only 
her  youngest  brother,  Earl  Jr. ,  still  living 
at  home,  Mrs.  Peterson  says  her  parents 
wanted  a  smaller  place  than  their  six- 
bedroom  Salisbury  Street  house.  (That 
home  is  now  the  Petersons'.)  Their  new 
residence,  which  at  the  time  contained 
two  bedrooms,  better  suited  their  needs, 


she  says,  and  was  also  more  accessible 
by  car  in  the  winter. 

"It  was  a  gracious,  lovely,  comfort- 
able home  for  entertaining,"  says  Mrs. 
Peterson.  "Mother  especially  loved  the 
staircase  that  curved  up  two  stories  over 
the  front  door.  She  wanted  everyone  to 
be  married  there." 

Other  favorite  places  were  the  panelled 
library/living  room,  and,  to  the  rear  of 
the  house,  a  sunny  music  room  where 
Mrs.  Hughes  used  to  keep  both  an  organ 
and  a  piano.  On  the  sun  porch  to  the  right 
of  the  music  room,  Mrs.  Peterson  recalls 
her  mother's  card  room,  which  was 
always  set  up  with  card  table  and  chairs. 
To  the  left  of  the  music  room  was  a  bar 
which  opened  onto  a  formal  dining  room. 

"She  did  a  lot  of  entertaining  there  and 
loved  it,"  says  Mrs.   Peterson.   "They 


FALL  1986       15 


thought  they'd  be  there  forever."  But  as 
things  turned  out,  Mr.  Hughes's  health 
necessitated  a  move  to  Florida.  An 
"ardent  supporter  of  WPI,"  Mrs.  Peter- 
son remembers,  Earl  Hughes  decided  to 
donate  his  home  to  his  alma  mater.  In 
January  of  1959,  when  the  Hugheses 
presented  their  home  and  40,000  square 
feet  of  land  to  the  Institute,  its  assessed 
value  was  $29,500.  For  gift  purposes, 
however,  David  Lloyd  says  the  house 
was  valued  at  $75,000.  Today,  he  places 
the  property's  worth  at  nearly  a  half- 
million  dollars. 

For  about  a  year  after  the  Hugheses 
moved  to  Florida,  a  minister  from  All 
Saints  Episcopal  Church  occupied  the 
home.  Then  T.W.  Van  Arsdale  Jr. 
became  the  first  WPI  vice  president  to 
live  at  15  Regent  Street. 

The  Gallaghers  are  the  fifth  WPI 
family  to  reside  in  the  Hughes 
House.  Having  lived  there  for  the 
past  two  years,  Terry  Gallagher  enjoys 

Bernie  and  Gayle  Brown  share  the 
Thayer  House  with  their  three  teen- 
agers, Matthew  and  twins  Jody  (left) 
and  Tara  (right).  A  sunroom,  situated 
off  the  formal  dining  room,  is  a  high- 
light of  the  stuccoed  Georgian  bunga- 
loid,  purchased  by  the  Institute  in  1966. 


her  home  as  much  as  did  her  predeces- 
sor, Mary  Hughes. 

"It's  large  enough  to  entertain  in,  but 
small  enough  to  feel  like  home,"  says 
Mrs.  Gallagher.  The  formal  dining 
room,  with  its  intricate  floral  scrollwork 
over  door  and  fireplace,  and  the 
mahogany-panelled  library  are  spacious 
but  not  overwhelming.  What  was  once 
Mrs.  Hughes's  music  room  is  now  the 
Gallaghers'  living  room;  the  sunny  card 
room,  a  television  room;  and  the  bar, 
Dean  Gallagher's  study. 

Upstairs,  the  large  master  suite  fea- 
tures a  tiled  shower  with  nine  nozzles. 
"You  can  really  get  a  good  spray!"  notes 
Mrs.  Gallagher.  Two  other  bedrooms 
share  a  connecting  bath,  while  what  were 
once  the  maid's  quarters  over  the  kitchen 
today  provide  a  spare  room  and  extra 
study. 

Avid  travellers  who  have  visited  54 
countries  on  six  continents,  the  Gal- 
laghers have  personalized  their  home 
with  treasures  from  their  trips.  A  collec- 
tion of  Japanese  Hakata  dolls  is  dis- 
played beneath  a  glass  coffee  table  in  the 
living  room,  and  glass  shelves  are  filled 
with  articles  as  varied  as  a  stuffed  bird 
from  China,  a  carved  wood  zebra  from 
Africa,  and  an  ostrich  egg  fragment. 

"We've  blended  a  lot  of  modernism 
with  the  older  furniture  that  belongs 


here,"  says  Mrs.  Gallagher.  "It's  a  grand 
old  house.  We're  so  proud  of  it." 

A  few  houses  down  on  the  other  side 
of  the  street,  4  Regent  is  the  third 
L  executive  residence  acquired  by 
WPI.  Purchased  in  1966  for  use  by  the 
vice  president  for  student  affairs,  the 
nine-room  house  and  8,000  square  feet 
of  land  sold  for  $22,000. 

Now  worth  around  $400,000,  the  two- 
and-a-half-storied,  stuccoed  house  was 
built  in  1916  on  land  purchased  from  the 
Worcester  Art  Museum  by  Earl  Thayer. 

Designed  by  architect  Edward  Topane- 
lian,  son  of  a  prominent  Armenian  com- 
munity leader,  the  Georgian  bungaloid 
house  is  distinguished  by  first-floor  pal- 
ladian  windows  and  a  heavy,  hipped  roof 
with  a  pedimented  dormer.  Mission 
influence  is  evidenced  in  such  exterior 
features  as  the  triple  double-hung  win- 
dows above  the  first  floor,  and  the  deep 
roof  eaves  with  exposed  outriggers. 

According  to  Frances  Thayer  Chap- 
man, oldest  daughter  of  Earl  and  Rosa 
Thayer,  the  interior  of  the  house  was  in 
large  part  a  mirror  image  of  the  house 
Topanelian  designed  for  her  aunt. 

About  five  years  old  when  she  moved 
into  the  house  with  her  parents  and  youn- 
ger sister,  Eleanor,  Mrs.  Chapman 
remembers  the  home  for  its  circular  front 


16       WPI  JOURNAL 


J 


JllL'iiLiiAHiLJII 


, 


Thayer's  detailed  woodwork  graces  the 
main  staircase  and  living  room. 

stairway,  mahogany-panelled  living  and 
dining  rooms  with  their  built-in,  leaded- 
glass  shelves,  and,  best  of  all,  the  third- 
floor  play  room.  "We  had  a  doll  house 
there  with  all  the  fixings,"  she  recalls. 

Initially,  she  believes,  the  sun  room 
was  an  open  porch  which  her  parents 
later  had  enclosed  and  heated.  Though 
the  grounds  were  small,   there  was 


always  the  Antiquarian  Society  across 
the  street.  "We  used  to  play  hide  and 
seek  there,"  says  Mrs.  Chapman. 

After  her  husband's  death,  Rosa 
Thayer  remained  in  the  house  until  she 
died  in  1965.  At  that  point,  Mrs.  Chap- 
man says  she  and  her  sister  decided  to 
sell  the  house  to  WPI.  "The  college 
seemed  to  want  it  very  badly,  and  we 
knew  it  would  go  into  the  right  hands  and 
be  well  maintained,"  she  says. 

First  home  to  Dean  of  Students  Martin 
VandeVisse,  the  Thayer  House  recently 
became  the  residence  of  its  fourth  WPI 
family,  Vice  President  for  Student 
Affairs  Bernard  H.  Brown;  his  wife, 
Gayle;  and  their  three  children. 

Brown's  predecessor,  Robert  F. 
Reeves,  remembers  4  Regent  Street  as 
"a  very  comfortable  house"  with  beauti- 
fully crafted  interior  woodwork.  He  also 
appreciated  some  of  the  antiquated,  but 
intriguing,  features  of  the  place.  "It  had 
a  central  vacuum  system,  which  they 
used  to  activate  by  hauling  buckets  of 
water  to  a  tub  in  the  attic,"  explains 
Reeves.  "They  poured  the  water  into  an 
airtight  container.  As  the  water  flowed 
out,  it  would  create  a  vacuum."  Wands 
attached  to  holes  in  the  walls  of  each 
room  would  suck  dirt  into  a  collection 
chamber  in  the  cellar. 


That  vacuum  system  hasn't  been 
used  for  years.  But  other  features 
of  all  three  houses  have  kept  WPI's 
physical  plant  staff  busy.  As  in  any  old 
home,  problems  such  as  corroded  pipes, 
basement  flooding,  and  worn  gutters 
have  required  attention.  Of  4  Regent 
Street,  for  example,  WPI  College  Engi- 
neer Anthony  J.  Ruksnaitis  says,  simply, 
"Murphy's  Law  has  presided  in  that 
home  since  the  first  day  we  bought  it." 
Of  the  three  homes,  Ruksnaitis  says  15 
Regent  is  the  most  solidly  built,  and  has 
required  the  least  work. 

Though  disasters  tend  to  strike  at  the 
most  inopportune  moments — a  pipe 
broke  in  honor  of  the  Strausses'  first 
Christmas  Eve— the  residents  have  high 
praise  for  WPI's  maintenance  staff.  Of 
both  WPI's  plant  services  department 
and  security  force,  Terry  Gallagher  says, 
"We  feel  very  much  protected." 

And  despite  any  maintenance  difficul- 
ties, all  three  houses  are  valuable  and 
valued  acquisitions.  Generous  gifts  or 
prudent  investments  that  have  enabled 
several  members  of  the  Institute's  leader- 
ship to  live  in  style  and  to  enhance  cam- 
pus social  life,  these  magnificent  resi- 
dences stand  as  reminders  of  a  significant 
period  in  Worcester's  economic  and 
architectural  development. 


18       WPI  JOURNAL 


Higher  and 

higher 

education 


Paying  for  private  college  in  the  1980s 
brings  up  the  issues  of  higher  costs,  bigger 
debts,  threatened  cuts  in  aid,  and  the 
search  for  a  good  return  on  investment. 


By  Donna  Shoemaker 

Rob  Ruth's  story  seems  almost  a 
vignette  from  America's  past. 
From  the  8th  grade  on,  he  helped 
his  parents  on  the  family  dairy  farm  in 
Telford,  Pa.  Rob  banked  on  receiving 
the  reward  for  his  labor  much  later,  in  the 
form  of  college  tuition  for  his  pre- 
veterinary  studies.  Rob  and  his  sister 
both  chose  to  attend  the  same  private  col- 
lege, Franklin  and  Marshall.  The  Ruths 
sold  a  tract  of  land  to  developers  to  help 
pay  for  eight  consecutive  years  of  hefty 
college  bills.  At  F&M,  Rob  found  a  new 
interest,  in  human  medicine,  and  this 
fall,  he's  at  Harvard  Medical  School.  "I 
won't  be  taking  over  the  farm,"  he  says. 

"My  family  and  I  have  followed  the 
philosophy  that  we  try  not  to  borrow 
more  than  we  have  to,"  Rob  explains. 
But  it's  here  that  his  story  takes  a  con- 
temporary twist.  Despite  his  own  labors 
and  his  family's  foresight,  Rob  has 
already  accumulated  almost  $10,000  in 
debt  for  student  loans  and  undoubtedly 
will  owe  far  more  before  becoming  Dr. 
Ruth.  But  he's  willing  to  accept  that 
responsibility.  Adds  his  father,  Merrill 
Ruth,  "If  Robert  wants  to  do  it,  we're 
going  to  get  him  through  one  way  or 
another.  He's  always  really  hung  in 
there."  Both  father  and  son  are  sensitive 
to  the  long  haul  ahead.  "My  parents  are 
looking  toward  retirement.  I  hate  to  have 
to  see  my  father  continue  to  work,"  Rob 
adds. 

His  undergraduate  debts  are  about  on 
par  with  the  national  median  debt  level 
($9,000)  for  1986  graduates  who  bor- 
rowed for  college.  In  the  1980s,  for  the 
Ruths  and  for  other  families  with  chil- 
dren in  college,  the  rules  of  financial  sur- 
vival have  been  changing  as  the  cost  of  a 
college  education— particularly  at  inde- 
pendent institutions— has  far  outstripped 
inflation.  With  four  years  at  a  prestigious 
private  college  now  costing  about 
$65,000,  has  the  price  surpassed  the 
ability  of  a  middle-income  family  to 
pay?  On  whom  has  the  burden  fallen  the 
hardest?  For  years  the  specter  of  "creep- 
ing careerism"  has  loomed  over  the  lib- 
eral arts:  Do  heavier  student  loan  debts 
tend  to  herd  young  people  into  the  more 
lucrative  professions?  Whose  responsi- 
bility is  it  to  pay  for  the  education  of  the 
next  generation? 

In  these  and  other  questions— about 
access,  about  the  competition  between 
publics  and  privates,  about  the  long-term 


NOVEMBER  1986       I 


effect  of  a  "fly  now  pay  later" 
approach— can  be  found  a  core  concern: 
People  want  assurance  that  the  big-ticket 
purchase  of  a  private  college  education 
still  carries  a  tacit  guarantee  of  value  and 
lasting  worth. 

In  private  colleges,  to  provide  the 
small  classes,  the  first-rate  faculty,  the 
latest  equipment,  and  the  finest  facilities 
that  the  public  has  come  to  expect,  there 
seems  to  be  no  obvious  stopping  point 
where  spending  won't  have  a  return  in 
quality.  In  that  quest  for  excellence, 
influence,  and  prestige,  colleges  can 
spend  a  limitless  amount  "for  seemingly 
fruitful  educational  ends,"  noted  Howard 
Bowen,  one  of  higher  education's  best- 
known  observers,  in  his  seminal  report 
for  the  Carnegie  Commission  (The  Costs 
of  Higher  Education ,  1 980) . 

"You  never  have  enough  money.  You 
always  know  what  to  do  with  the  money 
you  bring  in.  So  we  bust  a  gut  to  go  out 
and  raise  a  little  more,"  adds  Michael 
Hooker.  That's  true  for  public  or  private 
institutions,  he  believes.  He  has  experi- 
enced both  worlds:  Since  July,  Hooker 
has  been  chancellor  of  the  University  of 
Maryland  Baltimore  County  campus  and 
formerly  was  president  of  the  nation's 
most  expensive  college— Bennington— 
where  this  year's  tuition,  room,  and 
board  run  $16,950.  He  sees  how  educa- 
tional costs  keep  spiraling  upward.  The 
funds  aren't  used  to  lower  tuition  but  for 
such  things  as  recruiting  and  retaining 
good  faculty,  decreasing  course  loads 
and  class  sizes,  stocking  laboratories  and 
libraries,  and  supporting  faculty  travel 
and  development  programs. 

"There  is  a  crunch  now,"  Hooker 
adds.  "The  publics  are  faced  with  the 
same  motivation  to  improve  their  quality 
that  the  privates  face,  and  they're  not 
getting  enough  resources  either,  so  they 
are  turning  to  private  sources.  I  under- 
stand the  resentment  the  privates  feel  at 
this  because  I  felt  it  myself  at  Ben- 
nington." 

He  says  his  favorite  argument  when  he 
was  there  was  that  "private  education  is 
as  cheap  as  public  education— the  per- 
student  cost  is  no  greater.  But  in  the  pri- 
vate sector,  you've  got  to  charge  students 
more."  He  kids,  "I  always  cringed  when 
I  said  that  because  I  wasn't  sure  I  was 
telling  the  truth,"  although  he  did  feel 
Bennington  delivered  "quality  for  the 
price"  and  provided  generous  financial 
aid.  Sighs  Hooker,  "The  sad  fact  of  life 
is  that  there  is  more  quality  to  be  had 
than  we  have  the  capacity  to  pay  for." 


In  1950,  one-half  of  the  nation's  2.3 
million  college  students  attended  pri- 
vate colleges  and  universities.  Today, 
with  almost  five  times  that  many  college 
students,  only  two  out  of  10  are  enrolled 
in  independent  institutions.  Since  the 
1950s,  public  universities  have  been  rid- 
ing the  crest  of  the  G.I.  Bill,  the  baby 
boom,  and  the  Sputnik-inspired  drive  to 
expand  and  to  improve  education,  all  of 
which  swung  open  the  door  to  the 
democratization  of  higher  education. 
Public  colleges  and  universities  thus 
have  dramatically  grown  in  their  percent- 
age of  the  market,  in  enrollments,  and  in 
quality  as  well.  A  college  education  is  no 
longer  a  luxury  but  a  necessity  required 
by  the  business  world  even  for  most 
entry-level  positions. 

From  the  1920s  to  the  1960s,  both 
public  and  private  higher  education 
wended  their  way  with  relatively  stable 
tuition,  adjusted  for  inflation.  Tuition  in 
the  early  '70s  at  private  institutions  more 
or  less  kept  pace  with  the  rise  in  the  per- 
capita  disposable  personal  income.  Tui- 
tion and  fees  at  public  colleges  and  uni- 
versities, then  on  the  average  one-fifth 
the  price  of  the  privates,  rose  more 
slowly. 

During  the  latter  part  of  the  '70s,  col- 
lege students,  whether  they  realized  it  or 
not,  were  getting  somewhat  of  a  bargain. 
The  federal  government  significantly 
expanded  financial  aid  for  middle- 
income  families;  in  10  years  alone,  fed- 
eral loans  swelled  from  $1 .8-billion  to 
$10-billion  in  1986.  It  was  also  a  time 
when  inflation  deflated  faculty  pay- 
checks and  maintenance  projects  were 
deferred  for  lack  of  funds.  Retrench- 
ment—achieved through  cutting  back  on 
such  expansionist  staples  as  an  ever- 
larger  freshman  class,  new  programs, 
and  tenured  positions— became  an  un- 
welcomed  ritual  in  academe. 

Meanwhile,  the  traditional  pool  of  col- 
lege students— the  18-year-olds— was 
beginning  its  projected  decline.  (The 
demographic  reality  is  that,  between 
1979  and  1992,  the  pool  will  shrink  by 
25  percent.)  The  decrease  is  expected  to 
hit  hardest  in  the  13  states  where  51  per- 
cent of  the  private  four-year  colleges  are 
located  and  will  be  felt  most  deeply  by 
those  liberal  arts  colleges  drawing  upon 
their  home  states  to  fill  the  beds.  For 
such  institutions,  75  percent  of  whose 
operating  budgets  are  funded  through 
tuition,  losing  too  many  potential  stu- 
dents to  the  competition  could  turn  the 
belt-tightening  into  tourniquet  time. 


The  federal  aid  designed  to  ease  the 
"middle-class  squeeze,"  some  critics 
say,  has  instead  subsidized  even  higher 
tuition.  And  now  real  and  threatened  cuts 
in  federal  aid  are  particularly  alarming  to 
private  institutions.  The  1980s  ushered 
in  four  years  of  double-digit  tuition 
increases  at  the  privates;  in  1982-83, 
some  colleges  even  announced  increases 
of  20  percent.  The  past  two  years  have 
brought  more  modest  increases  (6  to  8 
percent),  still  well  ahead  of  the  rate  of 
inflation.  The  1986-87  tuition  and  fee 
increases  for  public  four-year  colleges 
averaged  6  percent.  At  a  public  four-year 
college,  the  current  average  tuition  and 
fees  are  $1,337  (and  a  total  cost  of 
$5,604  for  resident  students).  At  a  pri- 
vate, four-year  college,  tuition  and  fees 
average  $5,793  (with  a  total  cost  of 
$10,199  for  resident  students),  reports 
the  College  Board. 

In  the  1980s,  people  are  asking  if  pri- 
vate, liberal  arts  colleges  are  pricing 
themselves  out  of  the  market.  When  that 
question  had  occasionally  come  up 
before,  noted  Thomas  E.  Wenzlau  (in 
The  Crisis  in  Higher  Education),  judging 
from  the  tuition  hikes  the  trustees 
approved,  the  answer  was  No.  However 


A       ALUMNI  MAGAZINE  CONSORTIUM 


-0+ 


i 


"The  publics  are  faced 
with  the  same  motivation 
to  improve  their  quality 
that  the  privates  face." 


much  the  institutions  believe  the 
increases  are  justified,  at  times  the  public 
rebels.  You  hear  complaints  about  the 
"Ivy-League"  cartels  controlling  prices 
or  claims  that  college  is  affordable  now 
only  for  the  affluent. 

"When  perceptions  become  accepted 
as  reality,  it  does  not  really  matter  what 
the  data  show,"  observed  Terry  W.  Har- 
tle,  a  resident  fellow  at  the  American 
Enterprise  Institute.  His  report,  released 
last  summer,  takes  exception  to  the  per- 
ception that  college  costs  have  been  sky- 
rocketing. He  found  considerable  stabil- 


ity in  the  cost  of  college  over  the  past 
decade  or  so,  at  least  for  families  with 
students  in  college— a  group  usually  at 
the  peak  earning  power  and  higher 
income  level.  Analyzing  data  from  the 
U.S.  Census  Bureau,  he  concluded,  "the 
bottom  line  is  that  for  most  median- 
income  families  with  a  child  enrolled  in 
college,  higher  education  does  not 
require  a  significantly  greater  share  of 
family  income  than  it  did  10  years  ago. 
The  exception  is  at  selective  private  col- 
leges and  universities,  where  price 
increases  are  quite  pronounced." 

You  can  see  that  jump  in  the  figures  he 
cited:  In  the  past  12  years,  when  the  con- 
sumer price  index  rose  by  142  percent, 
private  four-year  college  charges  rose  by 
179  percent,  private  universities  by  199 
percent,  public  four-year  colleges  by  149 
percent,  and  public  universities  by  143 
percent. 

Since  1980,  Hartle  added,  the  gap 
between  family  income  of  those  with 
children  in  college  and  those  whose  chil- 
dren do  not  attend  has  become  wider.  But 
the  data  he  used  don't  tell  precisely  how 
many  of  those  students  have  had  to 
forego  college  or  attend  a  less  expensive 
institution  because  of  high  costs. 


Private  colleges  traditionally  have 
had  special  appeal  for  people  will- 
ing and  able  to  pay  a  premium  for 
excellence.  The  same  holds  true  for  insti- 
tutions educating  students  for  the  careers 
most  in  demand.  Thus,  for  the  nation's 
top  tiers  of  private  colleges  and  universi- 
ties, the  more  they  charge,  the  more 
attractive  they  become.  "Frankly,  we 
haven't  had  to  do  a  lot  of  justifying"  to 
parents  about  why  tuition  keeps  going 
up,  states  Robert  Voss,  executive  direc- 
tor of  admissions  and  financial  aid  at 
Worcester  Polytechnic  Institute  (WPI). 
And  at  F&M,  adds  Donald  Marsh,  asso- 
ciate director  of  admissions,  parents 
"don't  see  much  difference  between 
institutions  in  terms  of  costs"  as  they  and 
their  offspring  look  for  a  quality  educa- 
tion. 

Not  only  does  the  "prestige"  factor 
push  up  college  costs,  but  an  economic 
irony  seems  to  be  at  work  as  well.  The 
greatest  increases  ever  in  college  costs 
are  coming  right  in  the  midst  of  this  bal- 
lyhooed  post-baby-boom  drop  in  the 
number  of  18-year-olds  and  a  con- 
strained era  in  higher  education  in  gen- 
eral, in  which  the  weakest  liberal  arts 
colleges  may  not  survive.  And  yet  quite 
a  few  colleges  (generally  the  more  selec- 
tive ones)  are  finding  that  freshman 
applications,  acceptances,  and  aptitudes 
(based  on  SAT  scores)  are  on  the  rise. 
"Many  colleges  have  had  one  of  the  best 
years  yet  in  admissions,"  says  Rob  Ruth, 
who  worked  in  F&M's  admissions  office 
this  past  summer.  That  gave  him  a  sense 
of  confidence— at  least  a  short-term 
one— that  F&M  and  its  liberal  arts  peers 
face  little  danger  of  overpricing  them- 
selves. 

"We're  swimming  in  success,"  beams 
Donald  Berth,  vice  president  for  univer- 
sity relations  at  WPI.  WPI  had  expected 
a  freshman  class  of  640  this  fall;  instead 
740  showed  up  for  orientation,  or  "100 
more  than  we  can  comfortably  handle. 
It's  the  relative  attractiveness  of  science 
and  engineering  in  this  age,"  explains 
Berth.  Villanova  University  closed  its 
admissions  earlier  than  usual  last  year  (in 
February),  swamped  with  8,000  applica- 
tions for  1,500  spaces,  says  W.  Arthur 
Switzer,  associate  director  of  financial 
aid.  Adds  Villanova 's  dean  of  admis- 
sions, the  Rev.  Harry  J.  Erdlen,  O.S.A., 
"I'm  beginning  my  11th  year  in  this 
position.  Ever  since  I've  been  here,  I've 
been  told  the  '80s  were  going  to  be  the 
dark  days."  Instead,  there's  a  silver  lin- 
ing in  the  gloomy  predictions.  Applica- 


NOVEMBER 1986       HI 


tions  increased  from  5,600  to  8,600  over 
the  past  10  years,  and,  Father  Erdlen 
adds,  "the  quality  of  the  applications  has 
increased  significantly  with  us,  espe- 
cially last  year." 

Faced  with  a  struggle  for  the  survival 
of  the  fittest  (and  fattest-coffered),  it's  no 
wonder  that  there  is  jubilation  among  the 
private  colleges  experiencing  red-letter 
days  in  admissions— and  even  some 
cheers  among  those  simply  holding 
steady  in  the  level  of  applications.  Amid 
this  encouraging  supply  of  prospective 
freshmen,  it  seems  there  would  be  little 
reason  to  cry  wolf. 

But  the  evidence  is  increasing  that 
the  wolf  is  at  the  door.  Some  would 
slyly  suggest  that  he  comes  dis- 
guised as  President  Reagan's  secretary  of 
Education,  William  Bennett,  a  vocifer- 
ous foe  both  of  what  he  perceives  as 
abuses  in  federal  financial  aid  and  the 
deteriorating  quality  of  education  at  all 
levels.  Others  might  say  the  wolf  is 
dressed  in  sheepskin's  clothing:  They 
foresee  students  flocking  away  from  pri- 
vates to  the  best  publics  to  earn  their 


degrees,  in  search  of  the  green  pastures 
of  high  quality  at  a  lower  price.  A  recent 
Carnegie  Foundation  survey  of  high 
school  seniors  showed  80  percent  of  the 
respondents  thought  the  high  cost  of  col- 
lege was  "outrageous." 

"We  in  higher  education  should  be 
concerned.  The  tendency  to  push  the 
market  as  hard  as  we  can,  albeit  for 
noble  ends,  is  gradually  and  undesirably 
altering  the  character  of  higher  educa- 


College  benefits  both 
society  and  the  individual. 
Who  should  pay  to  educate 
the  next  generation  while 
it  prepares  for  the  future? 


tion,"  warned  Michael  O'Keefe,  presi- 
dent of  the  Consortium  for  the  Advance- 
ment of  Private  Higher  Education,  in  a 
hard-hitting  article  in  Change  magazine 
(May-June).  He  took  colleges  to  task  for 
tuition  increases  double— and  occasion- 
ally triple— the  rate  of  inflation.  He 
urged  the  privates  to  show  restraint  and 
not  to  take  "excessive  advantage  of  the 
tendency  of  parents  and  students  to 
equate  higher  prices  with  higher  quality." 
Others  on  campuses  have  been  issuing 
warnings  as  well.  "I  cannot  justify  the 
way  tuition  has  increased.  When  infla- 
tion has  gone  up  4  percent,  you  can't 
justify  an  8-9  percent  increase  in  tuition. 
It  will  backfire  on  us  and  we'll  reach  a 
point  of  no  return,"  states  an  East  Coast 
university  admissions  official.  A  finan- 
cial aid  expert  adds  that  he  sees  this  con- 
cern over  costs  showing  up  "in  the 
expressions  of  distress  from  students  and 
parents,  guidance  counselors,  and  many 
others.  You  see  it  in  the  level  and  volume 
of  unpaid  bills— there's  an  increased 
pressure  on  the  bursar  to  go  out  and  col- 
lect college  bills.  We  have  to  tell  too 
many  students  to  make  some  arrange- 


merit  to  pay  your  bills  or  you're  going  to 
be  dropped  from  classes." 

The  rhetoric— and  reality — of  cost  con- 
tainment and  quality  control  have  been 
making  themselves  known  in  higher  edu- 
cation. The  nation  seems  awash  in  a  ris- 
ing tide  of  studies  probing  why  Johnny 
and  Jane  can't  read,  write,  and  think — or 
afford  college.  Secretary  Bennett  lost  no 
time  in  cautioning  students  and  their  par- 
ents "to  kick  the  tires  and  look  under  the 
hood  of  higher  education."  His  caveat 
emptor  to  college-goers  has  been  heeded 
as  a  caveat  in  at  least  a  few  ivy  towers, 
too. 

In  response  to  the  continuing  challenge 
to  make  higher  education  more  afford- 
able, several  institutions  have  launched 
unusual  consumer-oriented  pricing  poli- 
cies. Among  them  is  Duquesne  Univer- 
sity's "zero-coupon  education."  Parents 
can  purchase  for  their  infants  four  years 
of  a  Duquesne  education  at  today's  price, 
saving  thousands  of  dollars  in  the  long 
run  (if  their  child  opts  to  go  to  another 
college,  Mom  and  Dad  will  recoup  only 
their  initial  investment,  without  accrued 
interest).  Southern  Methodist  University 


last  year  announced  a  plan  to  finance 
four  years  of  a  set  rate  of  tuition  over  a 
10-year  period,  with  either  a  fixed  or 
variable  interest  rate.  Williams  College 
has  a  popular  10-month  installment  plan 
for  tuition  payments.  In  spirit  at  least, 
such  plans  have  much  appeal,  even  if 
most  institutions  haven't  jumped  on  the 
bandwagon  yet.  Notes  Villanova's 
Father  Erdlen,  "I  would  personally  like 
to  say  to  freshmen,  'This  will  be  your 
cost,  and  we  will  hold  that  for  four 
years.'"  A  few  institutions  have  already 
put  that  promise  into  practice. 


Tl 
: 


I  he  biography  of  an  American 
family  is  written  in  its  cancelled 
checks,"  is  how  Howard  Bowen 
so  aptly  began  his  book  on  the  costs  of 
college.  Today,  the  collective  check- 
books of  the  families  of  12  million  col- 
lege students  tell  tales  of  change,  chal- 
lenge, and  stress.  On  one  page  we  read 
biographies  of  parents  whose  own  par- 
ents put  them  through  college  but  who 
now  ask  their  own  offspring  to  pay  their 
way  by  taking  out  large  loans.  On 
another  page  we  read  of  the  incredible 


wealth  to  be  found  in  the  upper  echelons 
of  American  society.  Turn  the  page,  and 
we  read  the  troubling  stories  of  college 
students  forced  out  because  they  can't 
afford  to  pay. 

The  stories  have  a  common  theme,  of 
coming  to  terms  with  just  who  should 
assume  the  responsibility  for  supporting 
the  next  generation  while  it  devotes  four 
years  to  preparing  for  a  personal  and 
societal  future.  More  and  more  non- 
traditional  students,  among  them  adults, 
are  going  to  college,  thus  adding  other 
complexities  to  the  picture:  What  about 
the  30-year-old  single  mother,  trying  to 
meld  part-time  parenting,  studies,  and 
employment  into  a  full  life?  Who  picks 
up  her  college  tab  when  financial  aid  is 
so  limited  for  continuing  education? 

Don  Berth  at  WPI  points  out  that,  over 
the  past  20  years,  the  ethic  of  parents 
assuming  the  responsibility  of  paying  for 
their  children's  education  has  generally 
been  abandoned,  and  not  always  out  of 
financial  exigency.  Depriving  oneself  of 
consumer  pleasures  isn't  very  much  in 
vogue.  In  years  past,  he  explains,  a  fam- 
ily would  have  had  almost  "a  sense  of 


As  private  colleges  become  more  expensive, 
their  newly  won  diversity  may  disappear 


W: 


e've  simply  brought  the  coun- 
try club  to  the  campus,"  says  a 
parent  and  professor  convinced 
he  doesn't  like  what  he  sees.  David 
McKeith  has  taught  American  history  for 
25  years  at  SUNY-Cortland,  at  Elmira 
College,  and  currently,  at  Ithaca  Col- 
lege. He  criticizes  what  he  believes  are 
the  "excessive  expenses"  of  private  edu- 
cation, pricing  it  out  of  the  reach  of  the 
middle-class  and  "accentuating  the  lack 
of  sensitivity  of  people  who  have  money 
and  power  for  those  who  don't,"  he  says. 
The  1970s,  says  McKeith,  brought  a 
greater  diversity  of  students  into  the 
colleges— among  them  inner-city  youths, 
a  wider  range  of  middle-income  stu- 
dents, and  more  minorities — who  ex- 
panded the  collegiate  experience  for  all 
groups.  But  he  sees  such  diversity  dis- 
appearing at  private  schools,  a  victim  of 
too  little  financial  aid,  as  the  privates 
once  again  become  the  preserves  of  the 
rich.  "For  all  their  problems  of  huge 
classes,  public  universities  have  a  much 
more  sensible  balance  in  the  classroom," 
McKeith  believes.    "So  much  of  this 


country  has  been  built  on  middle-class 
values,"  he  goes  on.  But  those  values  are 
becoming  scarcer  in  private  schools.  "To 
talk  about  America's  heritage  of  living 
on  the  land  and  loving  it,  the  rural  life, 
the  frontiers,  is  like  talking  about  some 
kibbutz  in  Israel.  They've  never  lived  it." 
Yet  he  seeks  to  preserve  the  essence  of 
what  often  distinguishes  a  private  from  a 
public  college.  He  and  his  wife  invite 
students  to  their  home.  He  has  long 
office  hours.  He  carries  a  student  load  of 
85  and  refuses  to  lecture  to  a  class  larger 
than  35.  Both  he  and  his  wife  were  edu- 
cated at  private  colleges  (Colby  and  Wel- 
lesley);  their  three  college-age  children 
have  chosen  privates  as  well.  Son  John 
graduated  from  Hartwick  College  in 
1983,  some  $6,000  to  $10,000  in  debt, 
which  he  pays  off  in  his  job  of  producing 
videos  for  high  schools.  Anticipating 
$40,000  to  $60,000  in  expenses  to  send  a 
fourth  child,  now  15,  to  school,  McKeith 
salts  away  a  considerable  amount  of 
money  each  month.  "I  don't  anticipate 
any  help.  I'm  glad  to  do  something  for 
my  kids,  but  I  can't  do  it  all." 


NOVEMBER  1986       V 


gratitude  to  a  college"  for  providing  a 
quality  education.  Now,  says  Berth,  pro- 
spective students  come  to  college  asking, 
in  effect,  "What  are  you  going  to  pro- 
vide me  in  financial  support  if  I  come 
here?" 

The  pages  of  that  American  family 
biography  now  attracting  the  most  atten- 
tion are  those  spelling  out  danger  signals. 
High  debt  levels  are  alarming  many  in 
academe — and  in  the  public.  Cutbacks  in 
direct  grants  hamper  the  educational 
futures  of  students.  The  doors  are  closing 
on  those  unable  to  pay  for  a  college 
degree.  Having  to  work  at  several  jobs  to 
earn  money  is  creating  a  new  category  of 
"invisible  drop-outs"— students  who  get 
less  than  they  should  out  of  college. 
Minority  enrollments  are  decreasing  at 
the  prestigious  private  colleges;  in  gen- 
eral, the  number  of  black  students  going 
on  to  college  has  dropped  11  percent 
from  its  peak  in  1976  even  though  30 
percent  more  now  are  graduating  from 
high  schools. 

More  and  more,  colleges  have  had  to 
infuse  operating  budgets  with  large 
amounts  of  scholarship  aid;  the  higher 
the  tuition,  the  more  aid  is  required,  and 
the  more  they  have  to  charge  full-paying 
students.  Most  institutions  offer  pack- 
ages of  loans,  work/study  jobs,  and  out- 
right grants.  Villanova,  for  example, 
requires  students  receiving  financial  aid 
to  contribute  $1,200  from  a  summer  job 
and  to  work  during  the  school  year. 
Switzer  points  out  that  putting  in  that 
extra  10  to  30  hours  a  week,  on  top  of  a 
full  academic  schedule,  "is  not  some- 
thing to  be  taken  lightly.  There  is  a  point 
beyond  which  they  should  not  go." 

Tales  are  rife  of  the  labyrinthine  for- 
mulas for  awarding  financial  aid.  Parents 
are  expected  to  divulge  all  of  their  assets 
and  liabilities— even  as  far  as  submitting 
income-tax  forms— when  their  children 
apply  for  financial  aid.  Explains  Berth, 
"When  you  look  at  the  parent's  confiden- 
tial statement  (a  required  form  for  finan- 
cial aid),  it's  no  question  that  the  parent 
who  is  frugal  and  puts  the  money  into  the 
bank  or  insurance  policy  to  assure  that 
Suzie  or  Johnny  has  the  means  for  col- 
lege is  penalized,  versus  the  parent  who 
has  a  seaside  cottage,  is  mortgaged  to  the 
hilt,  has  two  high-quality  cars,  and  no 
liquid  assets.  There  are  too  many  abuses 
of  that  sort  in  the  system." 

The  burgeoning  rise  in  scholarships  at 
private  colleges  has  even  caused  some 
institutions  privately,  if  not  publicly,  to 
ask  themselves  if  those  funds  could  not 


be  invested  in  more  productive  ways. 
WPI  is  one  of  only  a  few  private  institu- 
tions that  can  still  hold  to  an  "aid-blind" 
policy  of  admitting  undergraduates 
regardless  of  their  finances.  Berth 
observes  that  this  means  the  Institute 
each  year  must  come  up  with  $6.5- 
million  in  financial  aid.  He  wonders 
whether  $1 -million  or  so  of  that  could 
better  be  spent  on  recruiting  top  faculty 
and  otherwise  improving  quality.  He 
fears:  "We  may  have  become  more  gen- 
erous than  we  can  fundamentally 
afford." 

The  rapid  growth  in  the  student  loan 
debt  has  educators  most  concerned. 
Switzer  gives  as  an  example  a  common 
occurrence  at  Villanova:  a  graduate  who 
goes  on  to  law  school  might  come  out 
owing  $50,000  in  loans.  Should  she 
marry  someone  in  similar  circumstances, 
the  couple  would  have  "$100,000  in 
debt  before  they've  earned  their  first  pro- 
fessional dollar."  Notes  Rob  Ruth,  the 
F&M  graduate,  "I  have  some  friends 
who  have  graduated  and  are  very  worried 
about  paying  off  debts.  But  down  the 
road,  they  will  be  glad  they  struggled." 

Others  are  not  so  sure.  Nationally  and 
internationally,  the  debt  burden  "is  one 
of  the  biggest  issues  facing  us  now," 
Chancellor  Hooker  states.  In  1984,  30 
percent  of  all  undergraduates  borrowed 
money  for  their  education;  nine  years 
previously,  only  11  percent  had.  A  study 
conducted  by  the  Carnegie  Foundation 
for  the  Advancement  of  Teaching  found 
the  amount  borrowed  had  increased  by 
300  percent  in  that  period  (in  constant 
1975  dollars).  Colleges  and  universities, 
says  Hooker,  are  "turning  out  students 
shackled  with  these  enormous  debts." 
Undergraduates,  now,  for  instance,  can 
borrow  $2,500  a  year  under  the  Guaran- 
teed Student  Loan  program.  Hooker  adds 
that  students  often  have  little  idea  of  the 
responsibility  they  are  taking  on  by  bor- 
rowing thousands  in  loans  each  year. 
However,  "for  the  colleges,  this  poses  a 
moral  problem  because  we  know  what's 
happening." 

It  also  poses  a  philosophical  concern. 
As  Change  magazine  put  it,  loans  rein- 
force self-interest  values  rather  than  the 
concept  of  education  as  a  public 
resource,  intrinsically  worthwhile  to 
society.  With  heavy  debts,  this  college 
generation,  already  more  preoccupied 
than  previous  ones  with  earning  high  sal- 
aries in  their  careers,  is  looking  for  tangi- 
ble returns  on  the  investment  in  educa- 
tion. In  decades  past,  young  men  and 


women  might  have  felt  more  free  to 
study  British  poetry,  European  history, 
Greek  philosophy,  or  anything  else  that 
held  a  fascination  in  the  world  of  ideas. 
They  accepted  that  education  had  a  non- 
trade  value:  It  encouraged  one  to  become 
a  better  citizen  and  it  enhanced  our  civili- 
zation. Explains  WPI's  Robert  Voss, 
"They  used  to  assume  that,  if  they  went 
to  college,  of  course  they'd  be  part  of  the 
elite,  managerial  class.  Now  they  want 
to  see  what's  in  it  for  me."  Voss's  col- 
league, Don  Berth,  urges,  however,  that 
education  also  needs  to  be  perceived  as  a 
value-added  investment  in  oneself— 
unlike  financing  a  fancy  car,  which  "five 
years  later  will  be  a  pile  of  rust." 

W'hat  can  be  done?  Many  educa- 
tors call  for  more  massive  infu- 
sions of  funds  from  all  sources 
for  scholarships— and  occasionally  for 
more  belt-tightening  at  their  own  institu- 
tions. The  somewhat  fractured  federal 
policy  needs  careful  scrutiny,  too.  Under 
the  new  federal  income-tax  law,  most 
borrowers  will  no  longer  be  able  to 
deduct  interest  paid  on  their  student 
loans.  Other  provisions  of  the  bill  pre- 
vent parents  from  channeling  income  to 
their  offspring  to  be  taxed  at  a  lower  rate. 
The  bill  also  taxes  some  forms  of  finan- 
cial aid  and  it  inhibits  the  private  sector 
in  raising  scholarship  funds.  Change 
magazine  suggested  that  colleges  clarify 
to  students  any  loan  obligation;  that 
loans  be  limited  to  upperclassmen  who 
have  proven  they  have  an  80  percent 
chance  of  graduating;  that  loans  be  tai- 
lored by  discipline,  class  year,  and  even 
intended  career. 

Rob  Ruth,  the  future  physician  and 
dairy  farmer's  son,  says,  "I  knew  my 
money  would  be  well  spent  at  F&M.  The 
level  of  liberal-arts  education  is  well 
worth  the  money."  He  believes  that  busi- 
nesses are  looking  for  the  well-educated 
liberal  arts  graduate,  the  "well-versed 
individual."  Rob  chose  F&M  because  it 
is  a  private  college.  He  liked  the  pres- 
tige, the  small  classes,  the  close  contact 
with  faculty  committed  to  teaching.  A 
young  man  firmly  focused  on  achieving 
his  personal  goals,  he  muses,  "As  I've 
gone  through  F&M,  I've  wondered,  if  I 
hadn't  majored  in  biology,  would  I  have 
put  this  much  money  into  it  if  I  had 
majored  in  drama  or  history?"  He  an- 
swers his  question  with  a  hesitant  Yes. 

Donna  Shoemaker  is  editor  of  the  Alumni 
Magazine  Consortium. 


VI       ALUMNI  MAGAZINE  CONSORTIUM 


Tutumn 

Fire 


A  languorous  fall 

in  England, 

a  dazzling  display 

in  America. 

The  contrasts  found 

in  these  woods  and  moods 

are  rooted  in  climatology. 


By  Jonathan  Richardson 

Season  of  mists  and  mellow  fruitfulness, 
Close  bosom-friend  of  the  maturing  sun.  .  . 

Harvest  time.  Hives  brimming  with  honey. 
Fleecy  barred  clouds  and  cider  presses 
oozing  sweet  juices.  John  Keats 's  ode 
"To  Autumn"  overflows  with  ripeness,  plenty, 
and  contentment.  His  is  a  slow  season — warm, 
fulfilled,  drowsy— the  laziest,  most  comfortable 
time  of  the  year. 

But  isn't  there  more  to  autumn?  Widely  spaced 
memories  return  me  to  my  boyhood's  Connecticut 
hills,  fiery  with  crimson  foliage;  to  sassafras 
leaves— half  green,  half  scarlet,  still  pungent  to  the 
nose— scavenged  lovingly  from  Pennsylvania 
sidewalks  by  my  young  daughters;  and,  near  a 
highway  south  of  Lancaster,  to  a  lone  shagbark 
hickory— a  blaze  of  saffron,  still  searing  my  senses 
like  a  spicy  curry. 

Was  Keats  blind  to  the  vigor  of  autumn?  Had  he 
forgotten  the  clarity  of  October  sunlight,  the  air's 
apple-sharp  bite,  the  brilliance  of  blue  sky 
glimpsed  through  painted  foliage?  Was  this  most 
sensuous  of  poets  immune  to  the  exuberance  of  the 
season? 

Exhilaration,  not  Keatsian  languor,  is  eastern 
America's  fall  theme.  To  the  poet  Bliss  Carman, 


NOVEMBER  1986       W 


L  ( ^  JMf  3-^>^*|f^ai 

*** 

^  ^^iRij*-"*  JSr* 

■    ? 

• 

|^r 

From  ridges  to  val- 
leys, autumn  in 
America  unveils  a 
multi-hued  tapestry. 
Above:  a  golden  glow 
of  maples  weaves 
its  way  through 
Arizona 's  Chiricahua 
Mountains.  Center: 
A  vibrant  display  of 
Vermont 's  finest  fall 
finery  is  reflected  in 
Keiser  Pond. 


New  Brunswick-born  and  New  England-bred, 
"There  is  something  in  October  sets  the  gypsy 
blood  astir."  In  A  Vagabond  Song,  it  is  reveille  he 
hears,  not  taps: 

The  scarlet  of  the  maples  can  shake  me 

like  a  cry 
Of  bugles  going  by 
And  my  lonely  spirit  thrills 
To  see  the  frosty  asters  like  a  smoke 

upon  the  hills. 

Why  do  poets  in  England  and  America  evoke 
this  season  so  differently?  In  this  case,  compara- 
tive climatology  illuminates  a  question  from  com- 
parative literature.  Keats  and  Carman  were  captur- 
ing very  accurately  the  spirit  of  the  autumn  each 
knew.  And  these  autumns  are  indeed  different. 
America,  unequaled  worldwide  for  brilliant  foli- 
age, also  is  notable  for  fall's  sudden  onset,  its 
clear-skied  daytime  warmth  and  nightly  chill,  its 
swift  crescendo  to  forest  splendor  and  rapid  sub- 
sidence to  dormancy.  Keats 's  English  autumn  is  a 
gentle,  drawn-out,  mellow  season,  joining  sum- 
mer and  winter  across  months  of  gradual  change. 
If  you  want  "more,  and  still  more  later  flowers  for 
the  bees,  until  they  think  warm  days  will  never 
cease,"  spend  the  third  season  in  Keats 's  part  of 
the  world.  But  stay  in  America  if  you  seek  Car- 
man's passionate  autumn,  "when,  from  every  hill 
of  flame  she  calls  and  calls  each  vagabond  by 
name." 

Arctic  winds,  the  Gulf  Stream,  and  the  botanical 
diversity  of  our  eastern  forests  all  underlie  this 
trans- Atlantic  contrast.  Some  of  our  native  species 
turn  true  exhibitionists  in  autumn;  others  don  more 
modest  garb.  But  the  sum  of  all  is  an  exceptionally 
rich,  many-hued  forest  tapestry. 

In  Europe  the  deciduous  forests  are  far  less 
diverse  and  no  species  approaches  the  brilliance  of 
our  gaudiest  American  maples,  ashes,  and  oaks. 
The  autumn  tapestry  of  English  forests  thus  is  both 
thinner  and  paler  than  our  own. 

But  why  paler?  To  put  this  down  as  a  typical 
illustration  of  American  excess  and  British 
reserve  begs  the  question.  Let's  investigate 
climatic  differences. 

In  many  American  forests  the  heat  and  dryness 
of  late  summer  have  already  signaled  the  end  of 
the  growing  season  by  early  September.  The  chilly 
northern  air  masses  that  successively  invade  the 
deciduous  region  in  early  fall  thus  find  our  trees 
already  approaching  winter  dormancy,  withdraw- 
ing nutrients  from  their  leaves,  and  losing  their 
lustrous  green  as  the  metabolic  balance  shifts  from 
chlorophyll  manufacture  to  chlorophyll  decay. 
More  stable  yellow  and  orange  leaf  pigments— the 
chemically  similar  carotenes  and  xanthophylls— 
are  unmasked  by  the  destruction  of  chlorophyll. 
As  cool  nights  come  on  with  a  rush,  still  other 
pigments— the   purple  to   scarlet  anthocyanins, 


whose  manufacture  is  stimulated  by  these  fall 
conditions — suffuse  the  leaves  of  our  most  brilliant 
species.  The  result  of  this  rush  to  glory?  By  early 
October,  foliage  pilgrims  clog  New  England  high- 
ways, and  two  weekends  later  most  of  Washing- 
ton, D.C.,  seems  to  have  migrated  to  the  Skyline 
Drive  to  see  autumn  unfurl  in  the  Blue  Ridge 
Mountains  of  Virginia. 

If  it  is  to  be  unusually  brilliant,  this  autumn  must 
have  special  weather:  Cool,  clear,  dry  conditions 
produce  the  finest  foliage  because  lowered  temper- 
atures (not  so  low  as  to  bring  early  killing  frosts), 
bright  sunshine,  and  moderate  drought  all  favor 
the  manufacture  of  vivid  anthocyanin  pigments. 
But  such  weather  is  common  enough  in  an  Ameri- 
can autumn  and  anthocyanin-rich  species  such  as 
staghorn  sumac,  red  and  sugar  maples,  sweetgum, 
scarlet  oak,  and  white  ash  seldom  fail  to  delight. 
In  exceptional  autumns  they  do  more  than 
delight— they  take  your  breath  away. 

Western  Europe  and  the  British  Isles,  mean- 
while, bask  through  autumn  under  the  influence  of 
the  tropic-spawned  Gulf  Stream.  These  lands  nor- 
mally escape  Arctic  winds  until  late  in  the  season. 
Caribbean-born,  the  Gulf  Stream  is  still  warm 
after  thrusting  thousands  of  miles  north  and  east  to 
bathe  the  shores  of  Europe.  Sea  winds,  warmed  in 
turn  by  this  mighty  current,  blow  inland  with  pro- 


Vffl       ALUMNI  MAGAZINE  CONSORTIUM 


found  climatic  consequences.  In  autumn,  the 
effect  is  to  keep  northwestern  Europe  moist  and 
mild,  favoring  deciduous  forests  but  not 
anthocyanin-rich  foliage.  Maps  depicting  the 
world's  vegetation  zones  clearly  demonstrate  the 
Gulf  Stream's  moderating  influence.  Although 
they  lie  at  the  latitudes  of  northern  Newfoundland 
and  Hudson's  Bay,  the  forests  of  England,  Den- 
mark, and  even  southern  Sweden  are  deciduous — 
the  northernmost  anywhere  in  the  world.  Equiva- 
lent latitudes  in  North  America  do  not  receive  the 
Gulf  Stream  winds  and,  climatically  too  fierce  for 
deciduous  forests,  are  home  instead  to  spruce,  fir, 
and  muskeg.  Because  of  the  Gulf  Stream,  the  chill 
of  autumn  comes  surprisingly  late  to  Europe's 
northern  deciduous  forests,  and  the  trees  can 
safely  keep  their  leaves  until  the  days  are  very 
short. 

Thus  when  planted  together  in  city  parks  and 
streets,  deciduous  trees  from  Europe  and  America 
display  contrasting  fall  patterns  adaptive  to  the 
native  climate  of  each.  In  New  York  and  Philadel- 
phia, for  example,  common  European  species- 
Norway  and  sycamore  maples,  linden,  European 
beech^remain  green  and  leafy  far  into  fall  while 
the  American  species  color  and  drop  early.  By 
quickly  entering  dormancy,  the  American  species 
are  protected  against  the  early  frosts  and  the  unpre- 


dictable onset  of  real  winter  weather  on  this  side  of 
the  Atlantic.  But  true  to  their  European  heritage, 
the  Old  World  species  resist  entering  dormancy 
until  the  days  are  very  short.  American  city  dwell- 
ers thus  experience  a  "longer  autumn"  than  do 
country  folk.  The  latter  enjoy  only  the  brief  glory 
of  native  species,  while  in  town,  the  bravura  per- 
formance of  "natives"  is  followed  by  the  paler 
encore  of  the  immigrants.  (Most  of  these,  interest- 
ingly, do  not  produce  appreciable  anthocyanin 
even  in  our  climate;  like  some  of  our  own  species, 
they  apparently  have  never  evolved  this  capabil- 
ity.) 

Having  not  yet  entered  winter  dormancy,  the 
European  immigrants  are  at  risk  as  the  American 
autumn  wanes.  At  home  in  Pennsylvania,  I  more 
than  once  have  seen  Norway  maples  caught  in 
Thanksgiving  snowstorms  with  their  leaves  still 
green,  fooled  by  the  longer  late-autumn  days  in 
this  alien  latitude.  Because  their  leaf-loss  timetable 
is  written  primarily  in  terms  of  day-length  rather 
than  temperature,  our  Norway  maples  had  ignored 
other  indications  of  the  lateness  of  the  season  and 
had  kept  their  foliage.  Native  species  alongside, 
them,  however,  following  day-length  timetables 
evolved  in  the  American  climate,  were  leafless 
and  safe  in  dormancy  long  before  the  snows. 

That  deciduous  trees  of  both  continents  use  day- 
length  as  their  autumn  leaf-shedding  cue  is  demon- 
strated by  a  phenomenon  I  have  often  observed:  If 
situated  beside  bright  street  lamps,  trees  tend  to 
keep  their  leaves  later  than  usual.  Sometimes  just 
the  branch  nearest  the  light  remains  clothed.  But 
for  those  leaves  affected,  the  street  lamp  evidently 
mimics  a  longer  day  and  fools  the  day-length- 
activated  timing  mechanism  that  triggers  leaf  loss. 
If  the  "perceived"  day-length  is  too  long,  the  hor- 
monal changes  that  initiate  leaf  loss  do  not  occur. 

Deciduous  forests  are  earth's  quintessential 
litterbugs— the  first  throwaway  society. 
But  before  it  falls,  a  leaf  in  its  native  cli- 
mate will  have  transferred  most  of  its  minerals  and 
soluble  organic  compounds  back  into  the  stem  and 
roots— the  tree's  perennial  storage  organs.  When  it 
falls,  the  senescent  leaf  will  take  with  it  little  more 
than  its  cellulose  skeleton  and  its  fading  pigments. 
But  a  severe  early  frost  will  forestall  this  recycling 
process  by  killing  the  leaf  prematurely,  thus  lead- 
ing to  the  loss  of  important  nutrients. 

American  trees  in  their  native  latitudes  meet  this 
fate  relatively  seldom  because  of  their  genetically 
programmed  early  senescence,  but  this  obviously 
is  not  true  of  European  species  introduced  to 
America.  Here,  their  late  leaf  retention  is  mala- 
daptive, and  the  nutrient  losses  suffered  each  fall 
from  frost-killed  leaves  may  be  considerable.  To 
be  successful  in  America,  these  ill-adapted  immi- 
grants probably  need  to  be  pampered  in  domesti- 
cated landscapes.  Here,  competitors  are  discour- 
aged and  fertilizers  may  be  applied,  helping  to 
restore  lost  leaf  nutrients. 


Red  maples  reward 
the  eye  best  when 
cool,  clear,  dry 
weather  has  created 
just  the  right 
conditions. 
Deciduous  trees 
take  their  cues 
from  the  length  of 
the  day  and  the 
strength  of  the 
light.  Before 
falling,  these 
leaves  will 
transfer  their 
nutrients  back  to 
the  tree. 


NOVEMBER  1986       IX 


w 


V     £ 


£k 


T   14 


.,"  ( 


Though  anthocyanins  are  the  pigments  responsi- 
ble for  our  most  fiery  forest  hues,  species  lacking 
anthocyanin  capability  are  among  my  fall  favor- 
ites. Aspen,  tulip  tree,  hickory,  the  introduced 
ginkgo,  and  larch  (one  of  our  few  deciduous  coni- 
fers) turn  gloriously  golden  due  to  a  foliar  abun- 
dance of  carotene  and  xanthophyll.  During  the 
growing  season  these  pigments  reside  with  chloro- 
phyll in  the  leaf  chloroplasts,  apparently  having  an 
accessory  light-trapping  function  in  the  photosyn- 
thetic  production  of  sugar.  Another  function  may 
be  that  of  screening  the  sensitive  chlorophyll  from 
harmfully  bright  light:  Many  of  the  carotene-rich 
species  grow  in  exposed  habitats  or,  like  aspen,  at 
high  altitudes  where  sunlight  is  especially  intense. 
In  any  case,  leaf  carotenes  persist  later  than  less 
stable  chlorophyll,  and  autumn  gold  is  the  result. 

Botanists  know  less  about  the  function  of  antho- 
cyanin pigments.  Adaptive  explanations  are  elu- 
sive for  the  high  anthocyanin-producing  capability 
of  species  like  red  and  sugar  maples.  Perhaps 
these  pigments,  like  carotenes,  play  a  shielding 
role  for  chlorophyll.  But  since  anthocyanins  are 
produced  primarily  in  the  fall,  when  chlorophyll  is 
disappearing  anyway,  that  explanation  seems 
insufficient.  We  do  know  that  a  deficiency  of 
nitrogen  induces  anthocyanin  production;  perhaps 
this  explains  the  unusually  early  reddening  of  sour 
gum,  a  species  often  found  on  poor  soils.  Sparse 
nitrogen  supply  may  also  account  for  the  early 
senescence  of  bog  vegetation:  Bogs  often  form 
oases  of  color  in  still-green  September  landscapes. 

American  deciduous  species  do  not  march 
/  \'n  lock  step  toward  winter  dormancy,  even 
JL  JL  though  the  foliage  season  is  compara- 
tively short.  Sour  gum  often  begins  its  crimson 
display  in  August,  long  before  its  neighbors  show 
signs  of  leaf  senescence.  Another  early  quitter  is 
witch  hazel,  a  species  unusual  among  trees  in  post- 
poning its  flowering  period  till  fall.  Premature  leaf 
loss  by  this  species  may  make  the  flowers  more 
visible  to  fall  insects,  promoting  pollination  and 
successful  seed  production.  Early  dormancy  also 
characterizes  white  ash,  whose  compound  leaves 
probably  have  the  shortest  life  span  of  any  in  the 
forest.  Appearing  late  in  the  spring,  ash  leaves  are 
gone  by  early  fall,  after  a  few  days  of  bronze  and 
purple  splendor.  This  species  must  be  a  very  effi- 
cient photosynthesizer  during  its  short  growing 
season  because  it  is  bare  for  a  remarkable  fraction 
of  the  year. 

As  autumn  continues,  the  maples  and  hickories 
have  their  turn,  with  oaks  and  beech  concluding 
the  foliage  parade.  Indeed,  beech  and  certain  oaks 
often  retain  dead  leaves  through  winter,  having 
never  fully  developed  the  layer  of  weak  abscission 
cells  that  permits  aging  leaves  to  break  off  at  their 
base.  The  American  species,  with  their  subtle, 
overlapping  sequence  of  autumnal  senescence, 
differ  among  themselves  in  latitudinal  range  and 
local  habitat  (such  as  ridgetops  or  valleys,  dry 


soils  or  moist).  Each  species  has  thus  evolved  its 
own  specific  day-length  timetable  for  senescence. 
Toward  the  close  of  the  American  foliage  sea- 
son, the  anthocyanin-rich  species  have  lost  their 
brilliance.  A  serenity  akin  to  Keats 's  English 
autumn  brings,  at  least  partly,  a  new  mood.  Late 
last  fall,  weeks  after  the  foliage  pilgrims  had 
departed,  my  wife  and  I  visited  the  Berkshire  Hills 
of  Massachusetts.  As  we  stepped  outdoors  on  a 
crisp  and  sunny  morning,  waning  glory  enfolded 
us.  Beyond  the  low-lying  mists  of  the  valley,  a 
mostly  leafless  forest  clothed  the  slopes  in  the 
peaceful  bluish-brown  hue  of  bare  branches  seen 
through  refracted  early  light.  Only  two  species  still 


bore  leaves,  and  one — red  oak,  now  russet-brown 
and  somber— blended  easily  with  leafless  neigh- 
bors on  the  humps  of  distant  hills.  Not  so  the  aspen 
groves!  Great  streaks  of  now-pale  gold  slashed 
unforgettably  through  ranks  of  dormant  col- 
leagues. Keats 's  mood  was  not  complete.  Though 
the  fires  of  an  American  autumn  were  banked  and 
dying,  the  aspens  trumpeted  one  last  hurrah. 

An  ecologist  equally  at  home  in  forests  and  tropi- 
cal lakes,  Jonathan  Richardson  enjoys  searching 
for  answers  in  the  great  outdoors.  He  is  the  Dr.  E. 
Paul  and  Frances  H.  Reiff  Professor  of  Biology  at 
Franklin  and  Marshall  College.  He  is  the  author 
of  the  textbook,  Dimensions  of  Ecology . 


Above:  A  storm 
stretches  over  New 
Hampshire's  White 
Mountain  National 
Forest,  dousing  for 
a  moment  the 
blazing  landscape. 
Left:  On  the 
forest  floor,  birch 
branches  frame  the 
evidence  that  trees 
are  the  litterbugs 
of  nature. 


NOVEMBER  1986       XI 


Of  Father 
Time, 
Mother 
Nature, 
and  a 
Newborn  Idea 


1   ■ 


Could  science 
be  sexist? 


A  new  breed 

of  critics  says 

a  male  bias  in 

methodology,  mindset,  and 

metaphor  has  hampered  the 

search  for  scientific  truth. 

This  might  be 
the  next  scientific  revolution. 


By  Leslie  Brunetta 
Illustrations  by  Linda  Draper 


"All  of  the  activities  of  the  scientific 
method  are  characterized  by  a  scientific 
attitude,  which  stresses  rational 
impartiality."— "Science"  in  The  New 
Columbia  Encyclopedia. 

And  that's  precisely  what's  wrong 

ZA  with  science,  say  a  new  breed  of 
L  11.  feminist  theorists.  Rational  impar- 
tiality, or  scientific  objectivity,  they 
argue,  is  a  figment  of  scientists'  imagina- 
tion because,  like  any  other  human  activ- 
ity, science  is  influenced  by  its  practi- 
tioners' culture.  The  problem  is,  that 
culture  harbors  profound  masculine 
biases. 

Science  is  the  last  sacred  cow  among 
the  intellectual  disciplines.  In  recent 
years,  revisionists  of  many  kinds  have 
brought  new  perspectives  to  the  other 
academic  fields.  For  instance,  it's  now 
an  accepted  commonplace  that  "history" 
is  a  subjective  explanation  of  events 
rather  than  a  collection  of  facts.  Society 
decides  what  events  are  important 
enough  to  study  in  the  first  place,  and 
then  in  what  light  they  should  be  seen. 
The  same  goes  for  anthropology,  sociol- 
ogy, and  all  the  social  sciences.  But 
"pure"  science  depends  upon  scientific 
facts,  natural  laws,  proven  models, 
doesn't  it?  Where  does  culture  fit  in? 
And  how  could  gender  politics  affect  sci- 
ence? 

Easily,  say  the  feminists,  especially 
when  gender  has  something  to  do  with 


the  subject  of  scientific  study.  "Science 
has  been  used  fairly  often  in  the  past  to 
justify  sexist  projects,"  says  Sandra 
Harding,  professor  of  philosophy  and 
director  of  women's  studies  at  the  Uni- 
versity of  Delaware.  Harding's  book, 
The  Science  Question  in  Feminism,  and 
her  articles  are  considered  by  many  femi- 
nists to  be  central  to  the  new  critique  of 
science.  "For  instance,  when  the  wom- 
en's colleges  opened  in  the  1800s,  there 
were  scientists  who  had  all  sorts  of  'evi- 
dence' and  sincerely  believed  that  intel- 
lectual work  would  physically  debilitate 
women."  Women  were  advised  by  the 
nation's  top  physicians  that,  since  repro- 
duction was  the  primary  function  of  a 
woman's  body,  vital  energy  routed  away 
from  the  uterus  and  ovaries  toward  the 
brain  would  result  in  a  drastic  unbalanc- 
ing of  the  body's  natural  equilibrium, 
and  disease  was  sure  to  follow. 

The  male  bias  can  be  seen  in  more 
contemporary  scientific  issues,  too,  as 
for  instance,  in  theories  of  human  evolu- 
tion. The  widely  accepted  "man-the- 
hunter"  theory  postulates  that  men  were 
responsible  for  the  invention  of  tools  as 
aids  in  hunting.  These  tools  in  turn 
favored  the  development  of  bipedal  ism 
and  an  upright  stance  as  well  as  "male 
bonding"— men  working  together  with- 
out women  on  the  community's  most 
important  business.  "Such  a  hypothe- 
sis," says  Delaware's  Harding,  "presents 
men  as  the  sole  creators  of  the  shift  from 


Xfl       ALUMNI  MAGAZINE  CONSORTIUM 


prehuman  to  human  cultures." 

Harding  also  notes  that  the  only  evi- 
dence for  man-the-hunter  is  the  chipped 
stone  tools  found  at  hominid  living  sites. 
There's  no  way  to  tell  if  these  tools  were 
used  by  men  for  hunting  or  by  women 
for  digging  up  roots  and  preparing  meat. 
In  fact  there's  no  evidence  that  women 
didn't  hunt  and  men  didn't  work  in  the 
hut.  Yet  those  arguing  that  men's  "natu- 
ral" place  is  in  active,  important  work 
and  women's  "natural"  place  is  in  the 
home  often  trot  out  this  theory  as  proof. 
"The  whole  hypothesis,"  Harding  says, 
"is  based  on  androcentric  notions." 

From  the  world  of  animal  biology 
comes  another  tale  of  androcentric  bias. 
Ever  since  the  first  observers  set  out  to 
examine  the  mysteries  of  primate  life, 
interest  has  focused  on  the  "dominant 
male,"  who  was  seen  to  rule  the  group, 
choosing  his  mates  and  fighting  off  other 
males.  Using  modified  versions  of 
Darwin's  sexual  selection  theory,  animal 
behaviorists  saw  this  male  as  determin- 
ing his  troop's  genetic  future:  His  aggres- 
sive behavior  ensured  that  his  chromo- 
somes were  passed  on  in  greatest 
numbers  to  future  generations.  Females 
were  seen  to  have  a  passive,  though 
essential,  role  in  passing  on  his  chromo- 
somes. 

But  females  play  just  as  important  a 
role  as  the  dominant  male,  anthropolo- 
gist Sarah  Hrdy  found  while  studying 
langur  monkeys  in  the  1970s.  A  female 
would  often  mate  with  more  than  one 
male,  with  the  result  that  these  males 
wouldn't  attack  her  young,  assuming  it 
to  be  their  own.  Females  also  badger  and 
attack  other  females  and  their  young, 
causing  spontaneous  abortions,  injuries, 
and  sometimes  even  death.  This  behav- 
ior helps  to  ensure  that  the  attacking 
female's  own  offspring  face  less  compe- 
tition and  so  are  more  likely  to  survive 
and  to  reproduce.  But  because  this 
behavior  didn't  fit  into  the  dominant 
male  model,  say  the  feminists,  early 
observers  either  ignored  it  or  treated  it  as 
a  freak  occurrence  that  didn't  affect  the 
ongoing  life  of  the  group. 

Perhaps  those  are  just  examples  of 
bad  science,  of  researchers  who 
haven't  followed  the  rules  of  objec- 
tivity. If  scientists  would  rid  themselves 
of  sexism  when  looking  at  problems 
involving  gender  roles  or  relationships 
between  the  sexes,  there  wouldn't  be  any 
problem  with  science,  would  there?  And 
surely  gender  influences  only  a  tiny 


minority  of  scientific  problems? 

Wrong,  say  the  feminists,  who  argue 
that  science's  masculine  bias  reaches 
right  to  the  core  of  the  scientific  method. 
Physics  and  chemistry,  as  well  as  the  life 
sciences,  are  affected  in  research  areas 
that  would  seem  to  have  nothing  at  all  to 


Early  observers  didn  't  see  female  langurs  as 
active  players  in  the  genetics  game. 

do  with  gender.  Bad  science  isn't  the  cul- 
prit; science  itself  is. 

Historically,  men  and  not  women  have 
been  scientists.  Only  recently  have 
women  had  any  real  access  to  scientific 
work  above  the  technician  level.  (Prince- 
ton, for  example,  which  ranks  among  the 
nation's  top  research  universities,  did  not 
admit  women  to  the  graduate  physics 
program  until  1971,  to  graduate  astron- 
omy until  1975,  and  to  graduate  mathe- 
matics until  1976.)  Most  people  would 
agree  with  the  idea  that  women's  limited 
access  to  the  scientific  world  has 
adversely  affected  the  lives  of  women. 
The  feminists  argue  that  it  has  hampered 
science  as  well.  Simply  allowing  women 
in  isn't  going  to  solve  the  problem. 

"Our  culture  puts  men  into  a  hierarchy 
and  so  they  tend  to  see  nature  as  a  hierar- 
chy," says  Harding.  "It  happens  to  be  a 
way  men  are  conditioned  to  think." 
According  to  the  new  critics,  scientists — 
partly  because  they  have  been  raised  as 
men  and  partly  because  men  have  shaped 
the  ground  rules  of  science— look  for 
hierarchies  in  nature  to  explain  phenom- 
ena and  then  look  to  see  what  at  the  top 
of  the  ladder  is  controlling  the  lower 
rungs.  That  may  mean,  as  in  the  sexist 
projects  described  above,  finding  sure- 
fire "evidence"  that  the  uterus  deter- 
mined the  functioning  of  all  other  physi- 
ological systems;   that  hunting  led  by 


men  shaped  the  beginnings  of  human 
culture;  that  a  dominant  male  controls 
the  life  cycle  of  a  monkey  troop. 

But,  say  the  feminists,  the  masculine 
slant  also  means  looking  for  the  unifying 
laws  of  physics  that  will  reveal  the  cause 
of  all  physical  events;  or  looking  for 
master  molecules  (like  DNA)  to  explain 
the  cause  of  all  surrounding  functions;  or 
looking  for  a  single  virus  to  account  for 
an  illness.  The  preference  for  hierarchy 
has  also  led  to  a  ranking  of  the  sciences 
from  hard  (physics  and  mathematics)  to 
soft  (anthropology  and  psychology).  It 
has  led  to  assigning  greater  value  to 
quantitative  analysis  than  to  qualitative 
work.  And  it  has  led  to  dismissing 
models  that  stress  interdependencies  of 
functions  and  events  rather  than  control- 
ling elements. 

Take,  for  example,  the  case  of  Evelyn 
Fox  Keller.  A  mathematical  biologist, 
she  became  interested  in  the  history  and 
philosophy  of  science  in  the  1970s  and 
has  gone  on  to  become  a  central  figure  in 
the  feminist  critique  of  science.  Her 
book,  Reflections  on  Gender  and  Sci- 
ence, is  often  cited  by  other  feminists  as 
a  central  text.  In  the  late  1960s,  Keller 
became  fascinated  with  how  and  why 
cells  in  an  organism  develop  different 
forms  and  functions  even  though  origi- 
nating from  the  same  cell.  To  examine 
the  problem,  she  focused  on  cellular 
slime  mold,  Dictyostelium  discoideum, 
because  it  can  exist  in  two  states.  When 
there  is  enough  food,  it  remains  a  self- 
sufficient  single  cell;  otherwise,  the  sin- 
gle cells  aggregate  into  clumps.  These 
clumps  eventually  crawl  away  like  slugs, 
erect  stalks,  and  differentiate  into  stalk 
and  spore  cells.  The  spores  finally  ger- 
minate into  single-celled  amoebas. 

The  mystery:  How  does  the  aggrega- 
tion, which  signals  the  cells'  differentia- 
tion, start?  A  model  already  existed  pro- 
posing that  "pacemaker"  cells  spurred 
on  aggregation:  The  pacemakers  gave 
off  signals,  passed  on  by  the  other  cells, 
calling  them  together.  Keller  and  her 
research  partner,  Lee  Segel,  had  two 
problems  with  this  model — there  was  no 
evidence  that  the  pacemaker  cells 
existed,  and  aggregation  continued  even 
when  the  supposed  pacemaker  center 
was  removed. 

Keller  and  Segel  already  knew  that 
each  of  the  undifferentiated  cells  pro- 
duces a  chemical  to  which  it  and  the 
other  cells  are  sensitive.  They  proposed 
an  alternative  to  the  pacemaker  model: 
before  differentiation  took  place,   the 


NOVEMBER  1986       XIE 


cells  would  either  produce  more  of  the 
chemical  or  become  more  sensitive  to  it 
in  response  to  a  change  in  their  environ- 
ment. This  change  in  their  behavior 
would  upset  the  cells'  spatial  stability 
and  cause  the  onset  of  aggregation. 
(Later  independent  experiments  con- 
firmed that  these  chemical  changes  did 
occur  and  that  aggregation  followed.)  In 
other  words,  Keller  and  Segel  believed 
that  the  undifferentiated  cells'  interaction 
rather  than  the  actions  of  any  master  cell 
lay  at  the  center  of  the  mystery. 

The  rest  of  the  biology  community 
didn't  seem  to  agree.  Even  though  proof 
of  the  pacemaker  cells  failed  to  come 
forward,  the  pacemaker  hypothesis  was 
generally  accepted  and  the  search  for  the 
pacemakers  ended.  Keller  grants  that  her 
model  could  be  greatly  improved,  given 
newer,  non-linear  mathematical  equa- 
tions. But  her  real  complaint,  she  says,  is 
that  the  central  question— why  do  the 
cells  aggregate?— was  virtually  aban- 
doned because  the  accepted  explanation 
fit  neatly  into  a  "central-governor" 
framework  that  most  scientists  were  pre- 
disposed to  accept,  even  without  proof. 
Keller  says  in  her  book:  "Such  explana- 
tions appear  both  more  natural  and  con- 
ceptually simpler  than  global,  interactive 
accounts;  and  ...  we  need  to  ask  why 
this  is  so." 

In  other  words,  the  critics  say,  science 
isn't  objective— it's  partial.  Scientists  are 
predisposed  to  accept  certain  ideas  as 
plausible  because  they  fit  into  the  frame- 
work of  existing  masculine  experience, 
which  is  perceived  as  reality.  Mean- 
while, they  may  be  ignoring  or  discard- 
ing more  comprehensive  explanations 
and  models  without  even  considering 
them.  Scientists  may  take  an  objective 
stance  within  that  framework,  but  since 
the  framework  itself  may  be  skewed,  the 
stance  may  actually  be  subjective  (albeit 
unconsciously).  Think  of  the  theory  of 
relativity:  You  may  be  sitting  still  in  your 
chair  reading  this,  but  since  the  earth  is 
moving  within  a  moving  galaxy,  you're 
moving  at  a  speed  and  in  a  direction 
entirely  unfelt  and  very  difficult  to  deter- 
mine. 

But  if  the  critics  are  right,  why  would 
control  be  so  central  to  our  concept 
of  masculinity  that  it  would  carry 
over  into  an  endeavor  stressing  objectiv- 
ity? And  would  science  have  been  so 
very  different  if  women  had  been 
involved  from  the  beginning?  "I  ques- 
tion whether  wanting  to  find  control  is  a 


male-female  issue,"  says  Carol  Rouzer,  a 
1976  chemistry  major  graduate  of  West- 
ern Maryland  College  who  is  now  a 
senior  research  biochemist  at  Merck 
Frosst  Canada,  Inc.  "Seeing  answers  in 
terms  of  control  may  be  just  a  plain 
human  fallibility— some  people  believe 
that  that's  how  religion  started." 

The  feminist  critics  counter  that,  in  the 
most  obvious  way,  science  has  been  con- 
ceived as  a  pursuit  so  masculine  that 


^Z<r  sv„; 

DNA's  "master  molecule  "  status  is  a  product 
of  the  masculine  bias,  say  the  critics. 

females  have  historically  been  consid- 
ered constitutionally  incapable  of  carry- 
ing out  scientific  work.  From  the  time  of 
the  Greeks,  men  have  been  considered 
rational  and  women  emotional,  men 
objectively  interested  in  the  world 
around  them  and  women  subjectively. 
There's  a  resulting  circular  chain  of 
events,  the  feminists  say:  Men  value 
objectivity  and  so  "valuable"  pursuits 
must  stress  objectivity.  Once  these  pur- 
suits stress  objectivity,  women  (and  their 
attendant  subjectivity)  must  be  kept  out 
so  that  objectivity  can  be  maintained. 
And,  the  feminists  believe,  the  concepts 
of  objectivity  and  control  go  hand  in 
hand:  Men  can  more  happily  control 
what  happens  around  them  because  they 
are  encouraged  by  our  culture  to  feel 
very  little  subjective,  emotional  relation- 
ship with  the  objects,  people,  and  events 
around  them.  They  then  tend  to  interpret 
the  world  in  terms  of  their  own  experi- 
ence. 

There's  a  basic  psychological  reason 
why  men  and  women  tend  to  see  things 
in  these  differing  ways,  according  to 
Keller.  (Keller  and  the  other  feminist 
critics  sharply  distinguish  between  sex 
and  gender:  Sex  is  a  biological  determi- 


nation and  gender  a  sociological/ 
psychological  one.  In  other  words,  no 
man  or  woman  has  a  biological  impera- 
tive to  approach  scientific  problems  in 
one  way  or  another.)  A  man's  psycholog- 
ical development  in  our  society  stresses 
the  importance  of  autonomy.  A  boy 
grows  away  from  his  mother,  basing  his 
sense  of  gender  on  "not-mother"  and  on 
the  authority  of  his  father.  A  girl,  on  the 
other  hand,  is  encouraged  to  empathize 
with  others,  to  be  emotional,  as  she 
grows  away  from  her  mother  and  yet 
identifies  with  her  as  a  member  of  the 
same  sex  and  gender. 

The  boy's  autonomy  becomes  further 
pronounced,  Keller  says,  if  he  enters  into 
scientific  objectivity's  circular  logic. 
Certain  people  even  may  find  scientific 
fields  attractive  for  just  that  reason.  The 
stress  on  scientific  objectivity  will  rein- 
force a  man's  perception  of  the  impor- 
tance of  his  own  autonomy.  He  will  be 
encouraged  to  distance  himself  from  his 
subject.  As  his  own  autonomy  becomes 
more  important,  his  objectivity— his 
feeling  of  emotional  distance  from  his 
subject— will  deepen. 

"I  think  you  can  make  Keller's  same 
arguments  without  drawing  on  Freudian 
theory,"  says  Katherine  O'Donnell, 
assistant  professor  of  sociology  and  a 
member  of  the  women's  studies  commit- 
tee at  Hartwick  College.  "I  do  believe 
that  women  see  things  differently  even 
though  men  and  women  both  have  the 
same  potential.  We  have  different  histor- 
ical, cultural,  social,  and  personal  expe- 
riences." 

Other  feminist  critics  say  that,  because 
most  women  are  not  raised  to  wield 
power  but  instead  to  respond  more  emo- 
tionally to  other  members  of  the  family 
and  community,  they  may  be  able  to 
offer  different  insights  into  investigations 
of  scientific  problems.  These  insights 
may  lead  to  greater  understanding  of  the 
world  around  us.  Because  most  of  the 
few  women  who  have  so  far  entered  sci- 
ence have  had  to  buy  into  the  masculine- 
objectivity-control  model,  the  world 
hasn't  had  a  chance  to  see  where  these 
insights  might  lead. 

It's  very  hard  to  resist  that  model 
because  it  is  at  the  very  center  of  our 
culture's  idea  of  science.  "Many  practic- 
ing scientists  think  this  whole  discussion 
is  ridiculous,"  says  Anne  Fausto- 
Sterling,  professor  of  biology  at  Brown 
University  and  author  of  Myths  of  Gen- 
der: Biological  Theories  About  Men  and 
Women.  "They're  so  convinced  of  their 


XIV       ALUMNI  MAGAZINE  CONSORTIUM 


ideology  that  the  criticism  is  inconceiv- 
able. It's  like  telling  a  fish  that  there's 
some  other  atmosphere  than  water." 

In  this  atmosphere,  certain  assump- 
tions hold  fast  and  influence  all  thoughts 
around  them.  "You  can  look  at  science 
as  a  system  of  discourse,"  says  chemistry 
professor  Stephen  J.  Weininger  of  Wor- 
cester Polytechnic  Institute.  He  studies 
the  influence  of  language  on  the  develop- 
ment of  science.  "Science  is  a  way  of 
talking  about  the  world,  and  so  part  of 
the  training  of  scientists  is  to  learn  their 
field's  language.  It  gives  people  an  inter- 
nal cohesion,  a  sense  of  belonging." 

Like  any  other  group,  says  Weininger, 
scientists  not  only  add  to  their  own  lan- 
guage, they  are  also  in  turn  greatly  influ- 
enced by  that  language.  "There's  cer- 
tainly a  heavy  metaphorical  content  to 
most  scientific  terminology,"  says 
Weininger.  "And  after  a  while  the  meta- 
phors, which  are  just  supposed  to  be  an 
aid  to  understanding,  become 
entrenched.  So  when  other  phenomena 
occur  that  don't  fit  into  the  discourse, 
they're  often  swept  under  the  rug." 

For  instance,  Weininger  explains,  one 
of  the  fundamental  metaphors  in  chemis- 
try is  that  of  molecular  structure.  These 
structures  are  conceived  as  existing  in 
three  dimensions  and  can  therefore  be 
imaginably  flipped  this  way  and  that  to 
reveal  different  aspects  to  the  mind's 
eye.  "There  are  kinds  of  physical  data 
that  seem  to  connect  with  the  3-D  con- 
cept," Weininger  says.  "The  measure- 
ments we  come  up  with  seem  to  work 
well  in  these  terms." 

About  30  years  ago,  Weininger  says,  a 
chemist  announced  that  he  was  going  to 
explain  these  measurements  without 
using  the  3-D  model.  His  article  wasn't 
even  accepted  for  publication,  even 
though  Weininger  says  that  there  were  no 
real  scientific  flaws  in  the  chemist's  rea- 
soning. Recently,  another  similar  paper 
was  published,  but  "even  though  non- 
molecular  explanations  of  chemistry  are 
starting  to  become  more  acceptable  now, 
there's  a  lot  of  heavy  resistance  to  the 
whole  idea,"  Weininger  says.  "We've 
been  indoctrinated  to  talk  about  phenom- 
ena in  certain  ways,  and  people  simply 
resist  other  metaphorical  explanations." 

The  feminist  critics  argue  that,  since 
the  time  of  Plato,  science  has  used  meta- 
phors to  describe  science  as  a  project  that 
can  be  carried  out  only  by  a  masculine 
mind.  And  because  the  culture  quite 
strictly  defines  what  "masculine" 
means,  science  itself  has  been  strictly 


confined  within  prescribed  definitions. 

According  to  Keller,  Plato  planted  the 
idea  in  the  Western  consciousness  that 
the  mind's  attainment  of  knowledge  is 
like  a  man's  attainment  of  an  ideal  sexual 
union.  As  Plato  wrote  in  the  Symposium, 
"When  a  man,  starting  from  this  sensible 
world  and  making  his  way  upward  by  a 
right  use  of  his  feeling  of  love  .  .  .  begins 
to  catch  sight  of  that  eternal  beauty,  he  is 
very  near  his  goal."  By  the  early  1600s, 


Individual  slime  mold  cells  aggregate  when 
food  runs  short.  But  what  causes  this? 

Francis  Bacon— whom  many  reckon  to 
be  the  "father"  of  modern  science- 
wrote  that  science  should  be  "a  chaste 
and  lawful  marriage  between  Mind  and 
Nature."  The  relationship,  as  Bacon 
envisioned  it,  was  not  one  between  near 
equals,  but  one  in  which  a  masculine 
mind  controls  and  dominates  a  feminine 
Nature.  Bacon  promises  a  budding  scien- 
tist that  he  will  "lead  to  you  Nature  with 
all  her  children  to  bind  her  to  your  serv- 
ice and  make  her  your  slave." 

The  founding  of  the  Royal  Society  in 
1662  marked  the  realization  of  Bacon's 
imperative  in  the  eyes  of  many  of  its 
members,  says  Keller.  A  secretary  of  the 
Society  announced  that  the  group  would 
"raise  a  Masculine  Philosophy  .  .  . 
whereby  the  Mind  of  Man  may  be  enno- 
bled with  the  knowledge  of  Solid 
Truths."  Joseph  Glanvill,  another  Soci- 
ety member,  warned  that  it  was  impos- 
sible to  discover  scientific  truth  if  the 
mind  didn't  maintain  this  masculine 
standpoint:  "The  Woman  in  us,  still 
prosecutes  a  deceit,  like  that  begun  in  the 
Garden;  and  our  Understandings  are 
wedded  to  an  Eve,  as  fatal  as  the  Mother 
of  our  miseries. " 

The  metaphors  of  contemporary  sci- 


ence still  support  science's  masculine 
bias,  Harding  says.  For  instance, 
Richard  Feynman,  in  summing  up  his 
1965  Nobel  Prize  speech,  said  his  attrac- 
tion to  his  early  theories  was  "like  falling 
in  love  with  a  woman."  The  love  sus- 
tained him  throughout  his  career,  even 
though  the  theory  has  undergone  change; 
the  theory  he  had  fallen  in  love  with  in 
his  youth,  he  said,  has  "become  an  old 
lady,  who  has  very  little  that's  attractive 
left  in  her,  and  the  young  today  will  not 
have  their  hearts  pound  when  they  look 
at  her  anymore.  But,  we  can  say  the  best 
we  can  for  any  old  woman,  that  she  has 
become  a  very  good  mother  and  has 
given  birth  to  some  very  good  children." 

And  the  bias  surfaces  even  in  the 
words  of  younger  women  in  science.  A 
researcher  and  assistant  professor  at  a 
prestigious  technological  university 
recently  said,  when  asked  if  she  had  ever 
encountered  sexism  in  her  studies  or 
career,  "I  have  to  say  that  I've  never  felt 
as  though  I've  run  into  any  barriers.  But 
I've  always  been  very  mathematically 
and  analytically  inclined.  I  have  maybe 
more  of  what  people  consider  a  mascu- 
line mind,  so  I  haven't  had  any  trou- 
bles." 

The  problem  with  the  pervasiveness  of 
this  bias  in  scientific  metaphors  is  two- 
fold, according  to  Keller,  Harding,  and 
others:  It  not  only  reveals  a  basic  flaw  in 
science,  it  perpetuates  it.  That  flaw  is 
that  scientists  psychologically  distance 
themselves  from  nature  and  its  processes 
because  they  unconsciously  accept  a  for- 
mulation of  the  world  as  based  on  a 
male-female  dichotomy:  The  scientist  is 
masculine  and  virile  while  nature  is  fem- 
inine and  passive.  Scientists  are  then 
more  prone  to  see  everything  in  terms  of 
dichotomy:  male  vs.  female;  scientist  vs. 
nature;  rational  vs.  irrational.  And  since 
things  can  be  divided,  they  can  also  be 
arranged  in  hierarchies  with  higher  ele- 
ments controlling  lower  elements. 

There  are  bound  to  be  troubles  if  a  sci- 
entist isn't  perceived  as  having  a  mascu- 
line mind,  says  Keller.  She  cites  the  case 
of  Barbara  McClintock,  whose  genetic 
theories  were  considered  heretical  for 
more  than  20  years  before  they  were  rec- 
ognized as  breakthroughs  and  McClin- 
tock was  awarded  a  Nobel  Prize.  While 
studying  corn  seedlings,  McClintock  had 
noticed  that  some  of  the  plants  had 
mutations— patches  of  color  that 
shouldn't  have  appeared  where  they  did. 
She  observed  these  patches  occurring  in 
patterns  that  could  be  deciphered  as 


NOVEMBER  1986       XV 


exhibiting  the  plant's  underlying  genetic 
history— when  and  how  frequently  in  the 
plant's  life  the  mutation  had  taken  place. 
To  McClintock,  the  pattern  revealed  that 
each  plant  had  its  own  rate  of  mutation, 
which  remained  unchanged  throughout 
its  life  cycle.  This  meant  something  was 
controlling  the  rate  of  mutation,  she  the- 
orized. 

McClintock  eventually  identified  fac- 
tors on  the  plant's  chromosomes  that 
work  cooperatively  to  move  one  of  the 
factors  to  another  chromosomal  position. 
This  movement  changed  the  course  of 
the  cell's  development.  McClintock  saw 
this  not  as  an  abnormal  process,  but  as 
the  normal  process  of  cell  differentiation 
happening  at  an  abnormal  time.  The 
implication,  as  she  announced  at  the 
Cold  Spring  Harbor  Symposium  in  195 1 , 
was  that  interdependent,  organized  sys- 
tems of  factors  in  the  cell's  nucleus,  not 
independent  genes  alone,  determine  the 
cell's  future. 

McClintock's  colleagues  treated  her 
theories  with  disbelief.  Many  thought 
she  had  jumped  the  rails,  completely 
abandoning  the  scientific  track.  The  idea 
that  a  regulation  mechanism  rather  than 
random  genetic  variation  was  involved  in 
genetic  heredity  was  at  odds  with  the 
neo-Darwinian  doctrine  of  the  time,  Kel- 
ler says.  In  fact,  it  smacked  of  Lamarck- 
ism:  McClintock  had  proposed  that 
organisms  evolved  by  actively  respond- 
ing to  their  environment  rather  than  by 
passing  on  random  variations  that  better 
equipped  them  to  cope. 

Things  got  worse  for  McClintock.  The 
big  news  in  1953  was  the  Watson-Crick 
DNA  model.  Having  discovered  DNA's 
structure,  the  two  men  proposed  that 
DNA  was  the  cell's  ultimate  dictator:  It 
passed  on  orders  and  information  to 
other  components  in  the  cell,  but  never 
itself  accepted  any  orders  or  information. 
The  genetic  flow  of  command  was  one- 
way. 

Like  other  biologists,  McClintock  was 
excited  about  the  new  model,  but  had 
more  reservations  than  did  most  of  her 
colleagues,  says  Keller.  McClintock 
thought  the  model  tried  to  explain  too 
much  and  erred  in  reducing  an  incredibly 
complex  function  to  a  small  series  of  rel- 
atively simple  steps.  But  despite  her  res- 
ervations, the  rest  of  the  scientific  com- 
munity enthusiastically  embraced  the 
theory.  And  that  meant  that  McClin- 
tock's models  became  even  more  unac- 
ceptable. 

Finally  in  the  1970s,  when  molecular 


biologists  realized  that  genetic  mobility 
did  occur,  McClintock's  work  was  rec- 
ognized as  being  fundamentally  impor- 
tant to  a  complete  understanding  of 
genetics. 

Keller  argues  that  McClintock's  posi- 
tion as  a  woman  in  a  nearly  all-male  field 
and  the  obstacles  this  position  presented 
to  her  encouraged  in  her  a  belief  that 
establishment  views  were  not  necessarily 
correct.  McClintock  matches  a  psycho- 

\ 


P*v*« 


N 


-T"\ 


mk 


r/-~\ 


Barbara  McClintock  was  branded  a  heretic. 
But  her  theories  have  gained  supporters. 

logical  profile  Keller  describes  of  a 
"gender-free"  scientist,  one  without  the 
scientist-vs. -nature  dichotomy  and  hier- 
archy. McClintock  does  not  believe  that 
science  will  ever  be  able  to  "master" 
nature,  but  instead  that  nature  is  infi- 
nitely more  resourceful  than  our  capacity 
to  understand  it.  In  an  interview  with 
Keller,  McClintock  asserted,  "There's 
no  such  thing  as  a  central  dogma  into 
which  everything  will  fit."  Instead  of 
imposing  models  on  nature  and  then  dis- 
counting phenomena  that  don't  fit, 
McClintock  feels  it's  necessary  to  "let 
the  experiment  tell  you  what  to  do,"  and 
to  recognize  seemingly  strange  occur- 
rences not  as  exceptions  to  the  rule  but  as 
clues  to  the  larger  picture. 


Tl 
i 


'his  is  much  more  threatening  than 
getting  women  into  science  and 
letting  them  play,"  says  Leslie 
Burlingame,  associate  professor  in  the 
history  and  philosophy  of  science  depart- 
ment at  Franklin  and  Marshall  College. 
She  says  she  isn't  sure  about  the  validity 
of  the  feminist  critique.  "But  even  if  it 
doesn't  totally  revolutionize  science,  it 
will  shake  people  up." 
That's  what  the  feminists  are  hoping. 


They  believe  science  has  been  allowed  to 
become  complacent  about  its  assump- 
tions and  methods,  practically  to  set 
itself  up  as  an  infallible  institution.  "It's 
a  process  that  modern  science  itself 
started— the  idea  that  you  want  to  include 
a  maximal  vision,  that  you  don't  assume 
preconceptions  are  right,"  says  Harding. 
"But  they  won't  submit  to  the  process 
themselves.  There's  a  belief  that  science 
is  a  fundamentally  unique  kind  of  social 
activity."  The  critics'  prescription:  Sci- 
entists, research  thy  selves.  Says  Fausto- 
Sterling,  "Science  is  a  social  process  that 
requires  the  same  kind  of  analysis  as  any 
other  discipline." 

Some  scientists  who  may  be  willing  to 
entertain  the  idea  that  there  may  be  basic 
problems  with  modern  science  still  have 
grave  reservations  about  the  feminists' 
critiques.  Rouzer  cautions  that  science 
needs  to  train  young  scientists  for  a  truer 
objectivity.  But  she  isn't  sure  that  gender 
is  the  problem:  "It's  almost  as  if  they're 
saying  that,  if  you're  narrow-minded  and 
controlling  you're  masculine  and  if 
you're  imaginative  you're  feminine.  I'm 
not  sure  that  that's  fair." 

Rouzer  may  be  right— women  might 
be  just  as  control-oriented  as  men.  "It 
might  be  true  that  women  would  come 
up  with  the  same  framework  as  men 
have,"  says  O'Donnell,  "but  they  might 
not.  The  point  is  that  a  different 
approach  hasn't  been  given  a  chance." 
Again,  the  feminists  point  out  that,  for 
all  the  complaints  they  have,  they  aren't 
proposing  throwing  out  the  baby  with  the 
bathwater.  "We  don't  stop  speaking 
English,"  Harding  says,  "just  because 
we  find  out  it's  sexist." 

How  would  science  be  different  if  men 
weren't  in  control?  "Keller  and  other 
feminist  critics  are  insisting  on  permis- 
sion for  difference,"  says  Ruth  Perry, 
director  of  women's  studies  at  the  Mas- 
sachusetts Institute  of  Technology.  "The 
alternative  is  not  to  replace  science,  but 
to  exhibit  and  consider  differences  in 
approach."  In  other  words,  there  is  no 
"feminist  science"  to  take  the  place  of 
established  science.  At  least  for  now: 
"No  critic  is  obliged  to  come  up  with  a 
blueprint  for  the  future,"  says  Fausto- 
Sterling.  "These  are  thoughts  that 
weren't  even  permissible  10  years  ago. 
We  need  now  to  break  out  of  the  first 
generation  of  questions." 

Leslie  Brunetta  is  moving  on  from  the 
Alumni  Magazine  Consortium  to  become 
a  free-lancer  in  Boston. 


XVI       ALUMNI  MAGAZINE  CONSORTIUM 


The 

Goal 

Is  in  die 

Striving 

Says  EE  Professor 

Dan  H.  Wolaver, 

WPI's  Outstanding 

Teacher  of  the  Year. 


By  Shirley  Standring 
Photos  by  Michael  Carroll 


T 


'  r  ■  ^  eaching  is  the  most  mysteri- 
ous of  all  the  arts,"  Dan 
Wolaver  asserts,  "because  the 
good  teacher  must  constantly  examine 
'What  is  thought?'  and  'What  is  the 
process  of  understanding?'  It's  an  excit- 
ing profession  because  you're  never 
through  learning  about  it.  There  isn't  any 
one  best  way  to  teach.  You're  constantly 
striving  for  a  goal  you  never  reach,  but 
the  goal  lies  in  the  striving,  in  bringing  a 
freshness  to  your  classroom." 

Wolaver  has  been  honored  by  his  stu- 
dents and  colleagues  with  the  1986  WPI 
Board  of  Trustees'  Award  for  Outstand- 
ing Teaching.  "This  honor,"  says  Wil- 
liam H.  Roadstrum,  professor  emeritus 
of  electrical  engineering  and  a  close  col- 
league of  Wolaver's,  "places  Dan  on  a 
footing  with  past  recipients  such  as  John 
M.  Boyd,  Ralph  Heller,  and  C.  William 
Shipman,  to  name  a  few,  in  the  very  top 


of  a  top  class  of  distinguished  profession- 
als." 

Adds  Roadstrum,  "Dan's  personality 
is  ideally  suited  to  teaching.  He's  able  to 
carry  his  enthusiasm  over  to  the  students, 
he  is  conscientious  about  his  method, 
and  he  knows  exactly  what  he's  going  to 
do  when  he  goes  into  the  classroom." 

Created  in  1960  to  honor  Professor 
Hobart  H.  Ne well's  distinguished  career 
in  education,  the  award  has  been  given 
each  year  to  recognize  WPI's  most  out- 
standing teacher. 

In  the  award's  early  years,  faculty 
members  determined  among  themselves 
who  would  be  honored,  according  to 
Dean  of  Academic  Advising  John  van 
Alstyne  (himself  the  1970  recipient), 
who  has  served  on  the  selection  commit- 
tee many  times.  But  for  the  last  15  years, 
the  committee's  deliberations  have 
included  student  input  as  well.  The  com- 
mittee is  appointed  by  the  dean  of  the 
faculty  and  consists  of  five  faculty  mem- 
bers and  five  students. 

Says  Robert  Long  II,  associate  profes- 
sor of  physics  and  selection  committee 


FALL  1986       35 


"A  hunch  can  bring 

students  closer  to  an 

answer,  and  they  often 

learn  something  by 

going  through  the 


process 


yy 


chairman  for  1986,  "It's  a  thorough  and 
time-consuming  process,  and  we  try  hard 
not  to  let  our  decision  leak  to  the  rest  of 
the  campus  before  the  recipient  is 
announced  at  the  annual  Faculty  Dinner 
in  the  spring. 

"I  read  each  letter  this  year  looking  for 
the  items  students  seemed  to  value  most. 
In  those  letters  recommending  Dan,  they 
all  mentioned  his  availability  outside  of 
the  classroom,  his  style  of  presentation, 
his  concern  for  students,  and  his  ability 
to  relate  to  a  situation  in  such  a  way  that 
students  readily  learn  new  material." 

Says  Wolaver  of  the  honor,  "It  says  to 
me  that  what  I  have  been  trying  to  do  is 
successful,  that  somebody  appreciates  it. 
It's  the  ultimate  to  me,  to  be  the  teacher 
of  the  year." 


A  transplanted  midwesterner  who  has 
Z^come  to  love  the  Eastern  land- 
JL  JL  scape  and  its  beautiful  color, 
Wolaver  says  he  has  always  been  inter- 
ested in  teaching.  He  was  influenced  by 
an  uncle,  also  an  engineer  and  teacher, 
who  worked  for  General  Electric  before 
settling  into  an  academic  position. 
Wolaver  obtained  a  bachelor's  degree  in 
electrical  engineering  from  Rensselaer 
Polytechnic  Institute  in  1964  and  M.S. 
and  Ph.D.  degrees  from  the  Massachu- 
setts Institute  of  Technology  (MIT).  He 
then  joined  the  technical  staff  of  Bell 
Labs.  An  MIT  advisor,  Wolaver  recalls, 
had  praised  Bell's  leadership  in  research 
as  a  good  preface  to  academia. 

Wolaver  remembers  his  baptism  into 
the  business  world  as  "a  dip  into  a  cold 


36       WPI  JOURNAL 


stream.  I  hadn't  touched  a  slide  rule  in 
two  years,  and  my  research  had  become 
unapplied,  dealing  in  theoretical  con- 
cepts rather  than  in  making  things  work. 
It  was  a  difficult  awakening  when  I  had 
to  have  a  project  built  and  working." 

The  project  was  a  high-speed  digital 
transmission  system  with  an  automatic 
equalizer.  "I  was  in  control  of  the  theory, 
but  I  couldn't  find  the  bugs  that  kept  the 
system  from  working.  I  avoided  the  lab, 
and  spent  a  lot  of  time  at  the  computer, 
where  I  could  simulate  the  processes.  It 
was  not  an  easy  time  for  me.  But  I  kept 
banging  my  head  against  real  problems 
and  began  to  lose  my  fear  of  the  bugs  I 
couldn't  understand.  Eventually,  I 
worked  it  out,  and  I  learned  a  valuable 
lesson  as  well." 


Wolaver  credits  his  experience  at  Bell 
Labs  with  instilling  in  him  three  impor- 
tant concepts  that  he  tries  to  pass  along  to 
his  students:  the  importance  of  creativ- 
ity; understanding  how  practical  con- 
straints influence  a  project's  design;  and 
the  need  for  clear,  concise  written  and 
oral  communication  on  a  project. 

Wolaver  spent  10  years  with  Bell 
Labs,  obtaining  the  practical  experience 
he  felt  he  needed  before  facing  a  class- 
room of  eager  young  students.  Several 
factors,  he  recalls,  convinced  him  that 
the  time  was  right  to  leave  industry  for 
academia.  "My  uncle  spent  about  10 
years  in  industry,  and  the  timing  seemed 
right  for  him.  My  wife  deserves  a  lot  of 
the  credit,  too.  She  would  clip  ads  for 
teaching  positions  and  leave  them  for  me 
to  read,"  Wolaver  laughs. 

Perhaps  the  determining  factor  was  his 
last  assignment  at  Bell.  The  project 
involved  a  lot  of  circuit  design,  and 
Wolaver  approached  it  with  the  assur- 
ance of  a  veteran  engineer.  "I  had  full 
responsibility  for  it,"  he  says.  "When  I 
had  completed  it,  and  could  see  the 
whole  picture  and  make  it  work,  there 
were  no  more  dark  corners  of  electrical 
engineering.  It  gave  me  a  great  deal  of 
confidence." 

Wolaver's  first  introduction  to  WPI 
was  through  an  article  in  an  IEEE  (Insti- 
tute of  Electrical  and  Electronic  Engi- 
neers) professional  journal  about  the 
WPI  Plan.  "The  Plan's  emphasis  on  edu- 
cation through  projects  intrigued  me,"  he 
says,  and  he  applied  for  a  faculty  posi- 
tion here. 

William  Roadstrum  remembers  his 
friend's  introductory  lecture  to  the  EE 
Department:  "I  realized  immediately 
that  Dan  was  unusual.  He  gave  quite  a 
good  talk,  but  there  was  something  else 
about  him.  He  was  so  open  and  full  of 
ideas.  My  colleagues  must  have  recog- 
nized it  as  well  because  an  offer  was 
made  and  Dan  joined  the  faculty." 

Wolaver  remembers  the  emphasis  his 
WPI  interviewers  placed  on  teaching. 
"Every   other  college   dwelt   on   my 


"Students  believe 

teachers  think  in 

equations  because 

that's  what  we  write 

on  the  board.  But 

sometimes  pictures 

explain  things  best." 


FALL  1986       37 


"Engineering  is  a 

harmonious  process, 

and  what  you 

accomplish  is  more  the 

discovery  of  order 

that's  already  there 

than  the  cold  process 

of  putting  blocks 

together." 


research  at  Bell.  Whenever  I  brought  up 
education,  they  dismissed  it  quickly, 
commenting  that  good  teaching  was 
expected.  At  WPI,  my  interviewers 
never  mentioned  research.  They  wanted 
to  talk  about  education.  I  was  also 
impressed  with  the  faculty,  particularly 
John  Orr  and  the  late  Donald  Eteson." 

Joining  the  faculty  in  1979,  Wolaver 
immersed  himself  in  his  new  profession. 
He  set  out  to  impart  to  his  students  valu- 
able gifts  like  confidence  along  with  a 
thorough  knowledge  of  electrical  engi- 
neering. He  became  a  student  of  teaching 
theory  and  methods,  and  gained  a  reputa- 
tion for  the  all-too-often  elusive  ability  to 
relate  information  to  his  students  clearly 
and  concisely.  It  is  a  skill  that  Wolaver 
has  painfully  scrutinized  in  others  and 
developed  for  himself. 

"Students  have  more  confidence  in 
what  they  are  being  taught  if  they  can  see 
how  they  would  have  arrived  at  the  solu- 
tion by  working  at  it  themselves.  Stu- 
dents need  to  be  taught  in  small  steps  so 
they  don't  get  lost,  but  the  steps  must  be 
logical." 

Adds  Wolaver,  "We  must  let  students 
experience  the  mental  dilemma  of 
'Where  do  I  go  from  here?'  long  enough 
to  feel  the  problem,  but  not  so  long  that 
they  become  discouraged."  The  process 
is  what  William  Roadstrum  speaks  of  as 
"controlled  agony."  "I  don't  want  my 
students  to  suffer  fear  and  uncertainty  to 
the  extent  that  I  did,"  says  Wolaver. 

Standing  before  a  class,  he  isn't  con- 
tent merely  to  teach  the  elements  of  a 
circuit  breaker,  for  example,  and  the 
process  by  which  it  works.  He  wants  his 
students  to  know  why  that  circuit  breaker 
has  been  so  designed,  and  to  understand 
how  the  constraints  laid  upon  the 
designer  influenced  the  design. 

"Some  educators  believe  that  analysis 
is  the  most  important  ingredient  to 
design,  that  if  you  analyze  long  enough, 
you  can  design,"  he  says.  "But  it's  an 
entirely  different  philosophy  when  you 
begin  with  the  problem  and  work  your 
way  through  to  the  solution.  Part  of  this 


kind  of  learning  is  knowing  through 
analysis  the  many  different  things  that 
will— and  won't— work.  But  you  can't 
create  a  design  until  you  know  what  you 
want  the  system  to  do.  That's  why  the 
MQP  [Major  Qualifying  Project]  is  so 
valuable.  Students  really  learn  design 
here." 

Wolaver  launches  into  an  explanation 
of  a  typical  MQP.  Ideally,  he  explains,  a 
student  will  begin  with  a  loosely  defined 
problem:  "Let's  say  I,  a  student,  want  to 
identify  an  abnormal  heartbeat.  I  must 
first  decide  how  to  do  it.  Will  I  monitor 
the  pulse,  the  heart  sounds,  electrical 


38       WPI  JOURNAL 


signals  or  some  other  function?  Once 
I've  decided  on  the  process,  I  must  deter- 
mine what  features  will  then  define 
normal/abnormal  qualities.  Next,  I 
decide  on  a  circuit  to  seek  out  those  fea- 
tures. This  step  involves  the  nitty-gritty 
of  circuit  operation.  This  is  the  design 
process  emphasized  at  WPI,  and  only  a 
fraction  of  it  relies  on  the  ability  to  ana- 
lyze. 

"Teaching  the  creative  process  is 
much  harder  than  teaching  analysis,"  he 
goes  on.  Wolaver  believes  that  truly  cre- 
ative designers  have  difficulty  explaining 
where  their  designs  come  from.   At 


times,  he  says,  they  seem  to  come  from 
nowhere. 

"My  thinking  process  includes  visual- 
ization. I  encourage  my  students  to  plot 
their  equations.  This  helps  them  to  get  an 
overview  of  their  thoughts  by  seeing  a 
picture.  Often,  students  believe  teachers 
think  in  equations  because  that's  what  we 
write  on  the  board.  Sometimes  pictures 
explain  things  more  clearly. 

"I  also  encourage  students  to  try 
things,"  he  says.  "Usually  students  feel 
they  need  to  go  straight  to  a  solution; 
they  feel  that  playing  around  with  an  idea 
is  unprofessional.   I  don't  care  if  the 


"Students  have  more 

confidence  in  what 

they  are  being  taught  if 

they  can  arrive  at  a 

solution  by  working  at 

it  themselves." 


V, 


answer  they  arrive  at  is  wrong.  Their 
hunch  may  have  brought  them  one  step 
closer  to  the  answer  that  works,  and  they 
may  have  learned  something  by  going 
through  the  process." 

Beyond  all  of  the  preparation  for  work- 
ing as  an  electrical  engineer,  Wolaver 
feels  he  must  introduce  students  to  the 
enjoyment  of  being  an  engineer.  "If  they 
don't  enjoy  it,  there's  no  point  in  playing 
the  game.  Creativity  is  the  necessary 
ingredient  for  enjoying  the  adventure  of 
engineering.  There's  also  joy  in  interact- 
ing with  others  involved  with  the  enter- 
prise and  in  identifying  a  practical  need 
of  mankind  and  providing  a  working 
answer. 

"WPI  is  very  strong  on  encouraging 
students  to  maintain  their  sights  on  the 
use  of  a  product  or  a  process.  They 
should  ask  themselves  what  the  benefits 
to  society  are  of  transportation,  stereo 


40       WPI  JOURNAL 


televisions,  and  missile  guidance  sys- 
tems, for  example.  If.  in  their  efforts  as 
engineers,  they  feel  it's  more  important 
to  make  transportation  safer,  they  should 
do  that  instead  of  designing  stereo  TVs. 
WPI  offers  students  opportunities  to 
examine  issues  of  social  awareness." 

Wolaver  says  he  loves  to  see  ideas  that 
at  first  look  strange  and  complex  begin  to 
make  sense.  "Engineering  is  not  terribly 
different  from  the  arts,"  he  contends. 
"Whether  you're  designing  a  system  or 
composing  a  piece  of  music,  rules  must 
be  followed.  The  way  in  which  things 
fall  together  is  harmonious,  and  it  seems 
that  what  you're  accomplishing  is  more 
the  discovery  of  order  that's  already  there 
than  the  cold  process  of  putting  blocks 
together." 

His  mind  seems  to  race  to  all 
facets  of  a  question.  Yet 
Wolaver  answers  slowly  when 
asked  about  future  goals.  He  admits  that 
he's  looking  forward  to  publishing  a  new 
book.  Electrical  Engineering  for  All 
Engineers,  which  he  co-authored  with 
William  Roadstrum,  and,  of  course,  to 
teaching  better. 

Also,  he  sees  the  need  for  more  com- 
munication with  his  colleagues  in  both 
EE  and  other  departments:  "If  I  can  say 
to  my  students,  'This  follows  from  what 
you  learned  from  Professor  X.'  I  can 
build  on  that  concept.  But  I  have  to  know 
what's  being  taught." 

He  suggests  several  avenues  of  inter- 
action with  colleagues:  more  team  teach- 
ing, joint  appointments  between  depart- 
ments, giving  the  faculty  opportunities  to 
work  together  on  research  projects,  and 
hosting  more  retreats  and  workshops. 

But,  he  says,  the  most  effective  inter- 
action comes  from  having  the  time  avail- 
able for  just  this  purpose— at  convenient 
places  on  campus  such  as  lounges  and 
the  faculty  dining  room  in  Higgins 
House, "We  have  to  continue  to  make 
this  kind  of  atmosphere  available  to  both 
faculty  and  students." 

A  believer  in  WPI.  the  Plan,  and  the 


mission  of  the  Institute.  Wolaver  is  not 
shy  in  expressing  his  dismay  over  the 
research/education  schizophrenia  with 
which  many  universities  grapple. 

"Many  students  don't  realize  the  bene- 
fits of  an  institution  that  emphasizes  edu- 
cation over  research  because  often  they 
don't  know  anything  else.  But  students 
who  have  gone  on  to  other  institutions 
have  commented  to  me  on  the  differ- 
ence. At  research-oriented  institutions, 
they  say  the  faculty  can  become  almost 
invisible.  Researchers  need  time  to  do 
their  own  work,  which  is  appropriate, 
but  at  what  expense  to  the  majority  of 
their  students? 

"The  whole  issue  of  research  vs.  edu- 
cation is  a  question  of  balance,"  Wolaver 
asserts.  "Presumably,  the  balance  can  be 
different  for  each  individual.  The  Plan 
did  a  lot  of  advertising  for  WPI.  but  you 
can't  be  famous  due  to  a  single  initiative 
for  very  long  unless  you  continue  the 
experiment. 

"Research  doesn't  have  to  be  only  in 
engineering,  science  or  the  humanities. 
It  should  also  be  in  teaching.  We  should 
be  writing  more  articles  about  new  meth- 
ods in  teaching.  These  ideas  should  be 
given  at  least  equal  weight  with  articles 
about  new  technologies." 

Beside  his  faculty  appointment, 
Wolaver  continues  to  consult  on  outside 
projects,  something  he  enjoys  very  much 
because  it  keeps  his  understanding  of  the 
field  current.  Often,  he  says,  some  ele- 
ment of  his  consulting  projects  becomes 
source  material  for  his  teaching. 

It  has  been  said  that  "Those  who  can, 
do.  and  those  who  can't,  teach." 
Wolaver  prefers  it  this  way:  "Those  who 
can,  do:  and  those  who  are  aware  of  how 
they  do  it.  teach.  The  doers  do,  and  the 
teachers  explain  how  the  doers  did  it. 

"To  be  a  good  teacher."  he  believes, 
"you  have  to  enjoy  the  doing  or  you 
don't  have  the  motivation  to  teach  the 
doing." 

Shirley  Standring  is  a  freelance  writer 
living  in  Spencer,  MA. 


"The  whole  issue  of 

research  vs.  teaching  is 

a  question  of  balance. 

Presumably,  that 

balance  can  be 

different  for  each 


of  us. 


yy 


FALL  1986       41 


THE  ENTREPRENEURIAL  SPIRIT 


FIFTH  IN  A  SERIES 


INSURING 

SUCCESS 


Each  letter  is  like  a 
guided  missile,  whis- 
tling down  the  center 
of  the  room-length 
sorting  machine  at  an  outra- 
geous rate  of  speed,  then  slam- 
ming into  a  zip-coded  cubby- 
hole. 

Fred  Stevens  '61  raises  his 
voice  to  be  heard  over  the  con- 
stant din  in  the  shop  at  Mail 
Processing  Systems  Inc.  (MPS) 
in  East  Hartford,  CT.  "We  pre- 
sort 5  million  pieces  of  first 

class  mail  a  week,"  the  MPS  vice  president  notes  proudly.  "A 
million  a  day." 

Stevens,  who  knows  more  about  mail  than  your  mailman, 
explains  the  workings  of  various  folding,  stamping,  scanning, 
sealing,  and  wrapping  machines.  He  seems  genuinely  to  like 
these  machines  because  he  understands  how  each  works- 
appreciates,  for  example,  the  elegant  simplicity  of  an  automatic 
letter- folding  machine.  He  is  equally  at  home  in  the  sleek  high- 
tech  room  where  a  bank  of  sophisticated  computers  and  high- 
speed laser  printers  churns  out  letters  by  the  thousands. 

"If  you  have  enough  mail,"  says  Stevens,  explaining  MPS's 

basic  premise,  "you  can  send  it  first  class  for  18  cents  instead 

of  22.  But  it  has  to  be  properly  sorted.  So  what  we  do  is  take  a 

company's  first  class  mail,  sort  it,  and  send  it  off." 

MPS  is  the  national-mail  presort  service  bureau  in  the  North- 

Frederic  A.  Stevens  '61,  computer  pioneer  for  the  insurance 
and  bulk  mailing  industries,  sits  outside  Sanford  Riley  Hall, 
his  residence  during  his  WPI  days.  Stevens  won  this  year's 
Robert  Goddard  '08  Award  for  professional  achievement. 


Frederic  A.  Stevens  '61  first  made  his 

mark  providing  insurance  companies 

with  software.  Now  he's 

delivering  their  mail 


By  Michael  Shanley 


east.  The  company  deals  with 
major  mailers  in  Boston,  Hart- 
ford, and  New  York,  many  of 
them  insurance  companies  like 
Travelers,  Aetna,  Connecticut 
General,  and  John  Hancock. 
"There  are  other  companies 
like  ours,"  Stevens  says,  "but 
we've  pretty  much  got  the 
national  mail  locked  up. 
Nobody  else  in  the  area  can 
presort  mail  to  all  50  states." 

The  company  also  offers 
electronic  printing  and  data- 
processing  services— developed  by  Stevens  when  he  joined  the 
company  two  years  ago— that  can  create  a  piece  of  mail  from  a 
company's  magnetic  tape.  Consider,  for  example,  statement 
processing  for  a  credit  union,  a  growing  new  MPS  service.  The 
traditional  procedure  is  for  a  credit  union  to  produce  monthly  or 
quarterly  statements  in-house— a  time-consuming  and  labor- 
intensive  process.  MPS,  on  the  other  hand,  can  reprocess  a 
company's  data  and  print  the  statements  on  a  state-of-the-art 
laser  printer,  producing  the  entire  document  in  an  instant. 
Headings,  logos,  numbers,  gray  panels,  whatever,  are  laser- 
generated,  at  one  time,  in  one  pass,  on  both  sides  of  the  paper. 
Clients  save  on  paper  as  well  as  postage  costs.  The  operation 
then  moves  to  MPS's  mail  shop,  where  the  statements  are 
folded,  inserted  in  window  envelopes,  and  presorted. 

"We  offer  one-stop  shopping,"  says  Stevens,  who  in  June 
won  WPI's  Robert  Goddard  '08  Award  for  outstanding  profes- 
sional achievement.  "You  send  us  the  tape,  and  we  take  care  of 
everything  else,  including  mailing.  And  we  do  it  in  less  turn- 
around time  than  you  could  do  it  in-house." 
Some  of  MPS's  clients,  however,  use  only  the  mail  shop 


FALL  1986       43 


If  you're  persistent  enough  to  get  through  a 
drought,  then  one  day  something  will 
click— and  business  will  flourish." 


service.  "They  send  us  their  mail  with  18  cents  postage  and  we 
sort  it  in  one  of  two  ways.  Either  we'll  use  the  presort  machine, 
which  'reads'  only  certain  type  fonts,  or  we  do  it  by  hand." 
Despite  all  the  high-tech  hardware  at  MPS,  fully  half  the  sort- 
ing is  done  the  old-fashioned  way— by  hand.  Many  of  the  400 
employees  who  work  on  one  of  the  company's  three  shifts 
simply  sift  through  mountains  of  mail,  arranging  it  in  zip  code 
order. 

MPS  is  much  more  than  just  a  printing  and  mailing  house, 
however.  And  the  crucial  difference  is  the  combination  of  data 
processing  and  electronic  printing. 

As  Stevens  says,  "There's  a  big  advantage  for  us  in  massag- 
ing the  data  and  getting  it  to  print  in  a  unique  manner.  One  of 
our  credit  union  customers,  for  example,  can't  just  get  up  and 
walk  away.  We  print  some  pretty  complex  material  for  them, 
and  if  they  want  to  stay  with  that  capability,  they've  got  to  stay 
with  us  because  nobody  else  can  do  it. 

"If  they  were  to  take  what  we're  doing  to  some  other  printing 
company  that  has  a  Xerox  printer  and  say  'Here,  we  want  you 
to  produce  this  format  statement  like  Mail  Processing  Systems 
does,'  they  wouldn't  be  able  to  do  it  because  without  the  data 
processing  end,  you  can't  do  what  we're  doing.  We've  put  a  lot 
of  investment  into  building  computer  programs  and  we've  got  a 
proprietary  product." 

Total  sales  for  MPS  are  currently  at  about  $6  million,  up 
from  about  $3.5  million  when  Stevens  came  on  board  two 
years  ago. 

In  1970,  back  when  the  word  entrepreneur  was  hardly 
ever  used  off  Wall  Street,  Stevens  and  a  colleague, 
Robert  Maltempo,  left  the  comfortable  fold  of  Aetna 
Life  and  Casualty  to  form  Vantage  Computer  Systems. 
They  had  $12,000,  borrowed  from  a  friend  of  Maltempo 's. 

Vantage  would  go  on  to  enjoy  unprecedented  success  in  the 
writing  of  software  programs  for  insurance  companies,  but  not 
before  going  through  some  hard  times.  Stevens,  a  physics 
major  at  WPI,  chuckles  when  asked  if  there  was  ever  a  time 
when  he  was  unsure  Vantage  would  be  a  success.  "I  had  no 
conception  it  would  ever  work,"  he  admits. 

"The  environment  was  much  different  then,"  explains 
Stevens,  who  currently  lives  in  South  Glastonbury  with  his 
wife,  Guerri,  a  programmer  and  systems  analyst  who  occasion- 


ally does  work  for  MPS.  "The  whole  idea  of  software  firms 
hadn't  been  established.  Most  corporations  had  their  own  data 
processing  divisions  and  developed  their  own  software.  They 
wouldn't  buy  any  from  outside." 

Struggling  against  tradition,  Stevens,  Maltempo,  and  a  hand- 
ful of  employees  kept  at  it  for  several  years,  working  for  indi- 
vidual companies  on  a  time  plus  materials  basis,  or,  as  Stevens 
puts  it,  "for  whatever  it  took. 

"Those  were  some  lean  years,"  Stevens  recalls  with  a  smile. 
"There  were  times  when  you  almost  felt  like  giving  up." 

Basically,  Stevens  was  the  technical  expert  and  Maltempo 
the  salesman.  But  in  the  early  years,  they  each  did  a  little  of 
everything.  "For  a  while  there,"  Stevens  says,  "I  was  chief 
systems  designer,  programming  manager,  operations 
manager— anyone  on  the  technical  side  of  the  business  reported 
to  me.  And  in  many  situations,  you're  not  only  the  chief  man- 
ager but  the  chief  doer  as  well." 

In  1977-78,  things  started  to  come  together.  "We  finally 
developed  an  actual  product,"  Stevens  explains,  a  pre- 
packaged computer  program,  aimed  at  insurance  companies, 
that  would  handle  the  complex  bookkeeping  involved  in  vari- 
able annuities.  A  hot  new  product  at  the  time,  variable  annui- 
ties allow  customers  to  vary  the  premiums  paid  on  retirement 
savings  and  give  them  shares  of  investment  funds  separate  from 
an  insurer's  general  fund. 

Vantage's  computer  software  was  so  good  that  it  made  all  the 
insurance  companies'  in-house  programs  virtually  obsolete. 
Soon  all  the  biggies  were  at  little  Vantage's  door. 

Stevens  and  Maltempo  then  added  computer  programs  for 
other  non-traditional  insurance  products— flexible  premium 
retirement  annuities  and  universal  life  policies.  Such  products 
require  enormously  complex  accounting  procedures.  As  an 
insurance  executive  puts  it,  "It  gets  hairy.  You're  carrying  lots 
of  buckets.  If  you  change  interest  rates,  you  can  have  three  or 
four  buckets  for  each  year  carried  forward  forever." 

Stevens  once  calculated  that  the  25,000-line  variable  annuity 
program  took  the  equivalent  of  four  man-years  of  effort  to 
produce.  By  the  same  token,  it  took  50  man-years  to  perfect  a 
5,000,000-line  universal  life  program.  The  insurance  compa- 
nies paid  accordingly. 

A  second  major  development  in  Vantage's  growth  came  with 
the  advent  of  the  individual  retirement  account,  or  IRA.  IRAs 


44       WPI  JOURNAL 


were  first  developed  around  1976,  Stevens  recalls.  "At  the 
same  time  we  were  trying  to  sell  our  variable  annuity  system  to 
John  Hancock  in  Boston.  They  told  us  about  this  new  product 
they  were  trying  to  get  on  the  street  right  away.  It  was  a  fixed 
annuity  for  the  IRA  market. 

"We  changed  course  and  modified  our  variable  annuity  sys- 
tem to  be  primarily  a  fixed  interest  annuity  system  and  installed 
it  for  John  Hancock.  Then  we  sold  a  number  of  other  programs 
to  different  companies.  That  got  us  well  on  the  way  to  becom- 
ing a  major  vendor  in  the  annuity  market. 

"Eventually  we  made  a  crucial  change  to  the  annuity  system 
and  we  became  the  vendor.  If  you  wanted  a  system  to  process 
annuities  for  the  insurance  business,  you  called  Vantage.  It  was 
that  simple." 

While  discussing  these  Vantage  boom  years,  Stevens  takes 
the  time  to  point  out  a  crucial  aspect  of  the  entrepreneurial 
spirit.  "People  say  to  me,  'You  were  pretty  lucky  to  be  there 
when  the  IRA  product  came  around.'  And  I  say,  'Well,  you  can 
look  at  it  as  luck  or  you  can  look  at  it  as  persistence.'  If  you're 
persistent  enough  and  you  can  live  through  these  things,  then 
probably  one  day  you're  going  to  find  something  that  clicks  and 
you'll  be  in  business. 

"The  IRA  opportunity  was  there  for  a  lot  of  people,  but  there 
weren't  many  who  were  in  a  position  to  take  advantage  of  it." 

Stevens  also  notes  the  importance  of  a  broad-based  knowl- 
edge of  a  given  field.  In  the  same  way  that  he's  learned  more 
about  mail  processing  than  seems  necessary  for  his  position,  he 
once  studied  every  aspect  of  the  insurance  business. 

"My  background  was  primarily  in  the  technical  end,"  he  says 
of  the  Vantage  days,  "but  if  you're  going  to  be  successful  in 
software  you've  got  to  understand  the  business  you're  dealing 
with.  So  I  got  to  know  a  lot  about  life  insurance.  For  example,  I 
had  to  learn  enough  actuarial  mathematics  to  talk  to  actuaries  in 
their  own  language.  With  insurance  products,  you're  dealing 
with  very  complex  situations.  You  have  to  be  able  to  under- 
stand what  these  people  are  telling  you,  and  often  what  they're 
telling  you  isn't  explainable  in  any  other  way  except  the  mathe- 
matics. So  you  study  it  and  you  learn  it." 

Ironically,  it  was  Vantage's  success  that  ultimately  caused 
Stevens  to  leave.  "It  got  too  big  for  me,"  he  says  of  the  com- 
pany that  now  employs  about  150  people,  most  of  them  profes- 


"To  be  successful  in  developing  software 

means  you've  got  to  know  a  lot  about  the 

industry  you're  dealing  with." 


sionals.  "I  prefer  smaller  companies,  watching  them  grow. 
MPS  has  more  employees  overall,  but  only  a  handful  are  in  the 
professional  end." 

Stevens  did,  however,  retain  a  major  interest  in  Vantage  until 
last  spring,  when  he  sold  his  remaining  stock  and  resigned  as  a 
director. 

"I  like  the  challenge  of  building  an  operation,"  Stevens  says 
of  his  decision  to  join  MPS.  He  had  taken  some  time  off  and 
served  as  a  consultant  after  leaving  Vantage  in  December  of 
1983.  "I  like  learning  new  things.  I  think  of  myself  as  a  tech- 
nologist in  that  I  can  understand  technology  and  put  it  to  work. 
And  I've  got  a  broad  enough  background  so  that  I  can  under- 
stand a  lot  of  different  fields.  Here  at  MPS  I'm  getting  inter- 
ested in  desktop  printing  and  electronic  publishing— the  whole 
process  of  getting  words  on  paper.  We've  only  just  begun  to  go 
in  that  direction." 

Stevens  traces  the  direction  of  his  own  career  back  to 
WPI.  "There  was  a  very  small  computer  in  the  math 
department,"  he  says.  "I  was  using  it  for  some  of  my 
work  in  physics,  and  got  very  interested  in  program- 
ing. So  when  I  graduated,  I  got  a  job  as  a  programer  with 
Aetna." 

That  job  lasted  all  of  about  four  months,  as  Stevens  was 
drafted.  But  after  spending  two  years  as  a  health  physicist  for 
radiation  safety  at  the  Army  Chemical  Center  in  Maryland,  he 
returned  to  Aetna  as  a  programer  and  systems  analyst. 

Those  were  the  pioneering  days  of  computer  science, 
Stevens  recalls.  "The  first  computer  I  worked  on  at  Aetna  was 
an  IBM  1401  with  8K  memory.  Today's  personal  computers 
would  run  rings  around  the  mainframes  of  the  '60s. 

"Back  in  those  days,  we  learned  as  we  went  along.  It  was  all 
on-the-job  training.  Actually,  in  my  first  few  months  at  Aetna, 
they  handed  me  some  manuals  and  asked  me  if  I  wanted  to  go 
to  school.  I  said,  'No,  I'll  wing  it.'" 

That  attitude  has  served  him  well.  "I've  never  had  a  really 
good  plan  for  where  I'm  going  to  be  at  any  given  point  in 
time,"  says  the  East  Hartford  native.  "I've  just  never  really 
given  it  that  much  thought." 
Given  Fred  Stevens'  track  record,  why  should  he  start  now? 

Michael  Shanley  is  a  free-lance  writer  living  in  Holden,  MA. 


FALL  1986       45 


^5^ m 


To  Market; 

^  \/[ARKET 


WPI  has  bred  many  an  invention. 
LL*  But  for  every  successfully  conceived, 
patented,  manufactured  and 
marketed  idea,  many  more 
go  down  the  drain. 


By  Paul  Susca 
Illustration  by  Richard  Giedd 


hi 


'  nvention  breeds  invention,"  Emerson  wrote.  But  formal  education 
can  only  be  a  first  step  on  the  road  to  successful  invention.  Finding  or 
creating  an  environment  conducive  to  invention,  knowing  what  to 
look  for  and  how  to  recognize  a  good  thing  even  when  you're  not  looking 
for  it,  getting  the  right  help  with  patenting,  manufacturing,  and  marketing, 
and  having  the  energy  to  keep  on  trying  in  the  face  of  disappointment  are  all 
part  of  an  inventor's  curriculum. 

In  his  nearly  30  years  at  WPI.  Thorn  Hammond,  professor  emeritus  of 
mechanical  engineering,  has  helped  dozens  of  students  get  their  feet  wet  as 
inventors.  Hammond  has  routinely  used  exercises  in  invention  to  teach  his 
students  about  the  engineering  design  process.  Steadily  coming  up  with  a 
wide  assortment  of  ideas  for  inventions,  Hammond  passes  them  on  to  his 
students,  who  then  pursue  the  design,  fabrication,  and  sometimes  the  ulti- 
mate patenting  of  the  gadgets.  The  inventions  have  included  a  front-wheel 
drive  electric  tricycle,  a  device  to  control  the  pressure  of  cranial  fluid  in 


"Corporations 
have  become  so 
large  and  conserva- 
tive that  there's 
much  less  inven- 
tion going  on  than 
there  ought  to  be." 


Hans  J.  Thamhain 


patients  after  brain  surgery,  and  a  wheel  chair  con- 
troller designed  for  one-armed  patients. 

Hammond  often  has  greater  faith  than  his  stu- 
dents in  their  ability  to  develop  useful  apparatus. 
He  especially  likes  to  tell  about  the  ones  that  got 
away,  the  inventions  he  urged  his  students  to  pat- 
ent but  that  later  showed  up  on  the  market  patented 
by  someone  else.  In  one  case,  12  or  15  years  ago, 
when  Hammond  was  teaching  senior  design,  he 
pointed  out  the  need  for  an  after-market  device 
that  could  be  fitted  to  cars,  allowing  them  to  move 
sideways  into  tight  parallel  parking  spaces.  He 
suggested  how  his  students  could  go  about  design- 
ing and  building  the  device,  and  they  did. 

"But  three  years  after  they  graduated  they  sent 
me  a  clipping  from  a  British  newspaper  describing 
how  an  almost  identical  device  was  being  mar- 
keted," Hammond  relates.  "I  was  delighted.  I  said 
they  should  have  patented  it  when  I  first  told  them 
to!" 

If  invention  breeds  invention,  then  simple 
inventions  also  breed  more  complex  inventions. 
Henry  S.C.  "Pete"  Cummings  Jr.  '50  has  spent 
years  improving  on  the  lowly  ratchet  as  president 
of  Lowell  Corporation  in  Worcester.  Founded 
when  Cummings 's  great  grandfather,  Professor 
John  Sinclair  (once  head  of  WPI's  Mathematics 
Department),  bought  a  ratchet  patent  and  set  out  to 
become  a  "master  of  ratchetry,"  Lowell  Corp.  has 
pinned  its  survival  on  ratchet  innovations. 

Cummings  himself  has  been  awarded  five  pat- 
ents in  his  32  years  with  the  company.  His  innova- 
tions include  a  layout  that  increased  the  number  of 
teeth  in  a  ratchet  without  decreasing  their  strength, 
a  quick-release  device  for  changing  ratchet  gears, 
and  a  handle-less  ratchet,  or  ratchet  clutch. 

Cummings  says  that  the  simplicity  of  the 
ratchet,  which  he  considers  to  be  the  sixth  basic 
machine  after  Archimedes'  five,  is  what  makes 
further  innovation  so  challenging.  "If  there  was  all 
that  development  potential  in  [basic  machines  like] 
the  wheel  or  the  screw  or  the  lever,"  he  contends, 
"then  by  gosh  there's  got  to  be  that  kind  of  devel- 
opment potential  in  ratchets." 


f 


io?5  x 


Breeding  grounds  for  inventors  and  inventions 
must  offer  more  than  development  potential,  more 
than  an  idea  that  serves  as  a  focus  for  further 
invention.  Gordon  B.  Lankton,  a  WPI  trustee  and 
president  of  NYPRO,  Inc.,  in  Clinton,  MA, 
believes  in  creating  the  kind  of  environment  in 
which  inventors  can  flourish.  You  have  to  expose 
future  inventors  to  those  who  are  already  inven- 
tive, says  Lankton,  who  has  been  managing  inven- 
tors for  20  years  at  NYPRO.  "It's  a  supporting 
role,  a  coaching  role.  You  bounce  up  and  down  as 
their  moods  change,"  Lankton  says  about  the  job. 
"It's  a  recognition  that  you  can't  impose  hours  of 
the  day."  Inventors  tend  to  be  loners,  he  says; 
they're  also  hard  to  manage,  and  they  don't  easily 
fit  into  the  structured  environment  typical  of  most 
corporations. 

Once  inventive  types  emerge,  the  next  challenge 
is  to  keep  them  happy,  Lankton  says.  Inventors  in 
an  organization  don't  generally  respond  to  the 
usual  monetary  rewards  that  corporations  bestow; 
they  often  crave  recognition.  Lankton  tells  about 
one  of  his  company's  inventors  who  thrives  on 
recognition  in  the  form  of  ever-escalating  titles. 

But  inventors  can't  be  expected  to  make  effec- 
tive managers  and  presidents,  Lankton  says. 
"There  comes  a  point  when  you  have  to  take  a 
project  away  from  the  inventive  types  and  hand  it 
over  to  the  business  types  if  you  expect  to  get 
things  done." 

Managing  invention  in  large  organizations  has 
occupied  a  good  deal  of  David  E.  Monks 's  time, 
too.  Monks,  Class  of  '64,  once  director  of  the 
photographic  science  group  of  Eastman  Kodak  and 
now  president  of  Kodak  subsidiary  Eikonix  in 
Bedford,  MA,  was  part  of  the  team  that  developed 
Kodak's  disc  camera.  The  concept  of  disc  film  was 
developed  as  far  back  as  the  1920s,  Monks  says, 
but  his  team  applied  additional  knowledge  about 
camera  design  to  develop  a  camera  that  he  says  is 
all-around  more  capable  than  those  employing  roll 
film. 

The  disc  camera  illustrates  the  difference 
between  discovery  and  invention.  Invention, 
Monks  says,  is  the  process  of  bringing  together 
known  principles  in  a  new  form,  whereas  discov- 
ery involves  finding  knowledge  that  is  completely 
new.  One  engineer  who  worked  for  Monks  was  an 
example  of  the  classic  inventor— most  effective  at 
putting  together  existing  building  blocks  in  new 
ways.  It  was  he  who  invented  the  mechanical  brain 
that  controls  processing  in  the  disc  camera,  based 
on  a  differential  gear  train. 

Since  thinking  about  old  things  in  new  ways 
seems  to  be  the  essence  of  invention,  conventional 
wisdom  can  have  a  dampening  effect,  in  his  expe- 
rience. You  have  to  put  inventors  in  an  environ- 
ment where  they  can  spread  their  wings,  he  says, 
but  American  companies  are  failing  to  do  that  with 
their  often  overly  bureaucratic  organizations. 

Another  reason  why  we  aren't  producing  inven- 
tors the  way  we  used  to,  Monks  says,  is  that  we 


Arthur  Gerstenfeld 

tend  to  think  in  terms  of  applying  new  technolo- 
gies rather  than  taking  a  step  back  to  consider  the 
fundamental  scientific  and  engineering  principles 
supporting  those  technologies.  His  experience 
indicates  that  inventors  tend  to  think  in  terms  of 
applying  those  underlying  principles  to  new  needs. 

Management  Professor  Arthur  Gerstenfeld,  the 
author  of  two  books  on  invention,  also  has  some 
thoughts  on  what  has  happened  to  America's 
inventive  genius.  "The  independent  inventors  sit- 
ting in  their  basements  doing  invention  are  quickly 
disappearing,"  he  says.  Despite  the  sometimes  sti- 
fling atmosphere  of  large  companies,  these  organi- 
zations seem  to  be  the  source  of  many  of  today's 
inventions.  One  reason,  according  to  Gerstenfeld, 
is  the  expensive  equipment  needed  to  push  ahead 
with  the  new  technologies.  Another  reason  is  the 
nature  of  our  organizations.  Says  Gerstenfeld: 
"One  of  the  big  problems  facing  the  nation  is  that 
our  organizations  have  become  so  large  and  so 
conservative  about  risk  taking  that  there's  not  as 
much  invention  taking  place  as  there  should  be." 
Corporations  should  not  be  so  well  organized  that 
inventiveness  gets  trampled  upon,  he  says.  Some 
of  the  better  inventions  developed  in  large  compa- 
nies have  to  be  bootlegged— people  work  on  them 
in  their  spare  time,  with  extra  or  "borrowed" 
materials,  no  budget,  no  program. 

But  bootlegging  is  just  part  of  what  we  call 
"Yankee  ingenuity."  Gerstenfeld,  who  makes  fre- 
quent trips  abroad,  says,  "In  Japan  they  always 
talk  about  Americans  as  the  great  inventors  and  the 
Japanese  as  the  great  copiers.  That's  partly 
because  we're  taught  from  day  one  to  be  very 
independent  thinkers,  even  to  be  rule  breakers." 

Gerstenfeld,  who  holds  a  baccalaureate  degree 
in  mechanical  engineering,  did  his  doctoral  disser- 
tation on  innovation  in  large  companies  and  now 
teaches  a  course  on  innovation.  He  also  has  sev- 


eral inventions  to  his  credit,  holding  four  patents 
with  two  more  pending.  Gerstenfeld  thinks  of  him- 
self as  the  atypical  inventor:  he  has  pursued  inven- 
tions on  his  own,  rather  than  relying  on  the  back- 
ing of  a  corporation.  But  one  thing  he  has  in 
common  with  other  inventors  is  the  source  of  his 
motivation.  He  talks  about  a  spark,  a  desire  to 
document  his  ideas  and  to  leave  a  legacy:  "I've 
known  many  inventors,"  he  says,  "and  very  sel- 
dom do  they  invent  and  say  'Boy,  I'm  going  to  be 
a  millionaire.'  It's  more  the  opportunity  to  see  your 
own  ideas  come  to  fruition."  He  likens  it  to  other 
forms  of  artistry— music,  writing,  and  the  visual 
arts. 

Gerstenfeld  is  now  working  on  an  invention  that 
employs  artificial  intelligence  to  control  air  traffic 
around  airports,  drawing  on  his  experience  as  a 
radar  technician  in  the  Navy.  "If  you  watch  people 
in  a  radar  room  at  an  airport,  air  traffic  control  is 
done  the  same  way  now  as  it's  been  done  for  the 
last  20  or  30  years,"  he  says. 

Making  that  kind  of  observation,  recognizing  a 
need  for  improvement,  is  the  essence  of  the  kind 
of  inventing  that  Gerstenfeld  has  done.  He  refers 
to  his  inventing  as  demand-pull:  responding  to  a 
perceived  need.  Technology-push  inventions,  in 
contrast,  are  prompted  by  the  emergence  of  new 
technology  and  the  drive  to  find  applications  for  it. 

"Invariably,  demand-pull  inventions  have 
enjoyed  greater  success  than  the  technology- 
pushes,"  Gerstenfeld  says,  explaining  the  results 
of  his  study  on  innovation  in  Germany.  Research 
carried  out  by  Gerstenfeld 's  students  a  few  years 
ago,  focusing  on  small  inventors,  came  up  with 
the  same  conclusion.  "But  on  the  other  hand,"  he 
adds,  "sometimes  the  technology-pushes  are  the 
really  great  inventions.  My  stuff  is  much  smaller 
but  has  a  greater  chance  of  being  used." 

Serendipitous  inventions,  those  conceived  by 
accident  in  the  search  for  something  else, 
generally  fall  into  the  area  of  technology- 
push,  according  to  Gerstenfeld.  Robert  A.  Rowse 
'49  knows  all  about  serendipity.  As  a  research  sci- 


"Product  develop- 
ment normally 
requires  an  itera- 
tive loop,  racing 
between  research, 
marketing,  and  the 
customer." 


Thorn  Hammond 


"Inventors  need 
agents  who  have 
the  imagination, 
honesty,  and  abil- 
ity to  know  which 
ideas  are  worth 
pursuing." 


Robert  L.  Norton 


entist  at  Norton  Company.  Rowse  always  regarded 
research  results  with  an  open  mind  because  that's 
what  it  takes  to  recognize  the  value  in  what 
appears  to  be  an  accident  or  a  failed  experiment. 
Once,  for  example,  looking  for  abrasives  boasting 
high  strength  and  durability,  one  of  Rowse 's  sub- 
ordinates grew  discouraged  when  he  found  only 
weak,  brittle  substances.  But  Rowse,  as  director  of 
a  broader  research  effort,  recognized  their  value, 
and  now  those  same  abrasives  are  used  in  sandpa- 
per and  grinding  wheels. 

But  successful  invention  takes  more  than  per- 
spective. It  takes  a  great  deal  of  persistence. 
Inventors  often  rejoice  when  they  make  that  long 
sought-after  find,  Rowse  says,  but  it's  a  long  way 
from  invention  to  marketing,  and  you  have  to  be 
committed  to  your  ideas.  "You  find  that  at  times 
you  have  to  bootleg  in  order  to  keep  it  going,"  he 
says,  "That  can  be  very  frustrating  and— career- 
wise— may  be  rather  precarious  at  times." 

Rowse  speaks  from  experience.  When  Norton's 
domestic  marketing  people  balked  at  putting 
newly  developed  grinding  wheels  into  field  trials, 
Rowse  went  out  on  a  limb  by  sending  the  wheels 
off  to  Sweden  for  testing.  More  than  once,  he 
says,  he  came  close  to  being  let  go  because  of  his 
stubborn  attachment  to  ideas.  But  that's  what  it 
takes  to  get  your  inventions  through  the  mill:  "It's 
an  inner  drive  that  makes  me  crazy.  I  always  react 
when  somebody  says  something  can't  be  done." 

The  toughest  part  of  invention,  he  says,  can  be 
dealing  with  resistance  within  your  own  organiza- 
tion, when  people  don't  pick  up  the  ball  and  run 
with  it  the  way  you  think  they  should.  "In  a  small 
company  it's  usually  a  problem  of  finances  to  keep 
it  moving,"  Rowse  says.  "In  a  big  company  it's 
the  interfaces  of  one  department  and  another 
department  and  another  as  the  idea  progresses 
from  conception  to  commercialization." 

Yet  things  have  usually  seemed  to  work  out  for 
him  in  the  end.  When  Rowse  retired  as  vice  presi- 
dent of  Norton's  High  Performance  Ceramics 
Division  after  35  years  with  the  company  and 
nearly  60  patents  to  his  credit,  a  colleague  trotted 
out  this  line:  "The  unfortunate  thing  about  being 
ahead  of  your  time  is  that,  when  people  finally 


realize  that  you  were  right,  they  will  say  it  was 
obvious  all  along." 

Rowse's  successor  at  Norton,  Dick  Allegro 
(Institute  of  Industrial  Management  '67),  holder  of 
11  patents  himself,  has  had  nearly  30  years  to 
observe  invention  at  Norton.  He  says  that  inven- 
tors are  commonly  perceived  as  Ph.D.s  in  cob- 
webbed  laboratories  toiling  for  years  and  finally 
coming  up  with  something.  But  invention  as  he 
knows  it,  ultimately  leading  to  commercialization, 
is  a  repetitive  process  that  calls  for  close  coopera- 
tion between  inventive  types  and  marketing  peo- 
ple. "Products  rarely  work  the  first  time  or  the 
second  time,"  he  says.  "There  is  a  loop  that  needs 
to  be  cycled  many  times,  racing  between  research, 
marketing,  the  customer— you  have  to  have  undy- 
ing faith  that  your  technology  or  your  product  is 
going  to  win." 

Several  of  Allegro's  patents  deal  with  ceramic 
armor.  Illustrating  his  point  about  the  iterative 
nature  of  turning  inventions  into  products,  he  tells 
of  Norton  Company's  rapid  development  of 
ceramic  armor  vests  for  helicopter  crews  during 
the  Vietnam  era.  The  state  of  the  art  in  1964  was 
flat  tiles,  he  says,  which  developed  into  curved 
tiles,  14  to  a  vest  by  May  of  1965.  By  September 
Norton  engineers  had  it  reduced  to  five  pieces;  by 
February  1966  it  was  down  to  three  pieces  with 
raised  edges  for  joint  protection,  and  by  Novem- 
ber of  that  year  the  one-piece  ceramic  armor  vest 
was  ready. 

One  of  the  keys  to  the  successful  development 
of  the  vest,  Allegro  says,  was  the  ability  to  assem- 
ble a  team  and  commit  considerable  resources  to 
the  task.  But  inventors  outside  large  companies 
don't  have  those  luxuries;  they  often  have  to  go  to 
bat  alone. 


JL-/. 


one  inventors  need  help  but  sometimes  try 
to  carry  the  ball  too  far  themselves,"  says 
'patent  lawyer  Paul  Kokulis  '45,  senior 
partner  in  the  Washington,  DC,  firm  of  Cushman, 
Darby  &  Cushman.  Some  think  they  can  commer- 
cialize their  inventions  without  any  assistance,  he 
adds.  Other  inventors  know  they  need  help  but 
don't  know  where  to  find  it.  Often  that's  because 
such  help  is  hard  to  find. 

Kokulis  sees  a  need  for  agents  who  can  help 
inventors  license  or  commercialize  their  ideas,  but 
as  yet  there  are  few  places  where  inventors  can 
find  "the  imagination  and  the  honesty  and  the  abil- 
ity to  assess  a  spectrum  of  ideas  and  recognize 
which  ones  are  worth  pursuing."  He  thinks  patent 
firms  and  engineering  schools  like  WPI  might  be 
able  to  develop  such  practices  in  the  future. 

Management  Associate  Professor  Hans  J. 
Thamhain,  who  specializes  in  studying  product 
development,  probes  the  middle  ground  between 
the  lone  inventor  without  resources  and  the  some- 
times oppressive  environment  of  a  bureaucracy. 
"For  an  individual  without  any  support  system, 
there's  a  tremendous  amount  of  individual  drive 


and  accountability  and  commitment,  but  without 
resources  it's  very  difficult,"  he  says. 

"At  the  other  end  of  the  spectrum  are  inventors 
with  all  of  the  resources  but  in  addition  all  kinds  of 
procedures  and  sign-offs  and  checkpoints. 
Because  of  this,  they  lose  the  entrepreneurial 
spirit;  they  lose  that  special  magic  and  commit- 
ment. Somewhere  in  between,  maybe  closer  to  a 
small  company,  is  the  optimum  as  far  as  entrepre- 
neurial output  is  concerned." 

That  means  more  than  creative  output;  entrepre- 
neurs have  to  know  when  to  make  business  deci- 
sions, too.  Gerald  Finkle  '57,  president  of  Wachu- 
sett  Molding  Corporation  of  West  Boylston,  MA, 
has  seen  many  lone  inventors  make  fatal  business 
mistakes  in  commercializing  their  ideas.  Finkle, 
whose  company  makes  custom-designed  molded 
plastic  parts  and  helps  its  customers— individual 
and  corporate— in  the  design  of  those  parts,  says 
the  greatest  disincentive  afflicting  individual 
inventors  tends  to  be  lack  of  capital.  "Nowadays 
most  individuals  just  don't  have  the  financial 
punch  that's  required  to  bring  products  to  the  mar- 
ketplace," Finkle  says.  "The  process  is  too 
involved."  Advertising,  packaging,  distribution, 
and  building  inventory  all  cost  money. 

Each  of  the  individual  inventors  his  company 
has  worked  with  has  failed,  Finkle  says,  because 
they  lacked  capital,  marketing  skills,  or  the  will- 
ingness to  hand  over  their  inventions  to  large  com- 
panies on  a  royalty  basis.  That's  why  Wachusett 
Molding  no  longer  deals  with  individual  inventors, 
he  adds. 

Finkle  tells  the  story  of  an  individual  who 
invented  a  new  method  of  fabricating  dental  pros- 
theses such  as  caps.  Based  on  plastics  technolo- 
gies, the  manufacturing  method  was  fast,  rela- 
tively inexpensive,  and  very  precise— where  preci- 
sion counts.  But  the  inventor  was  undercapitalized 
and  tried  to  save  money  on  tooling  costs.  As  a 
result  his  demonstration  products,  made  on  the 
cheap,  lacked  the  precision  that  was  so  important, 
and  the  product  failed. 

The  heartaches  of  inventing  can  be  too  much  for 
those  with  more  design  expertise  than  business 
acumen  or  time.  Mechanical  Engineering  Associ- 
ate Professor  Robert  L.  Norton  swore  off  design 
consulting  10  years  ago  because  the  rewards  didn't 
make  up  for  the  headaches.  Once  a  junior  member 
of  a  research  team  that  developed  a  biomedical 
product  some  years  ago,  Norton  watched  as 
incompetent  managers  brought  in  by  venture  capi- 
talists drove  the  venture  bankrupt  within  four 
years. 

"Inventors  won't  be  successful  unless  they  are 
good  at  business,"  Norton  says.  "What  it  all  boils 
down  to  is  the  marketing  of  the  product."  And 
being  an  inventor  for  a  large  corporation  may  even 
be  worse,  he  contends.  "You  see  most  of  your 
designs  in  the  trash  can  not  because  they're  bad 
designs  but  because  somebody  changed  his  mind 
about  what  he  wanted,"  he  says.  The  alternative, 


going  it  alone,  calls  for  18-hour  days  for  three  or 
four  years,  Norton  says.  Because  of  the  demands 
of  WPI's  project-based  system,  he  says,  it 
becomes  nearly  impossible  for  faculty  to  usher 
their  ideas  into  the  market. 

But  bringing  a  new  idea  to  market  isn't 
totally  impossible,  not  for  Biology  and 
Biotechnology  Assistant  Professor  Pamela 
Weathers.  Weathers  expects  to  bring  a  new  plant 
tissue  cultivator  to  market  within  the  next  18 
months— after  more  than  five  years  of  effort. 
Maybe  her  edge  was  working  part-time  at  WPI  at 
the  beginning,  or  the  guidance  she  received  from 
Helen  Vassallo,  associate  professor  of  manage- 
ment, but  Weathers  still  has  war  stories  to  tell. 

Arising  from  outside  research  work  carried  out 
before  1982  by  Professor  Kenneth  Giles,  then 
head  of  the  Biology  and  Biotechnology  Depart- 
ment, the  idea  for  a  new  plant  tissue  cultivator 
immediately  appeared  to  offer  the  promise  of  sav- 
ing substantial  amounts  of  labor,  time,  and  materi- 
als over  existing  methods  of  tissue  culture. 

Giles,  who  now  directs  R&D  efforts  at  Twyford 
Plant  Labs  in  Baltonsborough,  England,  as  vice 
president  of  Twyford  International,  teamed  up 
with  Weathers,  then  a  post-doctoral  researcher  at 
WPI.  Some  of  their  first  efforts  toward  commer- 
cializing the  cultivator  involved  investing  in  busi- 
ness consultants  "who  didn't  really  know  what 
they  were  doing,"  Weathers  says.  "They  had  put 
together  restaurants  but  they  hadn't  put  together 
high-tech  firms." 

Weathers'  next  step  was  to  contact  firms  special- 
izing in  patent  law.  But  at  that  time,  she  says, 
biotech  was  so  new  that  the  law  firms  didn't  have 
anyone  who  understood  the  innovativeness  of  the 
cultivator.  "They  kept  thinking  it  conflicted  with 
existing  patents,"  Weathers  says.  After  spending 
nearly  $2,000  of  their  own  money  at  a  well-known 
Boston  law  firm,  Weathers,  who  had  been  running 
the  whole  effort  since  Giles  left  for  Twyford,  was 
running  out  of  places  to  turn  for  help. 

Then  Giles  suggested  she  contact  Gary  S.  Winer 
'81,  a  biotechnology  graduate  who  had  gone  on  to 
earn  a  law  degree.  "Gary  spent  five  minutes  lis- 
tening to  me  explain  the  technology,  and  he  said, 
'I'm  absolutely  confident  you  have  at  least  one— 


Pamela  Weathers 


i 


"Nowdays,  most 
individuals  don't 
have  the  financial 
punch  required  to 
bring  new  products 
to  market." 


FALL  1986       51 


Helen  VassaJlo 


"In  the  end,  there 
are  very  few  prod- 
ucts that  are  so 
unique  that  there 
are  no  substitutes." 


maybe  more— patents.'  "  Weathers  recalls.  "He 
said,  'You  have  found  something  really  fantastic' 
because  he  understood  what  we  were  talking 
about." 

Shortly  after  that  conversation  with  Winer, 
Weathers  and  Giles  had  a  patent  filed.  Now  they 
are  developing  new  applications  for  their  tissue 
culture  method  and  device,  with  a  new  research 
program  that  started  this  fall.  Weathers  says  they 
hope  to  have  a  product  on  the  market— with  virtu- 
ally no  competition— by  the  end  of  1987. 

Weathers  and  Giles  have  high  hopes  for  their 
cultivator.  Plant  tissue  culture  is  normally  a  tedi- 
ous, labor-intensive  process,  and  their  cultivator 
promises  to  cut  the  labor  and  materials  costs  by  as 
much  as  75  percent.  Weathers  says. 

Prospects  look  good  now,  but  Weathers  says  she 
might  not  have  come  this  far  if  she  had  known  the 
headaches  beforehand.  "We  probably  would  have 
said  'Forget  this,'  published  a  paper,  and  let  it  go  at 
that!"  she  says.  Sticking  it  out  through  the  tough 
times  took  perseverence,  some  spare  cash,  and  a 
support  network  consisting  of  Giles  as  well  as  Vas- 
sallo,  who  provided  Weathers  with  invaluable 
business  advice.  There  were  difficult  financial 
times  and  days  when  her  patience  wore  thin,  and 
she  could  have  used  help  in  making  business  con- 
tacts in  the  beginning.  But  the  whole  experience 
has  given  Weathers  a  good  education  in  the  "hard 
knocks"   school  of  business. 

What's  the  most  important  lesson  Weathers 
learned?  "Be  fiscally  conservative."  Finding  a 
competent  attorney  who  understands  the  technol- 
ogy is  also  important.  Weathers  hastens  to  add  that 
there  are  resources  at  WPI  that  inventors  can  turn 
to  for  help,  such  as  the  Management  Department 
and  Reference  Librarian  Joanne  Williams,  who 
helped  Weathers  with  her  patent  search. 

Vassallo,  who  also  holds  an  appointment  in  the 
Biology  and  Biotechnology  Department,  had 
experience  both  in  biological  research  and  in  man- 
agement to  draw  upon  in  offering  advice  to  Weath- 
ers. Directing  research  on  local  anaesthetics  at 
Astra  Pharmaceutical  in  Worcester  and 
Framingham  until  1982,  Vassallo  was  part  of  a 
team  that  won  a  patent  in  the  use  of  extremely 


powerful  nerve  toxins  as  spinal  anaesthetics. 

Saxitoxin,  the  deadly  poison  found  in  red  tide, 
and  tetrodotoxin,  a  sister  material  found  in  Japa- 
nese puffer  fish  (which  kills  a  number  of  gourmet 
diners  every  year),  were  the  subjects  of  Vassallo 's 
work.  The  patent  arose  out  of  a  brainstorming  ses- 
sion in  which  she  marveled  at  the  toxins'  remark- 
able ability  to  pass  through  membranes,  leading  to 
the  idea  of  using  them  as  spinal  anaesthetics.  But 
that  experience  was  atypical,  she  admits,  since 
such  a  short  time  elapsed  from  the  "light  bulb 
going  on"  to  doing  the  key  experiments  to  getting 
the  patent.  These  toxins,  which  are  300,000  times 
as  powerful  as  currently  used  anaesthetics,  are  still 
somewhat  unpredictable  and  hence  are  not  yet 
used  in  humans,  Vassallo  reports. 

Getting  the  patent  was  as  easy  a  task  for  Vassal- 
lo's  team  at  Astra  as  it  was  fraught  with  disap- 
pointment for  Weathers  and  Giles.  But  there's 
more  to  the  game  than  just  getting  a  patent.  Paul 
M.  Craig  Jr.  '45,  a  Washington,  DC-based  patent 
lawyer,  stresses  that  possession  of  a  patent  is 
worth  less— commercially— than  many  people 
think.  "There  are  very  few  products  that  are  so 
unique  that  there  is  no  substitute  available,"  he 
says.  A  patent  can  help  the  inventor  in  selling  an 
idea,  but  it  is  seldom  salable  by  itself.  Know-how 
associated  with  the  patent  and  its  application  are 
the  real  keys  to  successfully  selling  an  invention. 

For  many,  inventing  is  only  the  beginning  of  the 
entrepreneurial  dream  of  building  a  company 
around  one's  own  inventions.  Alfred  A.  Molinari 
Jr.  '63,  president  of  Data  Translation,  Inc.,  of 
Marlboro,  MA,  brought  his  considerable  market- 
ing knowledge  to  bear  in  getting  his  computer 
peripherals  company  off  the  ground  12  years  ago. 
Already  familiar  with  the  market  for  data  acquisi- 
tion equipment,  Molinari  started  off  with  a  data 
acquisition  module  that  measured  sensor  inputs  for 
process  control  computers  and  for  medical  and  sci- 
entific applications. 

His  first  unexpected  challenge  was  the  months- 
long  delay  in  getting  publicity  from  trade  maga- 
zines. Molinari  also  found  that  he  had  to  order 
certain  integrated  circuit  chips  months  ahead  of 
time.  Those  initial  disappointments  taught  him  the 
importance  of  factoring  timing  into  his  market 
planning. 

Successfully  going  public  with  his  company  a 
year  and  a  half  ago  was  a  big  hurdle  for  Molinari, 
the  result  of  10  years  of  planning  and  hard  work. 
But  now  he  is  used  to  taking  a  long-term  approach 
to  marketing  inventions.  Molinari 's  maxim  of 
entrepreneurship:  "Today  is  just  a  report  card  on 
what  you  did  two  years  ago." 

Editor 's  note:  For  more  accounts  of  inventors  and 
entrepreneurship,  see  "The  Entrepreneurial 
Spirit,"  an  ongoing  series  that  began  in  the  August 
1985  issue  of  the  WPI  Journal. 

Paul  Susca  is  a  free-lancer  living  in  Rindge,  NH. 


52       WPI  JOURNAL 


LETTERS 


Editor:  In  the  fall  of  1979,  I  received  an 
unsolicited  brochure  in  the  mail  from 
WPI.  My  parents  and  I  read  the  brochure 
and  were  interested  in  the  Plan.  I  applied 
to  WPI  and  was  accepted  to  start  in  the 
fall  of  1980. 

In  the  four-year  period  that  I  attended 
WPI,  I  watched  the  Plan  slowly  become 
dismantled.  First  there  was  the  infamous 
ABET  [Accreditation  Board  of  Engineer- 
ing and  Technology]  visit  which  trig- 
gered the  Plan  changes.  As  a  result  of 
that  visit  distribution  requirements  were 
added.  Then  around  the  time  of  my  grad- 
uation the  AD/AC/NR  grading  system 
was  replaced  by  a  A/B/C/NR  system.  I 
was  dismayed  by  this  as  I  felt  the  AD/ 
AC/NR  system  led  to  less  competition 
and  more  cooperation  among  the  stu- 
dents. 

In  the  August  issue  of  the  WPI  Journal 
I  was  shocked  to  learn  of  the  dropping  of 
the  Competency  Examination!  The 
Comp  had  a  very  special  purpose.  It 
proved  that  you  had  learned  something  in 
your  classes  and  had  not  just  squeaked 
by.  I  feared  my  Comp  as  it  approached, 
but  in  reality  it  was  not  as  bad  as  I  had 
thought  it  would  be.  After  completing  it, 
I  felt  I  had  truly  accomplished  some- 
thing! 

By  altering  the  Plan,  WPI,  in  my  opin- 
ion, has  lost  its  advantage  over  other 
well-known  engineering  schools,  both  in 
the  Boston  area  and  nationally.  Students 
have  less  reason  to  consider  WPI  in 
today's  competitive  college  market.  I 
would  not  have  attended  WPI  under 
today's  modified  version  of  the  Plan!  I 
also  do  not  feel  I  can  unhesitatingly  rec- 
ommend WPI  to  future  students! 

Leslie  Arlene  Schur  '84 
North  Reading,  MA 


1986-87 
WINTER  SPORTS  CALENDAR 


WRESTLING 

DECEMBER 

3  at  Boston  College  7:00p.m. 
5-6       at  Coast  Guard 

Tourney  10:00  a.m. 

10         at  Plymouth  State  7:00  p.m. 

13  Harvard/UNH/NYU  7:00  p.m. 
JANUARY 

14  Amherst  7:00  p.m. 
17  RIC  1:00  p.m. 
20         WNEC  7:00  p.m. 

24  at  U.Lowell  1:00  p.m. 

25  N.E.  Invitational  10:00  a.m. 

(at  MIT) 

28         MIT  7:00  p.m. 

31  at  Bowdoin  1:00  p.m. 
FEBRUARY 

3  at  Coast  Guard  7:00  p.m. 

4  Williams  5:00  p.m. 
7         at  Brown/Princeton/ 

Boston  U.  1:00  p.m. 

14  Wesleyan/Trinity  1:00  p.m. 
26-28  NECCWA  (Amherst)  TBA 
5-7       NCAA  III  Nationals 

(U.  Buffalo)  TBA 


MEN'S 
WINTER  TRACK 


MEN'S 
BASKETBALL 


DECEMBER 

3  at  Tufts 

6         at  MIT/Brandeis 
FEBRUARY 

4  at  Holy  Cross/ 

Worcester  State 


6:00  p.m. 
1:00p.m. 


7:00p.m. 


NOVEMBER 

21,  22  Worcester  4-T  6: 

at  Clark 
DECEMBER 
2         Babson 

6  at  Bowdoin 
9         Amherst 

1 1  Wesleyan 

13  at  NYU 
JANUARY 

9,  10    at  Union  Tournament 
15         Worcester  State 
17         at  Bates 
22         at  Brandeis 

24  Kings 

Point-U.S.M.M.A 

27  Trinity 
30         at  CGA 
FEBRUARY 

4         at  Williams 

7  Tufts 

12  MIT 

14  at  Salve  Regina 
17         at  Nichols 

19         SMU 

2 1         Anna  Maria 

25  Suffolk 

28  Clark 


00  &  8:00 
p.m. 


00  p.m. 
00  p.m. 
00  p.m. 
00p.m. 
00  p.m. 


TBA 

8:00  p.m. 
4:00  p.m. 
7:30p.m. 


00  p.m. 
00  p.m. 
00  p.m. 

00  p.m. 
00p.m. 
00  p.m. 
30  p.m. 
00  p.m. 
00p.m. 
00  p.m. 
00  p.m. 
00  p.m. 


MEN'S 
SWIMMING 

NOVEMBER 

21         Holy  Cross  7:00  p.m. 

24         Babson  6:00  p.m. 
DECEMBER 

3         at  Boston  College  7:00p.m. 

6  at  RPI  Invitational  Noon 
9         at  Clark  6:00  p.m. 

JANUARY 

1 7  at  Connecticut  2 :  00  p .  m . 

College 

24         CGA  2:00  p.m. 

28         at  U-Mass  Boston  6:00  p.m. 

31         SMU  2:00  p.m. 
FEBRUARY 

5         at  Trinity  7:00  p.m. 

7  Colby  2:00  p.m. 
1 1  Bridgewater  State  6 :  00  p .  m . 
14         at  Keane  State  1:00  p.m. 

18  Brandeis  7:00  p.m. 


WOMEN'S 

BASKETBALL 

NOVEMBER 

21-22  City  Champion- 

6:00 &  8:00 

ship 

p.m. 

DECEMBER 

1         Fitchburg 

7:00p.m. 

5-6       Chuck  Resler 

6:00  &  8:00 

Invitational  NYU/          p.m./ 

Worcester  State/ 

1:00&3:00 

Rochester 

p.m. 

9         at  Bridgewater 

7:00  p.m. 

1 1         at  Framingham 

7:00p.m. 

JANUARY 

17        at  Bates 

2 

00  p.m. 

20         CGA 

7 

00p.m. 

27         at  Wheaton 

7 

00  p.m. 

29         at  Nichols 

6 

00  p.m. 

31-1     New  England 

Invitational  Colby/ 

USM/U.  Mass 

TBA 

FEBRUARY 

4         Brandeis 

7:00  p.m. 

7         at  RIC 

7:30  p.m. 

10         Amherst 

7:00  p.m. 

12         MIT 

6:00  p.m. 

14         Western  New 

2:00  p.m. 

England 

17         Emmanuel 

7:00p.m. 

19         SMU 

6:00  p.m. 

21         at  Anna  Maria 

2:00  p.m. 

24         at  Trinity 

7:00  p.m. 

26         at  Bowdoin 

7:00  p.m. 

28         at  Clark 

6:00  p.m. 

WOMEN'S 
SWIMMING 

NOVEMBER 

23  Regis  Invitational 

24  Babson 
DECEMBER 

10  Clark 
JANUARY 

17         at  Connecticut 

College 
23         at  Southern 

Connecticut  State 
28         at  U.  Mass  Boston 
31         SMU 
FEBRUARY 
3        at  Regis 

1 1  Bridgewater  State 
14         at  Keane  State 


Noon 
6:00  p.m. 

7:00  p.m. 


2:00p.m. 


00  p.m. 
00p.m. 
00  p.m. 

00  p.m. 
00p.m. 
00p.m. 


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THE  PRESIDENT'S  MESSAGE 

Why  a  Campaign  for  Excellence? 


When  we  went  to  the  trustees  last 
fall  to  secure  their  support  for 
our  S52.5-million  Campaign  for 
Excellence,  Howard  Freeman  '40.  chair- 
man of  the  board,  asked  me  to  portray 
my  dreams  for  the  future  WPI  that  justify 
and  explain  the  extraordinary  effort 
required  to  raise  these  monies.  Subse- 
quently, the  trustees  suggested  that  I 
share  these  thoughts  with  the  entire  WPI 
family  through  the  Journal. 

Let  me  begin  by  describing  briefly 
how  we  make  the  decisions  that  help  our 
college  continue  to  evolve  and  grow. 
This  should  well  illustrate  why  the  Cam- 
paign for  Excellence  is  vital  to  WPI's 
future. 

The  future  vision  of  WPI  is  not  born 
exclusively  within  the  administration  or 
the  Board  of  Trustees.  Rather.  Richard 
H.  Gallagher,  dean  of  the  faculty,  and  I 
lead  best  when  we  help  focus  and  articu- 
late the  plans  and  dreams  of  the  faculty, 
staff,  students,  trustees,  alumni,  and 
friends  who  comprise  the  WPI  family. 
This  is,  after  all,  what  collegial  govern- 
ance is  all  about. 

Facilitating  this  process  involves 
understanding  not  only  what  new  initia- 
tives these  groups  desire,  but  also  the 
emphases  already  in  place.  How  these 
two  factors  merge,  and  whether  they  are 
in  sync  with  external  issues,  must  also  be 
considered. 

With  this  collegial  spirit  in  mind,  and 
in  order  to  assess  where  the  college 
stands  today,  we  have  in  the  past  year 
examined  how  WPI  is  carrying  out  its 
educational  mission.  In  so  doing,  we 
found  what  appears  to  be  a  curious 
dichotomy. 

On  the  one  hand,  we  often  characterize 
WPI  principally  as  an  undergraduate 
teaching  institution,  and  we  offer  a  first- 
rate  undergraduate  program— the  WPI 
Plan— with  sound  philosophical  roots. 

By  most  measures,  the  Plan  is  a 
resounding  success.  Students  and  alumni 
are  enthusiastic,  and  our  graduates  are 
highly  sought  by  employers  and  graduate 
schools.  The  Plan,  as  it  has  evolved, 


already  contains  many  of  the  key  ele- 
ments called  for  in  the  recent  Carnegie 
Foundation  Report.  College:  The  Under- 
graduate Experience  in  America. 

However,  the  professional  and  schol- 
arly careers  of  many  members  of  the  fac- 
ulty have  suffered  relative  to  those  of 
their  peers  at  other  institutions  due  to  the 
demands  of  initiating  and  maintaining 
the  Plan. 

Because  of  the  drain  on  faculty  schol- 
arship during  the  Plan's  15-year  building 
period,  WPI  has  lost  public  recognition 
relative  to  such  institutions  as  Lehigh, 
Carnegie,  and  RPI. 

On  the  other  hand,  we  offer  a  graduate 
program  with  nearly  400  full-time  and 
another  1 ,000  part-time  students  offering 
the  master's  degree  in  15  disciplines  and 
the  Ph.D.  in  10. 

We  have  tried,  however,  to  construct 
this  program  as  an  adjunct  to  our  under- 
graduate program.  Some  120  of  these 
graduate  students  are  supported  as  teach- 
ing assistants  and  only  45  as  research 
assistants.  Most  well-recognized  grad- 
uate programs  would  be  characterized  by 
the  reverse  ratio. 

The  average  research  sponsorship  per 
engineering  and  science  faculty  member 
is  less  than  25  percent  of  the  mean  of  the 
other  institutions  in  the  Association  of 
Independent  Technological  Universities 
(AITU)  and  less  then  10  percent  of 
schools  such  as  RPI  and  Carnegie. 

Indeed,  our  graduate  program  is  woe- 
fully "underresourced,"  in  dollars, 
space,  and  faculty,  and  draws  heavily  on 
an  undergraduate  program  already 
expensive— in  both  dollars  and  faculty 
energy. 

On  the  surface,  it  would  seem  that  this 
dichotomy  could  be  resolved  by  either: 

•  Resetting  our  sights  to  offering  only  a 
first-rate  undergraduate  program,  i.e.,  to 
become  the  Amherst,  Bowdoin,  or 
OberlinoftheAITU. 

OR: 

•  Pursuing  the  goal  of  broad-based, 
scholarly  excellence  and  gaining  recog- 
nition for  this  excellence  while  maintain- 


ing and  enhancing  the  extraordinary 
undergraduate  program  that  is  our  heri- 
tage and  our  hallmark. 

It  should  be  clear  from  our  public 
statements  on  this  issue  that  Dick  Gal- 
lagher and  I  do  not  believe  the  former 
course  of  action  to  be  viable.  As  technol- 
ogies change  at  an  increasing  pace,  our 
engineering  and  science  faculties  must 
be  more  than  teachers  if  their  work  is  to 
remain  current  and  exciting.  They  must 
also  be  scholars,  actively  involved  in  the 
generation  and  interpretation  of  new 
knowledge.  But,  as  I've  pointed  out,  it  is 
not  enough  for  the  administration  to  be 
convinced  of  a  certain  direction  for  WPI. 
Rather,  we  must  look  to  the  faculty  and 
other  members  of  the  WPI  family  who 
will  actually  develop  and  implement 
plans  for  enhancing  WPI's  future. 

Where  in  our  current  activities  are 
we  to  find  the  focus  for  the  WPI 
of  tomorrow?  What  are  the 
plans  and  goals  of  the  WPI  family  for  the 
Institute?  How  do  we  bring  these  ele- 
ments together  to  characterize  a  major 
fund-raising  effort,  and  to  what  end? 
Recent  actions  by  the  WPI  faculty  pro- 
vide part  of  the  answer. 

As  relative  newcomers  to  WPI,  Dean 

Gallagher  and  I  were  recruited  with 

broad-based  faculty   input  to  lead  a 

movement  emphasizing  scholarship  and 

i   intellectual  excellence. 

The  Faculty  Committee  on  Educa- 
tional and  Professional  Development 
(CEPD)  completed  an  extensive  report  in 
the  spring  of  1985  recommending 
renewal  of  scholarship  and  increased 
attention  to  sponsored  research.  The  fac- 
ulty adopted  this  recommendation  almost 
unanimously. 

A  Faculty  Goals  Committee,  chaired 
by  Professor  Paul  Davis,  secretary  of  the 
faculty,  has  produced  a  Goals  Statement 
stressing  the  importance  of  creating 
knowledge  through  scholarship  and 
research  as  well  as  disseminating  knowl- 

Continued  on  inside  back  cover 


Staff  of  The  WPI  JOURNAL:  Edi- 
tor, Kenneth  L.  McDonnell  • 
Alumni  Information  Editor,  Ruth  S. 
Trask 

Alumni  Publications  Committee: 
William  J.  Firla,  Jr.  '60,  chairman 
•  Paul  J.  Cleary  71  •  Carl  A.  Key- 
ser  '39  •  Robert  C.  Labonte  '54  • 
Samuel  Mencow  '37  •  Maureen 
Sexton  '83. 


The  WPI  Journal  (ISSN  0148- 
6128)  is  published  quarterly  for 
the  WPI  Alumni  Association  by 
Worcester  Polytechnic  Institute  in 
cooperation  with  the  Alumni  Mag- 
azine Consortium,  with  editorial 
offices  at  the  Johns  Hopkins  Uni- 
versity, Baltimore,  MD  21218. 
Pages  l-XVI  are  published  for  the 
Alumni  Magazine  Consortium 
[Franklin  and  Marshall  College, 
Hartwick  College,  Johns  Hopkins 
University,  Villanova  University, 
Western  Maryland  College,  West- 
ern Reserve  College  (Case  West- 
ern Reserve  University),  Worces- 
ter Polytechnic  Institute]  and 
appear  in  the  respective  alumni 
magazines  of  those  institutions. 
Second  class  postage  paid  at 
Worcester,  MA,  and  additional 
mailing  offices.  Pages  1-16,  33- 
48  e  1987,  Worcester  Polytechnic 
Institute.  Pages  l-XVI  B  1987, 
Johns  Hopkins  University. 

Staff  of  the  Alumni  Magazine 
Consortium:  Editor,  Donna  Shoe- 
maker •  Wrap  Designer  and  Pro- 
duction Coordinator,  Amy  Doudi- 
ken  Wells  •  Assistant  Editor,  Julia 
Ridgely  •  Core  Designers,  Allen 
Carroll  and  Amy  Doudiken  Wells. 

Advisory  Board  of  the  Alumni 
Magazine  Consortium:  Franklin 
and  Marshall  College,  Linda 
Whipple  •  Hartwick  College, 
Merrilee  Gomillion  •  Johns 
Hopkins  University,  B.J.  Norris 
and  Elise  Hancock  •  Villanova 
University,  Eugene  J.  Ruane  and 
D.M.  Howe  •  Western  Maryland 
College,  Joyce  Muller  and  Sherri 
Kimmel  Diegel  •  Western  Reserve 
College,  David  C.  Twining  •  Wor- 
cester Polytechnic  Institute, 
Donald  F.  Berth  and  Kenneth  L. 
McDonnell. 


Acknowledgments:  Typesetting, 
BG  Composition,  Inc.;  Printing, 
American  Press,  Inc. 

Diverse  views  on  subjects  of  pub- 
lic interest  are  presented  in  the 
magazine.  These  views  do  not 
necessarily  reflect  the  opinions  of 
the  editors  or  official  policies  of 
WPI.  Address  correspondence  to 
the  Editor,  The  WPI  Journal,  Wor- 
cester Polytechnic  Institute,  Wor- 
cester, MA  01609.  Telephone 
(617)  793-5609.  Postmaster:  If 
undeliverable  please  send  form 
3579  to  the  address  above.  Do  not 
return  publication. 


COW 

WPI  JOURNAL 
Volume  XC    No.  3 
Winter  1987 


2  Bringing  Harmony  to 
Power  Engineering 


Tammi  Harbert 


Alexander  Emanuel,  Creative  Scholar  of  the  Year,  is  a 
steadying  force  in  lighting  homes  and  industry. 


5  Lighting  the  Way 


Paul  Susca 


WPI's   photochemists  are  shining  light  into  some  of 
science's  darkest  corners. 

13  Essay:  Technology  and  Government 

in  Conflict  Kenneth  P.  Ruscio 

For  the  public,  the  ante  rises. 

/  Eureka! 

Readers  nominate  favorite  inventions. 

IX  Ordinary  Addictions  Ann  Finkbeiner  and 

Joseph  Alper 

Nicotine  and  alcohol  take  a  heavy  toll  in  health  costs  and 
human  suffering. 

XV  Daffodil  Dreams  Elise  Hancock 

A  gardener  prepares  the  soil  and  the  soul  for  spring. 

33  Good  Sports  Michael  Shanley 

On  the  track,  the  water,  and  the  court  with  WPI's  part-time 
athletes. 


42  Back  to  School 


Evelyn  Herwitz 


Continuing    education    provides    life-long    learning 
opportunities  for  thousands  of  professionals. 


Letters        Inside  back  cover 


Page  I 

't 

By  _ 

T 

- 

w 

Page  33 


Cover:  A  late  autumn  snowfall  blankets  Washburn  Shops  and 
Stoddard  Laboratories  atop  Boynton  Hill.  Photo  by  Michael  Carroll 


Page  42 


WINTER  1987       1 


_  Alex 
fcmanuel: 

Bringing    | 
Harmony  to 

Power 
Engineering 


by  Tammi  Harbert 


Alex 


Alexander  Emanuel  in  the  electro- 
mechanical energy  conversion  lab 
of  Atwater  Kent  Laboratories. 


lexander  Emanuel  likes  to  tell  his 
k  students  the  story  of  his  first  engi- 
,  neering  design  job  in  the  United 
States.  Working  in  1970  for  High  Volt- 
age Power  Corporation  of  Westboro, 
Mass.,  he  designed  the  world's  first  insu- 
lation barrier  for  a  765  kV,  100  MVAr 
shunt  reactance.  This  device  is  a  huge 
coil  of  wire  that,  when  connected  to  a 
high-voltage  transformer,  stabilizes  volt- 
age just  before  it  reaches  the  customer's 
lines  and  thus  regulates  power  surges 
that  are  potentially  hazardous  to  house- 


hold appliances.  Having  no  models  to 
follow,  Emanuel  gave  his  imagination 
free  rein  and  came  up  with  a  delicate, 
oil-immersed  pressboard  structure  that 
resembled  the  thin,  layered  skins  of  an 
onion. 

A  visiting  French  engineer,  seeing  the 
partially  built  prototype,  exclaimed, 
"You  crazy  Americans!  I've  never  seen 
such  a  thing  in  my  life!"  Emanuel  says 
he  was  flattered,  not  to  be  considered 
crazy  but  to  be  mistaken  for  an  American 
just  one  year  after  his  arrival  in  this 


WPI  JOURNAL 


Letting  your  imagina- 
tion roam,  dismissing 
no  possibilities — this 
is  how  Emanuel 
believes  problems  are 
best  approached. 


country  from  Israel. 

The  high-voltage  barrier  that  so 
astounded  the  French  engineer  is  still 
operating  today.  And  despite  its  "crazy" 
appearance,  it  has  logged  a  better  record 
of  performance  than  later  models  that 
were  modified  to  make  them  easier  to 
transport,  Emanuel  says. 

He  tells  his  students  the  shunt  reac- 
tance story  to  illustrate  the  benefits  of 
using  imagination  to  approach  problems 
and  of  not  dismissing  any  possible  solu- 
tion, no  matter  how  outlandish  it  seems. 
This  spirit  of  creativity  spills  over  into 
other  aspects  of  Emanuel's  life. 

"He's  an  artist  in  more  than  one  sense 
of  the  word,"  says  David  Cyganski  '75, 
associate  professor  of  electrical  engi- 
neering. Emanuel's  office  is  not  only 
strewn  with  the  tools  of  power  electron- 
ics —  bits  and  pieces  of  components, 
oscilloscopes,  the  guts  of  switching  sup- 
plies —  but  is  decorated  with  an  impres- 
sive collection  of  paintings  and  photo- 
graphs done  by  Emanuel  himself. 

His  originality  and  dedication  to  his 
work  were  recognized  officially  last  fall 
when  he  received  the  WPI  Trustees' 
Award  for  Outstanding  Research  and 
Creative  Scholarship.  The  citation  com- 
mended his  "outstanding  level  of  consis- 
tent scientific  accomplishment  .  .  . 
[which]  has  been  a  key  factor  in  develop- 
ing WPI's  reputation  in  the  field  of  elec- 
tric power  engineering."  Emanuel  is  the 
only  faculty  member  in  the  history  of  the 
Institute  to  receive  both  this  and  the 
Trustees'  Award  for  Outstanding  Teach- 
ing, which  was  presented  to  him  in  1982. 

Emanuel's  work  in  power  systems  har- 


monics is  known  worldwide.  This  spe- 
cialized field  involves  measuring  and 
finding  ways  to  eliminate  voltage  distor- 
tion created  in  modern  power  systems. 
The  distortion,  which  Emanuel  named 
"harmonic  pollution,"  causes  a  multi- 
tude of  problems;  it  interferes  with  tele- 
phone and  computer  lines  and  generates 
excess  heat  that  causes  premature  wear 
in  equipment.  The  heat  from  these  har- 
monics has  caused  cables  and  capacitors 
on  power  lines  to  explode,  he  says. 

In  the  1970s,  advances  in  electronics 
led  to  increasing  use  of  microprocessors 
in  power  systems.  Many  products, 
including  large  industrial  power  systems, 
began  incorporating  these  computer 
chips  to  allow  more  precise  control. 
However,  the  devices  used  to  control  the 
power  flow  have  been  found  to  distort 
the  electrical  waveform,  Emanuel  says, 
creating  harmonic  pollution. 

Through  research  papers  and  work 
with  industry,  Emanuel  was  among  the 
first  to  demonstrate  the  damaging  effects 
of  harmonics  and  devise  ways  of  com- 
pensating for  them  before  they  caused 
widespread  and  serious  problems. 

In  1974,  Alex  Emanuel  joined  WPI  as 
an  associate  professor  after  five  years 
at  High  Voltage  Power.  Says  Harit 
Majmudar,  former  head  of  the  depart- 
ment, "Alex's  supervisor  at  High  Volt- 
age told  me  that  he  had  come  across 
about  four  or  five  first-class  electrical 
engineers  in  his  lifetime,  and  that  Alex 
Emanuel  was  one  of  them."  Majmudar, 
now  a  professor  of  electrical  engineer- 
ing, says  Emanuel  has  proved  that  state- 
ment "  100  percent  correct." 

Emanuel,  his  wife,  and  his  son  arrived 
in  America  from  Israel  in  1969,  drawn 
by  glowing  reports  from  colleagues  at 
the  Israel  Institute  of  Technology  who 
had  taken  sabbaticals  in  the  U.S.  He 
began  his  academic  career  in  Israel  after 
leaving  Romania,  his  birthplace,  when  it 
became  part  of  the  Soviet  bloc  in  1948. 

As  a  teenager,  he  spent  his  days 
attending  an  electrical  engineering  voca- 


tional school;  some  of  his  spare  time  was 
devoted  to  using  his  active  imagination 
to  devise  schemes  to  escape  Romania. 
"One  plan  was  to  make  hydrogen  by 
combining  zinc  and  sulfuric  acid  to  fill  a 
balloon  that  would  allow  me  to  float 
across  the  border,"  he  says,  adding  that 
his  parents  worried  he  would  try  to  carry 
out  one  of  his  many  schemes.  But  while 
letting  his  imagination  roam,  he 
restricted  his  actions  to  the  practical. 

In  1958,  after  hearing  rumors  that  the 
government  was  going  to  loosen  emigra- 
tion restrictions  in  response  to  interna- 
tional criticism,  Emanuel  stood  all  night 
in  a  half-mile-long  line  to  file  for  an  exit 
visa.  As  a  result  of  this  public  display  of 
discontent,  he  says,  the  government 
pressured  the  dean  of  the  Polytechnic 
Institute  to  expel  him,  even  though  he 
was  only  a  year  short  of  earning  his 
bachelor's  degree.  He  believes  that  offi- 
cials also  circulated  rumors  about  his 
political  views  to  damage  his  profes- 
sional reputation:  "They  accused  me  of 
being  a  traitor,  of  planning  to  use  my 
engineering  knowledge  to  help  the  West 
build  weapons  to  fight  against  them." 

Finally,  in  1961,  after  three  years  of 
working  as  a  technician  at  a  government 
plant,  he  was  allowed  to  emigrate  to 
Israel.  He  finished  his  education  at  the 
Israel  Institute  of  Technology,  earning  a 
doctorate  in  electrical  engineering. 
Although  he  had  worked  in  industry  dur- 
ing his  schooling  to  support  his  family, 
Emanuel  found  that  academe  was  the 
place  for  him.  While  working  as  a  grad- 
uate assistant,  he  says  he  discovered  that 
"there's  nothing  that  can  give  you  as 
much  fulfillment  as  a  good  day  of  teach- 
ing." He  notes  that  academe  provides 
greater  freedom  to  explore  ideas,  since  it 
is  not  bound  by  the  need  of  industry  to 
make  products  faster,  better,  and  more 
profitably. 

Emanuel  also  places  a  high  value  on 
time  spent  nurturing  young  minds.  "It 
takes  time  to  grow  the  seed,  but  you 
always  have  the  satisfaction  of  looking  at 
the  plant,"  he  says.  If  the  enthusiasm  and 


WINTER  1987 


the  knowledge  he  cultivates  in  his  stu- 
dents take  root,  he  will  have  created  an 
"indestructible  link  with  the  future;  my 
students  will  continue  my  work  when 
I'm  gone." 

He  acknowledges  that  he  can't 
teach  his  students  all  they  will 
need  to  know;  technology  is 
progressing  much  too  rapidly  to  permit 
that.  Instead,  Emanuel  tells  his  students 
they  must  learn  to  "know  what  they 
don't  know"  so  that  they  can  ask  the 
right  questions  and  continue  learning 


obvious  interest  in  avoiding  the  effects  of 
harmonics,  has  been  a  primary  supporter 
and  beneficiary  of  Emanuel's  research. 
Edward  Gulachenski,  manager  of  relay 
and  control  engineering  at  the  firm,  says 
the  company  wasn't  very  concerned 
about  harmonics  until  Emanuel  started  to 
talk  about  the  problem  in  the  mid-1970s. 
"At  that  time,  nobody  was  really  cogni- 
zant of  the  damage  that  these  harmonics 
could  cause."  Because  of  Emanuel's 
work,  the  company  now  has  several 
methods  to  reduce  harmonics. 
Emanuel's  ultimate  research  goal  is  to 


throughout  their  careers. 

His  colleague,  David  Cyganski,  says 
Emanuel's  enthusiasm,  creativity,  and 
intelligence  allow  him  to  excell  in  both 
teaching  and  research,  one  talent  enrich- 
ing the  other:  "I  think  he  actually  figured 
out  one  day  what  he  could  do  to  make  the 
greatest  contribution  to  the  world." 
Majmudar  calls  Emanuel  "a  classical 
electrical  engineer— a  Renaissance 
man." 

"When  I  teach,  I  give  everything  that  I 
can  to  the  students  to  help  them  learn  and 
grow,"  Emanuel  says.  At  the  same  time, 
he  feels  an  obligation  to  develop  his 
research.  "There's  a  detective  in  me  that 
wants  to  unveil  certain  secrets  of  Mother 
Nature." 

Yet  underlying  his  dual  dedication  to 
research  and  teaching  is  a  debt  he  owes 
to  a  Romanian  professor  who  sparked  his 
interest  in  power  systems:  "It's  a  com- 
mitment to  myself  to  continue  the  work 
of  my  professors,  the  way  I  feel  my  stu- 
dents are  committed  to  continuing  my 
work." 

New  England  Electric,  which  has  an 


devise  a  new  circuit  that  will  distort  the 
voltage  waveforms,  thereby  avoiding 
harmonics.  One  of  his  graduate  students, 
Kalyay  Sen,  is  at  work  on  a  promising 
prototype. 

In  1984,  Emanuel  arranged  for  WPI  to 
host  the  first  International  Conference  on 
Power  Systems  Harmonics.  The  success 
of  the  conference  —it  drew  more  than 
120  participants  from  around  the  world- 
is  a  direct  result  of  Emanuel's  reputation 
in  the  field,  Cyganski  says.  Emanuel 
considers  the  conference  one  of  his  most 
important  accomplishments.  He  notes 
proudly  that  it  is  now  firmly  established 
as  a  biennial  event;  150  people  attended 
the  conference  in  Winnipeg,  Canada, 
last  fall.  The  1988  meeting  is  planned  for 
Purdue  University. 

In  an  effort  to  learn  more  about  the 
effects  of  harmonics  and  other  phenom- 
ena generated  by  power  systems, 
Cyganski  and  EE  Professor  John  Orr  will 
soon  begin  a  study  funded  jointly  by 
New  England  Electric  and  the  Electric 
Power  Research  Institute.  In  1986,  New 
England  Electric  installed  photovoltaic 


panels  in  approximately  30  homes  in 
Gardner,  Mass.  Early  this  year,  the 
researchers  will  begin  measuring  the 
effects  of  having  a  high  concentration  of 
such  systems  in  a  neighborhood.  The 
information  will  help  electric  utilities 
foresee,  and  thus  avoid,  problems  that 
may  arise  when  solar  power  becomes 
more  common. 

Not  only  has  Alex  Emanuel 
worked  to  make  industry  aware 
of  harmonics,  he  has  also  helped 
everyday  consumers  of  electric  power. 
Several  years  ago,  there  appeared  on  the 
market  a  small  disk  that  its  maker 
claimed  would  save  energy  when  placed 
in  the  bottom  of  a  household  light-bulb 


"Nothing  can  give 
you  as  much  fulfill- 
ment as  a  good  day  of 
teaching." 


socket.  Suspicious  of  this  assertion, 
Emanuel  tested  the  device  and  found  that 
not  only  did  it  save  little  energy,  it  also 
produced  a  high  level  of  harmonics.  He 
wrote  to  consumer  activist  Ralph  Nader 
and  to  utility  companies  as  well  as  to 
several  engineering  and  trade  groups.  He 
also  published  several  papers  on  the 
problems  produced  by  the  device. 

"Some  people  thought  he  was  making 
a  mountain  out  of  a  molehill,"  says 
Cyganski.  "But  it  was  just  his  humani- 
tarianism  —  he  worries  about  all  of  us, 
all  the  time.  To  everyone's  surprise,  one 
of  Emanuel's  papers  won  the  IEEE 
Industry  Applications  best  paper  award 
for  1986.  The  Power  Engineering  Soci- 
ety is  currently  working  on  standards  that 
would  eliminate  such  faulty  products. 

Emanuel  tells  his  students  that  they, 
too,  have  an  obligation  to  use  their 
knowledge  to  make  responsible  contribu- 
tions to  society.  He  says  he  hopes  to  send 
his  students  into  the  world  with  "the 
intellectual  strength  to  be  able  to  grow, 
on  their  own,  professionally,"  a  feeling 
of  responsibility  for  their  communities 
and,  perhaps,  the  memory  of  an  eccen- 
tric professor  who  set  their  imaginations 
free. 

Tammi  Harbert  is  a  freelance  writer  liv- 
ing in  Dorchester,  Mass. 


4       WPI  JOURNAL 


Light  chemistry: 
It's  not  a  new  course 
with  one-third  less  work 
than  regular  chemistry. 
But  it  is  ushering  in 
a  new  way  of 
understanding  atoms 
and  molecules — 
and  life  itself. 


By  Paul  Susca 

Photos  by  Michael  Carroll 


It  all  began  billions  of  years  ago:  life 
on  earth,  when  the  first  high  energy, 
or  ultraviolet,  reactions  from  the  sun 
"excited"  simple  molecules  in  the 
earth's  atmosphere.  These  substances 
were  converted  by  photochemical  reac- 
tions to  form  polypeptides  and  nucleic 
acids,  the  necessary  ingredients  for  initi- 
ating the  living  process. 

Yet,  says  James  W.  Pavlik,  Chemistry 
Department  head,  the  dramatic  role  that 
photochemistry  played  in  our  earliest 
beginnings  was  just  starting  to  unfold. 
For  only  when  the  first  few  photons  of 
light  were  absorbed  by  a  primitive  photo- 
synthetic  unit  could  carbon  dioxide  and 
water  be  converted  to  carbohydrates  and 
oxygen  released  into  the  atmosphere. 

By  then,  says  Pavlik,  nature  had 
learned  how  to  store  the  light  energy  of 
the  sun.  Photosynthesis  had  been  born, 
paving  the  way  for  the  development  of 
all  higher  life. 

Only  within  the  last  25  years  has  pho- 
tochemistry been  investigated  exten- 


WINTER  1987 


sively.  To  do  so.  chemists  had  to  develop 
sophisticated  research  technologies  and 
techniques,  together  with  a  theoretical 
framework.  Chemical  spectroscopy,  for 
example,  an  essential  tool  in  this 
research,  embraces  techniques  that 
enable  chemists  to  monitor  the  events 
that  take  place  when  a  molecule  enters  an 
excited  state. 

If  computer  chips  are  the  brains  of 
today's  powerful  spectrometers,  lasers 
are  its  eyes.  Lasers  are  capable  of  deliv- 
ering light  of  extremely  high  intensity 
and  spectral  purity  and  of  incredibly 
short  duration— sometimes  less  than  a 
trillionth  of  a  second — a  feat  essential  to 
much  of  the  work  of  photochemists. 

Pavlik  and  four  other  professors,  along 
with  about  a  dozen  graduate  students  and 
undergraduates,  are  hard  at  work  on  the 
frontiers  of  this  remarkable  science, 
describing  and  assembling  the  pieces  of 
one  of  life's  most  fundamental  puzzles, 
uncovering  new  knowledge  about  chemi- 
cal reactions,  and  opening  new  pathways 
in  the  synthesis  of  medically  and  indus- 
trially useful  compounds. 

Today,  in  fact,  it  is  sunlight's  effects 
on  the  chemistry  of  our  environment  that 
play  a  crucial  role  in  the  quality  of  our 
lives.  The  atmosphere's  ozone,  which 
normally  protects  humans  and  other  liv- 
ing things  by  absorbing  the  ultraviolet 
element  of  sunlight,  is  being  depleted  as 
a  result  of  worldwide  use  of  CFCs,  or 
chlorofluorocarbons.  the  now  infamous 
refrigerants  and  aerosol  propellants.  For 
ozone  is  destroyed  by  free  chlorine 
atoms  that  are  produced  when  CFC  mol- 
ecules absorb  ultraviolet  light.  It  is  sun- 
light, too.  that  helps  convert  smog  from 
the  automotive  and  industrial  pollutants 
we  dump  into  air. 

For  members  of  the  Photochemistry 
and  Spectroscopy  Group,  the  things  that 
make  light  such  a  potent  force  in  atmo- 
spheric chemistry — especially  the  selec- 
tive absorption  and  emission  of  light 
frequencies— are  also  what  make  it  an 
interesting  research  tool  for  examining 
phenomena  that  go  far  beyond  atmo- 
spheric quality. 

In  order  to  understand  these  processes, 
it  is  necessary  to  recognize  the  impor- 
tance of  selective  absorption  and  emis- 


sion of  light  frequencies.  Ordinary,  or 
"dark,"  chemistry,  taking  place  without 
the  aid  of  light  energy,  proceeds  with 
electrons  in  an  unexcited  or  "ground 
state"  configuration.  These  chemical 
reactions  often  involve  the  absorption  or 
giving  off  of  heat  energy  as  part  of  the 
reaction.  Electrons  (the  negatively 
charged  subatomic  particles  that  orbit  the 
atoms'  nuclei)  remain  in  a  low-energy 
state.  However,  there  exist  higher- 
energy  orbitals  that  the  electrons  can 
occupy  when  excited  by  the  absorption 
of  a  photon,  which  is  a  packet,  or  quan- 
tum, of  light  energy.  A  molecule  is  said 
to  be  in  an  excited  state  when  its  electron 
configuration  has  been  altered  by  absorp- 
tion of  light. 

Electrons  can  occupy  excited  states  for 
a  limited  time  before  "decaying"  to  a 
lower  energy  state.  And  when  that  decay 
occurs,  a  molecule  gives  off  a  photon 
whose  energy  corresponds  to  the  magni- 
tude of  the  molecule's  slide  from  higher 
to  lower  energy.  By  carefully  measuring 
those  light  emissions  using  spectrome- 
ters, physical  chemists  can  gain  detailed 
information  about  the  molecule's  excited 
states.  Associate  Professor  Robert  Con- 
nors explains  these  complicated  pro- 
cesses clearly;  this  ability  seems  to 
enhance  his  rapport  with  students,  partic- 
ularly undergraduates,  which  explains 
why  most  of  his  published  research  in 
recent  years  has  been  done  with  MQP 
students. 

Since  a  molecule's  chemistry— its  abil- 
ity to  react  with  other  molecules — is 
determined  by  the  structure  of  its  elec- 
trons' orbits,  Connors  explains,  mole- 
cules with  electrons  in  excited  configura- 
tions have  different  chemical  properties 
than  molecules  in  the  unexcited  state. 
"That's  the  real  appeal  of  photochemis- 
try," he  says.  "You  can  do  chemistry  in 
these  higher  energy  states  that  you  can- 
not do  in  the  ground  state  using  only  heat 
as  the  source  of  energy." 

While  photochemists  are  interested  in 
the  chemical  properties  of  molecules  in 
their  excited  states,  spectroscopists  like 
Connors  are  interested  in  the  electronic 
and  structural  factors  that  govern  mole- 
cules' absorption  of  light  and  in  charac- 
terizing the  structures  of  molecules  in 


those  excited  states.  They  carry  out  their 
work  using  spectrometers,  which  mea- 
sure the  intensity  of  light  emitted  by  a 
molecule  at  various  frequencies.  Virtu- 
ally every  chemistry  student  is  familiar 
with  spectrometers,  since  they  are  com- 
monly used  to  analyze  the  composition 
of  unknown  substances  by  comparing 
their  spectral  characteristics  with  those 
of  known  chemicals. 


Previous  Page:  Professor  James  W.  Pavlik  (left)  and  undergraduate  Ciro 
Dimeglio  work  on  phototransposition  research.  Right:  Assistant  Pro/es- 
sor  James  P.  Dittami  with  apparatus  used  in  the  organic  synthesis  of  natu- 
ral products. 


6       WPI  JOURNAL 


Connors  has  been  doing  spectroscopy 
at  WPI  for  10  years,  studying  the  photo- 
active properties  of  several  classes  of 
organic  compounds— the  diverse  carbon- 
rich  substances  that  make  up  living 
things— including  chlorophyll,  the  green, 
light-harnessing  workhorse  of  the  food 
chain.  One  project,  being  conducted  in 
Connors'  lab  by  grad  student  Veeradej 
Chynwat,  focuses  on  the  excited-state 


properties  of  cumulative  double  bonds  in 
a  class  of  chemicals  called  butatrienes. 
Bonds  hold  atoms  together  to  form  mole- 
cules, and  are  made  up  of  the  atoms" 
electrons  in  much  the  same  way  that  a 
handshake,  made  up  of  the  fingers  of  two 
hands,  holds  two  people  together. 

Butatrienes  interest  Connors  and 
Chynwat  because  they  contain  three  dou- 
ble bonds  in  a  row,  a  type  of  structure 


whose  photophysical  properties  are 
poorly  understood.  One  interesting  find- 
ing that  the  two  scientists  are  pursuing  is 
that  the  intensity  of  light  emitted  by 
tetraphenylbutatriene  is  highly  tempera- 
ture dependent.  Connors  demonstrates: 
exposing  a  sample  of  butatriene  to  a 
carefully  selected  frequency  of  white- 
looking  light,  he  shows  that  the  sample 
has  no  visible  glow  in  the  dark. 


winter  1987 


He  then  walks  over  to  a  large  cylinder 
and  cracks  open  the  valve,  releasing  a 
trickle  of  liquid  nitrogen,  which  boils 
over  in  a  cloud  of  vapor,  and  freezes  the 
sample  at  77K  (about  -320  degrees  F). 
After  being  held  in  the  light  beam,  the 
frozen  sample  glows  blue-green.  Con- 
nors explains  that  at  room  temperature 
the  excited  double  bonds  have  the  free- 
dom to  rotate  into  a  formation  that  can 
give  off  the  energy  as  heat,  but  when 
frozen  in  position  at  ultra-low  tempera- 
tures, the  molecule  has  to  fluoresce,  or 
emit  visible  light,  to  settle  back  to  the 
ground  state. 

Located  next  to  the  tank  of  liquid 
nitrogen  is  James  S.  Mochel's  desk. 
Mochel,  a  senior  doing  his  MQP  under 
Connors,  was  originally  attracted  to  WPI 
because  of  the  work  going  on  here  in 
photochemistry  and  quantum  chemistry. 
Mochel  has  aspired  to  an  academic 
career  since  he  transferred  to  WPI  from 
Simon's  Rock  of  Bard  College,  and  says 
now  he  hopes  to  do  graduate  work  using 
lasers  to  bring  about  reactions  of  biomol- 
ecules.  Right  now  he  is  trying  to  find  a 
way  to  imbed  butatriene  molecules  in  a 
polyethylene  film,  so  that  by  stretching 
the  film  he  can  align  the  molecules  in 
order  to  study  their  absorption  of  ultravi- 
olet light.  Says  Mochel  of  the  pace  of 
project  work  at  WPI:  "It  seems  similar 
to  that  of  the  work  I  did  during  18 
months  of  co-op  experience  in  industry. 
There's  no  problem  that's  nice  and  neat 
outside  the  lab!" 

While  Connors'  team  is  concerned  pri- 
marily with  what  happens  when  light- 
excited  molecules  return  to  their  original 
ground  states,  Pavlik  focuses  on  how 
excited  molecules  return  to  ground  state 
as  a  different  molecule.  That's  the  differ- 
ence between  spectroscopists  and  photo- 
chemists. 

Phototranspositions,  the  reactions  that 
interest  Pavlik,  are  photochemical  rear- 
rangements that  permute— or  scramble— 
the  order  of  atoms  in  cyclic  compounds. 
These  reactions  result  in  deep-seated 
structural  changes  that  have  no  counter- 
part in  dark  organic  chemistry.  As  the 
atoms  change  positions  there  are  numer- 
ous changes  in  the  chemical  bonds 
within  the  molecule.  Many  bonds  are 
broken;  others  are  formed.  These  bond- 
ing changes  reveal  information  about  the 
structure  and  reactivity  of  the  molecule's 
excited  state,  Pavlik  explains. 

As  with  other  photochemical  research 
topics,  Pavlik's  work  may  turn  up  reac- 
tion pathways  that  later  prove  to  be  use- 


ful in  synthesizing  new  or  otherwise 
interesting  molecules,  as  well  as  provid- 
ing basic  scientific  knowledge  about  the 
light-excited  state  itself. 

This  was  the  case  with  Pavlik's  pre- 
vious work  on  the  phototransposition 
chemistry  of  4-pyrones  and  hydroxy- 
pyrylium  cations.  In  these  studies, 
Pavlik  and  his  research  group  discovered 
new  phototransposition  processes  that 
have  proven  useful  in  synthesizing  sev- 


"There's  new  chemistry 

in  every  stage  of  the 

synthesis." 


eral  classes  of  organic  compounds  that 
are  difficult  to  prepare  by  classical 
organic  chemistry  techniques.  "I've 
been  very  fortunate  to  have  had  a  number 
of  highly  motivated  undergraduate  stu- 
dents work  with  me  on  these  studies," 
Pavlik  says.  Many  of  these  students  have 
gone  on  to  earn  doctorates  and  now  hold 
important  academic  and  industrial  posi- 
tions. 

Considered  by  some  students  to  be 
demanding  in  the  classroom,  Pavlik 
demands  the  same  rigor  of  his  colleagues 
that  he  does  of  his  students.  His  appear- 
ance is  less  than  daunting;  the  unruly 
light  brown  hair  and  glasses  bring 
Woody  Allen  to  mind. 

But  Pavlik  is  no  comic,  and  there's 
nothing  funny,  he  believes,  about  the 
way  many  photochemists  are  making 
unjustified  assumptions  about  photo- 
transpositions.  Most  work  with  these 
reactions,  Pavlik  explains,  assumes  the 
existence  of  temporary,  intermediate 
molecular  structures  as  a  necessary  part 
of  the  transposition  event.  But  many  of 
the  intermediate  structures  that  photo- 
transposition researchers  assume  have 
never  been  proved  to  exist!  "They  come 
up  with  imaginative  explanations  of  how 
you  can  get  from  Worcester  to  Boston 
directly,  but  in  fact  they  were  going  by 
way  of  Providence  and  they  didn't  even 
know  it,"  he  gripes.  Pavlik  won't  stand 
for  that  kind  of  guesswork. 

Transposition  reactions  can  be  exam- 
ined statistically,  he  says.  There  is  a  lim- 
ited number  of  ways  that  a  ring  of  atoms 
can  be  bonded  together,  just  as  there  is  a 
limited  number  of  ways  that  a  circle  of 
people  can  hold  hands,  even  if  they  each 


have  three  hands.  Each  distinct  way  con- 
stitutes a  permutation  pattern. 

According  to  Pavlik,  a  permutation 
pattern  is  really  a  map  of  the  reaction  that 
shows  where  each  ring  atom  in  the  prod- 
uct originated  in  the  reactant.  Pavlik's 
approach  is  to  define  experimentally  all 
of  the  distinct  permutation  patterns  that 
are  actually  occurring  during  a  photo- 
transposition. "It's  like  experimentally 
determining  the  total  number  of  ways  of 
getting  from  Worcester  to  Boston.  This  is 
important  because  it  allows  us  to  deter- 
mine the  actual  route  followed  by  the 
molecule,"  says  Pavlik. 

Chemically  speaking,  the  route  pro- 
vides a  precise  definition  of  all  the  bonds 
that  are  broken  and  all  the  bonds  that  are 
formed  during  the  transposition.  This 
information  narrows  the  range  of  mecha- 
nistic pathways  and  helps  define  the 
structures  of  possible  reaction  intermedi- 
ates. If  a  suggested  intermediate  is  to 
have  any  experimental  validity,  it  must 
be  consistent  with  the  experimentally 
defined  permutation  pattern,  he  adds. 

To  pursue  this  kind  of  approach, 
Pavlik's  research  team  has  to  synthesize 
different  heterocyclic  reactants  (ring 
structures  with  at  least  one  non-carbon 
atom  in  the  ring)  in  which  each  of  the 
ring  positions  (atoms)  is  uniquely 
labeled.  The  chemist's  way  of  labeling 
atoms  is  to  attach  atoms  or  groups  of 
atoms  that  are  small  enough  so  that  the 
molecule's  chemistry  will  be  unchanged. 
That  means  replacing  hydrogen  atoms 
with  methyl  groups  or  deuterium,  an  iso- 
tope of  hydrogen. 

While  on  sabbatical  last  year  at  Oxford 
University,  Pavlik  planned  the  current 
phase  of  his  phototransposition  research. 
During  that  time  he  realized  that  it  is  also 
possible  to  learn  about  phototransposi- 
tions in  a  given  compound  by  labeling 
ring  positions  with  atoms  that  will 
change  the  molecule's  chemistry,  such  as 
by  replacing  hydrogen  with  fluorine. 
Following  those  lines,  Ciro  Dimeglio,  an 
MQP  student  in  Pavlik's  group,  is  pursu- 
ing experiments  that  will  probe  the  pho- 
totransposition chemistry  of  fluoroimida- 
zoles,  adding  another  piece  to  Pavlik's 
puzzle.  Dimeglio  found  that  he 
responded  well  to  Pavlik's  demanding 
style  in  the  experimental  lab  course.  He 
points  to  a  cartoon  on  the  wall  that  says  it 
all  for  him:  "Motivation  and  endurance 
seem  to  count  for  at  least  as  much  as 
intelligence  in  producing  superior  scien- 
tific work— Harriet  Zuckerman." 

Pavlik's  experiments  also  require  the 


8       WPI  JOURNAL 


Prof.  David  Statman  (right)  demon' 
strates  for  student  James  Shea  the 
alignment  of  optical  components 
for  picosecond  spectroscopy. 

synthesis  of  each  of  the  statistically  pos- 
sible products  so  that  their  mass  spectro- 
graphic  and  gas  chromatographic  finger- 
prints can  be  compared  with  those  of  the 
products  produced  in  his  actual  photo- 
transposition  reactions.  "In  this  way, 
you  can  tell  not  only  which  products  are 
being  formed,  but  also  which  ones  are 
not  being  formed  within  highly  defined 
experimental  limits,"  he  says.  Following 
that  approach,  doctoral  student  Prapapan 
Techasauvapak  is  working  on  the  synthe- 
sis of  six  different  compounds  as  part  of 
a  photochemistry  study  related  to 
Pavlik's  work.  These  studies  promise  to 
reveal  new  knowledge  of  the  chemistry 
of  excited  organic  molecules. 

Assistant  Professor  James  Dittami, 
another  photochemist  who  recently 
joined  the  Photochemistry  and  Spectros- 
copy Group,  uses  light  in  the  synthesis  of 
natural  products  or  naturally  occurring 
compounds.  In  fact,  he  is  fond  of  finding 
ways  to  make  molecules  writhe  and  con- 
tort in  cool,  lighted  conditions  the  way 
they  usually  do  in  hot  acid. 

When  he  leans  back  and  calmly 
answers  question  after  question,  what 
pours  forth  is  just  a  small  sample  of  the 
photochemistry  knowledge  he  has 
absorbed  in  the  15  years  since  he  first 
attended  College  of  the  Holy  Cross  as  a 
chemistry  major. 

A  year  ago  Dittami  came  to  WPI  after 
completing  a  Harvard  University  post- 
doctoral fellowship  focusing  on  the  syn- 
thesis of  ovalicin,  a  natural  product  with 
immunosuppressive  activity  and  hence 
of  interest  in  preventing  transplant 
patients  from  rejecting  their  new  organs. 
At  Harvard  he  also  worked  on  the  syn- 
thesis of  compounds  found  in  Gingko 
trees,  of  interest  for  their  anti-tumor 
properties. 

One  of  Dittami's  current  projects 
involves  the  synthesis  of  koumine,  a  sub- 
stance that  occurs  naturally  in  the  Chi- 
nese medicinal  plant  kou-wen.  Kou-wen 
has  been  used  for  many  years  by  Chinese 
herbalists,  he  says,  as  a  remedy  for  com- 
plaints such  as  migraine  and  neuralgia. 
In  addition  to  his  course  in  organic 
synthesis  and  an  organic  chemistry  lab, 
Dittami  will  soon  teach  a  course  in  the 
synthesis  of  alkaloids,  a  class  of  nitro- 
gen-containing compounds— including 
koumine,  the  opiates,  caffeine,  nicotine, 


WINTER  1987 


and  cocaine— that  are  extracted  from 
plants. 

Dittami  says  that  while  pharmaceutical 
companies  are  rarely  interested  in  such 
complex  molecules  as  koumine  because 
they  are  so  difficult  and  expensive  to 
synthesize,  he  works  with  natural  mole- 
cules for  that  very  reason— the  chal- 
lenge. "When  you  develop  a  synthetic 
methods  project  your  results  are  not  lim- 
ited to  natural  products  synthesis;  they 
could  be  used  for  polymer  synthesis,  for 
heterocyclic  synthesis,"  he  explains. 
Synthesizing  these  molecules  can  also 
have  more  immediate  benefits,  like  earn- 
ing you  a  job.  Senior  William  R.  Per- 
rault,  doing  his  MQP  under  Dittami, 
says  he  wants  to  apply  his  project  experi- 
ence to  synthesizing  organic  molecules 
in  the  pharmaceutical  industry. 

Organic  chemicals,  natural  molecules 
among  them,  often  contain  one  or  more 
ring  structures,  which  are  made  up  of 
several  atoms  bonded  together  in  circular 
fashion,  although  the  angles  of  the  bonds 
often  contort  the  ring  into  a  three- 
dimensional  shape.  Koumine  contains 
five  such  ring  structures,  says  Dittami, 
and  no  one  has  ever  succeeded  in  synthe- 
sizing it.  He  recently  received  a  two-year 
grant  from  the  American  Chemical  Soci- 
ety Petroleum  Research  Fund  to  work  on 
the  problem. 


Why  put  so  many  years  of  effort  into 
making  a  molecule  that  occurs  in  nature, 
especially  if  the  process  is  too  involved 
to  be  of  industrial  use?  "There's  new 
chemistry  involved  in  every  stage  of  the 
synthesis,"  Dittami  says.  "We're  trying 
to  get  something  out  of  each  step." 

For  example,  one  of  the  building 
blocks  of  koumine  is  a  tetrahydro- 
carbazalone  that  is  usually  synthesized 
under  very  hot,  acidic  conditions.  But 
since  the  molecule  is  very  unstable  and 
tends  to  fall  apart  in  that  kind  of  environ- 
ment, Dittami  is  looking  for  a  gentler 
method,  and  one  of  the  possibilities  is  to 
bring  about  the  carbazolone-forming 
reaction  with  light.  So,  finding  new  syn- 
thetic methods  is  the  real  aim  of  Dit- 
tami's  attempt  to  synthesize  koumine. 
"That's  always  the  case,"  he  says, 
"because  what  good  is  all  that  effort  to 
just  be  able  to  make  one  compound?" 

Light  can  be  particularly  useful  in  the 
synthesis  of  complex  molecules.  Dittami 
is  interested  in  using  light  to  bring  about 
intramolecular  reactions,  which  involve 
chemical  transformations  that  occur 
within  a  molecule  or  between  two  parts 
of  the  same  molecule.  They  differ  from 
intermolecular  reactions,  which  result 
from  the  combination  of  two  separate 
molecules  to  produce  a  third  system. 

Along  these  lines  Dittami  is  studying 


Associate  Professor  Robert  Con* 
nors  (right)  and  graduate  student 
Chynwat  in  the  spectroscopy  lab. 

the  heteroatom-directed  photoarylation 
reaction,  in  which  a  molecule  containing 
two  rings  linked  by  a  heteroatom  (a  non- 
carbon  atom  such  as  nitrogen)  forms  a 
third  ring  containing  the  heteroatom,  all 
as  the  result  of  the  absorption  of  light 
energy.  The  resulting  three-ring  mole- 
cule passes  through  an  unstable,  electri- 
cally polarized  intermediate  on  its  way  to 
a  stable  structure.  Dittami  hopes  to 
incorporate  a  trap  in  his  molecule  that 
can  swing  around  and  react  with  this 
dipolar  intermediate  in  an  intramolecular 
sense. 

"Ultimately,"  he  says,  "we  hope  to 
use  this  method  to  form  synthetic  mor- 
phine," adding,  "but  that's  a  long  way 
off."  First  he  has  to  get  his  method  to 
work  with  intermolecular  reactions 
before  attempting  to  accomplish  the 
intramolecular  reaction,  which  would  in 
effect  make  the  molecule  fold  over  on 
itself  and  snap  shut. 

Inducing  invisibly  small  molecules  to 
perform  such  gymnastics  takes  more 
than  just  shining  light  on  them.  Some- 
times you  have  to  carefully  control  the 
kind  of  light  used,  Dittami  explains. 
"And  if  you  use  too  much  light  then 


10       WPI  JOURNAL 


you'll  cause  other  [unwanted]  reactions 
to  occur,"  he  says. 

Also  seeking  to  shed  light  on  factors 
affecting  the  rate  of  light-induced  chemi- 
cal reactions  is  another  relative  new- 
comer to  WPI,  Assistant  Professor 
David  Statman,  who  came  to  Worcester 
after  completing  his  post  doc  as  part  of  a 
prestigious  team  at  Texas  Technical  Uni- 
versity in  Lubbock.  Statman 's  team  at 
WPI  has  assembled  a  state-of-the-art 
picosecond  spectroscopy  laboratory  in 
Goddard  Hall  to  look  at  how  molecules 
in  a  solution  physically  interact  with  sur- 
rounding molecules. 

Statman's  black  eyes  widen  and  his 
entire  body  animates  his  explanation. 
When  a  molecule  in  a  solution  absorbs  a 
photon,  he  says,  the  resulting  higher 
energy  state  of  its  electrons  makes  it 
"uncomfortable";  it  can't  stay  in  the 
same  shape,  and  it  tries  to  get  closer  to 
another  molecule  that  can  take  an  ener- 
gized electron  off  its  hands.  But  the  sur- 
rounding solvent  molecules  create  fric- 
tion as  the  excited  molecule  begins  to 
twist  and  move  toward  the  electron- 
accepting  molecule.  As  a  result  of  the 
friction,  the  reaction  takes  time.  And  by 
using  an  ultrafast  laser  to  drive  the  reac- 
tion, Statman's  team  can  observe  the 
changing  orientation  of  solvent  mole- 
cules around  the  excited  molecule. 

The  technique  of  picosecond  spectros- 
copy involves  first  arranging  a  series  of 
lasers  and  associated  optics  to  create 
pulses  of  ultraviolet  light  lasting  as  short 
as  800  femtoseconds  (less  than  a  tril- 
lionth  of  a  second).  The  molecules 
absorb  the  light  and  begin  to  reorient 
themselves  because  of  their  excited  state. 
But  before  the  molecules  can  make  them- 
selves comfortable,  he  explains,  the  light 
stops,  the  excited  molecules  return  to 
ground  state,  and  the  light  they  give  off 
is  examined  to  provide  clues  as  to  the 
orientation  that  the  molecules  achieved 
in  those  few  trillionths  of  a  second. 

By  doing  the  experiment  over  and  over 
again  using  different  solutions,  Statman 
can  see  exactly  how  different  conditions 
affect  the  molecular-level  physics  of 
reactions.  And  that  information  can  be 
used  in  the  design  of  light-induced  chem- 
ical processes,  such  as  the  operation  of 
photovoltaic  (solar)  cells. 

Statman's  lab  is  one  of  only  two  dozen 
in  the  country  set  up  to  do  these  experi- 
ments, representing  a  frontier  area  of 
chemistry.  Over  the  past  30  years,  chem- 
ists have  built  a  body  of  knowledge  about 
molecular  structures  and  reaction  equa- 


tions relevant  to  equilibrium  conditions, 
or  those  conditions  that  exist  after  a  reac- 
tion has  settled  down.  Now,  using  tech- 
niques such  as  picosecond  spectroscopy, 
chemists  are  beginning  to  find  out  about 
what  happens  in  chemical  reactions  over 
time,  especially  in  the  time  frame  of  tril- 
lionths of  a  second  or  less.  The  ability  to 
fine  tune  the  control  of  chemical  reac- 
tions is  the  hoped-for  result. 
Statman  came  to  WPI  in  the  fall  of 


Sunlight's  effects  on  our 
environment  play  a  cru- 
cial role  in  the  quality  of 
our  lives. 


1985  because,  he  says,  of  the  Chemistry 
Department's  increasing  emphasis  on 
photochemistry  and  spectroscopy,  but 
also  because  he  was  impressed  with  the 
Institute's  undergraduate  program. 
Because  he  feels  that  education  is  such 
an  important  aspect  of  society,  Statman 
is  glad  to  be  involved  in  an  undergradu- 
ate program  that  does  what  it  should  do: 
"teach  students  to  think  creatively,  as 
well  as  morally.  If  there  are  potentially 
harmful  side  effects  to  what  you  are 
working  on,  then  you  morally  have  to 
deal  with  those  side  effects." 

One  aspect  of  the  WPI  program  that 
especially  impressed  Statman  was  the 
Interactive  Qualifying  Project  (IQP) 
requirement.  When  Statman  was  a  visit- 
ing professor  at  the  University  of  Hart- 
ford, he  would  invite  students  to  his 
home  for  informal  discussions  on  the 
social  aspects  of  science  and  technology. 
The  discussions,  which  featured  guest 
participants  with  relevant  experience, 
were  a  big  hit  among  students.  "They  ate 
it  up!"  he  says.  "They  were  starved  for 
that  kind  of  thinking,"  which  they 
weren't  getting  in  their  courses. 

Statman  isn't  advising  any  IQPs  right 
now,  but  his  team  includes  two  under- 
graduates in  addition  to  M.S.  student 
Michael  P.  Collette,  who  says  Statman's 
enthusiasm  helps  cut  the  tedium  of  lab 
work.  Peter  J.  Chinigo  got  interested  in 
computer  simulation  of  chemical  reac- 
tions while  taking  a  physical  chemistry 
lab  course  from  Statman,  and  then 
became  interested  in  Statman's  use  of 
lasers  to  study  ultrafast  phenomena. 
James  Shea  was  also  drawn  into  Stat- 


man's lab  by  the  state-of-the-art  laser 
setup.  The  three  of  them  have  trans- 
formed Statman's  high-tech  ground  floor 
lab  into  an  all-hours  headquarters  in  the 
heroic  search  for  molecular  secrets. 
Complete  with  clearly  labeled  Statphone 
and  Statcomputer,  the  Statcave  is  the  pre- 
ferred hangout  for  this  research  team. 

One  floor  above  Statman's  basement 
hideout  is  Professor  Alfred  Scala's  labo- 
ratory, where  he  confines  organic  mole- 
cules in  crystal  cages  forcing  them  to 
reveal  photochemical  secrets.  The  cen- 
terpiece of  the  lab  is  a  gas  chroma- 
tograph-mass  spectrometer  (GC-MS),  a 
tandem  arrangement  of  two  key  instru- 
ments for  the  identification  and  measure- 
ment of  chemicals. 

Together,  the  GC  and  MS  are  about  the 
size  of  a  desktop  copier.  A  sample 
injected  into  the  machine  first  goes 
through  the  gas  chromatograph,  which 
separates  the  different  constituents 
according  to  their  respective  boiling 
points.  This  takes  about  10  to  15  min- 
utes, and  the  results  are  seen  as  peaks  on 
a  graph.  The  associated  mass  spectrome- 
ter scans  the  gas  coming  out  of  the  GC 
every  two  seconds,  exploding  the  con- 
stituent molecules  and  then  measuring 
the  sizes  and  relative  amounts  of  the 
resulting  molecular  fragments. 

That's  what  goes  on  inside  the 
machine,  but  the  casual  observer  just 
sees  a  small  liquid  sample  injected  into 
one  end  and  reams  of  graphs  and  tables 
produced  by  a  computer  at  the  other  end. 
Scala  uses  the  GC-MS  so  heavily 
because  "our  methods  are  such  that  we 
have  to  identify  and  quantify  small 
amounts  of  chemicals." 

Right  now  Scala  and  his  students  are 
using  the  GC-MS  to  study  the  photo- 
chemistry of  certain  organic  chemicals 
absorbed  in  zeolites,  a  class  of  mineral 
crystals  used,  among  other  things,  as  cat- 
alysts in  the  production  of  gasoline  and 
other  high-octane  fuels. 

In  Scala's  experiments,  small  organic 
molecules  are  trapped  in  pockets  in  the 
surface  of  the  zeolites,  and  while  they 
are  trapped  there  they  can  be  exposed  to 
light  or  reacted  with  other  chemicals. 
"Smaller  molecules  can  get  into  these 
channels  [in  the  zeolites'  surfaces]  while 
larger  molecules  cannot,"  Scala 
explains,  "so  different  sized  molecules 
behave  differently  in  terms  of  absorption 
properties." 

Scala's  aim  is  to  uncover  how  mole- 
cules interact  with  light  while  they  are 
trapped  in  zeolite  cages.  In  order  to  do 


WINTER  1987       11 


Professor  Alfred  A.  Scala  and  research  assistant  Prapaipit  Chamsuksai 
study  reactions  between  zeolites  and  organic  substances. 


this  work,  Scala  had  to  develop  new 
techniques  so  that  his  data  would  be 
reliable  and,  therefore,  meaningful. 
"There's  nothing  worse  than  doing  a  bad 
experiment  and  then  spending  a  lot  of 
time  trying  to  understand  lousy  data,"  he 
advises.  "How  to  put  the  organic  chemi- 
cal in  zeolite,  how  to  do  the  photochem- 
istry, which  wavelength  of  light  to  use, 
how  to  remove  the  organic  from  the 
zeolite,  and  how  to  analyze  the  results" 
are  all  part  of  the  long-suffered  initial 


stages  of  the  work,  Scala  says. 

Now  his  team  is  starting  to  collect  data 
on  the  photochemistry  of  two  com- 
pounds, one  of  which,  cinnamonitrile,  is 
a  component  of  cinnamon.  Now  the 
work  focuses  on  bringing  about  a  cis- 
trans  isomerization  of  the  chemical, 
twisting  one  of  its  double  bonds  180 
degrees  without  changing  its  chemical 
composition.  His  work  is  not  geared 
toward  applications,  but  Scala  says  it 
could  provide  information  useful   in 


regenerating  catalysts  used  in  chemical 
filters. 

Catalysis  is  extremely  important  in 
industry  right  now,  says  Prapaipit  Cham- 
suksai, a  doctoral  student  in  Scala's  lab, 
who  made  the  switch  from  natural  prod- 
ucts chemistry  to  photochemistry  and 
catalysis.  She  came  to  WPI  four  years 
ago  partly  because  she  liked  its  friendly 
atmosphere  compared  to  larger  universi- 
ties, and  because  of  the  access  grad  stu- 
dents have  to  professors. 

And  Chamsuksai,  or  "Pete"  as  she  is 
usually  called,  is  doing  her  best  to  pre- 
serve the  Institute's  friendly  character. 
Because  she  enjoys  teaching  and  always 
takes  time  out  for  students,  undergrads  in 
her  lab  sections  voted  her  last  year's 
Teaching  Assistant  of  the  Year.  In  addi- 
tion to  her  TA  and  Ph.D.  work,  Pete 
operates  and  maintains  the  lab's  expen- 
sive GC-MS  and  HPLC  (high  perfor- 
mance liquide  chromatography)  equip- 
ment. 

The  brightly  lit,  spanking  new.  fully 
automated  GC-MS  setup  stands  in  cold 
contrast  to  Scala's  office.  Near  the  door- 
way stands  a  stack  of  dusty  instrumenta- 
tion from  another  era.  His  surroundings 
and  greyish  cardigan  contrast  with  his 
dark  hair  and  beard  slightly  streaked  with 
white,  and  the  almost  faraway  gleam  in 
his  dark  eyes.  They  belie  his  reputation 
as  a  masterful  lecturer,  always  fast  on  his 
feet  in  general  chemistry  and  his  chemi- 
cal dynamics  course. 

"Scientists  in  general  would  like  to 
have  a  practical  system  for  converting 
sunlight  into  usable  and  storable  energy," 
Scala  says,  reflecting  on  the  practical 
potential  of  photochemistry.  One  idea 
has  been  to  use  sunlight  to  split  water 
molecules,  generating  hydrogen  gas,  but 
an  economical  process  has  yet  to  be 
developed. 

One  drawback,  he  notes,  is  that  using 
light  of  a  specific  wavelength  in  chemi- 
cal processes  is  still  more  expensive  than 
using  heat,  although  photochemistry  is 
already  being  used  in  such  commercial 
processes  as  the  production  of  acetone,  a 
widely  used  solvent.  But  even  now  pho- 
tochemistry and  spectroscopy  are  invalu- 
able research  tools. 

"In  terms  of  furthering  our  knowledge 
about  nature  and  atoms  and  molecules, 
photochemistry  has  made  great  strides  in 
the  last  25  years,"  Scala  says,  "and  will 
continue  to  do  so." 

Paul  Susca  is  a  freelance  writer  living  in 
Rindge,  N.H. 


12       WPI  JOURNAL 


A  personal  view 
of  the  uneasy 
relationship  of 
scientific  progress, 
privacy,  and  the 
Constitution. 

By  Kenneth  P.  Ruscio 
Assistant  Professor 
of  Social  Science 
and  Policy  Studies 


Last  September,  a  group 
of  political  scientists 
interested  in  science  and 
technology  formed  a  study 
group  within  the  American 
Political  Science  Association. 
That  the  event  did  not  receive 
the  attention  of  the  national 
press  is  no  reflection  on  its 
importance.  For  at  last,  those 
who  claim  expertise  in  the 
processes  of  government  had, 
by  attending,  acknowledged 
that  science  and  technology 
influence  the  way  we  govern 
ourselves.  Moreover,  they 
were  saying,  many  of  the 
issues  facing  government 
now  have  a  scientific  or  tech- 
nological component.  Gov- 
ernment is  deeply  immersed 
in  scientific  and  technological 
controversies,  while  research 


and  development  are  con- 
strained by  the  political  sys- 
tem. 

It  is  no  secret  that  the 
worlds  of  science  and  politics 
do  not  mesh  perfectly.  Politi- 
cians often  seem  to  misunder- 
stand technical  questions. 
Scientists  and  engineers 
rarely  appreciate  the  intrica- 
cies of  government. 

Standards  for  clean  air,  the 
siting  of  a  nuclear  power 
plant,  the  feasibility  of  a 
weapons  system,  the  health 
risks  of  a  certain  substance— 
these  and  many  other  appar- 
ently technical  decisions  must 
pass  through  a  filter  of 
democracy.  In  the  United 
States,  this  filter  is  one  in 
which  the  political  and  eco- 
nomic interests  of  individuals 
lead  them  to  interpret  facts 
differently  and  often,  if  not 
usually,  arrive  at  conclusions 
that  reflect  their  personal 
interests. 

My  scholarly  interests  cen- 
ter on  the  Constitution  and 
science.  This  year,  our  Con- 
stitution will  turn  200  years 
old.  This  document  and  the 
ideals  underlying  it  have 
guided  the  nation  miracu- 
lously through  civil  war, 
industrial  revolution,  dra- 
matic urban  growth,  and 
emergence  as  a  world  power. 
Yet  as  we  celebrate  this 
remarkable  bicentennial,  we 
face  a  host  of  dilemmas  uni- 
magined   by   the   visionary 


minds  of  Madison,  Hamilton, 
Franklin  and  their  peers.  And 
most  of  these  challenges  are 
and  will  continue  to  be  linked 
unavoidably  to  our  scientific 
and  technological  initiatives. 

To  understand  why  these 
fields  of  endeavor  are  so 
closely  tied  to  the  national 
conscience,  we  must  first 
acknowledge  that  science  and 
technology  are  "quasi- 
public"  activities.  Govern- 
ment supports,  regulates,  or 
indirectly  influences  all  of  the 
nation's  research  and  devel- 
opment. In  the  classic  movie, 
"It's  a  Wonderful  Life," 
Jimmy  Stewart's  guardian 
angel  allows  him  a  glimpse  of 
what  life  would  be  like  in  his 
home  town  if  he  had  never 
been  born. 

To  understand  govern- 
ment's influence  on  science 
and  technology,  update  Ste- 
wart's microcosm  for  a 
moment,  and  expand  it  to 
global  proportions.  Suppose 
that,  40  years  ago,  our  politi- 
cal system  had  decided  to 
ignore  any  policy  problem 
related  to  science  and  tech- 
nology. Imagine  the  medical 
questions  that  would  still  be 
unanswered,  the  industries 
that  would  no  longer  exist  or 
would  never  have  been  born. 
Imagine  the  state  of  today's 
universities  or  of  our  national 
defense.  Imagine,  perhaps 
most  unrealistically,  that  the 
courts  and  legislatures  had 


avoided  such  medical  ques- 
tions as  abortion  and  euthana- 
sia, issues  that  go  on  straining 
the  moral  fiber  of  society. 

Science  and  technology  are 
quasi-public  activities  be- 
cause they  raise  issues  that 
the  political  system  cannot 
ignore,  even  though  individ- 
uals and  organizations  outside 
of  government  perform  most 
of  the  activities. 

As  science  and  technology 
mingle  with  the  political  sys- 
tem, they  come  closer  to  the 
centers  of  political  and  eco- 
nomic power.  And  in  so 
doing,  they  run  headlong  into 
the  Constitution.  For  if  there 
is  any  common  definition  of 
"constitutionalism"  among 
political  scientists,  it  is  that 
power  in  society  must  be  lim- 
ited. Science  and  technology 
are  increasingly  obvious 
sources  of  power.  They  must, 
therefore,  be  folded  into  our 
constitutional  structure. 

Examples  abound  of  how 
this  mingling  occurs,  but  I'll 
focus  on  two.  The  first 
embraces  the  complex  ques- 
tions raised  by  advances  in 
the  life  sciences  and  medi- 
cine. The  second  centers  on 
the  conflict  between  informa- 
tion technologies  and  individ- 
ual freedoms.  In  both  cases,  it 
is  necessary  to  balance  soci- 
ety's interests  with  individual 
rights.  But  technology,  we 
have  found,  usually  requires 
us  to  recalibrate  the  scales. 


WINTER  1987        13 


Progress  in  medicine  has 
preceded  some  of  the 
most  painful  moral, 
ethical,  and  political  issues  of 
our  time.  Each  day  we  learn 
more  about  the  biological  and 
chemical  processes  of  life, 
yet  society  seems  to  move 
farther  away  from  agreement 
on  what  is  meant  by  life. 

In  1973,  when  asked  to  rule 
on  the  legality  of  abortion  in 
the  case  of  Roe  vs.  Wade,  the 
Supreme  Court  carefully  and 
deliberately  avoided  the  ques- 
tion of  when  life  begins  by 
dividing  pregnancy  into  tri- 
mesters. As  a  result,  each  tri- 
mester introduced  a  different 
set  of  considerations  for  bal- 
ancing the  rights  and  interests 
of  the  fetus,  the  mother,  and 
the  state. 

In  the  first  trimester,  the 
court  ruled,  the  mother's  right 
to  privacy  and  therefore  her 
freedom  to  choose  an  abor- 
tion is  paramount.  In  the  sec- 
ond trimester,  when  the  abor- 
tion procedure  poses  a  greater 
risk  to  the  mother's  health, 
the  state's  interest  in  ensuring 
safe  medical  care  allows  gov- 
ernment to  place  some  restric- 
tions on  the  mother's  choice. 
In  the  final  trimester,  the  fetus 
becomes  viable  outside  the 
womb,  and  its  right  to  life 
takes  precedence  over  other 
interests. 

The  court  drew  the  lines 
between  trimesters  on  the 
basis  of  its  answers  to  two  sci- 
entific questions.  First,  at 
what  point  in  the  pregnancy 
does  the  fetus  become  viable 
outside  the  womb,  given  the 
capacity  of  neonatal  technolo- 
gies to  sustain  the  life  of  a 
very  premature  baby?  Sec- 
ond, at  what  point  in  the  preg- 


nancy does  the  abortion  pose 
a  significant  medical  risk  to 
the  woman?  The  answers 
were  derived  from  the  avail- 
able scientific  evidence.  But 
if  the  evidence  changed,  we 
could  argue  that  the  policy 
should  be  subject  to  change. 

The  evidence  has  changed. 
Since  1973,  the  abortion  pro- 
cedure has  become  safer,  pre- 
senting less  risk  to  the  mother 
and  weakening  the  rationale 
for  limiting  abortions  in  the 
second  trimester.  But  neona- 
tal care  has  also  improved, 
thereby  strengthening  the 
case  for  limiting  abortions 
earlier  in  the  pregnancy. 
Hence,  technological  prog- 
ress pulls  the  trimester  model 
in  opposite  directions. 

In  1983,  the  court  acknowl- 
edged the  new  medical  evi- 
dence, but  reaffirmed  its  reli- 
ance on  trimesters.  However, 
Justice  Sandra  Day  O'Connor 
wrote  in  a  separate  opinion 
that  the  model  was  "on  a  col- 
lision course  with  itself  .  .  . 
[It  is  a]  completely  unworka- 
ble method  of  accommodat- 
ing the  conflicting  personal 
rights  and  compelling  state 
interests  that  are  involved  in 
the  abortion  context." 

President  Reagan's  appoint- 
ees, Justices  O'Connor  and 
Scalia,  have  indicated  that 
they  share  the  president's 
strong  opposition  to  abortion 
on  moral  grounds.  The  new 
Chief  Justice,  William 
Rehnquist,  was  one  of  the 
dissenters  to  the  1973  deci- 
sion. As  a  result,  a  challenge 
to  the  Roe  vs.  Wade  decision 
seems  likely  in  the  near 
future. 

Last  spring,  the  court  voted 
5-4  to  overturn  one  state's 


%^ 


"Our  talent  for  developing  tech- 
nology far  exceeds  our  capacity 
for  absorbing  it." 


restrictions  to  access  by 
minors  to  abortions.  In  writ- 
ing the  decision,  retiring 
Chief  Justice  Warren  Burger 
practically  invited  a  challenge 
to  Roe  with  his  remark  that  it 
"should  be  reexamined." 
Technological  change  is 
almost  certain  to  be  one  basis 
for  the  reexamination. 

Consider  a  very  different 
case.  In  October  1983,  Baby 
Jane  Doe  was  born  in  a  New 
York  hospital;  she  suffered 
from  serious,  multiple  handi- 
caps. The  baby's  parents  had 
to  choose  between  extensive 
surgery,  which  doctors  esti- 
mated would  enable  the  child 
to  live  another  20  years 
(although  she  would  be 
severely  retarded)  or  treating 
the  baby  conservatively  with 
antibiotics  and  good  nutrition, 
which  would  enable  her  to 
live  for  only  an  estimated  two 
years. 

The  parents  chose  the  con- 
servative treatment.  Shortly 
thereafter,  an  attorney  with  no 
connection  to  the  family  or 
the  hospital,  acting  on  an 
anonymous  tip  from  someone 
at  the  hospital,  began  a  legal 


proceeding  to  require  surgery. 
He  charged  that  the  hospital 
and  the  parents,  by  denying 
surgery,  were  discriminating 
against  the  baby  because  she 
was  handicapped. 

The  federal  government 
intervened  and  demanded  the 
hospital's  records.  The  hospi- 
tal refused,  and  the  case  pro- 
ceeded rapidly  through  the 
judicial  system.  In  the  end, 
the  hospital  retained  its 
records,  and  the  decision  for 
treatment  was  left  with  the 
parents.  But  as  a  result,  the 
federal  government  began  to 
fashion  new  and  controversial 
regulations  for  the  care  of 
newborns. 

This  was  a  particularly 
wrenching  story  of  individ- 
uals taking  strong  moral 
stands  on  completely  opposite 
sides.  Regardless  of  the  argu- 
ment's outcome,  some  funda- 
mental tenet  of  our  democ- 
racy would  be  offended. 

On  one  side  was  the  princi- 
ple that  individuals  are  best 
able  to  make  choices  in  their 
own  interest,  and  when  they 
are  incapable  of  conveying 
their  wishes,  as  is  the  case 


14       WPI  JOURNAL 


with  newborns,  those  closest 
to  them  are  the  most  appropri- 
ate substitutes. 

On  the  other  side  is  the 
principle  that  sometimes 
those  best  able  to  make  life  or 
death  decisions  for  an  inca- 
pacitated person  are  those 
who  are  emotionally  detached 
from  the  situation.  In  this 
case,  government  (usually 
through  the  courts)  is  asked  to 
weigh  and  balance  all  the 
considerations  on  behalf  of 
the  affected  person. 

It  would  be  convenient  if 
technology  presented  us  with 
clear,  simple  decisions  and 
only  positive  consequences. 
But  it  doesn't.  What  if,  how- 
ever, the  question  were  not 
the  ending  of  life  or  even 
life's  quality,  but  rather  one  of 
selecting  desirable  traits  for 
individuals? 

Consider  this  example: 
Society  is  but  a  few  techno- 
logical steps  away  from  giv- 
ing parents  the  ability  to 
choose  the  sex  of  their  child 
prior  to  conception.  Ameri- 
cans on  the  whole  may  prefer 
to  leave  the  choice  to  nature. 
But  even  if  parents  frequently 
exercised  the  option,  the  pro- 
portion of  males  to  females 
might  well  remain  nature's 
"preference"  — roughly 
equal. 

On  the  other  hand,  signifi- 
cant disruptions  in  society 
might  occur,  raising  the  ques- 
tion of  whether  government 
should  regulate  the  practice. 
Recently,  I  asked  students  in 
one  of  my  WPI  classes  to  pro- 
pose a  policy  to  respond  to 
this  question.  Some  leaned  on 
the  Supreme  Court's  1965  rul- 
ing in  Griswold  vs.  Connecti- 
cut. In  that  landmark  case, 


the  court,  in  overturning  a 
law  which  forbade  the  sale  or 
promotion  of  contraceptives 
to  married  couples,  recog- 
nized a  qualified  right  to  pri- 
vacy and  reasoned  that,  if 
anything  is  private,  it  is  the 
decision  of  how  to  build  a 
family.  Government  should 
stay  away  from  such  intimate 
private  decisions,  the  court 
advised,  and  the  choice  of  a 
child's  sex,  some  students 
inferred,  was  likewise  a  pri- 
vate decision. 

Other  students  predicted  an 
imbalance  in  the  ratio  of 
males  to  females  and,  as  a 
result,  unfavorable  social 
change.  They  welcomed 
either  an  outright  ban  of  gen- 
der pre-selection  or  mild  reg- 
ulation (e.g.,  parents  can 
choose  the  first  child;  the  rest 
are  up  to  nature).  Still  other 
students  welcomed  a  ban  for  a 
slightly  different  reason:  if 
the  practice  were  permitted, 
society  would  begin  a  slide 
down  a  slippery  slope  as  later 
technological  developments 
opened  the  door  to  choices 
such  as  height,  looks,  and 
even  intelligence. 

Suppose  several  kinds  of 
procreation  decisions  are  dis- 
tributed along  a  continuum. 
At  one  end  are  decisions 
about  contraceptives,  which 
are  now  constitutionally  pro- 
tected. At  the  other  extreme 
are  as  yet  unrealistic  deci- 
sions such  as  ordering  the 
custom-made  baby.  In 
between  are  variations,  such 
as  choosing  a  child's  sex, 
height,  or  whatever. 

At  what  point  do  the  public 
consequences  of  these  deci- 
sions become  so  significant 
that  they  compel  government 


regulation?  Among  social  sci- 
entists, some  of  our  most 
frustrating  efforts  center  on 
forming  the  very  questions 
we  hope  to  study.  Normally, 
the  answers  are  even  less 
clear-cut.  Both  emerge  slowly 
and  usually  only  after  great 
effort. 


M 


any  technologies 
are  developed  for 
the  purpose  of  mak- 
ing more  efficient  the  collec- 
tion and  management  of 
information.  It's  hard  to  argue 
with  new  developments  that 
encourage  an  informed  citi- 
zenry. But  these  technologies 
can  also  make  it  easier  to  con- 
trol information.  Most  of  us 
assail  endeavors  of  the  latter 
kind  as  dangerous  to  democ- 
racy. Information  is  vitally 
important  to  an  open  political 
system,  but  government  has 
no  business  gathering  and 
prescribing  the  uses  of  infor- 
mation that  should  be  accessi- 
ble to  the  public. 

But  today,  the  information 
game  has  moved  to  a  new 
playing  field  that  favors  gov- 
ernment. Without  protective 
legislation,  individuals  will 
find  themselves  at  a  greater 
and  greater  disadvantage. 

The  problem  becomes  evi- 
dent when  we  frame  it  as  one 
related  to  privacy.  Nowhere 
does  the  Constitution  mention 
the  word  privacy,  but  several 
of  its  provisions  imply  at 
least  a  qualified  right  to  pri- 
vacy. How  can  we  read  the 
Fourth  Amendment's  pro- 
tection against  "unreasonable 
searches  and  seizures"? 

One  legal  scholar  defines 
privacy  as  the  claim  of  indi- 
viduals  "to  determine  for 


themselves  when,  how,  and 
to  what  extent  information 
about  them  is  communicated 
to  others."  For  government  to 
collect  information  on  indi- 
viduals, it  must  overcome  this 
presumption  of  privacy  by 
setting  forth  a  clear  justifica- 
tion, such  as  the  preservation 
of  law  and  order.  Once  again, 
it  is  a  matter  of  balancing 
individual  rights  against  some 
interest  of  society. 

Consider  the  example  of 
"computer  matching."  In 
1974,  46  percent  of  the  Amer- 
ican public  believed  that  per- 
sonal information  was  being 
kept  in  a  file  somewhere  for 
purposes  not  known  to  them. 
By  1983,  69  percent  had  the 
same  opinion  and  51  percent 
believed  that  computers  posed 
a  serious  threat  to  personal  pri- 
vacy. 

One  of  the  earliest  re- 
sponses to  these  concerns  was 
the  Privacy  Act  of  1974. 
Among  other  things,  it 
required  that  information  col- 
lected by  government  agen- 
cies be  used  only  for  its  origi- 
nal purpose.  Separate  agen- 
cies could  not  merge  their 
files  to  find,  for  example,  a 
student  loan  defaulter  who 
was  reporting  a  substantial 
income  to  the  Internal  Reve- 
nue Service. 

The  Privacy  Act  did  allow 
agencies  to  match  their  files 
for  occasional  routine  cases, 
but  this  legislated  exception 
has  now  become  the  norm. 
Moreover,  Congress  has 
passed  several  laws  that  actu- 
ally require  specific  matches. 
The  Deficit  Reduction  Act  of 
1984,  for  example,  permitted 
more  income  tax  information 
to  be  merged  with  data  on 


WINTER  1987       15 


"We  learn  more 

about  the  science 

of  life  every  day, 

yet  we  move 

farther  from 

agreement  on 

what  life 

really  is." 


Social  Security  and  other  ben- 
efit programs.  In  short, 
despite  public  aversion  to 
computer  matching,  Congress 
and  federal  agencies  have 
repeatedly  found  justifica- 
tions for  the  practice. 

The  federal  government's 
use  of  information  has  been 
affected  by  three  changes, 
according  to  a  report  by  the 
Congressional  Office  of  Tech- 
nology Assessment.  First, 
nearly  60  percent  of  all  major 
record  systems  are  now  com- 
puterized. Second,  telecom- 
munications has  made  access 
to  the  records  simpler  and  has 
made  the  process  of  matching 
almost  effortless.  Third,  the 
proliferation  of  microcompu- 
ters allows  thousands  of  offi- 
cials potential  access.  Mon- 
itoring becomes  difficult. 
Security  of  records  is  jeopar- 
dized. It  is  hard  to  tell  retro- 
spectively who  has  obtained 
what  information. 

Policy  makers  have,  how- 
ever, instituted  a  few  protec- 
tive practices.  When  agencies 
score  a  "hit,"  for  example, 
they  do  not  automatically 
assume  the  individual  is  at 
fault.   Instead,   they  usually 


allow  the  person  an  opportu- 
nity to  make  his  or  her  case. 
In  addition,  agencies  must 
disclose,  where  appropriate, 
when  the  information  col- 
lected from  a  person  might  be 
used  for  other  purposes.  Per- 
haps most  significantly,  Con- 
gress is  considering  legisla- 
tion to  revise  and  strengthen 
existing  laws. 

If  the  legal  framework  has 
not  kept  pace  with  comput- 
ers' record-keeping  abilities, 
the  law  is  even  less  ade- 
quately prepared  to  deal  with 
electronic  communications. 
Cordless  phones,  cellular 
phones,  electronic  mail,  and  a 
host  of  other  telecommunica- 
tions methods  that  use  digital- 
ized  impulses  fall  into  a  legal 
no  man's  land. 

The  1968  wiretap  law  re- 
quires a  warrant  to  listen  in  on 
"aural"  conversations.  It  says 
nothing  about  whether  law  en- 
forcement officials  can  pick  up 
electronically  transmitted 
conversations  or  whether  they 
can  obtain  the  records  of  an 
electronic  mail  company. 
(First  class  mail,  in  compari- 
son, is  fully  protected.)  A 
consequence  of  this  ambigu- 
ity is  that  the  courts  have  han- 
dled cases  inconsistently.  As 
the  number  of  cases  in- 
creases, so  will  the  confu- 
sion. 

Democracies  can  be  judged 
by  the  sensitivity  with  which 
they  handle  information, 
allowing  some  kinds  of  infor- 
mation to  flow  freely  through 
society  while  preventing 
improper  uses  of  other  kinds 
of  information.  Two  princi- 
ples should  guide  govern- 
ment's decisions.  First,  infor- 
mation on  individuals  should 


be  presumed  private  unless 
there  is  a  clear  exception, 
such  as  a  legitimate  suspicion 
of  criminal  behavior  and  thus 
a  need  to  institute  surveil- 
lance. 

Second,  all  information 
about  government  and  its 
actions  should  be  presumed 
public,  unless  there  is  a  clear 
exception,  such  as  national 
security.  The  exceptions  to 
both  principles  should  be  nar- 
rowly construed.  The  di- 
lemma is  that  technological 
barriers  between  the  princi- 
ples and  the  exceptions  have 
been  lowered.  The  solution  is 
to  fortify  the  remaining  con- 
stitutional and  legal  barriers. 

Thomas  Jefferson  ad- 
vised that  "laws  and 
institutions  must  go 
hand-in-hand  with  the  prog- 
ress of  the  human  mind.  As 
new  discoveries  are  made, 
institutions  must  advance 
also,  and  keep  pace  with  the 
times." 

In  America,  that  is  easier 
said  than  done.  We  promote 
science  and  embrace  techno- 
logical progress,  but  we  have 
designed  our  political  institu- 
tions to  act  slowly.  The  Con- 
stitution divides,  checks,  and 
balances  power.  But  rapidly 
advancing  technology  places 
great  stress  on  a  political  sys- 
tem built  not  for  swiftness  and 
efficiency  but  for  careful  de- 
liberation and  limited  action. 
Society's  talent  for  develop- 
ing technology  exceeds  its 
capacity  to  absorb  it. 

The  seductive  solutions  are 
either  to  remove  some  of  the 
checks  and  balances  on  public 
authorities,  allowing  them  to 
act  decisively,   or  to  give 


power  to  scientific  experts. 

Both  solutions  are  unsatis- 
factory to  me.  I  share  the 
Founding  Fathers'  skepticism 
about  governmental  power. 
And,  like  them,  I  believe  that 
the  government  that  governs 
least  governs  best.  I  welcome 
the  presence  of  a  Constitution 
between  me  and  government. 
I  want  public  officials  to  feel 
constrained  and,  to  para- 
phrase a  noted  columnist,  I 
think  I'd  rather  be  governed 
by  the  first  50  names  in  the 
Boston  phonebook  than  by  a 
group  of  scientific  experts. 

I  do  not  have  the  solution  to 
the  issue  of  technology  versus 
government,  but  I  do  have  a 
suggestion.  If  my  prediction 
that  technology  will  cause  us 
constitutional  headaches 
down  the  road  proves  to  be 
correct,  then  society  will  need 
citizens  who,  first,  are  sensi- 
tive to  our  constitutional  heri- 
tage and,  second,  are  well- 
informed  about  innovations  in 
technology. 

We  hear  a  great  deal  about 
promoting  technological  liter- 
acy among  the  population.  It 
is  an  admirable  objective, 
especially  when  recent  polls 
show  that  many  Americans 
equate  electricity  with  magic. 
But  I  am  just  as  concerned,  if 
not  more  so,  with  promoting 
constitutional  literacy  among 
scientists  and  engineers. 

We  need  technologists  who 
can  anticipate  and  interpret 
the  constitutional  issues 
raised  by  their  work,  who 
understand  concepts  such  as 
privacy,  and  who  appreciate 
how  difficult  it  is  to  balance 
the  rights  of  individuals 
against  society's  need  for 
order  and  stability. 


16       WPI  JOURNAL 


EUREKA! 


Presenting  the 
World's  Greatest 
Inventions 


LAST  AUGUST,  we  encouraged 
readers  to  nominate  the  one  inven- 
tion the  world  couldn  't  possibly  do 
without.  As  we  thumbed  through  the 
150  contest  entries,  we  could  tell  the 
phone  was  a  favorite.  In  fact,  elec- 
tronic and  electric  gizmos  had  lots 
of  fans.  But  champions  of  frozen 
food,  blue  jeans,  language,  safety 
pins,  bumper  stickers ,  bubbles, 
Tony 's  Hoagies,  credit  cards,  and 
Coke  all  defended  their  choices  elo- 
quently. Several  of  you  praised  the 
invention  of  invention  itself. 

We  didn  V  mind  when  some  entries 
stretched  the  definition  of  invention 
to  accommodate  the  church,  the  cir- 
cle, education,  fire,  and  the  human 
mind.  But  that  didn 't  make  it  any 
easier  to  pick  the  winners.  We  only 
regret  that  we  haven 't  more  room 
for  your  ingenious  replies. 


Illustrations  by 
Shaul  Tsemach 


The  idea  you  can  count  on  What 
would  the  world  be  like  without  num- 
bers? Children  would  be  forced  to 
expand  their  budding  vocabularies. 

"How  old  are  you?" 

"I'm  a  pre-adolescent.  But  my  broth- 
er's neonatal." 

And  for  older  folks? 

"What  birthday  is  this?" 

"Why,  I'm  celebrating  my  prologue  to 
maturity." 

("Ha!  More  like  the  sequel  to  senility 
if  she's  a  day!") 

Getting  a  raise  might  be  tough. 

"Boss,  I've  been  with  the  company  a 
spell  now,  and  I'm  still  only  making  a 
good  bit." 

"So?  What's  your  point?" 

"Well,  sir,  I  was  hoping  you  might  be 
able  to  give  me  a  pretty  good  raise." 

"Out  of  the  question!  But  I  might  con- 
sider a  tad  more." 

"Well,  how  about  a  not-too-bad 
raise?" 

"I'll  think  about  it." 

How  about  Congress  without  num- 
bers? 

WASHINGTON— Congress  ended  its 
session  in  a  flurry  of  legislation  today, 
agreeing  to  tax  citizens  a  whole  bunch 
more.  Lawmakers  noted  the  deficit  was 
"really  getting  up  there,"  and  vowed  to 
"blow  it  away." 

Republicans  claimed  defense  required 


"a  whole  passel  o'  bucks,"  warning, 
"The  Russians  have  lots  o'  missiles.  We 
should,  too." 

But  the  Democratic  side  prevailed. 
Sen.  Twitt  Barley,  in  an  emotional 
address,  won  the  swing  votes.  "Spend- 
ing for  social  programs,"  he  said,  "is 
gettin'  to  be  lower  than  a  snake's  belly  in 
a  wagon  rut." 

Imagine  being  caught  speeding. 

"License  and  registration,  please." 

"What's  wrong,  officer?" 

"We  clocked  you  going  too  darn  fast, 
sir,  in  a  take-it-slow  zone." 

"I  thought  this  was  a  good-clip  zone." 

"Tell  it  to  the  judge,  sir." 

Off  to  the  traffic  court. 

"How  do  you  plead?" 

"Guilty,  I  guess." 

"Have  you  ever  gone  too  darn  fast 
before?" 

"No  sir." 

"How  about  too  damn  fast?" 

This  was  a  tough  judge. 

"Have  you  ever  taken  off  like  a  shot? 
Gone  like  a  bat  out  of  hell?" 

"No  sir.  Never." 

"Good.  Due  to  your  record,  I'll  reduce 
the  charge  of  going  too  darn  fast  to  mov- 
ing at  a  pretty  good  clip.  Pay  the  cashier 
a  trifle." 

O.K.,  I  have  to  agree  we  need  num- 
bers. I'd  hate  to  fly  aboard  an  airplane 
built  without  exact  measurements.  Figur- 


FEBRUARY  1987       I 


hig  out  who  won  on  "Wheel  of  Fortune" 
A'ould  be  impossible.  It's  just  that  we 
often  use  numbers  when  words  will  do. 
They  allow  us  to  quantify,  rather  than 
individualize,  people. 

Does  going  to  the  registrar  make  you 
feel  like  an  equation? 

"Johnson,  Richard?  245-08-9933?" 

"Yep.  That's  me." 

"In  6/85, 1  see  a  3.2  in  course  1.009,  a 
3.6  in  33.55,  and  a  4.0  in  222.887." 

Even  with  a  3.6,  you  feel  like  a  zero.  It 
could  be  so  much  better. 

"Richard  Johnson?  From  Cedar 
City?" 

"Yep.  That's  me." 

"I  see  last  year  you  did  pretty  darn 
well  in  French,  outstandingly  in  Ameri- 
can history,  and  hey!  You  aced  that  nasty 
pre-ionics.  Good  job!" 

Now  that  would  make  you  feel  like  a 
million  bucks. 

Steve  Gasque 
Hopkins  '76 
Kensington,  Md. 

Two  insider  nominees  My  candidate 
for  the  world's  best  invention:  the  Ther- 
mos bottle. 

It  keeps  hot  things  hot 
and 
cold  things  cold. 
But  how  does  it  know? 

Kenneth  F.  Holman 
Villanova  '63 
Kenner,  La. 

Standing  in  my  kitchen  and  looking 
around  for  useful  inventions,  I  am  aston- 
ished to  find  that  every  counter,  wall, 
and  shelf  carries  a  variation  on  an  ancient 
theme.  Long  before  we  could  write,  we 
passed  down  through  our  generations  the 
concept  of  and  skill  to  make  an  elegantly 
simple  object.  Essentially  unchanged, 
this  invention  quietly  permeates  our 
lives,  enriching  those  who  meditate  with 
a  gentle  perspective  on  our  place  in  the 
universe. 

Without  it  we  could  not  have  lived  as 
we  did.  We  could  not  live  without  it  as 
we  do  today. 

The  object  on  my  counter  is  a  bowl.  It 
is  a  flat  surface  (the  bottom)  that  has 
been  curved  on  every  side.  The  space 
within  the  embracing  walls  enables  us  to 
contain,  to  carry  from  place  to  place,  and 
to  handle  in  a  variety  of  ways. 

Make  it  of  wicker,  it's  a  basket.  Stone 
Age  monuments  were  built  with  deer's 
antlers  and  baskets.  Make  it  of  clay,  and 
the  bowl  is  a  pot,  the  staple  find  of 


archaeologists.  Perch  the  bowl  on  a  stand 
and  it  becomes  goblets  and  stemwear. 
Put  a  handle  on  a  bowl  and  it  is  your 
coffee  cup.  Pull  up  the  sides  of  a  simple 
bowl  and  bring  them  close  and  you  get 
an  urn  for  burial,  a  jug  for  liquor,  a 
sealed  container. 

From  baskets  and  pots  of  the  past  to 
containers  for  nuclear  waste,  bowls  have 
served  us  well.  And  yet,  is  it  not  a 
strange  thing  that  it  is  the  part  we  did  not 
invent  that  makes  it  all  work?  The  space 
within,  the  emptiness,  is  the  essential 
element.  A  full  bowl  is  no  longer  useful 
until  emptied  again.  And  so  our  place  in 
the  universe  is  defined.  We  invent  the 
outline,  and  Mother  Nature  does  the  rest. 
Dawn  Campaigne  Miller 
Western  Maryland  College, 
Class  of  '72 
Crownsville,  Md. 

Did  you  hear  the  one  about  .  .  . 
Lump  together  the  computer,  the  internal 
combustion  engine,  lasers,  television, 
and  pantyhose,  and  make  what  argu- 
ments you  will  about  their  merits.  Plead 
the  case  for  the  Salk  vaccine  or  instant 
cake  mix,  and  you  still  won't  have  man's 
greatest  invention.  Before  such  advances 
could  be  possible,  man  had  to  first  find 
the  means  of  coping  with  a  terrifying  and 
hostile  environment.  It  was  in  this  search 
that  man  found  his  greatest  invention: 
the  joke.  After  that,  everything  seemed, 
well,  trivial. 
Think  back  to  our  Neanderthal  ances- 


tors. Life  was  rough,  what  with  living  in 
caves  and  foraging  for  berries,  under  the 
ever-present  threat  of  attack  from  a 
saber-tooth  tiger  or  other  less-than- 
affable  predator.  Take  in  the  full 
picture— climate,  food  supply,  life 
expectancy— and  you'll  see  that  extinc- 
tion appeared  a  viable  alternative  to  this 
stressful  existence.  It  was  the  option  of 
choice  for  the  dinosaurs,  and  everybody 
knew  it. 

What,  then,  eased  the  tension  and 
made  it  possible  for  man  to  take  the  great 
step  forward  that  led  to  the  development 
of  tools,  weapons,  and  agriculture?  One 
significant  day,  early  man  dreamed  up 
the  first  humdinger:  "Hey,  Oog,  why  did 
the  wooly  mammoth  cross  the  road?" 
Oog  wasn't  sure  why,  but  he  liked  the 
answer.  He  laughed  and  felt  better. 
Progress  began. 

As  humor  progressed,  so  did  history. 
The  construction  of  the  pyramids  has 
always  raised  the  question,  "How  did 
they  get  all  those  slaves  to  move  all  those 
big  blocks?"  One  theory  suggests  that  an 
ingenious  overseer  invented  "Pharoah's 
wife"  jokes  that  kept  the  slaves  amused, 
and  kept  the  crews  moving  ever  higher, 
just  so  they  could  pass  the  joke  along  to 
the  next  group  up. 

All  went  well  until  816  A.D.,  when 
Pope  Leo  III  banned  humor  throughout 
the  Holy  Roman  Empire  and  so  kicked 
off  the  Dark  Ages.  Sensing  unrest,  and 
altogether  tired  of  the  Crusades,  Nicho- 
las IV  lifted  the  ban  in  1291.  What  fol- 


II       ALUMNI  MAGAZINE  CONSORTIUM 


lowed  was  the  Renaissance,  known  for 
Dante's  Divine  Comedy,  Boccaccio's 
smutty  little  stories,  and  a  general  atmo- 
sphere of  good-natured  creativity. 

A  careful  reading  of  history  will  show 
that  such  creators  as  da  Vinci,  Franklin, 
and  Edison  were  the  great  kidders  of 
their  day.  Find  war  and  repression  and 
you'll  encounter  a  dour  and  humorless 
lot  who  have  sadly  overlooked  this  great- 
est of  man's  achievements.  Looking  to 
the  future,  do  we  face  peace  and  prosper- 
ity or  certain  doom?  It  all  hinges  on 
whether  or  not  our  leaders  can  take  a 
joke. 

Kim  Kleimo 
F&M  '76 
Lancaster,  Pa. 

A  place  to  learn  and  yearn  From 
Pisistratus  and  Aristotle  to  Medici  and 
Franklin,  the  library  has  flourished  since 
its  inception  some  four  millennia  ago. 
The  only  place  where  the  potential  exists 
for  all  men  to  be  equal,  it  is  both  the 
maker  and  the  mark  of  civilization,  epit- 
omizing the  ideals  of  social  man.  A 
record  of  our  mistakes  and  a  monument 
to  our  achievements,  the  library  is  a  win- 
dow into  the  past  and  a  portal  from 
which  to  imagine  the  future.  It  is  a  place 
of  dreams,  where  the  collective  con- 
sciousness of  man  fuses  into  an  amalgam 
of  unequalled  strength  and  power  for  all 
those  who  use  it  wisely. 

David  C.  Creasey,  PhD 
Hopkins  School  of  Hygiene 

and  Public  Health 
Baltimore,  Md. 

Artificial  wind  Beauty  in  an  invention 
is  a  function  of  three  factors:  simplicity, 
versatility,  and,  of  course,  utility.  On  the 
basis  of  the  first  requirement,  then,  we 
can  immediately  disqualify  all  electronic 
equipment  from  the  competition. 

Let  me  nominate  a  less  spectacular, 
though  equally  useful,  invention:  the 
rotating  fan.  For  me,  more  fascinating 
than  any  of  the  newer,  complex  elec- 
tronic toys,  weapons,  or  machines  is  the 
survival  of  this  simple  invention  through 
it  all.  Somewhere  in  nearly  all  space-age 
machinery  lurks  a  fan,  cooling  the 
expensive  equipment  according  to  its 
primitive  principles. 

Though  there  is  nothing  remotely 
high-tech  about  an  electric  motor  rotat- 
ing three  or  four  blades  on  an  axle,  that 
same  basic  design  has,  no  doubt,  at  least 
as  many  applications  as  the  computer. 
Progeny  of  the  windmill,  which  is  noth- 


ing more  than  a  fan  in  reverse  (that  is, 
driven  by  wind  instead  of  driving  it), 
fans  of  a  sort  are  also  used  to  propel 
ships  and  airplanes.  But  their  most  famil- 
iar function  has  always  been  cooling, 
and  they  perform  this  task  consum- 
mately. Even  air  conditioners,  which 
threatened  to  replace  the  fan,  only 
resulted  in  increasing  the  production  of 
fans;  no  air  conditioner  can  work  without 
one. 

Personal  experience  is  perhaps  not  the 
best  way  to  measure  the  utility  of  this 
instrument,  but,  unfortunately,  I'm  no 
scientist  or  engineer.  My  box  fan  and  I 
.have  been  together  for  years.  I  purchased 
it  in  Baltimore  and  became  attached  to  it 
during  the  sweltering  summer  nights  as  I 
sat  at  my  desk  contemplating  a  half- 
baked  dissertation.  In  my  migrations 
ever  southward,  I  have  brought  it  with 
me  to  Panama  to  help  me  brave  the  deep 
tropics. 

Ceiling  fans  are  the  more  prevalent 
version  of  this  invention,  and  despite 
their  purely  decorative  function  in  res- 
taurants and  bars  in  North  America, 
these  machines  perform  a  much  more 
vital  service  here— that  of  making  build- 
ings habitable— and  they  do  that  silently 
and  efficiently.  Their  only  drawback  is 
the  risk  of  decapitation  or  depilation  that 
they  afford  exceptionally  tall  guests. 

Inventions  such  as  cars,  TV  sets,  and 
computers  are  encumbrances  even  when 
they  are  working  properly.   They  are 
designed  to  solicit  our  undivided  atten- 
tion, thereby  complicating,  rather  than 
simplifying,  our  lives.  The  fan,  at  least, 
remains  one  of  the  few  useful  objects  in 
my  house  that  I  can  gratefully  ignore. 
Carol  Gardner 
Hopkins  PhD  '85 
Panana  City,  Panama 


At  the  sound  of  the  tone  .  .  .  Since 
the  early  20th  century,  when  Alexander 
Graham  Bell  triumphed  in  revolutioniz- 
ing the  communications  industry  with  his 
immortal  plea,  "Watson,  come  here,  I 
need  you,"  the  telephone  has  been  a 
source  of  intrigue  and  worry  like  few 
^other  technological  wonders.  It  domi- 
nates the  human  mind  as  Pavlov's  bell 
dominated  his  dogs,  and  in  much  the 
same  fashion.  Until,  that  is,  the  emer- 
gence of  the  world's  greatest  invention,  a 
product  infinitely  more  remarkable  than 
its  more  famous  predecessor. 

Now  we  are  capable  of  censoring  our 
calls,  a  feat  only  dreamed  of  two  decades 
ago.  The  answering  machine  has  so  infil- 
trated the  professional  and  private  sec- 
tors that  most  people  turn  them  on  even 
when  they're  in.  This  negates  the  possi- 
bility of  accidentally  answering  the 
beckon  of  a  bill  collector,  a  perverted 
caller,  even  a  great-grandparent  hungry 
for  conversation. 

And  it's  so  easy.  Just  program  a  mes- 
sage. Then  sit  back  and  watch  the  action. 
The  magic  box  does  the  rest!  You  can 
turn  the  volume  up  to  hear  the  jokers  on 
the  other  end  trying  desperately  to  invade 
your  life  with  their  thoughtlessly  timed 
calls,  calls  that  previously  had  caused 
you  to  miss  countless  third-and-one 
plays.  Or  turn  the  volume  down  and 
revel  in  the  silence.  This  incredible  ser- 
vant to  humanity  also  answers  the  phone 
when  you're  not  home  and  when  you're 
asleep. 

There  appears  to  be  only  one  catch  to 
this  nearly  perfect  contraption:  The 
owner  doesn't  have  an  airtight  excuse  for 
not  returning  calls.  Time  was  when  the 
IRS  auditor  would  leave  his  name  with 
your  little  sister.  Later  questioned,  you 
could  say,  "Oh,  my  little  sister's  an  idiot. 
She  must  have  forgotten  to  give  me  your 
message."  But  it's  difficult  to  call  your 
answering  machine  an  idiot  with  any  rea- 
sonable degree  of  convincibility. 

I  recently  bought  an  answering 
machine  and  I  haven't  answered  the 
phone  in  weeks!  But  I've  also  noticed 
that,  when  I'm  away  from  home,  I'm  not 
missing  much,  like  the  call  from  Cheryl 
Tiegs  I  dream  of  getting. 

Still  I'm  in  awe  of  the  telephone 
answering  machine,  a  gadget  that 
expands  our  horizons  by  narrowing  our 
responsibilities.  History's  greatest  inven- 
tion imparts  peace  and  quiet  by  proctor- 
ing  one  of  history's  loudest  inventions, 
the  phone.  And  this  thought  inspires  a 
theory  I've  formulated:  Could  it  be  that 


FEBRUARY  1987       m 


the  inventor  of  the  telephone  answering 
machine  is  a  direct  descendant  of  Dr. 
Bell's  faithful  servant,  Watson? 

Nelson  Thacker 

Western  Maryland  College  '82 

Annapolis,  Md. 

Perfect  fit  In  the  earthy,  down-home 
department,  consider  the  fitted  sheet.  It 
has  been  around  for  32  years  and  is  a 
godsend  to  the  harried  housewife  (espe- 
cially she  who  is  wife,  mother,  and 
breadwinner);  to  the  male  coping  with 
domestic  chores;  and  to  the  child  faced 
with  learning  to  make  a  bed.  Slip  the 
elasticized  corners  around  the  mattress 
ends,  and  you're  off  to  a  neat  and  tidy 
start.  The  rest  of  the  process  is  up  to  you, 
but  if  your  foundation  is  smooth  and 
anchored,  you  should  finish  the  mundane 
task  in  jig  time. 

In  a  lifetime  of,  say,  72.4  years,  dur- 
ing which  someone— your  mother,  most 
likely— makes  your  bed  for  you  perhaps 
eight  of  those  years,  you  will  probably 
make  your  own  bed  21,506  times.  This, 
of  course,  does  not  take  into  account  the 
times  that  you're  too  ill  or  injured  to  get 
out  of  bed,  or  lolling  about  in  a  hotel,  or 
unfortunate  enough  to  be  spending  the 
night  in  a  sleeping  bag,  or  if  you're  an 
inveterate  slob  who  doesn't  make  your 
bed.  Give  or  take  the  several  hundred 
chances  you  have  to  avoid  making  your 
own  bed,  and  you're  stuck  with  the  job 
about  20,000  times.  If  it  takes  maybe 
five  minutes  to  make  the  darned  thing 


(and  that  depends  on  the  bed's  size,  the 
dexterity  of  your  hands,  the  length  of 
your  arms,  and  your  standards  of  neat- 
ness), bed-making  will  take  a  minimum 
of  166  hours  and  40  minutes  of  your  life. 
Without  the  fitted  sheet,  it  would  take 
much  longer. 

The  fitted  sheet  is  a  simple  object,  but 
its  appearance  had  to  wait  for  two 
inventions— elastic  and  then  synthetic, 
heat-tolerant  elastic  that  would  snap  back 
into  shape  after  repeated  washings.  Rat- 
tier Guibal  in  1830  invented  elastic  in  a 
suburb  of  Paris.  But  it  was  not  until 
March  1954  that  the  people  of  Glen 
Raven  Mills  in  North  Carolina  intro- 
duced the  fitted  sheet,  made  with  nylon 
tricot,  which  had  an  unpleasant,  sleazy 
feel  to  it.  In  1959,  Du  Pont  introduced 
Lycra  spandex  fiber,  a  synthetic  elastom- 
er, thereby  paving  the  way  for  a  marriage 
of  more  natural  fibers  with  a  heat- 
resistant  band. 

For  those  of  you  who  think  that  the 
younger  generation  is  getting  soft,  be 
heartened  to  learn  that  the  Armed  Forces 
still  make  the  beds  with  plain  old  flat 
sheets.  Some  hospitals  have  adopted  fit- 
ted sheets;  some,  including  Hopkins, 
have  not.  So  relax,  purists,  the  dreaded 
hospital  corner  may  be  endangered,  but 
it  is  not  extinct. 

For  the  rest  of  us,  better  bed-making 
through  chemistry. 

Ann  Egerton 
Hopkins  '68,  MLA  '74 
Baltimore,  Md. 


A  haven  away  from  the  monsters 

Middle-class  suburbanite  teenagers:  We 
live  in  nice  houses  in  nice  neighbor- 
hoods. Our  parents  drive  nice  cars.  We 
wear  nice  clothes  and  have  nice  things. 
Let's  face  it— we  lead  nice  lives.  In  all 
this  nicety,  what  could  we  simply  not 
live  without?  Is  it  the  microwave?  our 
stereos?  or  perhaps  the  family  VCR? 
This  renegade  suburbanite  thinks  not. 
My  choice:  indoor  plumbing.  Over- 
looked and  underappreciated,  but  very, 
very  necessary,  wouldn't  you  say? 

My  earliest  recollections  of  the  out- 
house are  from  the  camping  trips  our 
family  took  in  my  toddlerhood.  I  remem- 
ber Mommy  sitting  me  precariously  atop 
"the  hole."  Mommy  daren't  have  let  me 
go  or  I  would  surely  have  fallen  into  that 
dark,  smelly  pit  where  monsters  live  (or 
so  said  my  terrorizing  older  brother).  In 
all  seriousness,  I  think  it  was  a  reason- 
able worry.  It  certainly  was  a  large  hole 
for  my  four-year-old  behind.  By  the  way, 
has  anyone  found  statistics  on  outhouse 
casualties? 

In  recent  years,  even  my  dumb  brother 
has  conceded  that  monsters  don't  really 
live  in  "the  hole."  Besides  the  obvious, 
what's  really  down  there?  The  sight  and 
smells  are  deceiving.  My  personal  opin- 
ion is  that  the  whole  outhouse  thing  is  a 
cover-up.  Actually,  all  the  sites  are  toxic 
waste  dumps;  the  outhouses  are  just 
there  to  throw  off  all  those  public  activ- 
ists. 

That  brings  me  to  the  most  important 
argument  against  outhouses:  location. 
They're  always  yards  and  yards  from  the 
nearest  campsite  or  building.  A  person 
could  get  lost.  Why,  that  has  happened! 
In  the  early  1920s,  the  Oliver  family  was 
having  a  picnic  on  Zorber  Mountain.  My 
grandmother's  four-year-old  cousin,  lit- 
tle Elizabeth,  went  off  to  the  outhouse. 


IV       ALUMNI  MAGAZINE  CONSORTIUM 


She  never  returned.  Legend  has  it  that 
she  was  carried  off  by  a  bear.  That,  how- 
ever, is  not  the  point.  The  point  is  that  a 
lot  of  things  could  happen  to  a  body  try- 
ing to  find  a  far-off  outhouse. 

The  lowly  toilet  will  never  be  heralded 
as  one  of  man's  greatest  inventions.  It  is, 
then,  our  duty  to  right  the  wrong  and  sing 
the  praises  of  indoor  plumbing  for  all  the 
world  to  hear. 

Nicole  M.  Wallace,  age  14 
F&M  Gifted  Program 
Columbia,  Pa. 

Marvelous  simplicity  By  fiddling  with 
a  thin  piece  of  metal  many  decades  ago, 
someone  invented  an  object  so  pragmatic 
that  today  it  thrives  in  desk  drawers  and 
in  every  office  and  home.  It  remains  the 
same  year  after  year,  even  as  computers, 
cars,  and  compact  discs  undergo  yearly 
revisions. 

The  stapler  remains  its  closest  rival  in 
popularity,  but  as  staplers  have  been 
known  to  grow  feet  during  the  course  of 
the  night  and  quietly  walk  away  from 
their  designated  spot,  the  stapler's  relia- 
bility is  always  in  question.  Also,  correc- 
tive action  on  a  faulty  stapling  job  is  tedi- 
ous at  best. 

The  simplicity  of  the  paper  clip  is  what 
makes  it  so  marvelous.  When  was  the 
last  time  you  saw  someone  staring  dumb- 
founded at  a  paper  clip,  exclaiming, 
"How  does  this  work?"  It  is  complete 
in  and  of  itself— Maslow's  "self- 
actualization"  at  its  best. 

The  last  aspect  that  sets  it  apart  is  its 
inspirational  quality.  How  many  sociol- 
ogy majors  could  invent  a  laser  beam? 
However,  anyone  could  have  twisted  that 
thin  piece  of  metal  and  turned  a  simple 
concept  into  a  reality.  It  makes  one  won- 
der how  many  other  needs  could  be  met 
so  easily  and  completely. 

Jim  Denny 
Villanova  '83 
Seattle,  Wash. 

Ever  since  1899  when  Johan  Vaaler 
invented  the  paper  clip  in  Norway,  it  has 
influenced  the  world  far  beyond  its  size. 

Government  and  legal  documents  in 
England  used  to  be  tied  together  with  red 
tape.  The  paper  clip  came  along,  and 
presto,  red  tape  was  eliminated. 

Where  would  the  pipe  smoker  be  with- 
out a  paper  clip?  Just  today,  while 
ensconced  in  my  favorite  recliner,  I 
extracted  a  clip  from  my  pocket, 
unwound  it,  and  reamed  my  pipe. 

More  than  once  when  traveling,  I  have 


forgotten  cuff  links  or  a  tie  clasp.  Paper 
clips  held  the  cuffs  together  and  kept  my 
necktie  out  of  the  gravy.  Once  I  could 
find  no  way  to  attach  the  loop  of  my 
academic  hood  to  my  gown.  A  large 
paper  clip  on  the  gown  with  the  loop 
through  the  clip  held  the  hood  in  place, 
and  I  was  spared  strangulation. 

During  the  Nazi  occupation  of  Nor- 
way, the  paper  clip  was  a  symbol  of 
national  unity.  "Loyal  Norwegians  wore 
the  clip  proudly,"  writes  Bent  Vanberg  in 
Of  Norwegian  Ways,  "knowing  full  well 
that  they  risked  arrest,  deportation, 
imprisonment,  and  even  execution  by 
displaying  this  simple  sign  of  their  true 
feelings." 

Without  the  versatile  paper  clip,  life 
would  be  less  rich  and  20th-century 
progress  impeded. 

Leslie  G.  Rude 

Hartwick  College  Hon.  '74 

Decorah,  Iowa 

They  lit  up  our  lives  Many  ingenious 
inventors  improved  on  candle  produc- 
tion, on  kerosene  lamp  efficiency,  and 
on  whale-oil  lamps  of  early  times.  But 
not  until  the  electric  light  did  mankind 
transform  life  at  night  into  an  easy  con- 
tinuation of  daytime  activities. 

Two  inventors  from  the  Connecticut 
Western  Reserve  within  six  months  of 
each  other  combined  to  invent  the  elec- 
tric light:  Charles  Brush  on  April  29, 


1879,  produced  the  arc  light  and  Thomas 
Edison  in  October  produced  the  incan- 
descent lamp. 

Both  inventors  helped  to  revolutionize 
the  way  mankind  lives:  The  arc  lamp  for 
street  lighting,  powerful  searchlights, 
and  movie  projector  illumination,  among 
other  uses;  the  incandescent  lamp  for 
floor  lamps,  ceiling  fixtures,  and  count- 
less other  applications. 

Clay  Herrick,  Jr. 

Adelbert  College  '34 

Case  Western  Reserve 
University 

Shaker  Heights,  Ohio 

You  don't  know  me,  but  .  .  .  Just 
think  of  what  it  must  have  been  like  for 
prehistoric  man  to  use  a  stick  to  make  an 
abstract  mark  on  the  ground  to  share  his 
thoughts.  The  step  from  not  recording 
ideas  to  recording  them  is  as  much  a 
quantum  leap  as  the  jump  from  counting 
on  one's  fingers  to  using  a  giant  com- 
puter. 

Today,  we  might  be  awed  by  super- 
sonic flights,  computers,  television,  and 
a  host  of  everyday  marvels  that  we  take 
for  granted.  Yet  these  would  not  exist 
without  a  system  of  recording  the  many 
languages  necessary  to  communicate  one 
person's  thoughts  and  ideas  to  another. 

The  recording  of  thoughts  and  ideas  is 
an  invention  each  one  of  us  carries 
within  us,  locked  up  in  our  potential. 


FEBRUARY  1987       V 


Each  one  of  us  can  add  or  modify  the 
original  discovery  or  invention  to  suit  our 
needs. 

While  you  are  reading  this,  even 
though  you  don't  know  me,  I  am  sharing 
my  thoughts  with  you.  Just  think  what  a 
powerful  invention  the  recording  of  ideas 
is.  You  are  able  to  benefit  from  such 
great  people  as  Moses,  Aristotle,  Socra- 
tes, Plato,  Emerson,  Thoreau,  and  Ein- 
stein by  reading  their  recorded  ideas. 

The  accumulation  of  knowledge  is 
what  separates  humankind  from  the  rest 
of  the  animal  kingdom.  We  would  still 
be  back  in  prehistoric  times  if  we  had  to 
learn  everything  firsthand. 

Sidney  Madwed 
WPI  '49 
Fairfield,  Conn. 

Right  in  front  of  his  eyes  There  were 
many  possible  explanations  for  the 
absence  of  stars  from  the  night  sky,  air 
pollution  being  the  most  likely,  in  the 
small  factory  town  where  I  lived  as  a 
boy.  But  why  was  the  moon  so  big?  Like 
a  fuzzy,  yellow  beachball  that  blocks  out 
the  sky  just  before  you  catch  it,  the  moon 
dominated  the  heavens. 

Indoors  my  surroundings  had  a  dream- 
like quality.  In  church,  pictures  of  fluffy, 
white  clouds  floated  across  the  sanctu- 
ary, illuminated  by  the  glow  of  candles 
with  enormous  flames  that  could  have 
been  breathed  only  by  enormous  drag- 
ons. 

I  might  have  continued  living  in  this 
peculiar  atmosphere  had  I  not  realized 
that  my  sixth-grade  teacher  wasn't  writ- 
ing on  the  blackboard  with  invisible 
chalk.  Now,  no  self-conscious  11-year- 
old  looks  forward  to  wearing  eyeglasses, 
but  when  I  was  fitted  with  my  first  pair,  a 
whole  new  dimension  of  experience 
opened  up  for  me.  I  saw  that  there  were 
stars,  however  faint,  in  the  night  sky. 
The  moon  grew  smaller  but  more  dis- 
tinctly bounded,  and  the  man  reputed  to 
live  there  smiled  hello.  The  white  clouds 
on  the  sanctuary  wall  turned  into  sheep 
and  the  candles  did  their  work  without 
the  help  of  dragons.  My  sixth-grade 
teacher  used  real  chalk  to  list  real  home- 
work assignments  on  the  board. 

I  corrected  these  old  misperceptions 
and  discovered  new  worlds  of  color  and 
form.  For  months,  I  made  excuses  to  go 
to  the  supermarket,  where  I  must  have 
looked  like  a  visitor  from  Mars  staring  at 
the  endless  rows  of  brightly  colored 
packages  that  no  longer  blended  together 
in  dull  orange  clusters  but  stood  out  in 


bold  displays  of  individuality. 

Nearly  three  decades  later,  I  would  be 
tempted  to  take  my  almost  perfectly  cor- 
rected vision  for  granted  were  it  not  for 
the  fact  that  I  scarcely  recognize  the  fel- 
low whose  face  I  shave  every  morning— 
until  I  put  on  my  glasses. 

From  my  own  myopic  point  of  view, 
when  I  think  about  millions  of  us  running 
around  bumping  into  one  another  by  the 
light  of  a  fuzzy,  yellow  moon,  I  can't 
imagine  how  we  ever  got  along  before 
they  invented  eyeglasses. 

Alan  Bodnar 
Villanova  '69 
Wellesley,  Mass. 

From  output  back  to  input  Feedback 
is  one  of  the  most  powerful  concepts  of 
all  time.  It  has  been  applied  not  only  to 
the  machine  but  to  the  mind,  the  person, 
the  group,  and  the  society.  Edwin  Arm- 
strong's positive  feedback  amplifier 
made  early  radios  much  better  by 
increasing  the  gain  and  narrowing  the 
band  width.  Two  decades  later,  Harold 
S.  Block  did  the  reverse,  using  the  same 
negative  feedback  concept  that  was  regu- 
lating the  speed  of  steam  engines  a  cen- 
tury before. 

Perhaps  we  were  slow  to  start  applying 
feedback,  but  today  it  is  basic  to  our 
machines,  our  systems,  and  our  learning 


What  8th*graders 
couldn't  live  without 

Our  special  thanks  go  to  two  Sth-grade 
teachers  who  opted  to  assign  the  contest 
topic  to  their  gifted  classes:  Donna 
(McCubbin)  Moulton  at  Lake  Braddock 
Secondary  School  in  Burke,  Va.  (she 
attended  Western  Maryland  College), 
and  Karen  Randlev,  at  Albany  Middle 
School  in  Berkeley,  Calif,  (she 's  a  grad- 
uate of  the  Hopkins  Writing  Seminars 
program). 

Bubble  gum,  TV,  telephones,  com- 
puters, Teddy  bears,  deodorant,  and 
comics  were  some  of  the  youngsters ' 
favorites.  But  plastic,  pencils,  paper, 
aspirin,  and  microwaves  caught  their 
fancy  as  well,  among  many  other  things. 
Here 's  a  small  sample  of  the  creative 
energy  unleashed. 

The  link  between  two  points  Rope  is 
essential  to  many  basic  ideas.  It  helped 
build  the  pyramids,  it  helps  build  houses, 
cross  valleys,  build  bridges,  and  it 
helped  to  conceive  wire.  Without  wire, 
we  wouldn't  have  computers,  electrical 
appliances,  stringed  musical  instru- 
ments. Rope  also  spawned  wicker. 
Thread  for  clothes  and  sewing  wouldn't 
have  come  about  without  rope.  Insula- 
tion for  wires  wouldn't  be  needed  if  there 
were  no  wires. 

Then  there's  the  pulley.  That's  a  pretty 
important  piece  of  equipment  in  any 
building  environment.  Cowboys 
wouldn't  have  anything  to  "head  'em 
up"  and  "move  'em  out"  with.  What 
need  is  there  for  a  knot  when  there  is 
nothing  to  tie  a  knot  in!  Shoelaces  are 
made  from  thread  that  wouldn't  have 
come  about  without  rope.  We  would  all 
still  be  using  loafers  and  sandals  if  we 
hadn't  thought  of  rope. 

Brett  Boessen 

Lake  Braddock  Secondary 
School 

The  model  for  a  better  world  Have 
you  ever  sat  down  to  do  some  serious 
work  and  found  yourself  absorbed  in  the 
complexity  of  a  bucket  of  Legos?  Time 
and  time  again,  young  children  and  their 
elders  alike  have  pondered  the  endless 
building  capabilities  of  these  tiny  materi- 
als, little  plastic  bricks  ranging  in  size 
from  a  centimeter  to  a  couple  of  inches  in 
length. 
Because  of  their  plain,  generic  design 


VI       ALUMNI  MAGAZINE  CONSORTIUM 


and  ability  to  be  interchanged,  they 
could  prove  extremely  useful  in  our 
world  today.  Laugh  at  my  conjecture, 
but  the  world  could  be  using  modern- 
ized, plastic  furniture  next  time  you  turn 
your  back.  These  marvelously  plain, 
plastic  blocks  and  things  could  also 
prove  useful  in  designing  communities. 
If  changes  were  to  be  made  on  a  typical 
architect's  layout,  the  set  would  need  to 
be  totally  redone,  whereas  a  Lego  layout 
would  need  only  an  interchange  of 
blocks  and  a  coat  of  paint. 

In  conclusion,  the  Lego,  although 
thought  of  as  a  mere  toy  designed  to 
stimulate  the  mind  of  an  8-year-old,  has 
extensive  possibilities  in  the  fields  of 
architecture,  interior  design,  and  many, 
many  other  fields  to  come. 

Scott  Matthews 

Lake  Braddock  Secondary 
School 

When  you  haven  yt  got  a  goat    Do  you 

remember  back  in  the  days  of  renting 
goats  to  trim  grass?  Well,  I  do.  On  the 
Fourth  of  July,  1892,  we  were  having  a 
party  and  no  goats  were  available  where 
we  usually  rented.  So  we  had  a  choice. 
We  could  rent  cattle,  and  have  cow  pat- 
ties. We  could  rent  horses,  but  they  were 
too  big.  Or  we  could  rent  goats  from  a 
different  farm.  We  decided  upon  cattle, 
but  the  extra  hours  spent  cleaning  were 
not  rewarding  because  Aunt  Betsy 
stepped  in  the  patty  we  forgot  to  clean 
up. 

Oh,  and  if  someone  should  ask  the 
question,  "Why  do  we  mow  our 
lawns?,"  just  tell  them  this.  First  of  all 
we  like  to  mimic  the  British.  Second,  we 


don't  like  grass  tickling  our  legs  when 
we  walk  through  it.  Third  and  finally, 
mowed  grass,  in  our  culture,  is  a  prettier 
sight  than  unmowed  grass. 

What  if  people  couldn't  afford  to  rent 
goats?  Then  what  did  they  do?  They 
clipped  it  by  hand.  Just  imagine  crawling 
on  hands  and  knees  for  eight  hours,  cut- 
ting grass  in  the  back  yard  with  three- 
inch  scissors.  I  don't  think  I  could  do  it. 

Why  do  we  need  power  lawnmowers 
anyway?  We  need  them  because,  as  our 
world  develops  and  becomes  more 
advanced,  we  have  less  time  to  spend 
doing  yardwork  and  mowing  the  lawn. 
So  think  about  it— the  power  mower  is  a 
big  improvement.  I  think  it  is  a  gift  from 
heaven! 

Rachel  Sours-Page 
Albany  Middle  School 

Light  years  ahead  of  the  rest    The 

light  bulb.  An  object  we  use  with  little 
thought.  It  is  a  steady  and  powerful 
source  of  light  that  can  be  moved  around 
at  will,  that  can't  blow  up  in  your  face. 
Entertainment  would  be  completely  dif- 
ferent if  we  didn't  have  the  light  bulb. 
No  night  sports  games,  no  movies,  no 
lights  on  your  stereo,  no  photography, 
etc.  No  warning  lights  on  dangerous 
machinery,  no  landing  lights  at  the  air- 
port. 

Some  people,  like  backyard  astrono- 
mers, thieves,  and  film  developers, 
wouldn't  mind  if  the  light  bulb  hadn't 
been  invented.  But  most  people  like  the 
light  bulb.  It  allows  you  to  do  your 
homework  late  at  night.  It  allows  you  to 
work  on  something  outside  until  it  is  real 
late.  Light  lets  you  see  small  differences 


in  the  color  of  objects.   There  are  so 
many  reasons  to  like  the  light  bulb. 

You  may  say  electricity  is  more  impor- 
tant than  the  light  bulb,  but  it  was  discov- 
ered, not  invented.  The  wheel  was 
important,  but  there  are  other  ways  to  get 
around.  The  computer  could  also  be 
given  up.  There  was  life  before  televi- 
sion and  radio  were  around.  There  are 
other  ways  of  communicating  than  the 
phone.  None  of  these  would  change  life 
as  much  as  the  light  bulb. 

Mike  Plumpe 

Lake  Braddock  Secondary 
School 

Putting  teeth  in  the  American 
Dream  "Oops!  Sorry,  my  upper  teeth 
just  fell  out,"  is  something  that  might 
have  been  an  everyday  expression  if  it 
weren't  for  the  toothbrush.  A  toothbrush 
is  of  great  importance  even  though  you 
may  not  know  it.  We  depend  on  them  to 
get  the  remains  of  our  previous  meals  off 
of  our  teeth  and  down  the  drain.  Can  you 
imagine  what  a  beautiful  shade  of  yellow 
our  teeth  would  be  after  20  years  of  not 
brushing?  Actually,  they  probably 
wouldn't  be  yellow;  more  like  a  beauti- 
ful shade  of  brown— wood  brown.  That's 
right,  if  it  weren't  for  toothbrushes,  99 
percent  of  our  population's  teeth  would 
rot  away  and  we  would  all  have  to  get 
wooden  teeth  (probably).  But  actually,  it 
probably  would  have  been  better  for  the 
dentists. 

Can  you  imagine  how  our  world  would 
change  if,  instead  of  some  kids  com- 
plaining about  getting  fluoride  treat- 
ments, it  would  be:  "Oh  no!  I  just 
remembered!  I  have  to  go  to  the  dentist 
and  get  my  teeth  varnished  today." 

In  fact,  kids'  grades  would  have  to  be 
adjusted  for  all  the  time  when  they  had 
gotten  a  coating  on  their  teeth  and  had  to 
leave  them  at  home  to  dry.  When  their 
teachers  called  on  them,  they  wouldn't 
be  able  to  answer,  so  they'd  get  bad 
marks.  Not  to  mention  the  thought  of 
how  bad  our  breath  would  smell  after  10 
or  12  years  of  not  brushing.  We  probably 
couldn't  even  talk  to  each  other.  The 
smell  would  be  so  bad,  we  couldn't  even 
have  school!  Young  America  would  be 
stupid  and  uneducated.  Once  the  older 
generation  died  off,  America  would 
crumble!  I  hope  you  see  the  importance 
of  the  toothbrush,  and  don't  forget  to 
brush  twice  a  day,  for  America's  sake. 
Kristi  Kimball 
Lake  Braddock  Secondary 
School 


FEBRUARY  1987       W 


process.  Applying  feedback  will  con- 
tinue to  solve  engineering  and  other 
world  problems. 

F.G.  Toce 
WPI  '60 
Clay,  N.Y. 

Getting  a  handle  on  daily  life  After 
prehistoric  man  loosened  up  a  boulder  in 
the  ground  with  a  tree  branch,  he  later 
found  that  the  task  became  easier  by 
using  a  longer  branch.  Thus  leverage 
was  born.  This  was  man's  first  power 
tool. 

And  it  still  thrives  today.  Let  us  look  at 
a  jutting  crane  as  it  hoists  up  a  weighty 
steel  beam  to  be  placed  at  the  top  of  a 
new  building.  Such  a  procedure  is  the 
result  of  a  long  history  in  building  con- 
struction that  commenced  at  least  as 
early  as  the  pyramids,  the  Easter  Island 
statues,  and  Stonehenge— all  requiring 
feats  of  power. 

Advancing  to  the  20th  century,  we  see 
examples  of  leverage  in  automobile 
transmissions  that  provide  various 
powers  and  speeds.  House  painters  eas- 
ily pull  up  their  heavy  scaffolds  through 
means  of  several  pulleys.  In  1936  Frank 
Lloyd  Wright  employed  cantilever  prin- 
ciples when  he  built  Fallingwater,  the 


house  that  straddled  a  waterfall. 

As  to  the  saving  of  lives  through  lever- 
age, consider  tourniquets  and  emergency 
hand-brakes  for  motor  vehicles. 

Leverage  can  help  a  handicapped  per- 
son, such  as  my  wife,  who  has  Lou 
Gehrig's  disease.  As  her  degenerative 
condition  progressed,  she  could  not  turn 
handles,  knobs,  or  dials.  I  came  to  the 
rescue  by  adding  leverage.  With  a  little 
imagination,  I  made  20  devices  around 
our  house.  Now  my  wife  can  turn  fau- 
cets, TV  dials,  doorknobs,  locks, 
burglar-alarm  keys,  lamp  switches,  the 
attic  exhaust  fan  switch,  and  the  rheostat 
of  the  broiler.  Also,  with  the  help  of  lev- 
erage, she  now  can  open  the  automobile 
door  from  both  the  inside  and  the  outside 
and  she  can  even  press  down  the  flush 
handle  of  the  toilet. 

Theodor  Podnos 
Peabody  Conservatory  '33 
Teaneck,  N.J. 

One  thing  led  to  another  When  we 
first  think  of  the  word  "thing,"  we  may 
not  be  overly  impressed  by  it.  But  with- 
out it,  I  contend  that  the  English  lan- 
guage would  be  crippled.  A  noun  is  a 
word  that  can  be  classified  as  a  person, 
place,  or  thing.  The  "thing"  classifica- 


tion is  by  far  the  largest.  The  word  itself 
provides  a  neat  solution  when  we  do  not 
know  what  word  we  are  looking  for. 
When  we  have  a  jar  that  we  cannot  get 
the  lid  off  of,  we  all  reach  for  that  round 
rubber  "thing"  that  gives  us  the  strength 
of  10  men. 

Our  teachers  always  told  us  not  to  use 
the  word  "thing"  if  another  word  would 
suffice.  However,  even  Shakespeare's 
Hamlet  could  not  resist:  "The  play's  the 
thing  wherein  I'll  catch  the  conscience  of 
the  King."  Even  though  we  claim  not  to 
like  to  use  the  word,  we  just  cannot  leave 
it  alone.  Sometime  back,  somebody, 
somewhere,  asked  someone  to  hand  him 
that  thingamajig.  The  person  who 
handed  it  over  must  have  known  what 
the  other  one  wanted,  for  the  giver 
started  using  the  term,  too.  The  rest  is 
history. 

Over  the  years,  "thing"  has  also  taken 
on  a  frightening  quality  when  used  in 
certain  contexts,  largely  due  to  the  sense 
of  the  unknown  that  it  connotes.  We 
have  a  pretty  good  idea  what  the  classic 
horror  movie,  The  Thing  is  about.  By 
definition,  however,  it  could  be  about  a 
killer  paper  clip,  a  nasty  wing  nut,  or  a 
macabre  melon-baller.  The  title  of  the 
movie,  The  Swamp  Thing  loses  much  of 
its  intended  impact  if  it  is  changed  to  The 
Swamp  Guy. 

We  all  take  the  word  "thing"  for 
granted,  but  it  is  an  integral  part  of  our 
language.  Before  its  invention,  people 
must  have  really  floundered  when  they 
wanted  to  refer  to  an  as  yet  unnamed 
object.  If  nothing  else,  I  have  proved  that 
some  people  can  go  on  about  anything. 
Rob  Funk 
Villanova  '80 
Downingtown,  Pa. 

Paper! 

No  paper 

No  da  Vinci  drawings 

No  birthday  cards 

No  New  York  Times 

No  Matisse  collages 

No  origami 

No  Johns  Hopkins  Magazine 

No  "Far  Side" 

No  print-outs 

No  folding  money 

No  envelopes 

No  letters 

No  stamps 

No  contest 

Loreen  Barry 
Hopkins  '66 
McLean,  Va. 


Vffl       ALUMNI  MAGAZINE  CONSORTIUM 


Ordinary 
Addictions 


Nicotine  and  alcohol  are  a  part  of  daily  life. 
They're  also  dangerous  drugs. 


By  Joseph  Alper 

Photographs  by 
William  Denison 


Cigarette  smokers  and  alcoholics, 
along  with  junkies  and  coke 
heads,  are  addicts  in  every  sense 
of  the  word.  "Because  alcohol  and  nico- 
tine aren't  illegal,  because  they  are  so 
common,  because  we  don't  connect 
them  with  crime,  we  don't  think  of  them 
as  addictive  drugs,"  says  Charles 
O'Brien,  chief  of  the  department  of  psy- 
chiatry at  the  Veterans  Administration 
(VA)  Medical  Center  in  Philadelphia. 
"But  they  are  just  as  addictive  as  cocaine 
and  heroin,  and  their  abuse  costs  this 
country  far  more  in  terms  of  increased 


health  care  costs  and  human  suffering 
than  all  other  drugs  combined." 

According  to  the  National  Institute  of 
Drug  Abuse,  there  are  500,000  heroin 
addicts  and  between  four  and  eight  mil- 
lion cocaine  addicts  in  the  United  States. 
But  there  are  more  than  50  million  ciga- 
rette smokers  in  the  U.S.,  according  to 
the  Congressional  Office  of  Technology. 
The  National  Clearinghouse  for  Alcohol 
Information  estimates  that  there  are 
approximately  10.6  million  alcoholics. 

Comparing  nicotine  to  heroin,  for 
example,  may  seem  like  comparing 
apples  to  oranges,  but  consider  this:  Of 
the  two  drugs,  says  Andrew  Weil,  pro- 
fessor of  psychiatry  at  the  University  of 
Arizona  College  of  Medicine,  nicotine  is 
far  more  addictive.  Nicotine  addiction 
kills  an  estimated  350,000  people  every 
year,  compared  to  roughly  3,000  deaths 
related  to  heroin  addiction.  Heroin 
causes  human  suffering,  but  the  two- 
pack-a-day  smoker,  riddled  with  emphy- 
sema, suffers  as  well,  as  does  his  or  her 
family.  "If  you  want  to  talk  about  the 
death  penalty  for  drug  pushers,  why  not 
start  with  tobacco  industry  officials,"  he 
says. 

In  a  position  paper  on  chemical  depen- 
dence, The  American  College  of  Physi- 
cians makes  no  distinction  among  addic- 
tions to  social  drugs  (alcohol,  nicotine, 
and  caffeine),  licit  prescription  and  over- 
the-counter  drugs,  and  illicit  drugs.  Peo- 
ple can  become  physically  and  psycho- 
logically dependent  on  any  of  them,  and 
that,  states  the  report,  is  bad  from  both  a 
medical  and  social  standpoint.  And 
according  to  the  U.S.  Center  for  Health 
Statistics,  alcohol  and  drug  abuse  costs 
over  $50  billion  yearly,  and  cigarette 
smoking  another  $22  billion,  in  health 
care  costs,  accidents,  violence,  and  loss 
of  productivity.  Other  estimates  tally  the 
toll  even  higher:  Alcoholism  and  alcohol 
abuse  may  cost  as  much  as  $120  billion 
each  year  in  increased  medical  care; 
work  time  lost;  and  losses  from  crime, 


FEBRUARY  1987       IX 


y 


fire,  and  auto  accidents. 

Illicit  drugs  grab  most  of  the  head- 
lines, but  nicotine  and  alcohol  head  the 
list  of  addictive  substances  taking  the 
highest  toll  in  social  terms.  Next  come 
such  legal  drugs  as  over-the-counter  diet 
aids,  antihistamines,  cough  medicines 
and  prescription  stimulants,  sedatives, 
and  narcotics.  In  fact,  the  General 
Accounting  Office  has  identified  licit 
drugs— often  taken  initially  at  a  physi- 
cian's recommendation— as  one  of  the 
fastest  rising  causes  of  death  in  the 
United  States. 

What  ties  together  such  seemingly  dis- 
parate substances  as  nicotine,  Valium, 
and  heroin  into  this  dangerous  class  of 
addictive  compounds?  They  have  little  in 
common  chemically,  and  they  work  by 
different  biochemical  mechanisms.  But 
they  do  share  some  common  properties 
important  in  leading  to  abuse  and  addic- 
tion, according  to  Donald  Jasinski, 
director  of  the  Center  for  Chemical 
Dependence  at  Francis  Scott  Key  Medi- 
cal Center  in  Baltimore. 

All  addictive  drugs  are  psychoactive 
euphoriants — they  work  in  the  brain  to 
produce  feelings  of  well-being  and  ela- 
tion. A  drug's  euphoric  effects,  which 
can  last  from  a  few  minutes  to  a  few 
hours,  are  what  get  a  person  to  take  the 
substance  in  the  first  place.  The  speed 
with  which  a  drug  produces  its  character- 
istic high  is  often  related  to  how  quickly 
it  gets  to  the  brain. 

Sooner  or  later,  says  Jasinski,  a  person 
develops  tolerance  to  the  drug's  effects 
and  has  to  take  more  of  the  drug  to  get 
the  same  sense  of  well-being.  In  some 
cases,  such  as  with  cocaine,  the  person 
can  never  experience  the  original  high  no 
matter  how  much  of  the  drug  he  takes. 
At  the  same  time,  however,  the  person 
develops  a  physical  dependence,  too— he 
or  she  will  feel  rotten  without  it.  The 
person  has  become  an  addict. 

Over  the  past  decade,  researchers  have 
attempted  to  learn  what  biochemical 
changes  occur  to  make  an  addict  out  of  a 


\ 


casual  user.  Although  most  of  the  details 
are  still  unclear,  studies  in  hundreds  of 
laboratories  have  shown  that  many 
addictive  drugs  work  in  the  brain  by 
interacting  with  large,  complex  mole- 
cules called  receptors.  However,  recep- 
tors do  not  exist  merely  to  bind  addictive 
drugs. 

Dozens  of  different  types  of  receptors 
reside  in  nerve  cell  membranes  and  are 
involved  in  transmitting  information 
between  nerve  cells.  Each  type  of  recep- 
tor binds  to  a  specific  chemical,  called  a 
neurotransmitter,  produced  in  the  brain. 
For  example,  certain  nerve  cells  produce 
a  neurotransmitter  called  methionine 
enkephalin.  Other  nerve  cells  contain  a 
receptor  that  binds  methionine  enkepha- 
lin in  much  the  same  way  that  a  key  fits 
into  a  specific  lock.  When  one  nerve  cell 
wants  to  communicate  with  another,  it 
releases  a  tiny  amount  of  methionine 
enkephalin,  which  travels  to  the  second 
cell,  binds  to  its  receptor,  and  in  doing  so 
delivers  its  message.  Methionine 
enkephalin  has  been  found  in  areas  of  the 
brain  associated  with  pain  perception  and 
mood  and,  together  with  other  similar 
endogenous  compounds,  has  been  called 
"nature's  opiate." 

Addictive  drugs  can  fit  into  this  system 
by  mimicking  a  neurotransmitter  and 
binding  to  its  receptor.  Nicotine  binds  to 
receptors  for  acetylcholine,  one  of  the 
most  common  neurotransmitters  in  the 
brain;  among  its  many  roles,  acetylcho- 
line is  involved  in  memory  storage,  in 
learning,  and  in  maintaining  general 
alertness.  Opiates— morphine,  codeine, 
opium,  heroin,  and  others— bind  to  the 
enkephalin  receptor,  also  known  as  the 
opiate  receptor.  Amphetamines,  or 
"speed,"  bind  to  receptors  for  the  neuro- 
transmitter dopamine,  which  controls 
movement. 

Other  drugs  interfere  with  the  release 
or  destruction  of  the  neurotransmitter. 
Cocaine,  for  example,  interferes  with  a 
neuron's  ability  to  get  rid  of  dopamine 
once  it  has  transmitted  its  message.  Then 


the  nerve  cells  remain  stimulated  far 
longer  than  normal,  producing  euphoria. 

Recently,  researchers  at  the  National 
Institute  of  Mental  Health  discovered  the 
receptor  for  Valium  and  similar  seda- 
tives. Although  the  details  are  not  known 
yet,  this  receptor  is  involved  in  some 
way  with  the  neurotransmitter  gamma- 
aminobutyric  acid  (GABA).  Alcohol  and 
barbiturates,  or  "downers,"  also  affect 
GABA's  actions,  but  according  to 
Jasinski,  "alcohol,  Valium,  and  barbitu- 
rates seem  to  work  at  different  sites  in  the 
brain."  He  adds,  however,  that  the  three 
substances  must  share  some  biochemical 
properties  because  Valium  and  barbitu- 
rates can  help  a  person  through  alcohol 
withdrawal. 

The  ability  to  interfere  with  a 
neurotransmitter-receptor  system  is  not 
all  that  makes  a  drug  addictive,  however, 
since  many  drugs,  both  useful  and  harm- 
ful, bind  to  brain  receptors.  What  sets 
addictive  drugs  apart  is  that  they  pro- 
foundly alter  the  brain's  response  to  the 
molecule  that  is  supposed  to  bind  to  the 
receptor.  For  example,  repeated  doses  of 
morphine  turn  off  the  brain's  production 
of  enkephalins,  perhaps  because  the 
enkephalin-producing  cells  are  fooled 
into  thinking  they  are  making  too  much 
neurotransmitter.  But  the  brain  needs 
something  to  operate  the  enkephalin 
receptors.  So  once  this  shift  has  taken 
place  and  the  natural  molecule  is  lack- 
ing, morphine  must  continue  to  fill  the 
void.  The  nerve  cells,  and  thus  their 
owner,  are  addicted  to  morphine. 

When  an  addict  goes  through  drug 
detoxification,  the  brain  must  adjust  bio- 
chemically. During  opiate  withdrawal, 
for  example,  the  brain  must  start  produc- 
ing its  own  enkephalins.  This  takes  two 
to  three  days,  however,  and  the  system 
does  not  return  to  normal  for  up  to  five 
weeks.  During  that  time,  and  occasion- 
ally thereafter,  the  addict  feels  intense 
cravings  for  the  opiate.  According  to 
Jasinki,  researchers  have  few  clues  as  to 
the  biochemical  causes  of  craving. 


X       ALUMNI  MAGAZINE  CONSORTIUM 


\ 


Researchers  also  do  not  know  enough 
about  the  interaction  between  addictive 
drugs  and  receptors  to  develop  effective 
means  of  preventing  or  alleviating  drug 
addiction.  But  they  are  making  progress. 
Heroin  overdoses,  for  example,  can  be 
countered  in  a  matter  of  seconds  by  a 
compound  that  displaces  the  opiate  from 
its  receptor;  the  drug  does  not  end  the 
addiction,  however.  Similarly,  Yale  Uni- 
versity researchers  have  found  that  anti- 
depressant drugs,  which  affect  the 
dopamine  neurotransmitter  system,  can 
block  cocaine's  euphoric  effects  and 
greatly  reduce  a  person's  cravings  for  the 
drug. 

Besides  the  basic  physiological  mecha- 
nisms at  play  in  addiction,  most 
researchers  believe  there  are  common 
psychological  components  that  are  just 
as  important  in  perpetuating  a  person's 
habit,  whether  it  be  heroin  or  cigarettes. 
Until  a  few  years  ago,  psychologists 
believed  that  people  hooked  on  any 
behavior  had  an  "addictive  personality," 
a  basic  and  unchangeable  psychological 
flaw  that  left  them  unable  to  show 
restraint  in  the  face  of  temptation.  But 
this  would  imply  that  a  nicotine  or  heroin 
addict  could  just  as  easily  be  an  alcoholic 
or  a  junkie  or  even  a  compulsive  eater. 
According  to  Richard  L.  Solomon,  psy- 
chology professor  at  the  University  of 
Pennsylvania,  "Studies  show  this  is  not 
the  case.  Most  people  have  specific 
addictions.  Individual  biochemistry  is 
very  important  and  each  individual 
seems  to  have  one  drug,  or  at  most  a 
few,  he  or  she  prefers." 

Current  theories  on  the  psychological 
aspects  of  addiction  place  heavy  em- 
phasis on  learned,  or  conditioned,  re- 
sponses—the addict  learns  to  engage  in 
the  addictive  behavior  in  response  to 
some  stimuli.  The  VA's  O'Brien  says  this 
is  very  similar  to  the  classical  condition- 
ing first  studied  by  Pavlov  many  years 
ago.  "Besides  the  physical  compulsion 
to  take  a  drug,  the  addict  has  often 
learned  to  use  that  drug  as  a  response  to  a 


ALCOHOL: 

America's 
favorite  drug 


Costing  as  much  as  $120  billion  annually 
and  affecting  at  least  10.6  million  Ameri- 
cans, alcoholism  may  be  the  country's 
most  serious  drug  abuse  problem.  Yet 
most  of  its  victims  will  suffer  needlessly 
from  chronic  health,  social,  financial, 
and  legal  problems  without  ever  guess- 
ing they  are  addicted  to  the  nation's  most 
popular  drug. 

Most  people  who  drink  will  never 
develop  a  drinking  problem,  yet  each 
year  thousands  of  "social  drinkers"  slide 
into  alcoholism,  developing  a  chemical 
dependence.  Tolerance  appears,  so  that  it 
takes  more  alcohol  to  achieve  the  same 
effect.  Early  symptoms  emerge  slowly 
and  subtly.  Alcoholics  drop  activities 
that  interfere  with  drinking,  or  friends 
who  disapprove.  They  may  complain  of 
vague  physical  problems,  such  as  ten- 
sion, diarrhea,  insomnia,  or  unexplained 
bruises.  The  brain  is  affected,  even  when 
the  person  is  not  drinking.  Alcoholics 
may  become  more  forgetful,  irritable, 
and  impulsive,  more  prone  to  accidents. 
In  general,  drinking  causes  the  person 
recurring  trouble,  first  to  relationships 
with  friends  and  family,  and  finally  on 
the  job. 

Warning  signs  can  go  undetected 
because,  until  recently,  few  doctors  have 
been  trained  to  look  for  signs  of  chemical 
dependence  in  patients.  Close  friends  or 
family  may  avoid  confronting  alcoholics 
or  even  help  them  to  conceal  the  evi- 
dence of  their  problem.  Alcoholics  often 
deceive  themselves  by  imposing  restric- 
tions that  give  the  illusion  of  control, 
drinking  only  beer  or  wine,  only  at 
home,  or  only  after  a  certain  hour. 


The  ability  to  control  completely  one's 
drinking  habits,  rather  than  when  or  how 
much  is  drunk,  separates  the  normal 
drinker  from  the  alcoholic.  Members  of 
Alcoholics  Anonymous  (AA)  often  rec- 
ommend this  test:  Can  you  have  one 
drink— no  more,  no  less — every  day  for 
30  days?  A  normal  drinker  can,  with  no 
exceptions  at  parties  or  after  a  hard  day 
at  work.  An  alcoholic  cannot. 

Treatment  for  alcoholism  is  the  same 
as  for  other  types  of  chemical  depen- 
dency: detoxification,  support  from  fam- 
ily and  peers  (as  in  AA),  and  complete 
abstinence  from  alcohol  and  psychoac- 
tive drugs,  including  tranquilizers.  With- 
drawal is  physically  and  emotionally  dif- 
ficult, but  those  who  break  the  habit 
notice  sudden,  often  dramatic  improve- 
ment, even  in  health  problems  they  had 
no  idea  were  tied  to  their  drinking.  Treat- 
ment succeeds  in  about  75  percent  of 
people. 

Untreated,  the  disease  can  easily 
progress  to  the  point  that  physical  and 
social  symptoms  become  devastating. 
Alcoholics  can  become  depressed,  anx- 
ious, and  quick  to  anger;  can  experience 
heart  palpitations,  hypertension,  sexual 
dysfunction,  nightmares,  and  digestive 
problems;  and  can  get  into  fights  and 
auto  accidents.  The  liver,  heart,  and 
brain  are  especially  vulnerable,  but  no 
body  system  escapes.  Between  slow  poi- 
soning and  sudden  catastrophe,  alco- 
holics die  an  average  of  1 1  years  younger 
than  the  general  population;  one  in  10 
deaths  in  the  U.S.  is  thought  to  be 
alcohol-related.  A  recent  hospital  survey 
showed  that  30  percent  of  patients  were 
alcoholics. 

For  the  normal  drinker,  it  is  relatively 
simple  to  avoid  trouble  by  being  alert  to 
the  warning  signs  of  alcohol  abuse.  For 
the  abuser,  it  is  difficult— but  potentially 
lifesaving — to  take  immediate  steps  to 
stop. 

—Julia  Ridgely 


FEBRUARY  1987       XI 


\ 


CAFFEINE: 

The  cup 
that  cheers 


For  four-fifths  of  the  world's  people, 
no  day  is  complete  without  a  cup  of 
coffee  or  tea.  They  look  forward  to  the 
fragrance  and  taste,  the  feel  of  a  warm 
cup  in  their  hands,  the  chance  to  take  a 
break— and  the  slight  caffeine  jolt  that 
seems  to  wake  them  up,  clear  their 
minds,  and  get  them  ready  for  work  or 
conversation. 

Could  these  people  be  addicts? 
Recent  (and  much  disputed)  studies 
have  found  evidence  of  addiction  to 
caffeine  in  the  narrowest  medical  sense 
of  the  term.  "Overdoses"  of  caffeine 
can  produce  unpleasant  side  effects 
ranging  from  the  familiar  "coffee 
nerves"  to  chronic  anxiety,  depression, 
abnormal  heartbeat,  and  stomachaches. 
Constant  use  may  be  reinforcing  and 
can  lead  to  increased  tolerance.  Sud- 
denly quitting— even  over  a  weekend- 
can  cause  such  withdrawal  symptoms 
as  headaches,  fatigue,  and  sleepiness. 

But  absent  from  caffeine  users'  life- 
styles are  the  more  serious  aspects  of 
addictive  behavior.  Caffeine  doesn't 
control  people.  Probably  no  one  has 
ever  committed  a  crime  for  a  cup  of 
coffee  or  spent  too  much  of  a  paycheck 
buying  Twinings  tea  at  the  gourmet 
shop.  Cutting  down  or  quitting  is  rela- 
tively simple,  thanks  to  the  explosion 
in  the  market  for  products  with  little  or 
no  caffeine.  Most  people  are  now 
aware  that  caffeine  can  be  found  not 
only  in  coffee  and  tea,  but  also  in  some 
sodas,  cold  medicines,  pain  relievers, 


and  even  (in  small  doses)  chocolate. 
All  of  this  makes  it  fairly  simple  for 
overusers  to  eliminate  the  problem- 
provided  they  recognize  it. 

As  with  any  drug,  "too  much"  is  the 
amount  that  begins  to  produce 
unwanted  side  effects.  The  average 
safe  dose  of  caffeine  for  adults  is  about 
400  milligrams,  the  amount  that  can  be 
found  in  two  five-ounce  cups  of  drip 
coffee  or  about  eight  cups  of  tea.  Many 
people  accidentally  exceed  this  dosage 
by  not  counting  their  trips  to  the  coffee 
pot  or  by  not  recognizing  other  sources 
of  caffeine.  They  may  suffer  from 
"coffee  nerves,"  but  never  make  the 
connection  between  the  symptoms  and 
the  cause.  For  this  reason,  it  may  be  a 
good  idea  for  heavy  coffee  or  tea  drink- 
ers to  count  their  cups  on  an  average 
day  and,  if  they  are  drinking  too  much, 
gradually  cut  down  or  substitute  decaf- 
feinated products. 

So  far,  there  is  little  evidence  of 
serious  health  risk  to  the  general  popu- 
lation from  caffeine.  The  medical  com- 
munity has  challenged  widely  publi- 
cized studies  of  possible  links  between 
the  substance  and  pancreatic  cancer, 
high  blood  pressure,  and  increased 
smoking. 

Even  so,  some  people  should  com- 
pletely avoid  caffeine:  those  with  gas- 
tric or  duodenal  ulcers  (caffeine  may 
stimulate  production  of  acid  in  the 
stomach),  pregnant  women  (heavy  caf- 
feine users  have  a  higher  rate  of  still- 
births, premature  births,  and  low  birth- 
weight  infants),  and  nursing  mothers  (a 
baby  can  actually  be  kept  awake  by  a 
cup  of  coffee  its  mother  drank).  But  for 
most  people,  the  best  current  advice  is 
that,  so  long  as  you  don't  overdo  it, 
you  can  go  ahead  and  enjoy  your  cup  of 
coffee. 

—Julia  Ridgely 

Researched  by  Louise  Sutton  Porter. 


certain  situation  to  the  point  where  it 
becomes  automatic,"  he  said.  Cigarette 
smokers,  for  example,  often  light  up— 
without  realizing  they  are  doing  so — 
when  confronted  with  stressful  situa- 
tions. 

On  the  basis  of  this  theory,  O'Brien 
and  others  around  the  country  are  trying 
to  develop  methods  to  disconnect  the 
stimulus-response  situation  that  can 
make  breaking  an  addiction  harder  than 
just  overcoming  physical  dependency. 
"It's  fairly  straightforward  to  break  a 
person's  physical  addiction  to  a  drug," 
says  O'Brien.  "But  it's  the  psychological 
factors  that  account  for  the  high  relapse 
rate  among  addicts  of  all  types.  Those 
are  what  we  have  to  learn  to  change  if  we 
are  going  to  be  successful  at  curing  drug 
addicts  of  their  addictions." 

Jasinski  says  that  an  alarming  trend 
has  been  for  people  to  have  multiple  drug 
dependencies.  He  does  not  believe  this 
supports  the  old  "addictive  personality" 
theories,  but  rather  is  a  function  of  the 
widespread  availability  of  a  large  num- 
ber of  drugs.  "It  used  to  be  that  the  only 
drug  that  was  easily  available  was  alco- 
hol, so  people  became  alcoholics,"  he 
says.  "But  now,  there's  Valium  and 
speed  and  pot  and  crack  and  just  about 
any  drug  you  want." 

The  notion  that  legalizing  drugs  will 
reduce  the  number  of  drug  addicts  is 
"just  plain  stupid,"  he  adds.  "Look  at 
cigarettes— they're  legal  and  we  have  50 
million  cigarette  addicts.  Look  at 
alcohol— it's  legal  and  we  have  10  mil- 
lion alcoholics."  The  greatest  influence 
that  makes  people  experiment  with 
addictive  drugs,  whether  cigarettes  or 
heroin,  is  peer  pressure.  "Legalizing 
drugs  will  not  end  peer  pressure.  Only 
good  educational  programs  that  start 
early  in  life  have  a  chance  of  keeping 
people  from  trying  drugs  and  getting 
hooked  on  them." 

Joseph  Alper  is  an  award-winning 
science  writer  who  lives  in  Baltimore. 


Xn       ALUMNI  MAGAZINE  CONSORTIUM 


£ 


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I 


1 


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5* 


CIGARETTES: 

Why  breaking  the  habit 
is  hard  to  do 


By  Ann  Finkbeiner 


v  uitting  is  pretty  awful,"  said 
Timothy  Moran,  psychologist 
t  the  Johns  Hopkins  School  of 
Medicine,  talking  about  breaking  his  cig- 
arette addiction.  "I've  actually  quit 
smoking  twice  in  the  last  ten  years.  The 
first  time  I  was  off  for  two  years  but 
started  again  after  my  father  died.  This 
time,  I've  been  off  for  a  year.  And  still, 
three  or  four  times  a  day  I  think  a  ciga- 
rette would  be  so  nice." 

Moran  is  not  alone  in  his  struggles.  Or 
in  his  failure  to  quit.  A  1984  survey  by 
the  U.S.  Congressional  Office  of  Tech- 
nology Assessment  estimated  that  over 
50  million  Americans  are  addicted  to  the 
nicotine  in  cigarettes.  Of  those,  nearly 
45,000  try  to  end  their  dependence  every 
day,  suffering  through  symptoms  that 
include  anxiety,  irritability,  severe  head- 
aches, and  weight  gain. 

"The  most  difficult  thing  about  quit- 
ting was  to  sit  down  and  write— no  ques- 
tion I  couldn't  concentrate,"  continued 
Moran.  "My  productivity  went  through 
the  floor.  And  the  anxiety:  it's  similar  to 
clinical  anxiety  attacks— sweaty  palms, 


racing  heartbeat,  your  stomach  knots  up, 
you  feel  an  urgent  need  to  get  out  of 
whatever  you're  in." 

Nicotine  is  a  powerfully  addictive 
drug— more  so  than  heroin,  according  to 
Donald  Jasinski,  director  of  the  Center 
for  Chemical  Dependence  at  the  Francis 
Scott  Key  Medical  Center  in  Baltimore. 
Quitting  is  a  tough  battle.  Two-thirds  of 
those  who  quit  are  smoking  again  within 
six  months  and  only  20  percent  of  those 
who  quit  go  a  year  without  smoking. 
True,  giving  up  cigarettes  is  not  life- 
threatening,  as  kicking  a  heroin  or 
cocaine  addiction  can  be,  but  that's  little 
comfort  to  the  person  craving  that  first- 
thing-in-the-morning  smoke. 

Why  smoke  at  all?  "You  smoke,"  said 
Moran,  "not  because  of  the  negative 
consequences  of  not  smoking — those 
take  a  while  to  set  in.  You  smoke 
because  you  want  the  cigarette.  A  ciga- 
rette is  relaxing,  calming,  and  the  smoke 
tastes  good." 

Some  of  nicotine's  psychological  and 
physiological  effects,  in  fact,  have  a  bio- 
chemical basis.   For  example,  Edythe 


London,  neuropharmacologist  at  the 
National  Institute  of  Drug  Abuse's 
Addiction  Research  Center  in  Baltimore, 
has  found  that  nicotine  acts  in  regions  of 
the  brain  associated  with  mood,  anger, 
sexual  arousal,  pleasure,  and  concentra- 
tion. Studies  have  shown  that  smoking 
improves  a  person's  concentration  for 
approximately  30  minutes.  Others  have 
found  that  nicotine  changes  the  way  the 
body  metabolizes  fats,  which  could 
account  for  the  fact  that,  on  average, 
smokers  weigh  less  than  non-smokers. 
Compared  to  other,  more  dangerous  sub- 
stances, "nicotine  is  inexpensive,  legal, 
widely  available,  widely  accepted,  and 
does  not  disrupt  cognitive  or  motor  per- 
formance," says  Jack  Henningfield  at  the 
Addiction  Research  Center. 

Nicotine  could  be  left  at  that,  a  com- 
forting, socially  innocuous  drug,  except 
that  nicotine,  tar,  carbon  monoxide,  the 
smoke  particles  inhaled  during  smoking, 
and  the  nitrosamines  in  smokeless 
tobacco  are  all  toxic.  Studies,  replica- 
tions of  studies,  and  still  more  studies 
show,  in  the  words  of  U.S.  Surgeon 
General  C.  Everett  Koop,  that  "smoking 
is  the  chief,  single,  avoidable  cause  of 
death  in  our  society  and  the  most  impor- 
tant health  issue  of  our  time." 

On  the  average,  a  31 -year-old,  two 
packs-a-day  smoker  will  live  8.1  years 
less  than  a  non-smoker.  Smokers  are 
twice  as  likely  to  die  from  heart 
disease— 30  to  40  percent  of  deaths  from 
coronary  heart  disease  are  smoking- 
related— and  10  times  as  likely  to  die  of 
cancer.  For  example,  smoking  causes  80 
to  85  percent  of  deaths  from  lung  cancer 
and  84  percent  of  larynx  cancers.  Smok- 
ers also  have  greater  risks  of  dying  from 
cancers  of  the  mouth,  esophagus,  blad- 
der, and  pancreas.  They  also  develop 
more  peptic  ulcers  than  non-smokers. 

They  don't  suffer  alone.  "Passive 
smoking,"  or  inhaling  the  tobacco  smoke 
in  a  room,  has  become  a  hot  issue 
indeed.  The  spouses  of  smokers  have 
more  allergy  attacks,  angina,  asthma, 


FEBRUARY  1987       XIII 


and  lung  cancer.  Children  who  live  with 
smokers  have  more  respiratory  illnesses. 
Babies  born  to  smoking  women  weigh 
less  at  birth  and  have  less  oxygen  in  their 
tissues  than  babies  born  to  non-smokers. 
This  past  December,  in  releasing  the 
Public  Health  Service  annual  report  on 
smoking— the  first  to  focus  entirely  on 
risks  to  non-smokers— Surgeon  General 
Koop  stated  that  there  is  enough  medical 
evidence  on  the  harm  of  being  exposed 
to  cigarette  smoke  to  justify  strong  mea- 
sures that  segregate  smokers  from  non- 
smokers  at  work  and  at  home. 

Nicotine,  without  smoke,  speeds  up 
the  heartbeat,  whether  you  are  awake  or 
asleep.  It  narrows  by  half  the  width  of 
arteries.  Its  best  use  is  as  an  insecticide: 
fill  a  greenhouse  with  nicotine  fumes, 
and  next  morning  all  the  bugs  are  dead. 

Faced  with  these  unsavory  facts,  why 
do  people  keep  smoking?  "It's  not 
because  they  want  to — they  don't,"  said 
Diane  Becker,  who  heads  the  Johns 
Hopkins  Hospital's  smoking  cessation 
programs.  "The  majority  are  not  saying, 
'What  the  heck.'  It's  that  they're 
hooked." 

Nicotine  is  an  addictive  drug,  although 
the  tobacco  industry  disputes  this  asser- 
tion. A  drug  is  considered  addictive, 
says  Henningfield,  if  it  meets  the  follow- 
ing three  criteria: 

1)  People  who  take  the  drug  must  reg- 
ulate their  dosage  so  the  amount  of  it  in 
their  bodies  stays  constant  over  time. 
Smokers  will  smoke  more  short  ciga- 
rettes than  long  ones.  Similarly,  they 
smoke  fewer  high  nicotine  cigarettes 
than  ones  low  in  nicotine. 

2)  The  drug  must  act  in  the  brain  to 
produce  euphoria,  making  the  user  want 
to  keep  taking  it.  Researchers  have  long 
known  that  nicotine  interacts  with  cells 
in  the  brain  involved  in  controlling 
mood,  memory,  and  general  state  of 
awareness.  As  far  as  causing  euphoria, 
nicotine's  high  is  very  similar  to 
cocaine's,  say  people  who  have  tried  a 
variety  of  addictive  drugs. 

3)  People  who  quit  taking  the  drug 
experience  symptoms  of  withdrawal. 
Most  people  who  quit  smoking  go 
through  what  Moran  did.  "Nicotine 
withdrawal  is  less  dramatic  than  opioid 
or  sedative  withdrawal,"  says  Hen- 
ningfield, "but  it's  still  pretty  detrimental 
to  the  quality  of  peoples'  lives." 

Studies  at  the  Addiction  Research 
Center  have  shown  that  quitting  cigarette 
smoking  causes  impatience,  irritability, 
anxiety,  stomach  upsets,  increased  appe- 


tite, weight  gain,  temporary  insomnia, 
and  concentration  lapses.  According  to 
Henningfield,  a  smoker's  short-term 
memory  suffers  within  eight  hours  of 
quitting  time;  various  math  skills  deterio- 
rate, too.  Those  abilities  still  show  defi- 
cits ten  days  later.  "Nicotine  may  not 
enhance  cognitive  performance  in  non- 
smokers,"  said  Henningfield,  "but  it  sure 
messes  up  smokers  who  quit."  The  most 
unpleasant  symptom  of  withdrawal  is  a 
really  powerful  desire  for  a  cigarette. 
"Most  patients  feel  normal  physically 
within  approximately  two  weeks,"  said 
George  Bigelow,  a  psychologist  at  the 
Hopkins  medical  school  who  researches 
the  behavior  of  smokers  and  quitters, 
"but  craving  for  cigarettes  persists  any- 
where from  three  months  to  10  years." 

As  a  result,  said  Henningfield,  "most 
people  don't  just  quit  and  stay  quit. 
Some  do,  but  I  don't  understand  them, 
any  more  than  I  understand  a  football 
player  with  a  broken  collarbone  finishing 
a  game."  About  15  percent  of  those  who 
enroll  in  smoking  cessation  programs 
cannot  stop  at  all.  Two-thirds  of  those 
who  do  quit  will  start  again  in  three  to  six 
months,  a  first-quit  relapse  rate  similar  to 
that  for  those  addicted  to  opiates  and 
alcohol.  An  ex-smoker  risks  relapse 
most  when  under  emotional  stress,  or 
when  in  situations  where  he  or  she  used 
to  smoke— after  meals,  with  a  glass  of 
wine,  and  with  spouse  or  friends. 

Not  that  quitting  is  impossible.  In  fact, 
a  report  entitled  "Smoking  and  Health: 
A  National  Status  Report,"  issued  in 
November  by  the  Department  of  Health 
and  Human  Services,  shows  that  the  per- 
centage of  ex-smokers  in  the  U.S.  popu- 
lation has  increased  to  about  16  percent 
from  only  5  percent  in  1955.  Smokers 
typically  make  several  attempts  to  stop, 
and  the  chances  for  succeeding  increase 
with  each  try.  Bigelow  and  others  stress 
that  smokers  should  not  consider  them- 
selves failures  for  their  inability  to  quit 
on  the  first  try  or  subsequent  tries.  "It  is 
simply  part  of  the  process  of  quitting  for- 
ever," he  says.  The  chances  of  relapse 
drop  significantly  if  the  smoker  can  stay 
off  cigarettes  for  six  months. 

The  best  way  to  get  off  cigarettes  and 
stay  off,  according  to  Bigelow,  is  to  go 
cold  turkey  rather  than  cut  back  gradu- 
ally. The  best  way  to  go  cold  turkey  is  a 
combination  of  nicotine  gum— pre- 
scription chewing  gum  laced  with  nico- 
tine—and an  organized  program  for 
smoking  cessation. 

Nicotine  gum  allows  the  smoker  to 


work  through  the  conditioned-response 
aspects  of  cigarette  addiction  before 
dealing  with  the  physical  component. 
"We  use  the  gum  mostly  as  an  adjunct," 
says  Thomas  Pearson,  head  of  the  Pre- 
ventive Cardiology  Center  at  Hopkins. 

"Cold  turkey  works  for  people  who 
aren't  very  addicted  and  who  may  need 
neither  the  program  nor  the  gum.  Other- 
wise, we  work  gradually:  we  decrease 
blood  nicotine  levels  and  increase  the 
feeling  of  success  by  switching  to  ciga- 
rettes with  lower  nicotine  content  with- 
out compensating  with  more  cigarettes. 

"We  also  give  them  techniques  for 
dealing  with  craving,  like  exercise,  cold 
liquids,  chewing— they're  mostly  substi- 
tutions and  distractions.  Finally,  we  give 
them  a  quit  date."  On  the  quit  date,  the 
people  are  given  the  nicotine  gum,  told 
how  and  how  long  to  chew  it,  and  told  to 
keep  it  where  they  usually  keep  their  cig- 
arettes. "Smokers  using  both  a  program 
and  the  gum,"  said  Pearson,  "have  a  50 
percent  higher  success  rate." 

If  you  read  the  literature  on  smoking 
and  talk  to  those  who  treat  smokers,  one 
thing  comes  through  clearly:  nicotine  is 
not  something  most  people  can  trivially 
pick  up  and  put  down  again.  Pearson 
tells  a  story,  for  example,  about  a  patient 
he  encountered  on  a  recent  trip  to  China: 
"We  saw  a  fellow  in  his  forties  who  had 
been  smoking  Pall  Mall  regulars  since  he 
was  12.  He  smoked  through  colds,  left 
church  services  to  smoke,  everything. 
He  developed  a  squamous  cell  carcinoma 
that  grew  through  his  mouth  and  neck 
and  required  radical  surgery.  His  surgeon 
told  him  his  illness  was  90  percent  likely 
to  have  been  caused  by  smoking.  Two 
days  after  the  endotracheal  tube  was 
taken  out  and  he  was  off  the  respirator, 
he  started  smoking  again.  Later,  they 
found  the  cancer  had  metastasized  to  his 
lungs.  He  smoked  through  the  chemo- 
therapy and  all  its  unpleasant  side 
effects.  He  was  obviously  unable  to  say 
yes  or  no,  obviously  not  in  control. 

"Then,  unexpectedly,  the  cancer  in  the 
lungs  went  away,  and  he  decided  he 
wanted  to  live  to  see  his  young  son  grow 
up.  He  quit  smoking  and  now  chews  one 
piece  of  nicotine  gum  a  day  and  carries 
the  gum  in  his  pocket  in  case  of  flash- 
backs. He's  had  a  very  rough  time.  If  this 
wasn't  addiction,  I  don't  know  what  the 
hell  is." 

Ann  Finkbeiner  is  a  contributing  editor 
of  the  Johns  Hopkins  Magazine.  Joseph 
Alper  contributed  to  this  article. 


XIV       ALUMNI  MAGAZINE  CONSORTIUM 


Daffodil  Dreams 

Deep  in  winter,  squirrels  reshuffle 

the  crocus  bulbs  and  a  gardener 

conjures  up  spring 


V\&*il 


By  Elise  Hancock 
Art  by  Jan  Adkins 


It  was  mid-November 
before  I  had  to  put  the  gar- 
den to  bed.  Some  annuals 
had  died,  of  course,  but  the 
impatiens  bloomed  gener- 
ously, lighting  up  the  corners 
of  the  garden.  Sage  glinted 
blue  by  the  fence,  and  the 
parsley,  chives,  and  basil  just 
kept  coming.  Every  time  I 
walked  past,  I'd  pinch  a  leaf 
of  basil  and  enjoy  the  aro- 
matic summer  whiff  on  my 
fingers.  Each  chilly  day  I'd 
think,  is  this  the  last  of  the 
garden?  Is  winter  really  here? 

It  wasn't,  but  it  was  com- 
ing. The  euonymus  put  out 
red  berries,  which  I  hadn't 
expected— this  is  a  new  house 
and  garden  to  me.  The  berries 
seemed  like  a  gift.  A  pair  of 
squirrels  gathered  walnuts 
from  my  neighbor's  tree.  At 
first,  they  scorned  the  nuts 
that  had  already  fallen,  but 
would  run  out  on  the  limb  to 
pick  fresh  ones.  Sometimes, 
watching,  I'd  catch  my 
breath,  fearing  a  squirrel 
would  fall.  Surely  he  can't 
get  that  one!  But  he  did.  Then 
he'd  sit  upright  to  nibble  off 
the  hull,  watching  this  way 
and  that  for  intruder  squirrels. 

The  gray  tabby  knew  the 
squirrels  were  there.  I'd  often 
see  her  crouched,  eyeing 
them  hopefully.  Once  I  saw 
her  stalk  one  up  a  tree,  until 
the  squirrel  turned  head- 
down  and  scolded,  locking 
eyes  with  the  cat.  Often  he'd 
run    up    into    the    tip-top 


branches,  where  the  cat  can- 
not go,  and  turn  around  to 
jeer.  The  cat  never  gave  up— 
she  watched  unblinking,  fully 
alert,  as  if  she  thought  the 
squirrel  might  laugh  so  hard 
he'd  lose  his  footing. 

These  little  dramas,  too, 
were  a  gift  of  the  season,  and 
like  the  season  they  passed. 
When  all  the  nuts  were 
gone— even  the  leavings  on 
the  ground— the  squirrels 
vanished.  My  chrysanthe- 
mums bloomed,  then  faded, 
and  suddenly  one  morning  it 
was  all  over.  Basil  and  impa- 
tiens lay  flat  on  the  ground, 
frozen  black,  and  dead  leaves 
scuttered  in  the  wind. 

Pulling  out  the  annuals,  I 
found  the  squirrels  had  been 
before  me:  the  flower  beds 
were  full  of  walnuts.  A  few 
were  already  sprouting.  And 
I  found  snapdragon  seed- 
lings, even  though  I  had  no 
snapdragons  this  summer. 
Life  is  tenacious;  living 
things  want  to  grow  and  sur- 
vive. Have  you  ever  left  a 
brick  on  grass?  After  three 
weeks  the  grass  looks  dead. 
But  once  you  remove  the 
brick,  the  grass  soon  greens 
again.  It's  hard  to  imagine 
what,  in  scientific  terms,  the 
"life  force"  might  be,  but  it's 
there.  While  gardening,  I 
touch  it. 

I  don't  think,  exactly, 
while  I'm  gardening.  I  sus- 
pect it's  a  meditative  activity. 
The  hands  proceed  on  auto- 


ZINNIAS 


matic  pilot,  pulling  weeds  or 
snipping  stems,  while  atten- 
tion floats.  Perhaps  I  have 
vague  thoughts  about  the 
smells  of  earth  and  foliage,  or 
the  sun,  or  the  squirrels.  Per- 
haps I  stop  to  enjoy  the  leaf 
shadows,  or  to  watch  an  ant 
colony.  (I  leave  them  alone. 
It's  their  garden,  too.)  Hours 
pass,  and  I  come  into  the 
house  tired,  dirty,  and  com- 
pletely refreshed.  It's  a  small 
garden,  but  it  opens  on  the 
cosmos. 

Perhaps  that  is  why  the 
passing  of  the  autumn  garden 
seems  so  poignant.  Life  may 
be  tenacious,  but  the  seasons 
turn.  Nothing  can  stop  the 
procession  of  the  equinoxes. 
Lovely  as  they  are,  the  annu- 
als die.  Even  the  perennials 
will  not  last  forever.  I,  too, 
have  my  seasons.  So  winter  is 
an  end. 

It's  also  a  beginning.  While 
the  garden  rests  in  mulch,  the 
bulbs  are  rooting  under- 
ground, waiting  for  spring.  If 
I  were  stupid  enough  to  dig 
one  up  in  January,  I  could  see 
this.  The  earthworms  are 
there,  quiescent,  waiting  to 
resume  aeration  of  the  earth. 
The  earth  itself  waits. 

And  I,  inside  in  the 
warmth,  plan  far  more  beau- 
tiful gardens  than  my  urban 
space  can  possibly  accommo- 
date. In  the  summer,  I  know 
better  than  to  try  roses— my 
patch  lacks  six  hours  of  full 
sun.  In  the  winter,  I  pore  over 
catalogs,  thinking  there  might 
be  one,  some  one  kind  of  rose 
that  could  tolerate  less  sun.  I 
conjure  up  roses. 

In  winter,  I  dig  through  cat- 
alogs for  scented  plants— next 
year,  I  think,  every  annual 
will  smell  absolutely  wonder- 
ful, will  be  chosen  for  spec- 
tacular scent.  How  about  an 
all-white  garden?  You  can  see 
pale  flowers  in  the  dark,  so  a 
white  garden  is  good  for  a 
working  person.  But  it  might 
be  dull— how  about  a  patch  of 
zinnias,  good  old  no-fail  zin- 
nias? No— they're  nice  to 
pick  and  bring  into  the  house, 


but  the  garden  is  too  small. 
They'd  wreck  the  scale.  Per- 
haps, then,  a  blue  and  white 
garden  .  .  .  blue  looks  so  cool 
in  the  Baltimore  heat,  and 
white  plants  are  often 
scented.  In  the  daytime, 
flowers  lure  pollinating 
insects  with  bright  colors. 
But  many  white  plants  are 
night-bloomers,  and  they 
must  use  odor  to  attract 
moths.  Moonflowers,  for 
instance,  open  only  at  night- 
huge  white  plates  of  glisten- 
ing, fragrant  bloom.  If  you 
come  out  early  enough  in  the 
morning,  they'll  still  be 
open,  each  four-inch  bloom 
pearled  with  dew.  I  stop  to 
remember  moonflowers  of  a 
vanished  garden.  Really,  the 
world  is  miraculously  put 
together. 

So  white,  I  think,  yes,  defi- 
nitely lots  of  white.  But  there 
are  few  plants  that  bloom 
blue.  What  blue  flowers  can 
tolerate  shade  and  part- 
shade?  Are  any  of  them 
scented?  Well,  perhaps  not 
all  the  flowers  need  to  be 
scented.  The  blue  sage  was 
wonderful  this  year  .  .  . 

And  so  it  goes.  The  winter 
garden  is  a  garden  of  the 
mind,  a  fantasy  garden.  I'm 
not  planning— I  daydream 
gardens. 

I  do  not  know  what  I  will 
truly  plant  next  spring.  Impa- 
tiens  for  sure— I  have  so 
much  shade.  Herbs,  of 
course.  But  in  fact  most  of 
the  garden  is  already  planted. 
Daffodils  sleep  in  the  myrtle. 
Day  lilies  and  bee  balm— 
both  scented— are  already 
thriving,  and  I -hope  the  lily- 
of-the-valley  is  working  un- 
derground. I  stop  to  remem- 
ber the  fragrance,  the  delicate 
white  bells  I  used  to  pick  for 
my  mother.  Any  proper  gar- 
den must  have  lily-of-the- 
valley,  or  you  couldn't  be 
sure  when  spring  came. 

As  it  will.  Already  the  days 
are  growing  longer. 

Elise  Hancock  edits  the  Johns 
Hopkins  Magazine. 


SPRING 


Faculty  and  staff  athletes  come  in  all  shapes  and  sizes. 

But  from  lunchtime  joggers  to  long-distance  racers, 
they  thrive  on  combining  science  with  the  sporting  life. 

0good0 
SportS 


By  Michael  Shanley 
Photos  by  Michael  Carroll 


They  run,  row,  walk,  and 
pedal;  they  stroke,  serve, 
and  swing.  Some  glide 
and  float,  others  pound 
and  sweat.  Their  skills 
range  from  championship  level  to  strictly 
recreational. 

But  there  are  ties  that  bind  WPI's  fac- 
ulty and  staff  athletes  together:  an  appre- 
ciation for  the  camaraderie  that  even  sol- 
itary sports  provide,  and  an  unflagging 
sense  of  purpose.  The  latter  may  involve 
specific  goals  like  diet  and  health,  but 
almost  invariably,  the  athletes  define 
their  rewards  in  spiritual  terms. 

Most  would  agree  with  Administrative 
Secretary  Katie  Curran,  who  has  been 
swimming  laps  midday  at  the  pool  in 
Alumni  Gym  for  years:  "It  becomes  very 
much  a  part  of  your  life.  It's  so 
rewarding— just  makes  you  feel  so 
good— that  you  can't  imagine  not  doing 
it." 

Brian  Savilonis,  associate  professor  of 
mechanical  engineering  and  a  former 
national  racewalking  champion,  puts  it 
another  way:  "It  clears  the  brain  cells." 

"I  have  to  work  out  every  day,"  says 
Herb  Beall,  associate  professor  of  chem- 
istry. "If  I  don't,  I  just  don't  feel  right. 
I'm  almost  uncomfortable." 
Those  for  whom  exercise  is  an  impor- 


tant part  of  life  seem  to  find  it  difficult  to 
express  that  feeling  to  armchair  fans. 
David  DiBiasio,  an  associate  professor 
of  chemical  engineering  who  plays  ten- 
nis and  raquetball,  says  that  "those  who 
do  it  know  what  I'm  talking  about." 

For  WPI's  many  runners,  their  chosen 
form  of  exercise  means  a  constant  effort 
to  balance  the  need  for  moderation  and 
the  drive  to  compete.  Mechanical  Engi- 
neering Professor  Allen  Hoffman  '63,  a 
charter  member  of  the  Footpounders  (see 
sidebar)  and  former  WPI  cross-country 
coach,  hasn't  run  in  a  marathon  in  about 
five  years,  but  says,  "Lately,  I've  felt  the 
urge  to  try  another  one." 

Carol  Theisen,  of  the  WPI  student 
counseling  center,  has  been  moving  in 
the  opposite  direction— away  from  long- 
distance running. 

A  few  years  ago,  she  was  running  up 
to  60  miles  a  week  in  preparation  for  the 
three  marathons  she  completed,  but  she 
says  she  has  now  cut  back  to  a  "reason- 
able level."  "I  still  run  four  or  five  times 
a  week,  swim  a  couple  of  days,  and  ride 
my  bike  on  weekends  if  the  weather's 
nice,"  she  says,  "but  I'm  not  as  compul- 
sive as  I  used  to  be." 

She  also  competes  in  triathlons,  the 
training  for  which  she  says  "got  pretty 
crazy,  trying  to  get  in  more  than  one  kind 


WINTER  1987       33 


of  workout  a  day. 

"I'm  not  that  big  on  competition  any- 
way. I  mostly  do  it  for  fun  and  for  my 
own  emotional  health.  It's  the  social 
thing,  too,  especially  here,  because  at 
noon  so  many  faculty  and  staff  members 
work  out." 

Running  is  the  most  popular  but  not 
the  only  athletic  pastime  at  WPI.  Last 


summer,  the  college  fielded  a  faculty- 
staff  softball  team  that  gained  fame  as 
city  champion  of  the  Jaycees  League. 

On  Mondays,  Wednesdays,  and  Fri- 
days, there's  an  aerobics  session  in  Har- 
rington that  is  open  to  all.  "It's  invigorat- 
ing," says  Co-op  Director  John  Farley. 
"It's  a  buoyant  atmosphere  and  a  lot  of 
fun  because  there  are  so  many  other  peo- 


Hoops,  being  played  here  in 
Alumni  Gymnasium,  may  still  be 
the  most  popular  sport  for  WPI's 
casual  athletes.  Right:  Hans 
Thamhain,  WPI's  only  ultra' 
marathoner. 


pie."  When  he's  not  at  the  aerobics  class, 
Farley  often  spends  the  noon  hour  shoot- 
ing hoops  in  Alumni  Gym.  He  and  a 
handful  of  other  faculty  and  staffers  join 
with  students  in  regular  games  of  pickup 
basketball. 

"There's  a  tremendous  range  of  talents 
among  those  who  play.  It's  friendly,  but 
competitive,"  explains  Chemistry  Pro- 
fessor Al  Scala,  credited  with  founding 
the  noon  games.  He  adds  that  basketball 
is  a  relatively  safe  form  of  exercise:  "In 
15  years,  I've  only  been  hospitalized 
twice:  once  for  torn  ligaments  and  once 
to  have  12  stitches  put  over  my  eye, 
courtesy  of  [Admissions  Director]  Bob 
Voss." 

Scala's  road  to  fitness  is  perhaps  typi- 
cal of  many.  "After  I  got  married,  had 
kids,  and  went  to  grad  school,  my  exer- 
cising stopped  and  I  concentrated  on  my 
family  and  my  profession." 

Since  returning  to  an  exercise  regimen 
some  15  years  ago,  Scala  has  empha- 
sized the  enjoyment  aspect:  "I  view  the 
heart-lung  benefits  as  ancillary.  I  do  it 
for  a  good  time." 

DiBiasio  would  like  to  have  a  good 
time  playing  handball,  but  can't  find 
anyone  who  shares  the  same  enthusiasm 
for  the  game  he  developed  as  a  college 
student.  He  settles  for  regular  tennis 
matches  with  chemical  engineering  col- 
leagues Bill  Moser  and  Tony  Dixon,  and 
Computer  Center  Director  Jim  Jackson. 

History  Professor  John  Zeugner  was  a 
tennis  pro  in  the  early  1960s,  teaching 
fundamentals  to  club  members  in  Sara- 
sota, Fla.  He  still  has  a  decent  serve 
when  he  finds  the  time  to  play. 

There  are  few  faculty  or  staff  fencers 
at  WPI,  so  David  Brown,  assistant  pro- 
fessor of  computer  science,  is  lucky  to 
have  his  fencing  club  students  to  occupy 
his  time  and  energy. 

Brown  took  up  the  sport  as  a  teenager. 
"I  had  always  liked  swords,"  he  says, 
"and  since  I  never  particularly  enjoyed 
having  my  face  ground  in  the  mud,  most 
other  sports  were  out  of  the  question." 
While  he  enjoyed  some  success  with 


34       WPI  JOURNAL 


•  ••i  - 


■ 


*  B 


XI 


fencing  clubs  in  his  native  England,  he 
has  concentrated  on  coaching  since  com- 
ing to  the  U.S.  in  1974.  He  believes 
WPI's  fencing  teams  have  done  well, 
considering  that  they  must  compete 
against  colleges  with  larger  sports  bud- 
gets and  fencing  scholarships. 

"It's  a  taxing  sport,  both  mentally  and 
physically,"  says  Brown.  "Someone 
once  described  it  as  chess  played  at  light- 
ning speed,  and  that's  pretty  close." 

There  are  dozens  of  known  cyclists, 
runners,  swimmers,  and  who-knows- 
whaters  on  campus.  On  top  of  that,  there 
are  many  who  exercise  in  the  privacy  of 
their  own  homes,  neighborhoods,  health 
clubs,  or  golf  courses  unbeknownst  to 
others.  There's  no  shortage  of  avid  golf- 
ers on  campus,  Steve  Herbert  '66,  secre- 
tary of  the  Institute,  and  Roy  Seaberg 
'56,  director  of  special  admissions  pro- 
grams, being  perhaps  foremost  among 
them.  Mark  Ferguson,  as  you  may  judge 
by  looking  at  him,  is  a  dedicated 
weightlifter. 

Their  brows  sweaty,  smiles  on  their 
faces,  these  WPI  athletes  pound  ahead 
unceasingly  into  the  future. 


Hans  Thamhain: 
No  such  thing  as  too 
much  for  a  triathlete 


Hans  Thamhain 's  day  begins  at 
4:30  a.m.,  when  he  leaves  the 
comfort  of  his  Framingham 
home  to  run  13  miles  with  three  friends. 

He  returns  home  to  shower  and  gulp 
down  breakfast,  but  still  manages  to 
arrive  on  campus  before  many  students 
and  faculty  members  have  rubbed  the 
sleep  from  their  eyes. 

For  Thamhain.  a  professor  of  manage- 
ment, it's  part  of  a  year-round  routine 
that  often  finds  him  running  more  than 
100  miles  a  week.  In  a  given  year,  he'll 
compete  in  three  or  four  marathons  and 
several  triathlons,  with  several  shorter 
road  races  thrown  in  for  good  measure. 

"Sports  keep  me  mentally  and  spiritu- 
ally fit,"  he  says.  "They  give  me  a  sense 
of  balance  in  life  and  a  different  way  to 
express  myself.  I  work  very  hard,  and 
enjoy  it,  and  I  like  to  play  hard." 


But  in  spite  of  all  the  training  required 
to  prepare  for  marathons  and  triathlons. 
Thamhain  says,  "Sports  don't  consume 
me,  but  enhance  me.  I  also  have  my 
work  and  my  family  and  my  social  life, 
and  they're  very  important  to  me." 

Thamhain  only  started  running  10 
years  ago  at  40,  a  relatively  advanced 
age  for  a  competitive  runner,  but  he 
quickly  developed  a  love  for  long- 
distance racing. 

"I  usually  run  four  marathons  a  year." 
he  says,  "two  competitively  and  two  just 
for  training  or  fun."  He  trains  hard  to 
qualify  for  the  Boston  Marathon,  then 
runs  the  race  at  top  speed. 

Marathons  apparently  weren't  enough, 
so  Thamhain  began  to  compete  in 
triathlons  a  few  years  ago.  While  any  of 
these  races— consisting  of  swimming, 
biking,  and  running — are  extremely  chal- 
lenging, the  most  popular  of  these 
races— consisting,  for  example,  of  a  one- 
mile  swim,  a  25-mile  bike  ride  and  a  6.2- 
mile  run — seem  easy  compared  with  the 
endurance  triathlon.  Patterned  after  the 
original  race,  the  Hawaiian  Ironman. 
these  events  include  a  2.4-mile  swim. 


WINTER  1987       35 


followed  by  a  112-mile  bike  ride  and 
concluding  with  a  full  26.2-mile  mara- 
thon. 

Such  endurance  events  require  not  just 
intense  training,  but  a  plan  for  mentally 
transcending  the  inevitable  pain  that 
comes  from  pushing  the  body  far  beyond 
its  normal  limits. 

Thamhain,  who  finished  the  Cape  Cod 
Endurance  Triathlon  and  hopes  one  day 
to  run  the  Ironman,  typically  downplays 
the  inner  strength  needed  to  compete  on 
that  level:  "The  training  takes  an  awful 
lot  out  of  you,  but  if  you  get  through  that 
and  stand  confident  at  the  starting  line, 
it's  not  too  bad. 


"1 


'I  said  to  myself,  'One 

lousy  marathon  and  this 

thing's  all  over/  " 


"The  swim  is  nothing  unusual,  and  the 
biking  shouldn't  be  too  bad.  It's  the  mar- 
athon that  gets  most  people.  When  I  got 
off  the  bike,  I  had  been  out  eight  hours, 
so  I  just  said  to  myself,  'One  lousy  mara- 
thon and  this  thing's  all  over.'  It  was  a 
struggle,  but  it's  a  struggle  for  everyone 
toward  the  end." 

Thamhain  competes  in  shorter,  more 
humane  triathlons  during  the  summer, 
and  has  twice  qualified  for  the  U.S. 
Triathlon  Series  Race  of  Champions  in 
Hilton  Head,  S.C.  To  qualify,  an  athlete 
must  have  taken  one  of  the  top  10  places 
in  a  regional  qualifying  event,  which 
Thamhain  did  in  Boston.  "Just  to  partici- 
pate in  that  race  is  a  big  thrill,"  he  says, 
"a  true  reward."  He  plans  to  travel  to 
Nice,  France,  in  October  for  the  Euro- 
pean equivalent  of  the  Ironman. 

Although  road  races  and  triathlons  are 
solitary  activities,  Thamhain  says  he 
couldn't  do  the  training  alone.  "There 
are  three  other  people  I  run  with  in 
Framingham.  We  keep  each  other  in 
check.  And  it  takes  that  kind  of  commit- 
ment, that  spirit,  to  get  you  out  at  five  in 
the  morning." 


36       WPI  JOURNAL 


Associate  Chemistry  Professor 
Herb  Beall's  athletic  career  has 
progressed  from  rugby  to  running 
to  racewalking. 


Herb  Beall:  Running 
from  rugby 


i 


4  i  t^  started  running  as  a  way  to  get  in 
shape  for  rugby,"  says  Herb 
, Beall.  "In  1974, 1  was  on  sabbat- 
ical in  New  Zealand,  where  they're 
crazy  about  rugby,  and  got  intrigued  with 
the  sport.  So  when  they  formed  a  rugby 
club  here  in  Worcester,  I  joined  and 
started  to  play." 

Beall  and  a  student  started  a  WPI 
rugby  club  in  1980.  "Immediately,  we 
ran  into  the  problem  of  no  referees,"  he 
says.  "So  I  bought  a  book  on  how  to 
referee  rugby  and  joined  that  group's 
union." 

Although  he  still  referees  club  games, 
the  associate  professor  of  chemical  engi- 
neering has  given  up  coaching  the  WPI 
club  in  order  to  devote  more  time  to  the 
chemistry  textbook  he's  writing.  He  no 
longer  plays  rugby  because  the  potential 
for  injury  threatens  his  running.  Once 
just  a  vehicle  for  keeping  in  shape  for 
rugby,  running  has  become  his  passion. 

"A  few  years  back,  I  saw  an  ad  in  the 
paper  for  a  10- kilometer  race  in  Upton 
for  which  the  entry  fee  was  zero.  I  fig- 
ured I  could  afford  that,  and  even  if  it 
was  a  disaster,  I  wouldn't  have  lost  too 
much.  I  enjoyed  it,  although  I  don't 
think  I  did  another  race  until  the  same 
one  the  next  year.  After  that,  I  decided  I 
had  to  start  doing  it  more  often.  I  also  got 
involved  with  the  runners  here  on  cam- 
pus. They  talk  about  races  and  get  you 
pumped  up." 

He  usually  runs  at  noon  with  the  WPI 
Footpounders,  a  group  of  faculty  and 
administrators  who  take  to  the  streets  of 
Worcester  daily  in  packs  of  four  or  six 
runners.  "If  it  weren't  for  the  other  run- 
ners, and  the  enthusiasm  and  support 
they  provide,  I  wouldn't  be  close  to 
where  I  am  now,"  he  says.  "I  like  group 
activity.  I'm  not  the  kind  of  runner  who 
would  go  out  and  do  it  all  with  my  own 
internal   drive.    Having   those  others 


around  makes  it  much  more  exciting." 

His  late  start— Beall  was  about  40 
when  he  took  up  running  —has  not  lim- 
ited his  achievements.  Last  year,  he  fin- 
ished fifth  in  the  master's  division  of  the 
Worcester  Telegram  and  Gazette's  10- 
mile  Classic,  the  city's  most  popular 
race.  The  master's  division  is  considered 
nearly  as  competitive  as  the  open  divi- 
sion; Beall's  time  was  an  impressive  62 
minutes  and  14  seconds. 

Beall  also  enjoys  racewalking;  he 
says,  "My  principal  goal  is  to  keep  run- 
ning and  racewalking  until  the  day 
before  they  bury  me.  The  idea  that  I 
would  reach  the  point  where  I  would  still 


"A  road  race  .  ♦  ♦  is 
athletics  stripped  to 
the  essentials. " 


be  alive  but  unable  to  do  these  things— 
that  just  blows  me  away." 

He  speaks  eloquently  of  the  rewards  of 
running,  which  many  non-runners  find 
difficult  to  understand. 

"It's  a  lot  of  hard  work,  a  lot  of  con- 
centration and  a  lot  of  discomfort  at 
times,"  he  says,  "and  I  have  to  admit  the 
pleasures  are  very  subtle.  Yet  for  some 
reason,  it's  a  lot  of  fun  and  very  reward- 
ing. A  road  race  is  a  fascinating  event. 
It's  athletics  stripped  down  to  the  abso- 
lute bare  essentials,  the  simplest  rules 
you  can  possibly  have:  'Here's  the  start, 
there's  the  finish,  and  the  winner  is  the 
person  who  gets  there  first.' 

"Elements  of  luck  are  pretty  much 
eradicated.  It's  simply  a  matter  of  being 
tougher  emotionally  and  physically  than 
the  next  guy  at  that  particular  time.  And 
you  know  there  are  going  to  be  days 
when  you  have  bad  races,  but  you  won't 
understand  what  was  different.  You  were 
just  as  well  trained  on  the  bad  day,  but 
you  simply  weren't  up  to  it.  And  you 
don't  even  know  until  the  race  starts. 
Sometimes  at  the  start  you  feel,  'Holy 
mackerel,  I'm  up  to  it  today,'  and  you 


just  know  it's  going  to  work  right.  Other 
times  you  know  you're  flat,  and  you  real- 
ize it's  going  to  be  a  long  day." 

Liz  Miles:  A  rower 
finds  safe  harbor 
after  weathering 
many  storms 


Elizabeth  Miles  recalls  how  she  felt 
after  being  cut  from  the  1980 
U.S.  Olympic  rowing  team:  "I 
remember,  very  distinctly,  looking  at  the 
list  they  had  posted.  It  was  in  alphabeti- 
cal order,  and  I  scanned  to  the  place 
where  my  name  should  have  been.  There 
was  a  blank  spot.  I  just  stared.  It  was  a 
feeling  of  total  emptiness.  Then  I  just 
packed  my  bags,  went  to  the  train  sta- 
tion, and  stood  there,  alone,  waiting  for 
the  train  to  come  puffing  into  view.  It 
was  pretty  classic." 

If  she  can  look  back  on  it  now  with  a 
sense  of  humor,  it's  partly  because  she 
returned  the  next  year  and  not  only  made 
the  team,  but  won  the  crucial  stroke  posi- 
tion and  led  the  eight-member  boat  to  a 
silver  medal  in  the  world  championships 
in  Munich. 

"I  made  a  vow  after  being  cut  that  I'd 
make  the  team  the  next  year.  I  got  a  good 
coach  and  worked  hard  on  the  basics- 
became  good  technically,  not  just  a  hard 
puller.  My  attitude  also  changed  tremen- 
dously. I  became  more  professional, 
cooler.  My  approach  became,  'This  is 
what  needs  to  be  done;  this  is  what  I'm 
going  to  do,'  rather  than,  T  want  this  and 
I  want  that.'" 

The  following  year,  WPI's  budget 
director  was  again  part  of  the  team,  and 
again  won  a  silver  medal.  But  she  was 
not  yet  through  with  heartbreak. 

In  1983,  Miles  and  another  rower  were 
candidates  for  the  final  slot  on  the  team, 
and  Miles  was  cut. 

"We   were   both   about   the   same, 


WINTER  1987       37 


although  we  had  different  strengths  and 
weaknesses,"  she  recalls.  "And  the 
coach  decided  to  go  with  her." 

The  effect  was  devastating.  "I  knew  I 
had  done  my  best,  that  I  couldn't  have 


done  any  better,  and  I  lost.  I  was  blown 
away." 

Although  she  carried  "a  grain  of 
doubt"  throughout  the  next  year  of  train- 
ing, she  came  back  again  and  made  the 


Former  Olympian  Li*  Miles  has 
taken  to  the  calmer  waters  of  Lake 
Quinsigamond  since  joining  WPI. 
Right:  Brian  Savilonis  demon' 
strates  the  racewalking  gait  that  he 
says  "most  runners  think  looks 
silly." 


1984  Olympic  team.  Her  four-woman 
boat  missed  the  bronze  medal  by  about  a 
foot. 

"At  first,  they  told  us  we  had  taken 
third.  We  were  on  our  way  to  the  medal 
stand  when  they  said,  'Oh,  sorry, 
but.  .  .'" 

She  made  the  team  the  next  year  and 
again  the  team  finished  fourth,  this  time 
at  the  world  championships  in  Antwerp. 
"That  year  was  really  fun,"  she  says. 
"After  you've  made  the  Olympics,  a  lot 
of  the  anxiety  is  gone,  and  you  can  thor- 
oughly enjoy  yourself." 

Miles,  who  began  rowing  as  a  senior  at 
the  University  of  California  at  Berkeley, 
decided  to  call  it  quits  last  year.  "It's  the 
time,  mostly.  At  that  level,  rowing  has  to 
become  your  life.  My  priorities  have 
since  changed  and  I  just  can't  make  the 
commitment  required  at  the  international 
level." 

And  while  she  now  enjoys  rowing  on 
Lake  Quinsigamond  when  she  gets  the 
chance,  she  doesn't  miss  the  "boot 
camps"  athletes  have  to  attend  to  be 
selected  for  the  national  team,  camps 
that  she  calls  "intense,  grueling,  and 
frightening. 

"The  camps  are  more  nerve-racking 
and  demanding  than  the  races.  It's  basi- 
cally a  group  of  very  talented  women 
competing  for  a  limited  number  of  slots. 
Roughly  half  are  going  to  make  it  and 
half  aren't." 

It  takes  a  good  deal  of  mental  stamina 
just  to  deal  with  the  lifestyle  and  politics 
of  a  selection  camp:  "There's  a  lot  you 
have  to  put  up  with  and  that's  okay  if  you 
have  a  goal  in  mind— then  you'll  put  up 
with  anything.  But  it  gets  to  the  point 
where  the  tradeoffs  change.  Having 
achieved  what  I  wanted  to  achieve,  I 
wasn't  willing  to  put  up  with  the  difficul- 
ties." 

But  if  it's  grueling,  it's  also  fascinat- 
ing: "Rowing  is  a  neat  sport,  because 
there's  a  lot  of  variety  among  the  rowers. 
There  are  different  strengths  and  weak- 
nesses. Everybody's  dealt  a  hand,  and 
it's  a  question  of  how  you  play  it.  For 


38       WPI  JOURNAL 


example,  it's  theoretically  an  advantage 
to  be  tall  and  strong;  height  is  an  advan- 
tage for  generating  leverage,  and 
strength  is  an  advantage,  since  it  takes 
power  to  move  the  boat.  Rowing  is  also 
an  endurance  sport,  so  people  with  a 
large  aerobic  capacity  have  that  going  for 
them. 

"But  what  you  find  are  these  amazing, 
smaller  people  who  simply  won't  be 
beat.  The  best  are  not  necessarily  the 
biggest  because  there's  a  whole  other 
side  to  competition." 

There  is  a  trace  of  regret  in  her  voice 
when  she  speaks  of  leaving  competition, 
and  she  admits  to  having  toyed  with  the 
notion  of  trying  out  for  the  1986  team. 
"You  miss  some  of  the  extraordinary 
things;  a  rowing  team  becomes  an  entity 
in  and  of  itself,  and  the  crew  members 
become  very  close.  Over  the  years,  you 
develop  very  dear  friendships,  and  now 
that  I've  retired,  I  miss  the  camaraderie." 

One  of  Miles'  friends  from  her  rowing 
years  is  Jean  Strauss,  wife  of  President 
Jon  C.  Strauss,  himself  a  rower.  "Jean's 
no  stranger  to  the  pressures  of  top  com- 
petition," says  Miles.  "She's  a  two-time 
national  champion  who  has  raced  inter- 
nationally against  the  best  in  the  world." 
The  two  were  teammates  at  Berkeley. 
"We  have  a  half-dozen  rowing  pals  out 
in  California  that  we  still  get  together 
with.  There's  a  real  bond." 


Brian  Savilonis:  For 
runner,  racewalker, 
teacher,  and  coach, 
"not  enough  hours 
in  the  day" 


Brian  Savilonis  '72,  a  former  U.S. 
100-kilometer  racewalking 
champion,  finds  it  "very  diffi- 
cult to  balance  a  full-time  career  with  the 
high  level  of  training  required  to  com- 
pete on  a  national  level.  There  aren't 
enough  hours  in  the  day." 

The  mechanical  engineering  professor 
has  partly  redirected  his  efforts  toward 
coaching  the  WPI  women's  track  and 
cross-country  teams,  but  he  still  com- 
petes in  national  events.  "I'm  really  in 
the  second  tier  now,"  he  admits. 
"Coaching  makes  more  sense  to  me  at 
this  point.  I  find  that  rejuvenating." 

Savilonis  also  coaches  colleagues 
Herb  Beall  and  Electrical  Engineering 
Associate  Professor  Fred  Looft,  who 
now  racewalk  as  a  result  of  his  encour- 
agement, as  well  as  a  number  of  others 
who  attend  the  regional  races  he  orga- 
nizes. 

"The  local  races  draw  maybe  a  dozen 
entrants,"  says  Savilonis.  "And  there  are 


probably  50  people  who  compete 
between  here  and  Boston." 

Unlike  running,  racewalking  hasn't 
taken  off  in  popularity— at  least,  not  in 
America;  it  is  viewed  by  many  as 
unglamorous  and  strange-looking. 
"Most  runners  think  it  looks  silly," 
admits  Beall.  "It  doesn't  have  the  piz- 
zazz of  really  cranking  up  to  high  speed. 
Runners  who  try  racewalking  often  find 
it  frustrating  being  restricted  by  rules  that 
keep  you  from  going  as  fast  as  you'd 
like." 

Savilonis  says  it's  not  unusual  to  be 
ridiculed  by  passing  motorists.  "It's  not  a 
bad  as  it  used  to  be,  though,"  he  says. 
"People  are  more  accepting  now.  A  lot 
of  them  exercise  in  some  way,  and  they 
seem  to  understand." 

A  popular  sport  in  Mexico,  South 
America,  Europe,  and  China,  racewalk- 
ing has  two  basic  rules:  you  must  keep 
one  foot  on  the  ground  at  all  times,  and 
you  must  straighten  the  knee  of  the  sup- 
port leg  as  it  passes  under  your  body.  As 
Savilonis  explains,  "If  you  stand  on  one 
leg  like  a  stork  for  a  minute,  you'll  get  an 
idea  of  what  it's  like." 

National  class  racewalkers  like  Savi- 
lonis, however,  are  not  "walking"  in  any 
common  sense  of  the  word.  Savilonis 
finished  his  100K  in  just  10  hours  and  32 
minutes;  the  current  world  record  for 
men  in  the  racewalk  mile  is  five  minutes 


WINTER  1987       39 


and  49  seconds.  To  achieve  these  times, 
the  racewalker  must  use  a  pace  much 
faster  than  that  of  most  runners. 

Savilonis  got  his  start  in  racewalking 
when  he  was  a  graduate  student  at  SUNY 
Buffalo  in  1976.  A  runner  since  high 
school,  he  had  been  temporarily  side- 
lined due  to  injuries.  "I  happened  to  see 
racewalking  at  a  track  meet  and  thought 
I'd  give  it  a  try,"  he  says. 

After  moving  to  the  University  of  Vir- 
ginia, he  found  himself  close  to  Wash- 
ington, D.C.,  one  of  the  country's  hot- 
beds of  racewalking.  His  interest 
increased,  and  so  did  his  success.  By  the 
time  he  returned  to  WPI  to  teach  in  1981 , 
he  was  training  75  miles  a  week  and 
vying  for  national  titles.  His  dream  of 
making  the  1984  Olympic  team  was 
dashed  when  he  got  sick  just  before  the 
trials. 

Today,  Savilonis  mixes  his  racewalk- 
ing with  a  heavy  dose  of  running,  at 
which  he  also  excels.  Unlike  most,  he 
was  a  runner  long  before  the  fitness  craze 
of  the  mid-1970s. 

"I've  enjoyed  long,  slow,  distance 
training  since  high  school.  I  was  running 
100  miles  a  week  back  in  the  early  70s." 
He  first  competed  in  the  Boston  Mara- 
thon in  1969,  when  the  number  of 
entrants  was  measured  in  hundreds. 

"That  was  back  in  the  days  when  Run- 
ner 's  World  was  a  black-and-white  publi- 
cation," he  says  with  a  grin. 

Savilonis  has  high  hopes  for  his  future 
in  both  sports.  "In  three  years,  I  move  to 
the  master's  division,  in  both  walking 
and  running.  That'll  be  another  incen- 
tive," he  says. 

Although  he  hasn't  run  a  marathon  in 
10  years,  he's  considering  giving  it 
another  shot.  He  terms  his  approach  to 
roadracing  "casual,"  but  with  a  marathon 
personal  best  of  two  hours  and  43  min- 
utes and  recent  10K  times  of  just  over  35 
minutes,  he's  among  the  fastest  non- 
varsity  competitors  at  WPI. 

Michael  Shanley  is  a  freelance  writer  liv- 
ing in  Holden,  Mass. 


Fifteen  years  of  the 
Footpounders 


Fittingly,  there  was  a  "turtle,"  or 
slow  and  steady  runner,  involved 
back  when  WPI's  Fabulous  Foot- 
pounders got  their  start. 

Today,  if  Physics  Professor  Bob  Long 
isn't  considered  the  grandfather  of  WPI's 
noontime  running  group,  he's  at  least  a 
favorite  uncle.  It  was  he  who  first  began 
circling  the  old  cinder  track  at  lunchtime 
more  than  15  years  ago,  just  about  the 
time  then-graduate  student  Brian  Savi- 
lonis and  Mechanical  Engineering  Pro- 
fessor Al  Hoffman,  both  former  track 
stars,  started  regular  noontime  runs. 

"I  did  it  primarily  for  health  reasons, 
both  physical  and  mental.  It  was  a  way  to 
lose  weight,  feel  better,  and  reduce  ten- 
sion," says  Long.  He  was  soon  joined  by 
Mathematical  Sciences  Professor  Gor- 
don Branche. 

As  the  1970s  progressed,  and  running 
became  more  popular,  the  group 
expanded.  At  some  point,  in  the  course 
of  locker  room  talk,  they  dubbed  them- 
selves the  Footpounders— a  "foot- 
pound" being  the  scientific  term  for  a 
unit  of  work  as  well  as  an  apt  description 
of  the  mechanics  of  running.  Some  credit 
this  bit  of  wordplay  to  Physics  Professor 
Van  Bluemel,  another  longtime  runner. 

There  are  two  species  of  Footpoun- 
ders: turtles  and  non-turtles.  The  former 
includes  a  proud,  usually  greying  group 
that  cranks  out  four  or  so  miles  each 
weekday.  Runners  in  the  other  category 
are  faster  and  more  ambitious;  they  com- 
plete regular  track  workouts  and  run 
longer  distances  in  preparation  for  races. 

As  one  member  puts  it,  "There  are 
those  who  run  for  fun  and  those  who 
compete.  The  turtles  are  out  there  every 
day,  rain  or  shine,  but  they  don't  feel  the 
urge  or  intensity  that  some  others  do." 

The  numbers  and  faces  have  changed 
over  the  years  as  faculty  and  staff  have 


come  and  gone.  Current  noontime  run- 
ners number  about  30,  although  they  are 
rarely  assembled  all  at  once.  Among 
them  are  a  core  of  perhaps  a  half-dozen 
serious  competitors  and  as  many  genuine 
turtles. 
The    Footpounders'    achievements 


40       WPI  JOURNAL 


The  Footpounders  have  logged  thousands  of  miles  in  all  kinds  of  weather.  Leading  the  pack  is  Registrar  Joseph 
J.  Mielinski,  Jr.,  '75,  who  forgot  his  usual  running  attire  hut  didn't  want  to  be  left  out  of  the  picture. 


include  an  unbroken  string  of  entries  in 
the  Cape  Cod  Relay.  Hundreds  of  eight- 
member  teams  from  throughout  the 
country  now  clamor  for  entry  in  the  83- 
mile  road  race  that  begins  at  dawn  at 
Plymouth  Rock  and  ends  in  Province- 
town.  The  race  was  much  more  modest 


in  the  mid-1970s,  when  Long,  Hoffman, 
and  their  fellow  Footpounders  first  ran  it. 
And,  for  five  consecutive  years,  until 
the  1986  race,  the  group  had  a  virtual 
lock  on  WPI's  annual  intramural  cross- 
country competition.  This  year,  they'll 
be  seeking  to  avenge  the  crushing  defeat 


they  suffered  at  the  hands  of  the  Alpha 
Tau  Omega  fraternity. 

Bob  Long  probably  speaks  for  all 
Footpounders  when  he  says  of  the  noon 
run,  "It's  an  important  part  of  my  life. 
When  I  can't  do  it,  I  miss  it." 

-MS 


WINTER  1987       41 


A  recent  group  of  M.B.A.  students  at  work  on  a  term  project. 


By  Evelyn  Herwitz 

WPPs  continuing  education 
programs  boost  careers  and 
build  confidence  by  sending 
professionals  back  to  the 
classroom. 


To  Stanley  Belcinski,  it  was  just 
something  he'd  wanted  to  do  for  a 
long  time.  The  mechanical  engi- 
neering degree  he'd  earned  at  WPI  in 
1963  had  provided  a  good  base  for  his 
career  in  quality  control  engineering.  But 
he'd  always  had  it  in  the  back  of  his 
mind  to  get  a  master's— to  "put  a  little 
more  mortar  into  the  foundation." 

For  17  years,  job  and  family  pressures 
forced  that  goal  to  stay  at  the  bottom  of 
his  priority  list.  But  finally,  in  1980, 
Belcinski  returned  to  campus,  this  time 
as  a  night  school  student  in  the  Master  of 
Science  in  Management  program. 

Belcinski  chose  the  master's  degree 
over  WPI's  M.B.A.  program  for  the 
opportunity  it  provided  him  to  relearn 
technical  subjects  relevant  to  his  work, 
but  he  admits  that  he  put  off  taking  the 
technical  courses. 

"Getting  back  into  the  grind  was  a  bit 
of  a  shock,"  he  recalls.  "When  I  finally 
took  the  technical  component,  it  was  like 
taking  three  courses  for  every  course  on 
paper,  because  I  had  to  go  back  to  my  old 
texts  and  look  things  up." 

During  the  last  four  of  his  six  years  in 
the  program,  he  had  the  unusual  opportu- 
nity to  attend  college  with  his  son, 
Richard. 

"We  didn't  see  much  of  each  other  on 
campus,  though  sometimes  I'd  pass  him 
on  Tuesday  nights  on  my  way  to  the 
library,"  says  Richard.  "But  every  time  I 
came  home,  Dad  would  say,  T  got  an  A. 


42       WPI  JOURNAL 


What  did  you  get?'  We  had  a  friendly 
running  competition." 

For  father  and  son,  the  experience  cul- 
minated at  Commencement  last  May, 
when  Richard  got  his  B.S.  in  physics  and 
Stanley  got  his  M.S.  in  management. 
"That  was  a  super  day,"  says  Belcinski. 

Not  everyone  who  enrolls  in  one  of 
WPI's  continuing  education  programs 
gets  the  bonus  of  graduating  with  his  or 
her  child.  But,  as  many  night  school  stu- 
dents and  alumni  will  attest,  the  personal 
rewards  are  abundant. 

Polaroid  Corporation  education  and 
training  specialist  Ginger  Slater,  for 
example,  who  chose  to  earn  an  M.B.A. 
through  WPI's  videotape  instruction  pro- 
gram, enrolled  for  the  pure  joy  of  learn- 
ing. "I'm  a  career  student,"  she  laughs. 

Thomas  Nally  saw  going  back  to 
school  as  a  natural  extension  of  work.  A 
plant  manager  for  Interstate  Nuclear 
Services  in  Springfield  and  a  senior  in 
the  School  of  Industrial  Management 
(SIM),  he  sums  up  his  philosophy  sim- 
ply: "Life  is  a  continuous  learning 
process." 

Now  in  its  32nd  year  of  extending 
learning  opportunities,  WPI's  Evening 
Program  currently  enrolls  more  than 
1 ,000  students  in  a  wide  range  of  degree 
and  certificate  programs. 

Qualified  candidates  with  undergradu- 
ate degrees  can  pursue  master's  degrees 
in  biomedical  engineering,  civil  engi- 
neering, computer  science,  electrical 
engineering,  fire  protection  engineering, 
management  (M.S.M.  and  M.B.A.), 
mathematics,  mechanical  engineering, 
nuclear  engineering,  and  physics. 

Other  initiatives  include  curricula 
leading  to  the  degrees  of  Master  of  Natu- 
ral Science  and  Master  of  Mathematics; 
certificate  programs  offered  by  SIM  and 
the  Plant  Engineering  Program;  and  the 
Greater  Worcester  Executive  Program. 

And,  since  1976,  more  than  17,000 
professionals  have  participated  in  the 
Institute's  Professional  Development 
Seminars  and  Executive  Briefing  Pro- 
gram (see  sidebar). 


According  to  Robert  Hall,  director  of 
continuing  education,  just  over  half  of 
WPI's  night  school  students  have  been 
admitted  to  degree  programs.  Of  the 
balance,  he  says,  30  to  40  percent  "con- 
sider themselves  degree  seekers, 
although  they  haven't  yet  committed 
themselves  to  a  program." 

The  option  to  earn  credit  even  before 
being  admitted  to  a  degree  program  gives 
students  considerable  latitude  in  explor- 
ing the  curriculum.  Evening  students  can 
take  up  to  four  courses  for  credit  without 
being  accepted  for  a  degree.  Upon 
acceptance,  those  credits  can  be  applied 
toward  the  degree  requirements. 

John  Sangermano  liked  that  flexible 
arrangement.  A  senior  engineer  with 
Digital  Equipment  Corporation  (DEC), 
in  Shrewsbury,  Mass.,  Sangermano  took 
his  first  WPI  evening  course  in  1978 
while  working  at  DEC  headquarters  in 
Maynard.  Though  he  initially  enrolled 
"to  take  things  that  looked  interesting," 
eight  years  later,  Sangermano  is  about 
one  semester  shy  of  an  M.S.  in  electrical 
engineering. 

After  completing  several  courses, 
Sangermano  says  he  made  a  career  deci- 
sion to  stick  with  engineering  and  to  get 
his  M.S. 

That  goal  has  not  always  been  easy  to 
fulfill.  "There  are  times  when  I  have  a 
class,  homework,  and  a  major  meeting 
all  at  once,  and  I  start  asking  myself, 
'Why  am  I  doing  this?'  " 


"There  are  times  when  I 
have  a  class,  homework,  and 
a  major  meeting  all  at  once, 
and  I  start  asking  myself, 
'Why  am  I  doing  this?'  "  says 
John  Sangermano. 


WINTER  1987       43 


"But  for  the  most  part,  it's  like  any- 
thing else.  You  have  to  schedule  your 
time  to  allow  for  homework.  Fortu- 
nately," he  adds,  "I  have  a  forgiving 
wife.  When  I  have  homework  or  a  big 
project,  I'm  able  to  spread  everything 
out  on  the  dining  room  table  and  leave  it 
there  for  several  weeks." 

While  an  advanced  degree  would  be  an 
advantage  if  he  were  to  apply  for  another 
job  within  DEC,  Sangermano  has  no 
plans  at  present  to  transfer  from  his  cur- 
rent group,  which  designs  computer 
memory  systems. 

As  a  result,  Sangermano  isn't  antici- 
pating any  major  changes  at  the  office 
when  he  completes  his  degree,  probably 
sometime  next  summer.  "I  think  I'll  get 
an  'attaboy,'"  he  says.  "I  tell  my  friends 
I'll  be  able  to  read  more  Scientific  Ameri- 
can articles  when  I  graduate. 

"What  I've  really  gained  is  a  feeling 
that  I'm  better  versed  in  my  field  and 
stronger  in  other  areas." 

The  flexible  credit  arrangement  also 
attracted  Donald  Foster  to  the  pro- 
gram. A  senior  engineer  involved  in 
product  development  for  Polaroid,  Fos- 
ter completed  his  M.B.A.  in  1985.  "I 
was  able  to  start  taking  courses  im- 
mediately before  declaring  a  major," 
Foster  says. 

Once  he  began  taking  courses,  Foster 
says  he  decided  to  pursue  an  M.B.A. 
because  of  the  quality  and  enthusiasm  of 
the  faculty.  He  says  he  was  also  encour- 
aged by  another  flexible  feature  of  the 
M.B.A.  program:  the  fact  that  the  courses 
were  available  at  work  on  videotape. 

Meeting  with  a  group  of  about  a  dozen 
co-workers  after  work  each  week,  Foster 
would  watch  a  three-hour,  taped  lecture 
of  a  WPI  management  professor  and 
graduate  students. 

Coursework  follows  the  same  schedule 
as  on-campus  lectures,  and  WPI  pro- 
vides proctors  for  exams.  Professors  are 
readily  available  by  phone;  in  some 
cases,  they  go  out  to  Polaroid  to  teach 
courses  in  person. 

"The  videotape  format  gave  us  a  great 


Director  of  Continuing  Education  Robert  J.  Hall  says  that  corporate 
belt'tightening  has  caused  enrollment  everywhere  to  plateau. 


deal  of  freedom,"  says  Foster.  "The 
courses  were  offered  when  and  where  we 
wished,  and  the  group  was  self-managed 
and  self-controlled.  It  was  a  very  demo- 
cratic process." 

First  used  in  1979  at  Varian  Associ- 
ates, the  Management  Department's 
videotaped  graduate  program  is  currently 
offered  at  Polaroid  sites  in  Cambridge, 
Waltham,  and  New  Bedford,  Mass.  Pro- 
gram director  Arlene  Lowenstein  says 
about  50  students  are  enrolled  in  the  12- 
course  core  curriculum  leading  to  an 
M.B.A.  or  M.S.  in  management.  About 
80  percent  are  Polaroid  employees,  she 
adds,  while  the  rest  commute  to  Polaroid 
from  a  variety  of  other  organizations, 
ranging  from  high-tech  firms  to  hospi- 
tals. 

For  Polaroid's  Ginger  Slater,  the  video 
system  is  working  just  fine. 

"The  program  is  so  convenient,"  she 
says.  "With  my  schedule  as  crazy  as  it 
is,  if  I  can't  make  a  class  at  the  regular 
time,  I  can  just  make  other  arrangements 
to  see  the  tape  later." 

Doing  without  a  live  professor  has 


proved  less  of  a  disadvantage  than  Slater 
expected.  "If  I  have  a  question,  I  just 
make  a  note  of  it  and  phone  the  professor 
later.  And  if  there's  something  I  don't 
understand,  I  can  always  hit  'rewind.'" 

For  her,  the  benefits  of  the  program 
range  from  a  deeper  understanding  of 
group  dynamics  to  an  ability  to  commu- 
nicate better  with  finance  staff.  "It's 
helped  me  to  connect  with  other  parts  of 
the  organization  in  a  way  I  wouldn't 
have  otherwise,"  she  says. 

Understanding  and  making  connec- 
tions between  different  but 
related  fields  and  ideas  is  also  a 
goal  of  two  very  different  master's  pro- 
grams offered  by  WPI. 

Designed  primarily  for  secondary 
school  teachers,  the  Master  of  Natural 
Science  (M.N.S.)  and  Master  of  Mathe- 
matics (M.M.)  curricula  provide  a  broad 
grounding  in  allied  disciplines.  For  the 
M.N.S. ,  the  four-year  program  includes 
several  courses  in  biology,  chemistry, 
mathematics,  and  physics.  In  turn,  the 
four-year  M.M.  program  covers  a  vari- 


44       WPI  JOURNAL 


ety  of  subjects  ranging  from  geometry  to 
linear  and  matrix  algebra. 

For  educators  whose  responsibilities 
often  include  teaching  more  than  one 
subject  area,  that  diversity  is  a  major 
attraction— and  challenge— of  both  pro- 
grams. 

"It  was  very  difficult  taking  courses 
outside  my  own  discipline,"  admits 
Richard  Terry,  Marlboro  High  School's 
science  department  chairman  for  the  past 
24  years.  "I  hadn't  taken  or  taught  calcu- 
lus in  20  years.  And  when  I  studied  biol- 
ogy in  college,  they'd  just  barely  discov- 
ered DNA." 

But  Terry  says  the  effort  was  worth  it. 
Since  completing  his  M.N.S.  several 
years  ago,  he  feels  better  able  to  direct 
teachers  in  his  department.  "The  back- 
ground helps  when  I  go  in  to  observe 
other  teachers,"  he  says.  "I'm  able  to 
transfer  some  of  the  ideas  I  learned  and 
suggest  texts." 

Now  in  her  third  year  of  the  M.M. 
program,  Beaver  County  Day  School 
math  teacher  Wendy  Newberry  has  also 
found  the  WPI  curriculum  to  be  a  source 
of  new  classroom  opportunities. 

A  teacher  at  the  private  Chestnut  Hill 
school  for  1 1  years,  Newberry  has  added 
statistics  and  finite  mathematics  to  her 
repertoire  since  enrolling  in  the  program. 
"I  wouldn't  have  taught  those  subjects 
before,"  she  says.  "Now  I  feel  much  bet- 
ter prepared." 

While  the  need  for  improved  training 
of  high  school  math  and  science  teachers 
has  been  the  subject  of  much  national 
attention  in  recent  years,  WPI's  two  mas- 
ter's programs  were  actually  started  well 
before  the  latest  outcry  over  secondary 
education. 

In  1958,  with  funding  from  the 
National  Science  Foundation,  WPI  initi- 
ated an  in-service  training  program  that 
eventually  became  the  M.N.S.  curricu- 
lum. Originated  as  a  summer  institute, 
the  program  evolved  into  a  four-year 
course  of  study  that  is  open  for  enroll- 
ment every  two  years.  Two  courses  are 
taught  on  campus  each  semester  for  a 


total  of  four  hours  of  weekly  instruction. 

Based  on  that  model,  the  M.M.  pro- 
gram was  started  in  1976.  "We  felt  there 
was  a  void  for  math  teachers  who  needed 
graduate-level  instruction,"  says  Peter 
Christopher,  program  director  and  asso- 
ciate professor  of  mathematical  sciences. 
"But  that  instruction  was  either  not  read- 
ily available  or  not  pertinent  to  what  the 
teacher  was  trying  to  do  in  the  class- 
room." 

Like  the  M.N.S.  program,  the  M.M. 
curriculum  was  designed  to  include  a 
broad  range  of  concepts.  Christopher 
says  it  has  attracted  an  increasing  num- 
ber of  teachers  in  recent  years. 

According  to  continuing  education 
director  Hall,  both  programs  have 
proved  extremely  attractive  to  teachers. 
Current  enrollment  of  some  70  students 
includes  teachers  from  as  far  away  as 
Southern  Maine. 

That  geographic  drawing  power  is  due 
in  large  part  to  the  programs'  content  ori- 


"There  are  plenty  of  contin- 
uing ed.  courses,  but  I 
wanted  math  content." 


WINTER  1987       45 


SIM  offers  its  students  the 
latest  management  tech- 
niques without  the  pressure 
of  grades. 


In  the  Instructional  Media  Center 
of  Higgins  Labs,  Professor  Douglas 
W.  Woods  teaches  an  economics 
course  to  evening  graduate  students. 


entation.  "We  teach  teachers,  and  they 
certainly  have  opinions  on  how  to 
teach,"  says  Ronald  D.  Chetham,  associ- 
ate professor  of  biology  and  biotechnol- 
ogy and  M.N.S.  director.  "But  this  is  not 
an  education  degree;  it's  a  science 
degree." 

Math  teacher  Wendy  Newberry  says 
that  "the  commute  is  a  drain,  but  it's 
worth  the  extra  time.  There  are  plenty  of 
continuing  ed.  programs  in  education 
closer  to  home,  but  I  wanted  math  con- 
tent." 

"I  think  it's  made  me  more  sensitive  as 
a  teacher,  something  I've  gained  indi- 
rectly through  content  that's  worth  my 
time." 


Graduate  degree  programs  provide 
the   opportunity    for   intensive 
study  in  a  chosen  field,  but  those 
seeking  more  advanced  education  com- 
bined with  a  less  demanding  schedule 
may  choose  a  certificate  program. 
As  the  oldest  branch  of  WPI's  Evening 


Program,  the  School  of  Industrial  Man- 
agement has  been  granting  certificates  to 
area  businesspeople  since  1953. 

Founded  in  1949,  SIM  was  a  product 
of  the  wartime  economic  boom  that  put  a 
strain  on  Worcester's  heavy  industry. 
"During  World  War  II,  much  of  Worces- 
ter industry  expanded  dramatically, 
while  at  the  same  time  managers  were 
enlisting  or  being  recruited  into  the 
armed  services,"  says  SIM  Director  and 
Professor  of  Management  Nicholas 
Onorato. 

"As  a  result,"  he  explains,  "the 
demand  for  managers  exceeded  the  sup- 
ply, and  a  lot  of  engineers  were  pro- 
moted to  fill  management  positions.  But 
often  they  didn't  have  the  training  or 
experience  to  be  managers.  So  the  com- 
panies decided  to  do  something  about  it." 

Major  employers  like  Norton  Co., 
Morgan  Construction  Co.,  Wyman- 
Gordon  Co.,  and  Worcester  Gas  and 
Electric  Co.  approached  the  WPI  man- 
agement and  economics  faculty  for  help. 
"Instead  of  a  crash  program,"   notes 


Executive  Seminars: 
"Pulling  It  All  Together^ 

For  those  who  want  to  brush  up  on 
technical  or  managerial  skills, 
but  haven't  the  time  to  enroll  in  a 
certificate  or  degree  program,  there  is 
another  way  to  take  advantage  of 
WPI's  offerings.  In  just  a  day  or  a 
week,  students  can  learn  the  basics  of 
subjects  ranging  from  time  manage- 
ment to  artificial  intelligence  through 
the  intensive  Seminars  for  Profes- 
sional Development  program. 

As  this  popular  program  enters  its 
second  decade,  Continuing  Education 
Director  Robert  Hall  says  nearly 
18,000  professionals  have  partici- 
pated in  the  seminars.  Annual  en- 
rollments average  2,500  to  3,000 
students.  To  make  participation  con- 
venient, most  seminars  are  offered  at 


46       WPI  JOURNAL 


ME  Professor  Hartley  T.  Grandin, 
Jr.,  complements  his  undergradu- 
ate teaching  with  graduate  instruc- 
tion  in  the  evening. 


Onorato,  "they  decided  to  develop  a  cur- 
riculum that  would  cover  eight  func- 
tional management  courses  in  four 
years." 

Though  the  program's  subject  matter 
has  been  updated  where  appropriate,  that 
basic  curriculum  is  still  SIM's  founda- 
tion. Courses  include  personnel  rela- 
tions, marketing,  finance,  production 
management,  computers,  and  policy  for- 
mation. 

Today,  Onorato  says  that  for  SIM 
graduates,    a   certificate   program    is 
favored  over  a  degree  for  practical  rea- 
sons:   "Many  of  these   people   have 
already  graduated  from  college  and  are 
more  interested  in  training  than  degrees. 
Also,  they  often  have  families,   work 
pressures,  and  other  community  respon- 
sibilities. So  the  program  is  designed  to 
present  the  latest  management  tech- 
niques without  the  pressure  of  grades." 
_       To  be  admitted,  students  must  have  at 
J   least  five  years'  industrial  experience  and 
|   be  nominated  by  their  employers,  who 
I   pay  all  fees.  Classes  average  about  40 


a  variety  of  locations  in  the  greater 
Boston  area  and  Nashua,  N.H.,  as 
well  as  on  campus. 

Among  the  most  highly  subscribed 
offerings,  says  Hall,  is  the  Five-Day 
Management  Institute.  Taught  by  Dr. 
William  R.  Allen,  a  faculty  member 
in  the  School  of  Management  at  Suf- 
folk University  and  a  consultant  to 
business  and  government,  the  Insti- 
tute covers  topics  such  as  motivating 
employees,  conflict  management,  and 
problem  solving. 

"It's  the  first  course  I  have  taken 
that  tied  it  all  together,"  says  Richard 
Roy,  manager  of  national  technical 
support  operations  for  Atex,  Incorpo- 
rated. "The  course  stresses  real-life 
situations  that  reinforce  the  theoreti- 
cal." 

Another  popular  program,  and  the 
most  frequently  offered,  is  the  two- 
day  Project  Management  seminar. 


"For  technical  people,  it  explains 
how  to  operate  in  a  matrix 
environment — how  to  plan  and  sched- 
ule a  project  from  inception  to  com- 
pletion," explains  Hall.  "The  seminar 
also  provides  a  great  way  to  introduce 
people  to  our  other  courses." 

Geared  to  help  managers  learn  to 
shepherd  key  projects  cost-efficiently, 
the  seminar  focuses  on  both  organiza- 
tional skills  and  interpersonal 
dynamics.  A  second  seminar  in 
Advanced  Project  Management  offers 
training  in  the  more  technical  compo- 
nents of  project  planning,  execution, 
and  control.  Says  past  participant 
Arthur  A.  Giannetti,  program  man- 
ager for  the  Air  Force  Geophysics 
Lab/LSP,  "I  discovered  'project  man- 
agement' through  WPI.  The  unique- 
ness of  this  course  has  enriched  my 
capabilities  from  'good'  to  'great.'  " 

While  course  offerings  are  rotated 


overtime,  Hall  says  new  seminars  are 
often  added  in  response  to  partici- 
pants' requests.  Among  this  year's 
additions  is  a  one-day  program  on  the 
"Justification  and  Implementation  of 
Automation."  One  of  seven  seminars 
in  the  Executive/Management  Brief- 
ing Series,  the  program  discusses 
timely  topics  such  as  key  technology 
trends  and  how  to  evaluate  a  proposed 
automation  project. 

Marketed  extensively  throughout 
the  region,  WPI's  broad  range  of 
seminars  has  attracted  participants 
from  more  than  50  corporations 
including  IBM,  Honeywell  Informa- 
tion Systems,  Digital  Equipment  Cor- 
poration, AT&T,  Coca  Cola  Bottling 
Company,  and  Polaroid  Corporation. 

"We  view  ourselves  as  a  vital 
resource  for  technical  professionals  in 
New  England,"  says  Robert  Hall,  and 
the  numbers  confirm  his  view.    —EH 


WINTER  1987       47 


students,  almost  double  the  number  in 
SIM's  first  class.  Since  that  Class  of  '53 
graduated,  Onorato  says  over  1,100  stu- 
dents have  earned  an  SIM  certificate. 

To  date,  some  1,100  students  have 
earned  an  SIM  degree.  The  alumni  roll  is 
impressive,  representing  nearly  every 
major  Worcester  employer  of  the  past 
three  decades,  as  well  as  a  healthy  vari- 
ety of  smaller  enterprises. 

"The  list  of  graduates  reads  like  a  cor- 
porate Who 's  Who, "  says  Thomas  Nally, 
now  in  his  last  year  at  SIM .  A  plant  man- 
ager at  Interstate  Nuclear  Services  in 
Springfield,  Mass.,  Nally  first  learned  of 
the  program  while  working  at  the  Norton 
Company. 

And  for  SIM  junior  Thomas  Wasso,  a 
plant  accounting  manager  at  Jamesbury 
Corporation,  the  benefits  of  the  curricu- 
lum transcend  its  technical  content.  "The 
public  speaking  course  I  took  in  my  first 
semester  created  a  friendship  among  the 
students.  You  learned  from  the  speeches 
a  little  bit  about  each  classmate.  I  think  it 
drew  us  closer  to  one  another." 

For  businesspeople  looking  for  a  more 
condensed  management  refresher 
course,  there  is  also  the  Greater  Worces- 


ter Executive  Program  (GWEP).  Run 
jointly  by  WPI  and  Clark  University  for 
the  past  four  years,  the  program  is 
offered  for  10  weeks  each  spring. 

According  to  WPI's  GWEP  director, 
Management  Professor  Arthur  Gersten- 
feld,  about  20  area  executives  enroll 
each  year.  The  certificate  program  starts 
with  a  two-and-a-half-day  retreat  at  the 
Massachusetts  Institute  of  Technology's 
Endicott  House  and  continues  to  meet 
weekly  at  WPI  every  Friday  for  a  full 
day. 

Classes  cover  the  basics,  such  as 
macro-  and  microeconomics,  as  well  as 
timely  topics.  This  year,  says  Gersten- 
feld,  the  emphasis  will  be  on  interna- 
tional competition:  "We'll  be  looking  at 
technology's  response  to  such  initiatives. 

We'll  be  asking  questions,  such  as 
whether  or  not  use  of  industrial  robotics 
here  at  home  can  meet  the  challenges  of 
competing  with  Korea." 

With  such  a  wide  range  of  offerings 
and  a  strong  reputation  for  quality  educa- 
tion, WPI's  Evening  Program  has  experi- 
enced a  steady  increase  in  enrollments  in 
recent  years.  At  present,  however, 
enrollments  are  leveling  off. 


In  part,  Robert  Hall  says,  that  is  due  to 
corporate  belt-tightening  and  to  the 
shortage  of  qualified  candidates  for 
available  faculty  positions.  Like  the 
undergraduate  program,  the  evening 
school  has  experienced  considerable 
demand  for  courses  in  management, 
electrical  engineering,  and  computer  sci- 
ence. But  instructors  for  the  technical 
fields  are  particularly  scarce.  "We  aren't 
always  able  to  get  enough  faculty  to  fill 
authorized  slots,"  he  says. 

He  believes,  though,  that  WPI's  con- 
tinuing education  programs  will  remain 
in  demand.  "There  continues  to  be  a 
very  real  problem  of  technological  obso- 
lescence among  practicing  engineers," 
he  says.  "But  research  indicates  that 
those  with  advanced  degrees  have  a 
longer  trajectory  of  productive  activity. 

"The  variety  of  academic  activities 
isn't  as  important  as  simply  remaining 
involved.  For  some,  the  best  solution 
may  be  a  series  of  seminars;  for  others,  a 
degree,  or  some  combination  of  the  two. 

"But  in  the  final  analysis,  continuing 
education  will  help  forestall  technical 
obsolescence  and  develop  more  produc- 
tive contributors." 


48       WPI  JOURNAL 


LETTERS 


The  Plan  is  Alive 

Editor: 

Thank  you  for  your  thoughtful  and  thor- 
ough coverage  of  "the  Plan"  in  the 
August  1986  issue  of  the  Journal.  Dean 
Grogan's  words  reveal  his  deep  personal 
commitment  to  our  grand  experiment. 

Although  I  did  not  personally  experi- 
ence Comps,  I  liken  the  experience  to  the 
presentation  and  defense  of  my  M.S. 
thesis.  It  is  over  10  years  since  that  time, 
and  my  conviction  grows  that  the  entire 
process  assisted  my  transition  from  the 
academic  world  to  industry. 

Perhaps  the  best  solution  to  the  per- 
ceived problem  is.  as  Prof.  Kevin  Clem- 
ents suggests,  to  reinstate  Comps  mid- 
way through  the  junior  year.  At  that  time 
they  could  measure  the  student's  compe- 
tence in  basic  science  and  mathematics, 
the  basic  building  blocks  for  the  more 
focused,  project-oriented  final  semes- 
ters. 

The  Plan  is  alive.  Like  any  living 
organism,  it  needs  to  grow  and  change. 
When  change  is  instigated  by  outside 
stimuli  (like  ABET),  we  lose  some  con- 
trol of  our  destiny.  I  continue  to  be  confi- 
dent, however,  that  our  faculty  and 
administration  are  leading  WPI  through 
any  required  compromises  to  a  structure 
which  will  embody  the  original  intent  of 
Two  Towers  IV. 

Joseph  E.  Winston  '76 
Barrington,  RI 


PRESIDENTS  MESSAGE 

Continued  from  inside  front  cover 

edge  through  teaching.  This  statement, 
too,  has  received  faculty  support. 

And,  while  WPI  does  not  have  the  uni- 
form quality  of  institutions  such  as 
Carnegie  or  MIT,  in  those  specific  areas 
where  we  have  scholarly  achievement 
(and  there  is  at  least  one  in  each  aca- 
demic discipline  and  several  in  some), 
we  can  compete  with  anyone.  Moreover, 
we  are  recruiting  first-rate  faculty  mem- 
bers, who  expect  to  replicate  at  WPI  the 
environment  for  scholarship  they  experi- 
enced in  their  graduate  studies  or  pre- 
vious professional  positions. 

Obviously,  the  CEPD,  the  Faculty 
Goals  Committee,  and  the  majority  of 
the  faculty  do  not  believe  that  it  is  possi- 
ble to  offer  a  first-rate  education  in  engi- 
neering and  science  unless  the  faculty  are 
active  scholars.  This  scholarship,  which 
is  necessary  to  maintain  our  quality 
undergraduate  program,  can  be  facili- 
tated by  sponsored  research  and  graduate 
studies. 

Hence,  Dick  Gallagher  and  I  believe 
we  must  continue  to  follow  the  course 
reinforced  by  our  own  recruitment  and 
recommended  by  the  Faculty  Goals 
Committee  and  CEPD.  We  must,  how- 
ever, do  so  with  far  greater  intensity  than 
yet  imagined. 

Thus,  achieving  broad-based  schol- 
arly excellence  is  what  the  Campaign  for 
Excellence  is  all  about.  This  fund  drive 


will  help  us  ensure  that  our  undergradu- 
ate program  continues  to  flourish  with 
new  facilities  and  a  first-rate  faculty,  and 
it  will  also  enable  us  to  strengthen  our 
graduate  programs  and  imbue  our  current 
faculty  with  new  vigor. 

Our  annual  fund-raising,  while 
increasing,  is  doing  so  more  slowly  than 
institutions  with  which  we  like  to  com- 
pare ourselves.  While  our  goal  is  to  raise 
$52.5  million  for  specific  programs,  the 
Campaign  for  Excellence  will  at  the 
same  time  double  our  annual  fund- 
raising  over  the  next  five  years.  These 
additional  resources  from  increased  giv- 
ing and  sponsorship  will  not  alone  guar- 
antee the  scholarly  excellence  we  seek 
for  WPI.  but  these  resources,  when  spent 
wisely  by  our  faculty  on  projects  of  stra- 
tegic importance,  will  make  such  schol- 
arly excellence  possible.  The  resulting 
recognition  will  resound  to  us  all. 

Fifteen  years  ago,  WPI  developed  the 
Plan  for  a  host  of  reasons,  both  internally 
and  externally  generated.  The  Plan  has, 
indeed,  served  as  a  solid  foundation  for 
WPI.  but  it  alone  cannot  carry  us  for- 
ward. Today,  the  goals  and  dreams  of  the 
WPI  family  are  to  build  alongside  the 
Plan  a  framework  for  advanced  scholar- 
ship that  will  further  enhance  our  institu- 
tion. We  are  not  building  an  MIT  or  a 
Cal  Tech.  Rather,  we  are  building  a  WPI 
for  the  21st  century.  Your  active  partici- 
pation in  the  Campaign  for  Excellence  is 
vital  to  this  exciting  future. 

Jon  C.  Strauss 


STATEMENT  OF  OWNERSHIP, 
MANAGEMENT,  AND  CIRCULA- 
TION (Required  by  39  U.S. C.  3685).  1A. 
WPI  Journal.  IB.  Publication  No.  01486128. 
2.  September  22,  1986  3.  Quarterly.  3 A. 
Four.  3B.  SO/yr.  4.  Worcester  Polytechnic 
Institute,  100  Institute  Rd.,  Worcester,  MA 
01609  5.  Worcester  Polytechnic  Institute,  100 
Institute  Rd.,  Worcester,  MA  01609.  6.  The 
name  and  address  of  the  publisher:  Worcester 
Polytechnic  Institute,  100  Institute  Rd..  Wor- 
cester, MA  01609;  editor  and  managing  edi- 
tor: Kenneth  L.  McDonnell.  100  Institute 
Rd.,  Worcester,  MA  01609.  7.  The  owner  is 
Worcester  Polytechnic  Institute.  100  Institute 
Rd.,  Worcester,  MA  01609.  8.  The  known 
bondholders,  mortgagees,  and  other  security 
holders  owning  or  holding  1  percent  or  more 
of  die  total  amount  of  bonds,  mortgages,  or 
other  securities  are:  none  9.  The  purpose, 
function,  and  non-profit  status  of  WPI  and  die 
exempt  status  for  federal  income  tax  pur- 
poses: has  not  changed  during  the  12  months. 


10A.  Total  number  of  copies  printed:  average 
number  of  copies  of  each  issue  during  preced- 
ing 12  months— 22,000;  single  issue  nearest 
to  filing  date— 22,000;  10B.  Paid  circulation: 
none;  IOC.  Total  paid  and/or  requested 
circulation— none;  10D.  Free  distribution  by 
mail:  avarage  number  of  copies  of  each  issue 
during  preceding  12  months— 2 1 ,000;  single 
issue  nearest  to  filing  date— 21,000.  10E. 
Total  distribution:  average  number  of  copies 
of  each  issue  during  preceding  12  months— 
21,000:  single  issue  nearest  to  filing  date— 
21,000.  10F  Copies  not  distributed:  1.  Office 
use,  average  number  of  copies  of  each  issue 
during  preceding  12  months— 1.000;  single 
issue  nearest  to  filing  date— 1,000.  2.  Return 
from  news  agents — none.  10G.  Total:  average 
number  of  copies  of  each  issue  during  preced- 
ing 12  months— 22,000;  single  issue  nearest 
to  filing  date— 22,000.  I  certify  that  the  state- 
ments made  by  me  above  are  correct  and 
complete.  KENNETH  L.  McDONNELL. 
Editor. 


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WPI  Journal 

WORCESTER  POT  YTECHMTC     ^^  TNTSTTTI  TTP 


WORCESTER  POLYTECHNIC    **  INSTITUTE 


SPRING  1987 


P:  ON  THE 
RIGHT  TRACK 

BOYNTON  HIL 


SCIENCE  ON  FIRE 


rswpf 


MESSAG 


The  IQP:  Toward  Closer  Interaction  with  Society 

By  William  R.  Grogan  '46 

Today,  more  than  6,000  students  and 
alumni  have  completed  Interactive 
Qualifying  Projects,  intensive  aca- 
demic efforts  involving  creative  applica- 
tion of  their  intellectual  skills  within  a 
larger  social  context. 

Yet  for  a  century  before  the  Institute 
created  the  IQP  in  the  early  1970s,  edu- 
cators everywhere  were  busy  trying  to 
determine  how  cultural  depth  and  soci- 
etal awareness  could  be  incorporated  into 
the  undergraduate  science  and  engineer- 
ing experience— an  experience  too  often 
prone  to  course-mill  inflexibility. 

No  other  college  of  engineering  and 
science  has  created  a  pedagogical  device 
as  innovative  as  the  IQP,  or  one  so  spe- 
cifically designed  to  address  the  need  for 
personalized  breadth. 

Three  goals  capture  the  mission  of  the 
IQP: 

•  To  cultivate  confidence  in  questioning 
social  values  and  in  communicating 
effectively  with  non-technical  people. 

•  To  integrate  the  skills  of  evaluation 
and  analysis  learned  through  science  and 
engineering  in  the  solution  of  problems 
with  social  and  humanistic  issues. 

•  To  provide  methods  for  assessing  not 
only  the  impact  of  science  and  technol- 
ogy on  society,  but  the  impact  of  social 
attitudes  on  technological  developments, 
including  their  study  from  an  historical 
perspective. 

In  reaching  these  goals,  projects 
involving  people  as  individuals  often 
require  study  in  the  humanities,  while 
those  dealing  with  collective  behavior 
require  the  perspective  of  the  social  sci- 
ences. 

It's  interesting  to  consider  the  IQP 
today  in  light  of  two  recent  national  dia- 
logues on  undergraduate  education. 
First,  the  Carnegie  Foundation's  Col- 
lege: The  Undergraduate  Experience  in 
America  identifies  eight  "points  of  ten- 
sion" that  seem  "to  sap  the  vitality  of  the 
undergraduate  experience." 

One  point  is  precisely  the  issue  WPI 
has  tried  to  address  through  the  IQP. 
Ernest  Boyer,  president  of  the  Founda- 


tion, argues  in  the  report  that  "the  col- 
lege has  an  obligation  to  give  students  a 
sense  of  passage  toward  a  more  inte- 
grated, more  coherent  view  of  life"  than 
can  be  is  provided  by  the  "fragmentation 
of  knowledge  in  academic  disciplines." 

The  report  goes  on  to  describe  "an 
enriched  major"  that  not  only  "gives  the 
students  a  chance  to  explore  their  fields 
in  depth,  but  responds  to  three  larger 
questions:  What  is  the  history  and  tradi- 
tion of  their  field?  What  are  the  social 
and  economic  implications  to  be  under- 
stood? What  are  the  ethical  and  moral 
issues  to  be  confronted  and  resolved?" 

Second,  the  forum  "National  Con- 
gress on  Engineering  Education" 
(Accreditation  Board  for  Engineering 
and  Technology,  Professional  Societies 
and  Colleges),  recently  addressed  the 
issue  of  educational  breadth  in  engineer- 
ing curricula.  A  hotly  debated  question 
was  the  proposed  establishment  of  a 
standard  five-year  B.S.  program  for 
engineering  to  provide  for  a  well- 
rounded  undergraduate  experience.  This 
proposal  was  rejected  by  the  Congress. 

During  the  debate,  Dr.  Edmund  T. 
Cranch,  past  president  of  WPI  and  presi- 
dent of  the  American  Society  for  Engi- 


neering Education,  said  the  fifth  year  is 
needed  to  broaden  subject  areas.  Mean- 
while, Dr.  Nam  P.  Suh,  director  of  engi- 
neering of  the  National  Science  Founda- 
tion and  a  recipient  of  an  honorary  doctor 
of  engineering  degree  from  WPI  in  1986, 
recommended  reducing  the  number  of 
required  engineering  courses  to  "let  stu- 
dents explore." 

Despite  such  diverse  opinions,  the 
consensus  of  the  Congress  was  that  more 
of  just  about  everything,  from  statistics 
and  computer  studies  to  foreign  lan- 
guages and  robotics,  should  be  added  to 
the  curriculum— without  lengthening  stu- 
dents' educational  careers.  While  con- 
siderable concern  was  voiced  about  con- 
tent, less  attention  focused  on  the 
process  of  education  required  to  digest  it 
all. 

WPI  remains  very  much  committed  to 
its  process  of  integrating  and  reinforcing 
the  knowledge  learned  in  the  classroom 
through  its  qualifying  project  system. 
We  will  continue  to  develop  this  system 
as  a  highly  effective  approach  to  the  edu- 
cation of  students  for  a  lifetime  of  pro- 
fessional leadership. 

The  IQP,  the  Humanities  Sufficiency, 
the  Major  Qualifying  Project  (MQP), 
and  Distribution  Requirements  produce 
at  WPI  a  stimulating  and  balanced  edu- 
cational system.  The  IQP  and  our  associ- 
ated Project  Centers  belong  at  WPI  not 
just  because  they  are  unique,  but  because 
they  accomplish  their  important  objec- 
tives with  a  degree  of  effectiveness  and 
coherence  that  has  for  years  eluded  other 
institutions  of  higher  learning. 

You'll  find  beginning  on  page  38  a 
story  about  the  IQP  today— the  topics 
several  students  are  addressing,  the 
projects'  impacts  on  their  academic 
careers,  and  how  their  work  is  affecting 
the  problems  and  issues  they  are  attack- 
ing. We  invite  your  interest  and  your 
comments. 

William  R.  Grogan,  dean  of  undergradu- 
ate studies  at  WPI,  played  an  active  role 
in  creating  the  Plan  in  the  early  1970s. 


Staff  of  The  WPI  JOURNAL:  Edi- 
tor, Kenneth  L.  McDonnell  • 
Alumni  Information  Editor,  Ruth  S. 
Trask 

Alumni  Publications  Committee: 
William  J.  Firla,  Jr.  '60,  chairman 
•  Paul  J.  Cleary  '71  •  Carl  A.  Key- 
ser  '39  •  Robert  C.  Labonte  '54  • 
Samuel  Mencow  '37  •  Maureen 
Sexton  '83. 


The  WPI  Journal  (ISSN  0148- 
6128)  is  published  quarterly  for 
the  WPI  Alumni  Association  by 
Worcester  Polytechnic  Institute  in 
cooperation  with  the  Alumni  Mag- 
azine Consortium,  with  editorial 
offices  at  the  Johns  Hopkins  Uni- 
versity, Baltimore,  MD  21218. 
Pages  l-XVI  are  published  for  the 
Alumni  Magazine  Consortium 
[Franklin  and  Marshall  College, 
Hartwick  College,  Johns  Hopkins 
University,  Villanova  University, 
Western  Maryland  College,  West- 
ern Reserve  College  (Case  West- 
ern Reserve  University),  Worces- 
ter Polytechnic  Institute]  and 
appear  in  the  respective  alumni 
magazines  of  those  institutions. 
Second  class  postage  paid  at 
Worcester,  MA,  and  additional 
mailing  offices.  Pages  1-14,  31- 
44  ®  1987,  Worcester  Polytechnic 
Institute.  Pages  l-XVI  ©  1987, 
Johns  Hopkins  University. 

Staff  of  the  Alumni  Magazine 
Consortium:  Editor,  Donna  Shoe- 
maker •  Wrap  Designer  and  Pro- 
duction Coordinator,  Amy  Doudi- 
ken  Wells  •  Assistant  Editor,  Julia 
Ridgely  •  Core  Designers,  Allen 
Carroll  and  Amy  Doudiken  Wells. 

Advisory  Board  of  the  Alumni 
Magazine  Consortium:  Franklin 
and  Marshall  College,  Linda 
Whipple  and  Patti  Lawson  • 
Hartwick  College,  Merrilee  Gomil- 
lion  •  Johns  Hopkins  University, 
B.J.  Norris  and  Elise  Hancock  • 
Villanova  University,  Eugene  J. 
Ruane  and  D.M.  Howe  •  Western 
Maryland  College,  Joyce  Muller 
and  Sherri  Kimmel  Diegel  •  West- 
ern Reserve  College,  David  C. 
Twining  •  Worcester  Polytechnic 
Institute,  Donald  F.  Berth  and 
Kenneth  L.  McDonnell. 


Acknowledgments:  Typesetting, 
BG  Composition,  Inc.;  Printing, 
American  Press,  Inc. 

Diverse  views  on  subjects  of  pub- 
lic interest  are  presented  in  the 
magazine.  These  views  do  not 
necessarily  reflect  the  opinions  of 
the  editors  or  official  policies  of 
WPI.  Address  correspondence  to 
the  Editor,  The  WPI  Journal,  Wor- 
cester Polytechnic  Institute,  Wor- 
cester, MA  01609.  Telephone 
(617)  793-5609.  Postmaster:  If 
undeliverable  please  send  form 
3579  to  the  address  above.  Do  not 
return  publication. 


CONTOIS 

WPI  JOURNAL 
Volume  XC    No.  4 
Spring  1987 


2  Firefighters 


Leslie  Brunetta 


Teaching  and  research  on  the  latest  technologies  to  reduce 
fire  risk  make  the  Center  for  Firesafety  Studies  unique  in 
North  America. 


8  Pretty  as  a  Picture 


John  Grimm  '89  and 
PaulHalloran  '89 


Boynton  Hill  retains  the  natural  beauty  captured  by  its 
early  planners,  proponents  of  the  Picturesque  movement 
in  American  architecture. 

/  Lost  and  Found  in  Thought  JoeLevine 

All  about  a  dear  diary— plus  some  tips  for  summer  reading. 

V  The  Coming  of  Chaos  Robert  Kanigel 

A  new  field  helps  to  predict  the  unpredictable. 

XII  Toward  a  More  Perfect  Union  Julia  Ridgely 

When  the  Constitution  comes  to  the  campus. 


31  The  Entrepreneurial  Spirit: 
A  Peddler's  Tale 


Michael  Shanley 


Worcester's  O.  Vincent  Gustafson  '29  just   couldn't  wait 
to  finish  college  to  begin  making  his  mark. 


35  The  IQP:  A  Broader  View 
from  the  Hill 


Paul  Susca 


The  Interactive  Qualifying  Project  continues  to    be  the 
Plan's  most  distinctive— and  creative— academic  challenge. 

42  Spring  Fever 

A  gallery  of  cartoons  by   Charles  E.    Strauss,   the 
president's  whimsical  dad. 


Page  31 


Cover:  Junior  physics  major  Nancy  Teasdale,  perched  on  a  solar 
panel  atop  Stoddard  Residence  Center,  grasps  a  solar  photovoltaic 
cell,  the  centerpiece  of  her  Interactive  Qualifying  Project.  Story  on 
page  35.  Photo  by  Robert  S.  Arnold. 


Page  35 


SPRING  1987       1 


Fire 


B 


,,  'W-^  esides  the  deaths,"  says  Jonathan 
Barnett,  associate  at  WPI's  Center  for 
Firesafety  Studies  (CFS),  "the  sad 
part  about  the  Dupont  Plaza  hotel  fire 
in  San  Juan  is  that  many  people  seem  to  think  the 
problem  is  solved  because  the  arsonist  was  caught. 
I  haven't  heard  anyone  say,  'Wait  a  minute,  this 
building  failed  us.' 

What  Barnett  is  talking  about  is  not  as  simple  as 
negligence  or  liability:  It  appears  that  the  fire  was 
started  not  with  a  bomb  or  with  lashings  of  gaso- 
line, but  with  a  small  can  of  Sterno  and  a  pile  of 
furniture  already  stored  in  the  hotel.  But  the  deaths 
of  96  people  attest  to  the  fact  that  something  went 
horribly  wrong  in  San  Juan,  something  that  could 
go  wrong  in  almost  any  building. 

In  the  last  decade,  there's  been  a  dramatic 
increase  in  knowledge  about  how  fires  start,  how 
they  travel,  how  they  radiate  heat  and  spread  toxic 
fumes,  and  how  they  react  to  water  or  other  extin- 
guishants.  But  much  of  this  information  has 
remained  scattered  in  scientific  journals  and  the- 
ses, rarely  reaching  the  drawing  boards  of  the  peo- 
ple designing  buildings. 

Using  as  a  base  this  newfound  knowledge, 
together  with  traditional  engineering  theory,  teach- 
ers and  students  of  WPI's  Center  for  Firesafety 
Studies  are  utilizing  new  methods  and  techniques 
to  investigate  fire's  secret  ways  and  to  design  envi- 
ronments and  systems  to  control  them.  Then,  like 
all  good  engineers,  they  take  this  knowledge  out 
into  the  real  world. 

The  Center  for  Firesafety  Studies  opened 
its  doors  in  1979  as  the  nation's  only 
master's  degree  program  in  fire  protec- 
tion engineering.  Its  beginnings  were 
modest:  a  few  part-time  students,  a  part-time 
director,  several  part-time  professors,  and  no  suit- 
able textbooks. 

In  the  last  eight  years,  though,  the  Center  has 
changed  considerably.  "I  never  dreamed  we'd 
have  come  as  far  as  we  have  in  such  a  short  time," 


2       WPI  JOURNAL 


fighters 


says  David  Lucht,  Center  director.  The  Center 
boasts  more  than  60  graduate  students,  four  full- 
time  teachers  as  well  as  several  adjunct  professors 
and  professors  shared  with  other  departments,  a 
textbook  custom-written  for  the  course,  a  new  lab, 
a  library  of  fire-safety  journals,  a  thriving  intern- 
ship program,  and  a  branch  of  the  national  fire- 
safety  honor  society. 

And  the  potential  for  growth  continues.  "There 
are  a  lot  of  interesting,  well-paying  jobs  out 
there,"  says  Lucht,  "in  manufacturing  industries, 
insurance  companies,  government,  consulting, 
you  name  it.  I  received  three  letters  just  today 
looking  for  graduates." 

To  understand  the  momentum  behind  the  Cen- 
ter's rapid  growth,  it  helps  to  understand  a  few 
simple  facts  and  a  little  history.  First,  the  U.S.  has 
the  worst  firesafety  record  in  the  industrialized 
world,  a  record  that  reflects  the  destruction  of 
thousands  of  lives  and  straps  a  burden  of  $36  to 
$45  billion  to  the  back  of  the  economy  each  year. 
And,  with  the  advent  of  high-tech  businesses, 
even  small  rooms  can  contain  millions  of  dollars 
worth  of  equipment  that  a  fire  can  quickly  ruin. 

Until  the  turn  of  the  century,  the  only  tools 
building  designers  had  to  help  prevent  these  disas- 
ters were  common  sense  and  traditional  rules  of 
thumb.  After  the  great  Chicago,  Boston,  and  Balti- 
more fires  of  the  1870s,  many  insurance  compa- 
nies were  left  bankrupt,  and  the  industry  realized  it 
would  have  to  take  measures  to  head  off  further 
calamities.  Building  methods  soon  began  to 
change:  heavy  brick  walls  were  used  to  slow  fire 
in  its  path,  easily  ignited  wooden  roofing  shingles 
were  abandoned  in  favor  of  tile  and  other  fire- 
resistant  materials,  and  the  minimum  lawful  dis- 
tance between  buildings  was  increased. 

By  1905,  the  National  Board  of  Fire  Underwrit- 
ers had  published  the  first  national  model  building 
code  law,  based  on  the  empirical  knowledge  of  the 
day.  Because  the  knowledge  and  mathematical 
tools  needed  to  systematically  model  fire  simply 
didn't    exist    at    that    time,     these    codes- 


prescriptions,  really,  such  as  don't  construct  a 
wooden  building  more  than  three  stories  high  or  so 
many  square  feet  in  size— have  served  industry  for 
more  than  80  years. 

Professor  of  Civil  Engineering  Robert  W. 
Fitzgerald  '53,  a  member  of  the  CFS  faculty,  has 
always  been  interested  in  the  construction  of  build- 
ings and  so,  by  necessity,  has  become  intimately 
familiar  with  the  building  codes.  And  because  so 
much  of  the  code  had  to  do  with  fire,  fire,  too,  has 
become  an  abiding  interest. 

In  1968,  he  recalls,  Congress  passed  the  Fire 
Research  and  Safety  Act,  mandating  a  program  of 
fire-prevention  education  for  schools  and  commu- 
nities and  funds  for  basic  research  into  the  causes 
and  behavior  of  fires.  Then,  in  1973,  the  National 
Bureau  of  Standards  established  a  Center  for  Fire 
Research,  putting  some  of  the  country's  best 
minds  to  work  on  the  problem.  Soon,  the  United 
States  Fire  Administration  was  launched  as  Presi- 
dent Gerald  Ford  appointed  Dave  Lucht  its  first 
deputy  administrator. 

At  the  same  time,  powerful  computers  were 
demonstrating  their  ability  to  model  complex  engi- 
neering problems.  Engineers  began  to  encode  the 
knowledge  they  had  about  thermodynamics,  heat 
transfer,  and  fluid  dynamics,  and,  as  the  com- 
puters crunched  through  huge  numbers  of  calcula- 
tions, simulated  fires  roared  to  life  on  video  dis- 
play terminals. 

By  1978,  WPI  had  decided  that  it  could  make  a 
major  contribution  to  the  field.  "We  were  deeply 
involved  in  the  WPI  Plan  then,"  says  Fitzgerald. 
"The  barriers  between  engineering  and  science 
were  falling,  so  a  great  deal  of  cross-fertilization 
was  going  on.  WPI  decided  there  would  be  great 
value  in  supporting  a  program  in  firesafety 
studies— as  long  as  the  program  was  first-rate." 

At  the  time,  there  were  two  undergraduate  fire 
protection  engineering  programs  in  the  country, 
one  at  the  Illinois  Institute  of  Technology  (where 
Lucht  earned  his  B.S.  degree)  and  the  other  at  the 
University  of  Maryland  (where  Craig  Beyler, 


Fire  blazes  on 
computer  screens 
and  lifesaving 
begins  in  the  lab 
at  WPFs  Center 
for  Firesafety 
Studies. 


Opposite  page:  FPE 
graduate  students  Scott 
P.  Deal  (left)  and  David 
Birk  study  the  charac- 
teristics of  a  propane 
flame  under  a  hood  in 
the  CFS  laboratory. 


By  Leslie  Brunetta 


SPRING  1987       3 


M.S.  student  April 
Berkol  came  to  the 
Center  with  a  degree 
in  mechanical  engi- 
neering and  two  in 
French. 


Senior  Richard  F. 
Buckley  tests  a  proto- 
type of  an  experi- 
ment to  determine 
how  materials  ignite 
in  space. 


assistant  professor  of  fire  protection  engineering 
and  mechanical  engineering,  earned  his).  WPI's 
administration  and  faculty  believed  that,  in  order 
to  complement  those  programs  in  a  way  that  would 
be  in  the  best  interests  of  science  and  the  nation, 
its  program  should  be  for  an  advanced  degree  and 
involve  original  research. 

"We  try  to  maintain  a  balance  between  research 
and  practice,"  says  Lucht,  "because  we  perceive 
that  one  of  our  missions  in  life  is  to  have  one  foot 
in  the  theoretical  world  and  one  in  the  practical. 
We  can  be  the  bridge  that  gets  this  information  into 
the  engineers'  offices  and  into  their  heads." 

One  of  the  Center's  most  effective  bridging 
actions  to  date  has  been  the  publication  of  Fire 
Dynamics,  a  first-of-its-kind  textbook,  by  Dougal 
Drysdale.  Drysdale  was  brought  to  the  Center  dur- 
ing 1981-82  from  the  University  of  Edinburgh, 
Scotland,  by  a  CIGNA  Corporation  grant  funding 
a  visiting  professorship. 

While  at  WPI,  Drysdale  was  able  to  devote  his 


time  solely  to  teaching  and  amassing  the  material 
now  contained  in  the  text.  The  first  edition  of 
2,000  copies,  published  by  John  Wiley  &  Sons, 
quickly  sold  out,  an  unusual  feat  for  a  textbook  of 
this  kind. 

"It's  become  the  standard,  state-of-the-art  treat- 
ment of  how  fires  burn,"  says  Lucht.  The  book 
was  one  of  the  Center's  first  milestones.  Early  on, 
Lucht  had  spoken  to  Herrick  A.  Drake,  then  presi- 
dent of  Aetna  Insurance  Company,  about  funding 
the  program.  "I  told  him  there  was  enough  fire- 
research  literature  out  there  to  fill  his  office,  and 
promised  we  would  boil  it  all  down  and  make  it 
more  useful,"  Lucht  says.  Drake  was  named  chair- 
man of  the  Center's  Board  of  Advisors,  a  group  of 
more  than  20  distinguished  professionals  and  aca- 
demicians. 

In  1984,  Drake  died  suddenly,  while  still  in 
office,  and  the  Center  has  since  instituted  the  Her- 
rick A.  Drake  Commemorative  Award  to  honor 
people  making  valuable  contributions  to  the  field. 


4       WPI  JOURNAL 


"I  feel  so  good,"  Lucht  says,  "that  we  were  able 
to  deliver  on  our  promise  to  him  before  he  died." 

Fire  Dynamics,  the  book,  is  the  centerpiece  for 
Fire  Dynamics,  the  course,  itself  the  centerpiece 
of  the  program.  "Our  whole  curriculum,"  says 
Beyler,  "focuses  on  understanding  the  chemical 
and  physical  aspects  of  fire.  We  offer  students 
things  they  wouldn't  otherwise  experience."  The 
course  relates  the  principles  of  thermodynamics 
and  heat  transfer  to  the  basic  theories  of  the  igni- 
tion, growth,  and  spread  of  fire  while  stressing 
how  this  theory  can  be  used  in  real-life  problems. 

Once  students  have  this  fundamental  knowl- 
edge, they  can  move  on  with  a  keener  eye  to  the 
program's  more  practice-oriented  courses.  These 
include  Risk  Evaluation  (learning  to  evaluate  the 
risks  encountered  in  manufacturing,  chemical  and 
energy  production,  and  storage  and  transportation 
of  flammable  materials),  Fire  Detection  and  Spe- 
cial Suppression  Systems  (analyzing  and  designing 
detection  and  non-water-based  suppression  sys- 
tems), Fire  Protection  Design  (designing  more 
firesafe  buildings),  and  Failure  Analysis  (investi- 
gating and  reconstructing  fires). 

In  1986,  the  Center  added  a  course  on  risk  man- 
agement, taught  by  professors  in  the  management 
and  mechanical  engineering  department.  "Ulti- 
mately, a  manager  has  to  decide  whether  or  not  to 
pay  for  and  implement  a  fire  protection  engineer's 
ideas,"  says  Lucht.  "The  course  has  addressed 
risk  assessment  and  techniques  for  making  man- 
agement decisions  under  conditions  of  uncertainty. 
It  adds  an  important  dimension  to  our  program." 

The  classroom  component  of  the  course 
clearly  has  one  foot  in  the  world  of  the- 
ory and  the  other  in  practice.  But  so  do 
most  of  the  Center's  students,  who  are 
either  enrolled  in  internship  programs  or  complet- 
ing their  degree  work  part  time  while  working  in 
the  field.  This  means  the  theory  and  skills  they 
learn  at  the  Center  are  taken  fresh  into  industry, 
insurance  companies,  or  consulting  jobs,  enabling 
the  Center  to  have  an  immediate  impact  on  the 
myriad  aspects  of  firesafety.  And  the  knowledge 
flows  both  ways,  according  to  Lucht:  "We  have  a 
lot  of  experienced  people  coming  in  who  bring  as 
much  to  the  Center  as  they  gain  here." 

One  such  student  is  Don  Crowley,  corporate 
loss  prevention  manager  at  Digital  Equipment 
Corporation.  Crowley  signed  up  for  the  program 


soon  after  it  opened  in  1980,  hoping  it  could  give 
him  a  greater  depth  of  knowledge  to  draw  on,  and 
graduated  in  1985.  "I'm  really  sold  on  the  Cen- 
ter," says  Crowley.  "It's  a  thinking  program  rather 
than  just  a  stockpile  of  facts,  so  it's  affected  my 
whole  approach."  Crowley  says  he  now  regularly 
uses  risk  analysis  to  assess  more  accurately  safety 
procedures  and  decisions,  and  finds  that  mathe- 
matical modeling  of  fire  problems  helps  not  only 
his  own  understanding  of  a  problem  but  also  that 
of  other  managers:  "Modeling  makes  it  a  piece  of 
cake  to  explain  things.  Now,  nontechnical  people 
can  see  what  I'm  talking  about  before  a  problem 
happens." 

The  Center  also  offers  unusual  opportunities  for 
students  and  business,  government,  and  industrial 
sponsors  through  the  Graduate  Internship  Pro- 
gram. The  Center's  program  differs  from  conven- 
tional student  cooperative  education  programs  in 
that  its  students  already  have  their  baccalaureate 
experience  under  their  belts— they're  not  only 
ready  for  more  advanced  placements,  but  they  can 
also  offer  more  knowledge  and  maturity  to  their 
sponsors. 

The  program  has  placed  students  with  Rolf  Jen- 
sen &  Associates  (one  of  the  nation's  major  fire 
protection  consulting  firms),  in  the  firesafety 
office  of  the  Vermont  Yankee  nuclear  power  plant, 
as  field  engineers  for  Factory  Mutual,  and  in  the 
fire  prevention  bureau  of  the  Boston  Fire  Depart- 
ment, among  others. 

April  Berkol,  for  example,  came  to  the  Center's 


M.S.  student  Len- 
nart  Monson  (right), 
a  consulting  fire  pro- 
tection engineer  for 
MBS  Fire  Technol- 
ogy Inc.,  andCFS 
graduate  Donald 
Crowley  '85,  corpo- 
rate loss  prevention 
manager  at  Digital 
Equipment  Corp., 
find  the  information 
in  Center  courses  on 
topics  like  risk  man- 
agement essential  to 
their  professional 
endeavors. 


SPRING  1987 


At  day 's  end,  CFS 
Director  David  A. 
Lucht  (right)  dis- 
cusses curriculum 
matters  with  Associ- 
ate Professor  Robert 
W.  Fitzgerald  '53 
(left)  and  Assistant 
Professor  Craig  L. 
Beyler. 


combined  B.S./M.S.  program  having  already 
earned  a  bachelor's  degree  in  mechanical  engi- 
neering and  B.S.  and  M.S.  degrees  in  French.  As 
an  intern  working  with  the  director  of  industrial 
health  and  safety  at  IBM's  Charlotte,  N.C.,  plant, 
Berkol  was  able  to  wet  her  feet  in  the  world  out- 
side the  Center's  classrooms.  "I  got  great  hands- 
on  experience,"  she  says,  "and  got  a  close  look  at 
a  major  industrial  company's  concerns  about  fire. 
There  were  so  many  different  problems  I  had 
never  thought  of. 

For  one,  she  suggested  installation  of  in-rack 
sprinklers  at  an  IBM  warehouse  and  strict  control 
over  the  heights  of  and  distances  between  stacks  of 
materials  in  the  warehouse.  The  company  seemed 
pleased  to  have  the  problem  examined  from  an 
engineering  point  of  view." 

At  one  time,  the  University  of  Edinburgh  also 
had  a  master's  program  in  fire  protection  engineer- 
ing. But  today,  WPI's  is  the  only  program  of  its 
kind  in  the  world.  Young  as  it  is,  it  has  an  interna- 
tional reputation,  drawing  students  from  Australia, 
Brazil,  Chile,  China,  and  Malaysia. 

Many  of  these  students  are  sponsored  by  their 
governments  or  employers.  For  instance,  Joao 
Silva,  an  engineering  professor  specializing  in 
safety  engineering  in  his  native  Brazil,  has  been 
sponsored  by  his  government  to  study  ways  of 
updating  Brazil's  inadequate  prevention  tech- 
niques. "Brazil  is  a  growing  country,"  says  Silva, 
"so  we  have  to  adapt  state-of-the-art  fire  preven- 
tion models  to  fit  our  own  needs.  WPI  is  the  only 
place  I  can  learn  this." 

Another  country  that  has  recognized  WPI's 
strengths  is  India.  Its  Loss  Prevention  Associa- 
tion, which  helps  set  standards  for  firesafety,  has 
already  sent  four  senior  engineers  to  WPI. 
"They're  going  back  to  leadership  positions,"  says 
Lucht.  "It's  satisfying,  because  they're  leaving 
here  and  spreading  the  knowledge  worldwide." 


During  1986,  with  a  $50,000  grant  from 
Aetna  Life  and  Casualty  Company,  the 
Center  built  its  first-generation  Fire 
Sciences  Laboratory,  signaling  a  new 
era  for  the  Center.  Now  that  the  benches,  exhaust 
hoods,  and  other  testing  equipment  are  in  place, 
students  can  work  on  problems  involving  small 
fires  and  fire  protection  devices. 

For  instance,  on  one  of  the  lab's  benches  sits  a 
sphere  about  the  size  of  a  basketball  and  looking 
like  a  Jules  Verne  vintage  diving  bell— an  explo- 
sion capsule.  A  student  can  inject  gases  into  the 
capsule,  shock  them  into  explosion  with  a  spark, 
and  then  measure  how  much  extinguishant  it  takes 
to  put  the  fire  out.  One  student  is  using  the  capsule 
to  explore  the  relationship  between  the  amount  of 
energy  in  the  spark  starting  the  explosion  and  the 
amount  of  extinguishant  needed;  the  experiment 
may  eventually  lead  to  more  efficient  suppression 
systems  in,  say,  chemical  plants. 

Each  student  has  to  complete  a  thesis  or  project 
to  qualify  for  a  degree,  and  what  often  starts  out  as 
a  way  to  approach  a  problem  in  the  student's  full- 
time  job  develops  into  an  original  contribution  to 
the  science  of  firesafety.  Student  research  projects 
going  on  in  and  outside  the  lab  range  from  ways  to 
design  better  buildings,  to  ways  to  better  model 
fires  on  computers,  to  how  to  put  out  fires  more 
efficiently. 

The  lab  is  also  used  for  the  Major  and  Interac- 
tive Qualifying  Projects  (MQPs  and  IQPs)  of 
undergraduate  students  who  are  majoring  in  other 
departments  but  are  interested  in  firesafety.  Some 
undergraduates,  for  instance,  are  working  on  a 
project  that  will,  with  several  other  student- 
designed  experiments,  fly  on  a  space  shuttle  mis- 
sion. This  program  is  sponsored  cooperatively 
through  MITRE  Corporation,  NASA,  and  WPI. 

Last  year,  WPI  received  a  $120,000  grant  from 
NASA  to  explore  the  feasibility  of  establishing  a 
center  for  firesafe  design  in  the  commercial  devel- 
opment of  space.  If  the  proposal  proves  success- 
ful, WPI  could  become  the  world's  premier  aca- 
demic center  for  firesafety  in  space. 

"Nobody  knows  exactly  what  fire  will  do  in 
microgravity,"  says  Associate  Professor  Richard 
L.R  Custer,  CFS  associate  director  and  head  of 
WPI's  NASA  effort.  Flame  rises  on  earth  because 
the  gases  it  creates  are  lighter  than  the  surrounding 
gases.  And  gravity  also  has  a  lot  to  do  with  how 
fluids  in  fire  suppression  systems  are  dispersed. 


6       WPI  JOURNAL 


Take  most  of  the  gravity  out  of  the  equation,  and 
you're  playing  with  a  new  set  of  rules.  The  prob- 
lem is  that  the  rule  book  hasn't  been  written  yet. 
"There's  going  to  be  significant  manufacturing 
going  on  in  space  during  the  1990s,"  says  Custer, 
"and  conditions  will  exist  to  permit  explosions. 
We  want  to  find  out  how  to  fight  them  before  they 
happen." 

Closer  to  earth,  Bob  Fitzgerald  and  Jonathan 
Barnett  are  working  on  problems  involving  old 
and  new  steel  frame  construction.  Sponsored  by 
the  American  Iron  &  Steel  Institute  and  the 
National  Science  Foundation,  the  two  faculty 
members  and  students  are  trying  to  develop  a 
design  method  for  predicting  structural  steel  fire 
performance,  taking  into  account  such  things  as 
different  kinds  of  fires,  how  much  load  is  on  the 
steel,  and  how  much  protective  insulation  has  been 
provided  on  the  structure. 

"It's  clear  that  we're  spending  too  much  money 
on  steel-frame  buildings  for  the  amount  of  protec- 
tion we  have,"  says  Barnett.  "For  instance,  the 
codes  may  call  for  two  inches  of  insulation 
because  that's  how  much  the  beam  needed  in  the 
test  furnace.  But  there's  no  real  connection 
between  the  tests  and  real  life.  We  can  design  now 
on  the  basis  of  much  better  knowledge." 

Barnett  is  also  working  on  a  three-year  project 
sponsored  by  General  Dynamics'  Electric  Boat 
Division.  He's  trying  to  develop  a  computer  model 
for  compartment  fires  in  submarines— an  espe- 
cially dangerous  kind  of  fire  because  there's  no 
escape.  "There's  the  same  threat  of  fire  as  in  any 
other  building,"  Barnett  says,  "but  if  you  can 
imagine  being  in  a  three-story  tube,  two  weeks 
away  from  being  able  to  surface,  you  have  a  good 
idea  of  the  problem." 

A  different  nautical  problem  is  the  subject  of 
Craig  Beyler's  U.S.  Coast  Guard-sponsored 
study— estimating  the  time  for  ship  compartments 
to  become  fully  involved  in  a  fire.  Beyler,  the 
Center's  number-one  theoretician,  according  to  the 
other  professors,  applies  to  the  Coast  Guard  study 
and  his  other  research  (predicting  different  materi- 
als' ignition  points  and  nuclear  power  plant-related 
hydrogen  combustion  experiments)  the  computer 
modeling  techniques  that  have  been  a  major  factor 
in  firesafety  engineering's  evolution  from  an  art  to 
a  science. 

Computers,  though,  are  just  tools  for  executing 
people's  ideas.  What  distinguishes  Beyler's  work, 


and  the  work  of  the  other  professors,  is  not  so 
much  the  new  techniques  they  use  as  the  new 
approaches  they  take  to  the  devastating  problem  of 
fire. 

"It's  exciting  to  be  in  an  engineering  field  where 
major  transitions  are  being  made,"  says  Dave 
Lucht,  "to  be  getting  away  from  the  trial  and  error 
phase  by  being  actually  able  to  calculate  what  a 
fire  will  do.  Maybe  a  computer  analysis  of  the 
Dupont  Plaza  would  have  told  people,  'Hey,  this 
kind  of  tragedy  could  happen.  And  here's  how  you 
can  prevent  it.'  " 

Leslie  Brunetta  is  a  case  writer  at  Harvard 's  Ken- 
nedy School  of  Government  and  a  free-lance 
writer  and  editor. 


CFS  Associate  Jona- 
than R.  Barnett  '74 
(right)  and  Associate 
Professor  Richard 
L.R  Custer,  CFS 
associate  director, 
have  helped  build  the 
Center 's  foundation 
for  a  growing  enroll- 
ment. 


SPRING  1987 


Pretty  as  a 


8       WPI  JOURNAL 


Picture 


By  John  R.  Grimm  '89  and 
Paul  F.  Halloran  '89 


The  Picturesque  movement  in  American  architecture 
found  stunning  application  in  the  WPI  campus, 
and  is  preserved  today  in  Boynton  Hall, 
Washburn  Shops,  and  Institute  Park. 


The  creation  of  WPI 
in  1865,  when  it 
was  known  as  the 
Worcester  County 
Free  Institute  of 
Industrial  Science,  was  the 
culmination  of  the  efforts  and 
desires  of  two  prominent 
business  leaders  in  Central 
Massachusetts,  John  Boynton 
and  Ichabod  Washburn. 
These  men  recognized  the 
need  for  an  education  broader 
than  a  traditional  apprentice- 
ship and  more  practical  than 
the  conventional  "liberal  edu- 
cation" of  the  day.  Boynton 
pointed  out  the  need  for  a 
well-rounded  education,  while 
Washburn  stressed  the  im- 
portance of  applied  training. 
These  two  men,  previously 
unknown  to  each  other,  were 
brought  together  with  the 
help  of  Stephen  Salisbury,  Jr. 
(1789-1884),  a  member  of 
one  of  Worcester's  leading 
families.  Neither  Boynton 
nor  Washburn  would  live  to 
see  WPI  welcome  its  first 
freshman  class  in  1868.  It 
was  Salisbury,  first  chairman 
of  the  WPI  Board  of  Trust- 
ees, who  would  oversee  final 
construction  of  Boynton  Hall 
and  Washburn  Shops.  It  was 
Salisbury,   too,   who  would 

The  original  campus, 
ca.  1870,  viewed  from 
downtown  Worcester,  con- 
sisted of  just  two  buildings. 


accept  responsibility  for  plan- 
ning the  appearance  of  the 
campus.  (See  accompanying 
story.) 

Salisbury,  in  fact,  could  be 
labeled  an  agent  of  the  Pictur- 
esque, a  style  popular 
throughout  the  late  18th  cen- 
tury in  Europe  and  champi- 
oned by  American  architects 
in  the  second  quarter  of  the 
19th  century.  Influenced  by 
the  Romantic  movement  in 
art  and  literature,  the  archi- 
tects of  the  Picturesque 
movement  rebelled  against 
the  symmetry  and  simplicity 
of  Classicism.  They  used 
asymmetrical  building  plans, 
intricate  detail,  and  rough- 
hewn  stone  to  create  effects 
that  would  evoke  emotion 
and  curiosity  in  the  viewer. 

Andrew  Jackson  Downing, 
whose  pattern  books  spread 
the  popularity  of  the  Gothic 
and  Italianate  revival  styles  in 
America,  was  one  of  the 
country's  leading  advocates 
of  the  Picturesque.  Downing 
seems  to  be  the  first  to  have 
recognized  the  importance  of 
integrating  a  picturesque 
landscape  and  a  place  of 
learning.  The  effect  he  cre- 
ated seems  to  suggest  that  the 
landscape  itself  is  the  aes- 
thetic link  between  Boynton 's 
call  for  education  and 
Washburn's  emphasis  on 
practical  laboratory  experi- 
ence. 


We  find  testimony  to  the 
importance  of  the  natural 
scene  in  college  campuses  in 
a  remark  by  Professor  Ches- 
ter S.  Lyman,  of  Yale  Uni- 
versity, at  the  opening  cere- 
monies of  WPI  in  1868. 
"[New  England's]  hills  and 
rocks,"  he  said,  "[its]  schools 
and  colleges,  have  nurtured  a 
hardy,  intelligent,  inventive 
race  of  men,  of  indomitable 
energy,  who  are  specially 
qualified,  by  nature  and  train- 
ing, to  pursue  successfully 
the  more  difficult  industrial 
arts."  The  recognition  of  the 
part  America's  landscape 
played  in  the  shaping  of  its 
inhabitants  makes  a  strong 
case  for  the  pertinence  of  the 
picturesque  scene  in  a  place 
designed  to  educate  young 
people  fully. 

Boynton  and  Washburn's 
inspiration  and  promise  of 
financial  assistance  made 
possible  the  creation  of  a 
committee  to  preside  over 
and  build  the  school.  The  first 
task  of  the  building  commit- 
tee was  the  selection  of  an 
appropriate  site  for  the  cam- 
pus from  three  adequately 
sized  plots,  the  first  located  at 
the  center  of  the  city,  the  sec- 
ond toward  Worcester's 
southern  boundary,  and  the 
third  a  five-acre  piece  of  land 
owned  by  Stephen  Salisbury 
at  the  northwest  end  of  town. 
Salisbury's  offer  of  the  prop- 


SPRTNG  1987 


erty  was  an  ideal  choice 
because  of  its  wooded  hillside 
setting  and  close  proximity  to 
the  center  of  Worcester. 

View  from 
^  the  towers  S 


The  committee's  next  task 
was  to  form  a  plan  for  the 
layout  and  landscaping  of  the 
campus.    They   sought   the 


advice  of  Calvert  Vaux,  a 
landscape  gardener  famous 
for  his  partnership  with  Fred- 
erick Law  Olmsted  in  laying 
out  New  York  City's  Central 
Park.  Vaux's  suggestions 
would  include  the  location  of 
the  buildings  and  the  general 
arrangement  of  the  grounds 
of  the  Institute.  The  plans  he 
submitted  formed  the  princi- 
pal layout  of  the  southeastern 
portion  of  the  campus  (see 
figure  1),  an  arrangement  that 
is  little  changed  today. 

Vaux's  foremost  objective 
was  the  positioning  of  the  two 
main  buildings.   By  visiting 


the  property  and  examining 
the  topographical  plans  pre- 
pared by  Phinehas  Ball,  Vaux 
concluded  that  the  only  feasi- 
ble location  for  the  buildings 
was  upon  the  summit  of  the 
hill  at  the  northeast  corner  of 
the  lot. 

Vaux  designed  the  en- 
trance, main  approach,  and 
walkways  of  the  campus  to 
give  favorable  views  of  Boy- 
nton    Hall    and    Washburn 

The  towers  ofBoynton  Hall 
and  Washburn  Shops  (far 
right)  offer  impressive  views. 


The  Salisburys: 

A  Peerless  Legacy  of  Public  Spirit 

by  Susan  M.  Meyer 


Three  Stephen  Salisburys  are  associated  with  Worcester's 
history,  two  of  whom  held  the  position  of  president  (today 
known  as  chairman  of  the  board)  of  WPI.  Stephen  Salisbury 
(1746-1829)  came  to  Worcester  in  1767  to  open  a  branch  of  his 
family's  Boston  store,  selling  goods  imported  from  England 
and  the  West  Indies  to  the  farmers  of  Worcester  County. 

A  successful  businessman  and  gentleman  farmer,  he  pur- 
chased approximately  200  acres  of  land  extending  north  and 
west  of  Lincoln  Square.  Sections  of  this  farm  would  later  be 
donated— first  by  his  son  and  then  by  his  grandson— for  the 
development  of  the  Worcester  County  Free  Institute  of  Indus- 
trial Science  and  the  neighboring  Institute  Park. 

Stephen  Salisbury  II  (1798-1884)  was  the  only  surviving 
child  of  Stephen  and  Elizabeth  Tuckerman  Salisbury  (1768- 
1851).  The  elder  Stephen  had  a  strict  upbringing  that  empha- 
sized the  importance  of  duty  to  his  family  and  his  community. 
Prepared  at  Leicester  Academy,  his  son  entered  Harvard  Col- 
lege in  1813.  The  curriculum  was  based  on  a  thorough  knowl- 
edge of  the  classics.  Some  300  letters  survive  between  the 
"affectionate"  parents  and  their  "dutiful"  son  at  Harvard: 
My  dear  son,  as  your  future  prospects  depend  upon  your 
prosecuting  your  present  studies  with  fidelity— lose  not 
the  present  time  neglect  not  a  lesson — Endeavor  not  to  be 
behind  any  of  your  Class  in  a  thorough  knowledge  of 
every  lesson  required  of  you,  and  by  your  Close  Applica- 
tion and  good  Conduct,  may  you  merit  the  Esteem  and 
Approbation  of  all  your  instructors. 

Stephen  II  remained  a  scholar  of  the  classics  for  the  rest  of 
his  life,  always  striving  to  be  one  of  "those  who  improved 
society  by  their  intellectual  labors."  In  1829,  at  the  age  of  31, 
he  inherited  his  father's  estate,  the  largest  in  Worcester  County. 
At  the  time  of  his  birth  in  1798,  Worcester  was  an  agrarian  and 


commercial  town  of  2,400.  When  he  died  in  1884  it  had 
become  a  thriving  industrial  city  of  60,000.  Although  he 
remained  a  gentleman  farmer  throughout  his  lifetime,  Stephen 
II  maintained  a  strong  presence  in  the  industrial,  financial,  and 
political  growth  of  Worcester.  The  Court  Mill  building,  con- 
structed at  Lincoln  Square  by  Stephen  II  in  1832,  was  an 
important  early  contribution  to  the  city's  industrial  develop- 
ment. By  renting  rooms  with  water  power,  he  provided  the 
opportunity  for  many  small  businesses  to  get  started  with  little 
capital. 

Stephen  II  served  as  the  president  of  the  Worcester  Bank  for 
nearly  40  years  and  held  the  same  position  at  the  Worcester 
County  Institution  for  Savings  for  25.  He  served  in  the  town 
and  later  in  the  city  government,  and  spent  two  years  each  in 
the  Massachusetts  House  of  Representatives  and  the  Senate. 
The  lengthy  list  of  institutions  he  supported,  many  of  which 
depended  upon  his  generosity  for  their  survival,  includes  the 
American  Antiquarian  Society,  Worcester  Free  Public  Library, 
Massachusetts  Historical  Society,  Peabody  Museum,  Harvard 
University,  Worcester  City  Hospital,  the  Mechanics  Associa- 
tion, and  the  American  Bible  Society. 

Most  of  all,  the  Worcester  County  Free  Institute  of 
Industrial  Science  has  been  indebted  to  him,  not  indeed 
for  its  establishment,  but  for  its  high  scientific  and  liter- 
ary reputation.  With  the  funds  that  he  bestowed  upon  it, 


10       WPI  JOURNAL 


Shops.  The  key  to  achieving 
these  views  was  the  arrange- 
ment and  positioning  of  the 
two  buildings.  He  felt  that, 
when  placing  two  or  more 
buildings  near  each  other, 
right  angles  were  desirable  to 
establish  a  dominance  of  one 
structure.  Stephen  C.  Earle's 
Boynton  Hall,  being  the  main 
building,  was  faced  south 
onto  the  plateau  on  which  the 
main  approach  was  to  arrive. 
(For  a  more  detailed  account 
of  Earle's  architectural  contri- 
butions to  Worcester,  see  the 
WPI  Journal,  May  1986.) 
Accordingly,     Washburn 


Shops,  designed  by  Elbridge 
Boyden,  architect  of  Worces- 
ter's Mechanics  Hall,  was 
positioned  fronting  east.  This 
created  an  area  to  the  rear  of 
the  structures  for  all  neces- 
sary outbuildings  and  yard 
space,  appropriately  hidden 
from  the  picturesque  view 
from  below.  In  addition,  a 
space  on  the  west  side  of 
Boynton  Hall  was  reserved 
by  Vaux  for  a  possible  exten- 
sion. (It  was  never  executed, 
but  additions  to  Washburn 
Shops  soon  appeared  on  both 
the  north  and  south  ends  of 
the  original  facade). 


very  largely  exceeding  the  aggregate  of  all  other  gifts,  he 
might  have  established  a  seminary  that  should  transmit 
his  own  name  to  posterity  ...  On  the  other  hand,  he 
adopted  the  founder's  plan  .  .  .  careful  always  to  place  in 
the  foreground  the  honored  memory  of  Boynton  and 
Washburn  and  claiming  for  himself  only  the  privelege  of 
serving  in  the  way  indicated  by  their  deeds  of  gift. 
Stephen  II  donated  a  five-acre  section  of  the  Salisbury  farm 
for  the  new  technical  institute  in  1868,  adding  additional  plots 
over  time.  He  served  as  the  first  president— determining  the 
curriculum  and  hiring  the  instructors— a  position  he  held  until 
his  death. 

His  classical  education  influenced  his  insistence  upon  a  bal- 
ance between  the  practical  and  theoretical  education  offered  at 
the  new  school.  To  help  ensure  that  the  elements  of  a  traditional 
education  remained  part  of  the  school's  curriculum,  he 
bequeathed  to  the  Institute  "ten  thousand  dollars  to  be  safely 
and  productively  invested  as  a  part  of  the  fund  for  instruction  in 
languages  in  said  Institution." 

Stephen  II  had  married  three  times  and  buried  each  of  his 
wives.  His  only  child,  Stephen  Salisbury  III  (1835-1905),  was 
born  of  his  union  with  Rebecca  Scott  Dean  of  Charleston,  N.H. 
Rebecca  died  of  consumption  when  her  son  was  eight  years 
old.  He  was  educated  in  Worcester  schools  and  attended  Har- 
vard College.  He  later  studied  at  universities  in  Berlin  and  Paris 


Three  generations  of 
Stephen  Salisbury's  provided 
funds  and  spiritual  guidance 
to  a  developing  Worcester  for 
more  than  a  century. 


and  graduated  from  Harvard  Law  School  in  1861.  Traveling 
through  the  Yucatan  that  year,  he  became  interested  in  Mayan 
culture  and  published  several  scholarly  papers  on  the  subject. 

Soon  after  his  father's  death  in  1884,  he  took  his  father's 
place  on  the  WPI  Board  and  asked  for  an  accounting  of  his 
father's  gifts  to  the  Institute;  $236,800  was  found  in  the  books, 
though  far  more  was  thought  to  have  been  given.  Continuing 
the  Salisbury  commitment  to  the  Institute,  Stephen  Salisbury 
III  donated  $100,000  in  his  father's  memory  to  build  the  Salis- 
bury Laboratories. 

He  filled  his  life  with  community  service  and  intellectual 
pursuits.  The  only  heir  to  a  fortune,  he  took  his  father's  place 
on  the  boards  of  most  of  the  organizations  previously  men- 
tioned and  provided  essential  support  to  a  variety  of  new  insti- 
tutions springing  up  in  the  new  city.  He  was  involved  with 
Clark  University,  Worcester  Lyceum,  Natural  History  Society 
(now  Worcester  Science  Center),  Society  of  Antiquity  (now 
Worcester  Historical  Museum),  and  the  Music  Association,  as 
well  as  many  others. 

In  1887  he  gave  the  city  18  acres  of  the  remaining  family 
farmland  for  use  as  a  public  park.  In  his  letter  to  the  mayor,  he 
wrote: 

The  conditions  of  this  gift  are  that  this  area  shall  be 
called  Institute  Park  in  recognition  of  the  usefulness  of 
the  Worcester  Polytechnic  Institute  to  the  material  inter- 
ests of  the  city  and  county. 

Stephen  Salisbury  III,  who  never  married,  was  the  last  of  the 
Worcester  Salisbury s.  Upon  his  death  in  1905,  the  family  for- 
tune and  landholdings  were  left  to  numerous  community  orga- 
nizations. He  is  probably  best  remembered  as  the  founder  of 
Worcester  Art  Museum,  to  which  he  donated  his  family's  fine 
and  decorative  arts.  He  named  the  Art  Museum  as  his  residuary 
legatee;  he  left  $200,000  to  WPI  as  a  final  bequest.  After  his 
death,  the  Worcester  historian  Ellery  Bicknell  Crane  com- 
mented, 

Of  the  Salisbury  family  it  is  to  be  said  that  from  the 
emigrant  ancestor  down,  the  name  has  been  a  synonym 
for  industry,  integrity,  public-spirit,  and  civic  duties  ably 
and  faithfully  performed. 

Susan  M.  Meyer  is  curator  of  the  Salisbury  Mansion,  run  by 
the  Worcester  Historical  Society. 


SPRING  1987       11 


The  buildings  themselves 
evidenced  many  characteris- 
tics of  Picturesque  architec- 
ture. Boynton  Hall's  rough, 
broken  surface  gives  it  a 
Gothic  appearance,  as  do  its 
variously  sized  arched  win- 
dow and  door  frames.  The 
strong,  vertical  thrusts  of  its 
walls,  chimneys,  and  clock 
tower  blend  harmoniously 
with  the  surrounding  trees 
and  other  plantings.  The 
rooftop,  which  is  visible  from 
many  angles,  is  made  of 
rough  slate  and  heavily  orna- 
mented, which  suggests  that 
it  adds  to  the  effect  of  the 
entire  building,  not  just 
serves  as  a  shelter  from  the 
weather. 

In  contrast  to  Boynton 's 
rough  surface  and  roof, 
Washburn  offers  a  more  bro- 
ken surface  by  means  of 
arched  windows  and  vertical 
and  horizontal  lines,  and  no 
view  of  the  rather  flat  roof. 
The  horizontal  lines  empha- 
size the  north  to  south  length 
of  the  building,  but  triangular 
window  awnings,  chimneys, 
and  the  main  tower  keep  the 
vertical  theme  intact.  These 
structures  are  also  asymmet- 
rical, another  attribute  of  the 
Picturesque  that  keeps  close 
the  relationship  of  the  build- 
ings to  the  surrounding  land- 
scape. 

Salisbury  took  charge  of 
erecting  a  small,  turreted, 
one-room  building  on  the 
campus  to  be  used  as  a  mag- 
netics laboratory.  Being  set 
away  from  the  other  two 
buildings,  just  to  the  left  of 
the  main  entrance,  the  site 
was  free  from  vibrations  that 
would  throw  off  the  accuracy 
of  the  equipment  to  be  used 
there.  Also,  the  axis  of  the 
Magnetic  Laboratory  (used 
later  by  Dr.  Robert  H.  God- 
dard  '08  for  his  experiments 
on  rocket  power,  and  known 
today  as  the  Skull  Tomb)  was 
built  to  coincide  with  the 
magnetic  meridian,  with  the 
north-south  axis  passing 
through  opposite  windows  in 
the  tower.  For  these  reasons, 


this  site  was  ideal  for  carrying 
out  the  delicate  experiments 
needed  in  measuring  the 
gravitational  pull  of  the  earth. 

It  was  a  common  technique 
of  Picturesque  landscape 
architects  to  position  the 
dominant  object  of  an  area  in 
direct  view  of  the  main 
entrance.  In  Central  Park,  for 
example,  Vaux  and  Olmsted 
positioned  a  massive  rock  just 
inside  the  main  Fifth  Avenue 
entrance  in  order  to  occupy 
visitors'  minds  with  thoughts 
of  nature,  enabling  them  to 
forget  those  of  the  city. 

The  Magnetic  Laboratory, 
too,  draws  one's  attention  to 
the  towers,  the  main  and, 
even  today,  most  recogniz- 
able structures  of  the  cam- 
pus. This  association  was 
strengthened  by  the  fact  that 
both  the  Lab  and  Boynton 
Hall  were  made  of  Millstone 
Hill  granite,  giving  the  Lab 
look  of  a  scaled-down  Boy- 
nton Hall. 

Surrounding  the  Lab  a 
number  of  spiry-topped  trees 
were  planted,  unifying  sym- 
metrically the  graceful  slopes 
of  the  turret.  Thus,  the  Mag- 
netic Laboratory  established 
the  important  first  impression 
of  the  campus  while  remain- 
ing part  of  the  natural  scene. 

Similarly,  the  towers  of 
Boynton  and  Washburn  serve 
a  multiple  purpose  for  the 
Institute:  they  stand  upon 
Boynton  Hill  as  monuments, 
memorials  to  the  two  men 
whose  names  they  bear.  They 
tell  us,  too,  of  the  reason  for 
higher  education,  the  idea  of 
obtaining  a  higher  place  on 
the  ladder  of  knowledge  and 
a  clearer  view  of  the  chal- 
lenges students  will  face. 
They  are  landmarks  that 
serve  to  identify  the  location 
from  a  distance,  calling  out 
the  name  of  the  place  on 
which  they  stand.  Finally, 
they  are  observation  points, 
offering  commanding  views 
of  their  surroundings  For  all 
these  reasons,  the  towers 
stand  proudly,  yet  remain 
picturesque. 


The  road 
I  to  the  Hill  S 


Olmsted's  design  for  New 
York's  Central  Park  treats  us 
to  a  number  of  distinct 
spaces,  which  appear  as  com- 
plete scenes  when  viewed 
alone,  but  which  were  de- 
signed both  to  highlight  the 
areas  around  them  through 
contrast  and  to  make  the  scale 
more  spectacular.  The  view 
from  the  two  towers  also  fea- 
tures many  related  scenes. 

Imagine  the  views  in  the 
late  1800s:  to  the  west  is  a 
magnificent  panoramic  view 
of  Bancroft  Hill  rising  from 
the  foot  of  the  campus.  In  the 
evening,  light  and  shadow 
cascade  across  the  campus 
from  the  hill's  ridge  of  trees 
as  the  sun  falls  behind  it. 

Ninety  degrees  to  the  left 
appears  a  view  of  the  Elm 
Park  area,  with  its  thickly  for- 
ested hill  sloping  toward  its 
then  three  ponds. 

To  the  south  we  view  a  roll- 
ing field  bounded  by  a  middle 
ground  composed  of  down- 
town Worcester  and  fringed 
by  a  distant  wall  of  hills. 

The  view  east  plays  host  to 


the  intertwining  paths  and 
roads  of  the  campus,  running 
down  the  side  of  the  hill,  dart- 
ing in  and  out  of  the  protect- 
ive cover  of  the  trees.  A  bit  to 
the  north,  the  rolling  ridge  of 
Green  Hill  comes  into  sight. 
The  contrast  of  forests  and 
open  fields  upon  its  summit 
adds  to  the  splendor  of  this 
natural  boundary. 

The  most  commanding 
view  comes  to  the  north, 
where  two  distinct  areas  are 
introduced:  Rural  Cemetery 
and  Institute  Park. 

Rural  Cemetery,  estab- 
lished in  1838  and  set  at  the 
base  of  a  small  hill,  has  many 
clearly  separated  plots  bound 
together  by  a  system  of  road- 
ways. An  artistic  scattering  of 
trees  in  conjunction  with  the 
stone  monuments  adds  much 
to  the  undulating  landscape. 

Institute  Park  lies  directly 
between  the  campus  and  the 
Cemetery;  it  is  composed  of  a 
man-made  pond  and  the 
grounds  surrounding  it.  The 
mirror-like  surface  of  the 
water  is  broken  by  the  pres- 
ence of  a  thickly  vegetated 
island,  from  which  an 
extraordinarily  picturesque 
view  of  the  campus  can  be 
observed. 

Andrew  Jackson  Downing, 
a  one-time  partner  of  Vaux, 
believed  that  the  approach  to 
a  structure  should  be  one  of 


12       WPI  JOURNAL 


repose  until  a  clear,  unob- 
structed view  of  such  a  struc- 
ture can  be  unveiled  in 
magnificent  fashion.  To 
accomplish  this  goal,  Vaux 
planned  a  main  approach  that 
commenced  near  the  south- 
east corner  of  the  campus, 
offering  a  complementary 
view  of  the  buildings. 

One  might  think  that  the 
most  viable  solution  to  sur- 
mounting the  hill  would  be  a 
straight-line  approach  to  the 
main  buildings.  However,  the 
problem  with  such  an  ap- 
proach was  twofold:  First,  the 
steepness  of  the  hill  would 
make  such  an  approach 
impractical.  Second,  it  would 
diminish  the  effect  of  the 
landscape  and  de-emphasize 
the  dominance  of  the  main 


buildings.  Thus,  Vaux  pro- 
posed that  the  approach 
sweep  northwesterly  toward 
the  center  of  the  campus. 

This  lengthening  of  the 
approach  coincides  with  the 
ideas  of  Downing,  that  an 
approach  "...  should  be 
chosen  as  to  afford  a  suffi- 
cient drive  through  the 
grounds  before  arriving  at  the 
[building],  to  give  the  stran- 
ger some  idea  of  the  extent  of 
the  whole  property  ..."  From 
this  point,  the  main  road 
assumes  a  southwesterly 
direction  by  a  gradual  curve 
along  the  slope  of  the  hill, 
which  culminates  with  a 
sweep  across  the  southern 
slope  to  land  on  the  plateau  in 
front  of  the  principal  build- 
ing, Boynton  Hall. 


Vaux  realized  the  impor- 
tance of  keeping  as  much  of 
the  natural  scene  as  possible 
intact,  so  the  chief  amount  of 
grading  was  done  along  the 
line  of  the  road.  The  effect 
was  to  give  it  the  appearance 
of  a  natural  ridge,  which  of 
itself  would  suggest  the  rea- 
son for  the  location  of  the 
road. 

Vaux  treated  the  trees  and 
shrubbery  throughout  the 
campus  similarly,  leaving 
what  was  already  there  when 
he  could  and  beautifying 
where  needed.  His  main 
planting  and  use  of  existing 
round-headed  trees,  such  as 
oak  and  ash,  considered  to  be 
the  most  picturesque  vari- 
eties, helped  harmonize  the 
landscape  and  the  buildings. 
Scattered  throughout  the  ridge 
are  evergreens  and  other 
spiry-topped  trees,  which 
provide  contrast  to  those  pre- 
viously mentioned. 

Complementing  the  main 
approach  road  was  a  system 
of  walkways  which  seem  to 
have  been  laid  out  either  for 
convenience  or  pleasure.  One 
walkway,  which  is  still  main- 
tained, begins  at  the  southeast 
corner  of  the  lot  and  travels  a 
fairly  direct  course  to  Boy- 
nton Hall.  This  route  seems  to 
have  been  constructed  more 
for  convenience  than  pleasure 
because  of  its  brevity  and 
steepness,  but  it  remains  a 
pleasing  walk  because  of  its 
wooded  nature. 

Another  path  runs  from  the 
center  of  the  lot  to  Washburn 
Shops  and  was  built  for  con- 
venience. A  third  path  ap- 
pears to  have  been  con- 
structed solely  for  pleasure, 
winding  through  the  undevel- 
oped northeast  section  of  the 

Looking  southeast  from  Boy- 
nton Hill,  ca.  1875  (oppo- 
site); Skull  Tomb  (top);  the 
view  up  the  hill  from  the 
main  gate  at  the  corner  of 
Institute  Road  and  Boynton 
Street,  ca.  1885,  shows  the 
new  north  and  south  wings 
of  Washburn  Shops  (left). 


campus,  where  Gordon 
Library  and  Kaven  Hall  stand 
today,  toward  the  main 
approach.  The  only  true  lawn 
area  on  the  campus  at  the  time 
was  a  level  tract  just  north  of 
the  Boynton  Street  gate. 

"The  presence 
\  of  water"  £ 


2 


Salisbury's  influence  over 
the  picturesque  development 
of  the  campus  continued  late 
into  the  19th  century.  Before 
his  death  in  1884,  he  had  per- 
suaded the  city  to  change  the 
name  of  old  Jo  Bill  Road  to 
Institute  Road,  and  also  to 
curve  it  around  the  bottom  of 
Boynton  Hill.  This  eliminated 
one  of  the  straight-line  bound- 
aries of  the  original  campus 
and  replaced  it  with  a  natural 
curve,  in  accordance  with  the 
importance  Downing  placed 
on  the  use  of  curves  wherever 
possible. 

These  small  but  meaning- 
ful changes  helped  in  the 
improvement  of  the  campus' 
appearance.  But  one  major 
deficiency  stood  in  the  way  of 
WPI's  becoming  a  picture- 
book  representation  of  the 
Picturesque  aesthetic  as  put 
forth  by  Downing  and  his 
peers:  the  lack  of  water.  Not 
surprisingly,  perhaps,  it 
would  be  Salisbury's  only 
son,  Stephen  Salisbury  III, 
who  would  find  a  solution  to 
this  deficiency  that  would 
serve  the  entire  Worcester 
community. 

Vaux  had  expressed  similar 
concerns  in  his  plans  for  the 
campus.  He  said  that  the  only 
objection  he  had  to  the  loca- 
tion of  the  school  was  the 
absence  of  water  to  complete 
the  picturesque  scene  he  was 
trying  to  create. 

Stephen  Salisbury  III 
seemed  to  agree  with  Vaux's 
feelings,  because  around  the 


SPRING  1987       13 


same  time  finishing  touches 
were  being  added  to  the  WPI 
campus,  Salisbury  was  plan- 
ning the  adjacent  Institute 
Park.  At  this  time,  the  school 
lacked  ample  land  to  be  used 
by  the  students  for  leisure 
purposes.  Salisbury  acknowl- 
edged this  fact  by  developing 
a  piece  of  his  family's  estate 
into  a  city  park,  a  tract  that 
would  come  to  serve  almost 
as  a  second  campus  for  the 
Institute. 

Salisbury's  intentions  for 
founding  the  park  did  not, 
however,  center  on  WPI.  In  a 
letter  to  the  mayor  of  Worces- 
ter, the  Hon.  Samuel 
Winslow,  Salisbury  relates  to 
the  public  his  understanding 


lie  use  before  it  was  taken 
over  for  residential  or  com- 
mercial use.  Olmsted  had 
similar  feelings  to  those  of 
Salisbury.  He  tried  to  estab- 
lish a  system  of  parks  in  New 
York  City  but  was  met  by 
great  opposition  and  was  con- 
fined almost  entirely  to  the 
creation  of  Central  Park. 

The  Institute  Park  pond, 
Salisbury  Pond,  was  created 
in  1 832  as  a  mill  pond  to  sup- 
ply power  to  a  wire  factory 
erected  by  the  second 
Stephen  Salisbury.  But  the 
relationship  between  the 
campus  and  Institute  Park 
appears  to  be  closer  than 
merely  an  approximate  fit: 
the  two  have  become  so  close 


The  view  north,  ca.  1880, 
shows  Institute  Park  and  the 
Norse  Tower  of  Salisbury 
Pond. 

of  a  problem  that  was  plagu- 
ing Worcester  as  well  as  other 
cities.  As  the  city  grew  in 
population,  he  noted,  the 
grounds  and  gardens  for- 
merly surrounding  homes 
were  being  divided,  and  in 
their  place  new  structures 
were  being  built. 

Urban  growth  of  this  type 
threatened  space  for  public 
relaxation  and  enjoyment. 
Salisbury  called  for  the  estab- 
lishment of  a  park  system  in 
order  to  secure  land  for  pub- 


and  dependent  upon  each 
other  that  to  view  them  a*s 
individual  parts  of  a  whole 
can  only  serve  to  detract  from 
their  beauty. 

Charles  Nutt,  in  his  History 
of  Worcester  and  its  People, 
noted  that  the  Park  itself 
serves  as  a  campus  for  the 
Institute,  and  keeps  open  in 
front  of  its  main  buildings  a 
picturesque  foreground  such 
as  it  could  have  in  no  other 
way. 

For  his  part,  Downing 
noted  that  "the  simplest  or  the 
most  monotonous  view  may 
be  enlivened  by  the  presence 
of  water  in  any  considerable 
quantity;  and  the  most  pictur- 


esque and  striking  landscape 
will,  by  its  addition,  receive  a 
new  charm,  inexpressively 
enhancing  all  its  former  inter- 
est." 

This  unification  of  the  Park 
and  campus  was  the  final  step 
in  the  Salisburys'  creation  of 
a  magnificent  picturesque 
scene.  Olmsted  believed  that, 
as  a  community  matured,  a 
class  of  people  emerged  as 
leaders— leaders  who  took 
public  interest  into  their  own 
hands,  and  acted  for  the  bene- 
fit of  all.  The  Salisburys'  con- 
tributions prove  that  they 
were  leaders  of  the  character 
Olmsted  described. 


End  of 
£     an  era     j 

WMWM 

With  the  turn  of  the  century 
came  the  construction  of  a 
new  building,  Salisbury  Labs. 
This  building,  which  was 
funded  almost  completely  by 
money  left  by  Stephen  Salis- 
bury III,  signaled  WPI's  first 
departure  from  the  Pictur- 
esque ideals  previously  fol- 
lowed so  closely.  The  plans 
for  construction  were  drawn 
up  by  professors  at  WPI  so 
that  its  interior  would  be  "as 
useful  as  possible."  The 
resulting  exterior  was  some- 
what boxy,  unimaginative, 
and  anything  but  picturesque. 
It  is  truly  ironic  after  all  the 
work  the  Salisburys  put  into 
developing  the  campus  and 
Institute  Park  that  the  first 
breach  of  the  picturesque 
principles  on  the  campus 
would  bear  their  name. 

Each  new  building  con- 
struction that  followed  would 
remain  similarly  detached 
from  the  Picturesque  tradi- 
tion. Gordon  Library,  built  in 
1967,  was  one  notable  excep- 
tion. Many  consider  the  1986 
renovation  of  Alumni  Field, 
with  its  synthetic  grass  sur- 


face, as  the  ultimate  departure 
from  the  picturesque. 

Institute  Park  also  under- 
went some  major  changes. 
While  the  pond  remained  bas- 
ically unaltered,  the  bridge  to 
the  island  was  burned  in  the 
early  1900s  by  vandals,  as 
were  many  of  the  Park's  gaze- 
bos. The  Norse  tower  was 
repeatedly  repaired  and 
finally  razed  in  the  1950s 
because  it  was  a  safety  haz- 
ard. 

However,  recent  additions 
and  proposed  changes  to  WPI 
suggest  a  possible  return  to 
the  recognition  of  Picturesque 
ideals.  The  roof  of  Founders 
Hall  was  gilded  to  reflect  that 
of  Boynton  Hall,  although  the 
buildings  are  fundamentally 
different.  This  attention  indi- 
cates an  attempt  to  unify  old 
and  new  elements  of  the  cam- 
pus. 

In  addition,  the  recent  pro- 
posed closing  of  West  Street 
reflects  the  need  for  addi- 
tional campus  recreational 
area  and  the  importance  of 
unifying  the  two  halves  of  the 
campus,  now  separated  by  the 
street.  [Following  local  oppo- 
sition to  the  plan,  WPI 
removed  its  proposal  from 
City  Council  consideration.] 

A  rebirth  of  recognition  of 
the  role  landscaping  plays  in 
construction  suggests  an 
awareness  that  is  vital  to  the 
aesthetic  integrity  of  college 
campuses,  parks,  and  cities 
everywhere.  This  recognition 
speaks  highly,  as  well,  of  the 
vision  of  planners  such  as 
Downing,  Vaux,  and  Salis- 
bury. 

This  article  is  excerpted  from 
a  Humanities  Sufficiency 
report  written  by  John  Grimm 
and  Paul  Halloran  in  conjunc- 
tion with  the  1986  American 
Antiquarian  Society  Seminar, 
"The  American  Picturesque," 
Dr.  John  Conron,  professor  of 
English  and  American  studies, 
seminar  leader.  Dr.  Kent 
Ljungquist,  associate  profes- 
sor of  English,  was  adviser  to 
the  project. 


14       WPI  JOURNAL 


.  bout  10  minutes  out  of  Raleigh, 
#mN.C,  on  a  spring  evening  in 
/  %  1979,  an  elderly  woman  aboard 
J^l  the  southbound  Amtrak  Silver 
JL       JL  Star  asked  me  to  get  her  suit- 
cases down  from  the  luggage  rack.  I 
obliged,  but  ungraciously.  I  was  in  the 
midst  of  scribbling  in  the  cheap  gray 
notebook  that  served  as  my  journal- 
something  rhapsodic  about  the  girl  in  the 
blue  peacoat  across  the  aisle— and  I 
wanted  to  finish  what  seemed  a  particu- 
larly inspired  thought  before  the  fuss  of 
arriving  drove  it  out  of  my  mind.  But  the 
elderly  woman,  like  the  knock  on  Col- 
eridge's door,  proved  a  fatal  interruption: 
Not  only  was  I  unable  to  finish  the  entry, 
but  I  also  left  my  journal  on  the  train.  No 
number  of  phone  calls  to  Amtrak  over 
the  next  few  days  could  retrieve  it  from 
oblivion,  and  by  now,  eight  years  and 
nine  journals  later,  I  have  to  assume  it  is 
gone  forever. 


Why  would  I  leave  my  journal  on  a 
train?  And  what  became  of  it?  I  am  both 
Freudian  enough  to  believe  that  the  act 
was  intentional  and  literary  enough,  in  a 
cliched  sort  of  way,  to  believe— even 
now— that  it  must  have  a  Meaning. 

Thomas  Mallon,  an  English  professor 
at  Vassar  College,  has  written  a  book  on 
the  motivations  of  journal-keepers,  great 
and  small  (A  Book  of  One  's  Own:  People 
and  Their  Diaries).  He  offers  me  some 
insight  into  my  own: 

"Millions  of  journals  have  perished  in 
late  adolescent  Kinder  damme  rungs" 
(bursts  of  youthful  self-hatred),  he 
observes.  "  *Oh,  my  God,  how  could  I 
have  written  this?'  the  17-year-old  cries, 
and  off  into  the  wastebasket  goes  her 
book." 

Or,  in  the  case  of  my  gray  journal,  off 
it  went  down  Amtrak 's  Southeast  Corri- 
dor. Yes,  that  makes  sense.  By  leaving 
the  thing  on  the  train,  I  was  closing  the 


book  on  a  self  whom,  at  that  time,  I  didn't 
much  like,  a  wounded  outsider  who 
spent  a  lot  of  time  worrying  and  feeling 
sorry  for  himself.  Someone  so  over- 
whelmed by  the  social  difficulties  of  col- 
lege that  he  rarely  made  it  to  class,  hid- 
ing out  instead  in  a  coffee  house.  The 
fateful  train  ride  to  Raleigh  occurred 
during  spring  break  of  my  sophomore 
year;  by  that  summer  I  had  notified  my 
college  adviser  that  I  would  be  taking  the 
following  year  off,  and  a  year  later, 
much  restored  by  working  a  12-hour-a- 
day  job,  I  washed  up  on  the  shores  of  a 
new  school. 

But  wait  a  minute:  Unlike  Mallon's 
horrified  17-year-old,  I  didn't  throw  out 
my  journal.  I  left  it  on  a  train,  roughly 
the  equivalent  of  setting  it  afloat  in  a 
corked  bottle,  a  message  intended  for 
other  eyes.  But  whose?  Hack  scenarios 
leap  to  mind.  The  girl  in  the  blue 
peacoat  picks  up  the  journal,  and  one 


Lost  and  found  in  thought 

o 

In  writing  a  diary,  even  the  most  private  person  has  a  reader  in  mind. 


By  Joe  Levine 


MAY  1987       I 


years  later,  we  accidentally  end  up 
in  group  therapy  together.  Or  she  finds 
it.  reads  a  few  pages,  and  gets  so  bored 
that  she.  too.  leaves  it  on  the  train— as 
does  a  succession  of  other  passengers.  In 
fact,  just  about  the  only  possibility  I 
haven't  given  much  consideration  to  is 
the  most  likely  one  of  all:  Someone 
picked  it  up  and  threw  it  in  the  trash 
without  a  second  glance. 

Mallon  confirms  that  other  diarists, 
even  ones  who  haven't  lost  their  note- 
books, nourish  similar  delusions  of  gran- 
deur. "No  one  ever  kept  a  diary  for  just 
himself."  he  declares,  adding  that  all 


Secret  writings 
make  some  delightful 
summer  reading 


Faculty  members  suggest  some  jour- 
nals for  enjoyment,  insights,  and  an 
intimate  view  of  scholarship. 

"Man.  woman,  and  child  should  not  go 
to  the  grave  without  reading  at  least  a 
couple  of  pages  of  the  journals  of 
Samuel  Pepys.  maybe  the  most  delight- 
ful diarist  there  is.  He  had  a  cabinet 
post  in  the  court  of  Charles  II.  and  sim- 
ply happened  to  live  at  a  time  when 
pretty  spectacular  things  were  happen- 
ing in  England." 

—  William  Siebenschuh,  vice  dean 
of  Western  Reserve  College,  Case 
Western  Reserve  University  (CWRU), 
and  associate  professor  of  English 

"There  are  some  excellent  anthologies 
of  19th-century  women's  writings. 
Revelations,  edited  by  Mary  Jane  Mof- 
fat and  Charlotte  Painter,  is  organized 
by  subjects— love.  work,  power— and 
includes  excerpts  from  Louisa  May 
Alcott  and  George  Sand.  Let  Women 
Speak  for  Themselves,  edited  by  Chris- 
tine Fischer,  is  about  women  in  the 
American  West— not  big-name  people. 


journals  are  written  for  a  "you"  of  some 
sort.  A  glance  at  something  less  than  a 
cross  section  of  the  craft's  more  cele- 
brated practitioners  seems  to  back  him 
up.  For  example: 

•  Samuel  Pepys.  the  17th-century 
English  naval  bureaucrat  now  generally 
regarded  as  the  father  of  the  modern 
journal,  appears  to  boast  on  every  page 
to  some  eternally  appreciative  drinking 
buddy.  "I  find  my  sexual  exploits  thor- 
oughly entertaining,  and  you  will,  too." 

•  Anne  Frank,  in  the  (mostly  female) 
tradition  of  adolescent  confessional  dia- 
ries, addresses  hers  by  name— "Kitty  "— 

An  1877  edition  of  Samuel 
Pepys '  diaries  includes  a  naval 
motif  with  his  initials  (left)  and  a 
London  map  showing  the  area 
destroyed  by  fire. 


just  ordinary  people  whose  diaries  she 
was  able  to  find." 
— Winifred  Wandersee,  assistant 
professor  of  history,  Hartwick  College 

"The  American  composer  Ned  Rorem 
has  published  10  books  of  his  journals. 
They're  pretty  gossipy,  but  on  a  high, 
intellectual  plane.  Since  I  am  a  com- 
poser myself,  I  enjoy  reading  about 
what  went  on  in  his  mind  when  he 
wrote  the  pieces  I  like." 
—John  Carbon,  assistant  prof essor  of 
music,  Franklin  and  Marshall  College 

"There  are  a  couple  of  Crusades  histo- 
ries written  by  the  participants— not 
warriors,  but  priests  and  monks.  One. 
by  a  fellow  named  Odo  of  Deuil,  is 
about  the  French  portion  of  the  Second 
Crusade  [in  the  12th  century].  We 
don't  know  when  they  were  written, 
just  that  after  it  was  over,  they  wrote 
about  it  in  a  very  personal  way." 
—Bernard  F.  Reilly,  professor  of 
history,  Villanova  University 


and  tells  it  at  the  outset.  "We're  going  to 
be  great  pals!"  In  fact.  Kitty  becomes 
her  only  pal  during  the  long  months 
spent  in  hiding.  When  her  father  con- 
siders burning  her  journal  to  keep  the 
Nazis  from  finding  it,  she  threatens  sui- 
cide. 

•  Arthur  Bremer,  the  man  who  in  1972 
shot  George  Wallace,  was  so  concerned 
with  how  posterity  would  view  him  that 
he  fretted  in  his  journal  (left  in  his  truck) 
about  the  possibility  of  a  natural  disaster 
somewhere  eclipsing  his  coverage  on 
network  news. 
But  Bremer  is  only  an  extreme  exam- 


George  Sand  (above)  preferred 
male  attire.  An  1851  print 
(right)  is  a  rare  salute  to  the 
courage  of  women  in  the  West. 


"Joyce  Warner's  That  Time  of  Year  is  a 
chronicle  of  life  in  a  nursing  home.  She 
was  a  writer  and  taught  English  at 
Mount  Holyoke,  then  developed  crip- 
pling arthritis.  She  writes  about  trying 
to  hold  onto  her  sanity  in  that  kind  of 
environment.  Novelist  Barbara  Pym 
kept  journals  all  her  life,  recording 
observations  about  her  feelings  and 
works  and  how  she  kept  writing,  even 
though  no  publisher  would  accept  her 
books.  After  her  death,  they  were  col- 
lected in  a  book  called  A  Very  Private 
Eye. " 

—Sarah  H.  Matthews,  associate 
professor  of  sociology,  Western 
Reserve  College,  CWRU 

"The  journal  of  Heroad,  court  physi- 
cian for  Louis  XIII.  is  available  only  in 
French,  but  excerpts  appear  in  Parents 
and  Children  in  History  by  David 
Hunt.  It  tells  about  the  medical  prac- 
tices of  the  time,  which  are  frightening 
in  some  instances— it's  definitely  not  a 
visit  with  Dr.  Spock." 
—Peter  Wallace,  assistant  professor 
of  history,  Hartwick  College 


II       ALUMNI  MAGAZINE  CONSORTIUM 


pie  of  Mallon's  "apologist,"  the  diarist 
who,  by  choice  or  chance,  plays  a  part  in 
the  making  of  history  and  wants  to  shape 
the  image  of  himself  or  herself  that  will 
live  forever.  Political  administrations 
abound  with  these,  as  attested  to  by  the 
spate  of  "papers"  that  are  published 
once  everyone  is  safely  out  of  office. 
(Watergate  brought  a  score  of  apologists 
to  light  and  the  Iran/contra  scandal  is  a 
good  bet  to  do  the  same.) 
•  The  self-expressionist  diarists,  whom 
Mallon  calls  "pilgrims"— the  group  one 
would  expect  to  have  the  most  private 
impulses— are  perhaps  most  concerned 


with  their  readers.  Henry  David  Thoreau 
may  have  written  the  bulk  of  his  39- 
volume  journal  in  splendid  isolation,  but 
he  clearly  did  so  for  the  edification  of 
future  disciples.  From  these  journals,  he 
culled  material  for  A  Week  on  the  Con- 
cord and  Merrimac  Rivers,  with  its  Zen- 
like meditation  on  the  beauty  of  the 
re  flection- world  mirrored  up  from  the 
water's  surface;  from  the  journals,  too. 
came  Walden,  with  its  more  overt  urg- 
ings  to  be  civilly  disobedient. 
•  A  pilgrim  of  this  century.  European 
author  and  diarist  Anai's  Nin.  for  years 
refused  to  show  her  journals  to  friends  or 


lovers,  calling  the  books  a  "refuge"  for 
the  shy.  frightened  sides  of  herself.  Yet 
she  published  them  in  a  six-volume  set 
before  the  end  of  her  life,  suggesting  that 
those  sides  of  herself  had  always 
yearned  for  an  audience  and  were  merely 
preparing  for  the  day  when  they  would 
be  strong  enough  to  face  one. 

The  "you"  each  of  us  addresses  may 
be  less  explicit  than  these.  Mallon  says. 
But  "someday,  like  the  one  you  love. 
he'll  come  along.  In  fact,  you're  count- 
ing on  it.  Someone  will  be  reading  and 
you'll  be  talking.  And  if  you're  talking, 
it  means  you're  alive." 


The  Quaker  "saint"  John  Wool- 
man  (left)  traveled  around  the 
colonies  preaching  against 
slavery.  He  lived  in  this  house  in 
Mount  Holly,  S.J.  (below). 


The  journals  of  Louis  XIII 's 
court  physician  reveal  the 
privileges  of  wealthy  children, 
among  them  the  time  and  the 
toys  for  play  (above). 


"Joyce  Maynard's  looking  Back,   a 
Chronicle  of  Growing  up  Old  in  the 
1960s,   was  written  when  she  was 
between  18  and  20.  It's  really  pretty 
perceptive,  and  it's  useful  to  us  because 
it  was  about  her  own  generation." 
—John  Andrew,  associate  professor 
of  history  and  American  studies, 
Franklin  and  Marshall  College 

"We  have  [at  the  archives]  the  com- 
plete diaries  of  Theo  Brown,  a  designer 
with  John  Deere  who  graduated  from 
WPI  in  1901.  These  are  really  exqui- 
site; they  cover  the  period  from  1893  to 
his  death  in  1972.  He  was  also  an  artist 
and  photographer,  so  they're  full  of 
drawings  and  photographs.  We  also 
have  some  of  the  early  journals  of 
Robert  Goddard.  Most  are  at  Clark 
University,  where  he  taught;  a  five- 
volume  set  of  all  of  his  papers  has  been 
published." 

— Lora  Brueck,  archivist,  Worcester 
Polytechnic  Institute 

"Astronomers  haven't  left  many  dia- 
ries, but  they  have  left  observing  note- 


books. When  I  was  working  at  the 
Naval  Observatory.  I  would  sneak 
away  to  the  rare  books  section  (it  had 
the  best  air-conditioning)  and  read 
Asaph  Hall's  observation  book  at  the 
time  he  discovered  the  moons  of  Mars. 
When  Halley's  comet  came.  I  looked  at 
the  records  of  the  old  observatory  here 
[at  F&M]  about  how  the  astronomer 
and  his  wife  came  home  from  church, 
put  the  horse  away,  and  then  charged 
over  to  the  observatory  to  look  at  the 
comet." 

— Michael  A.  Seeds,  associate 
professor  of  astronomy,  Franklin 
and  Marshall  College 

"1  would  recommend  the  journal  of 
John  Woolman,  the  Quaker  "saint."  He 
greatly  influenced  me  in  my  studies  of 
18th-century  religious  life  in  the  Phila- 
delphia area.  His  attention  to  the  prob- 
lems of  the  human  species  is  very  mov- 
ing,   and    his    attitude    toward    the 
treatment  of  Indians  and  blacks  is  quite 
compassionate." 
— Donald  B.  Kelley,  associate 
professor  of  history,  \  illanova 
University 


Xovelist  and  critic  Henry 
James  (above)  in  1912,  the 
year  in  which  he  wrote  the 
first  of  his  three-volume  set 
of  memoirs. 


"Woolman  did  a  lot  of  traveling  around 
the  colonies,  speaking  out  about  slav- 
ery. He  was  a  tailor,  born  in  1720.  In 
the  introduction  to  a  later  edition.  John 
Greenleaf  Whittier  wrote  that  Woolman 
was  only  4'/2  feet  tall,  a  hunchback, 
and  had  arms  longer  than  his  legs.  But 
his  journal  is  one  of  the  few  that  have 
come  down  from  that  time.  On  his 
own.  using  his  own  money  and  his  own 
time,  he  was  able  to  have  considerable 
influence  on  his  contemporaries." 
—  William  Achor,  professor  of 
physics,  Western  Maryland  College 

'I've  been  following  the  ongoing  series 
of  diaries  of  Edmund  Wilson,  one  of 
the  best  of  the  20th  century.  I'm  also 
looking  forward  to  the  journals  of 
Henry  James,  which  will  be  published 
soon.  I  think  it  will  be  interesting  shop 
talk  for  writers  and  will  show  a  more 
human  side  of  him" 
—Keith  Rich  wine,  professor 
of  English  and  department  chair, 
Western  Maryland  College 

Compiled  by  Julia  Ridgely 


MAY  198* 


III 


I'll  buy  that.  I  met  my  own  "you"  a 
long  time  ago,  in  8th  grade:  Miss  Staats, 
the  English  teacher  who  assigned  and 
collected  my  very  first  journal  and  wrote 
encouraging  comments  in  the  margins. 

'"What  are  we  supposed  to  write 
about?"  most  of  the  other  kids  com- 
plained the  day  she  handed  out  the  little 
spiral  pads.  But  for  me,  the  first  time  I 
sat  down  to  write  in  the  journal  was  a 
discovery  of  something  I  already  knew 
how  to  do.  I  alternated  between  flights 
of  self-discovery — "Saw  a  movie  about 
Winston  Churchill  tonight.  Have 
decided  I'm  going  to  be  great"— and 
ecstasies  of  self-flagellation.  The  latter 
centered  on  my  infatuation  with  Kathy, 
who  was  beautiful  but  for  the  most  part 
ignored  me,  and  my  own  indifference  to 
Hilary,  who  was  fat  but  had  a  crush  on 
me  and  had  asked  me  to  the  movies  for 
my  birthday.  To  add  to  my  guilt,  Kathy 
was  going  out  with  my  friend  Eddie.  Of 
course,  the  times  she  would  stop  speak- 
ing to  him  just  to  keep  him  on  his  toes 
were  the  times  when  she  would  suddenly 
find  it  convenient  to  pay  attention  to  me. 

"Everything  about  my  liking  Kathy  is 
bad,"  I  wrote  gloomily.  "I'm  betraying 
Hilary,  and  I'm  going  against  my  own 
principles.  When  it  comes  to  affection, 
I'm  a  heel." 

At  the  tender  age  of  13,  then,  I  was 
already  indelibly  marked  in  Mallon's 
lexicon,  as  both  a  "confessor"  and  a 
"pilgrim."  "By  unburdening  one's  soul 
on  paper,  one  could  have  one's  sins  and 
remember  them,  too,"  observes  Mallon 
of  the  19th-century  confessional  journal. 
Yes,  that's  me  he's  talking  about.  And 
here  again,  in  the  chapter  on  pilgrims: 
"Thoreau  sees  his  diary  as,  literally,  a 
container  for  the  effervescings  of  a  soul 
moving  ever  further  toward  enlighten- 
ment." That's  me,  too. 

But  whether  heavy  with  guilt  or  laden 
with  pretensions,  all  my  8th-grade  jour- 
nal entries  were  read  with  the  most 
straight-faced  care  by  Miss  Staats.  I 
know  this  because,  when  she  handed  the 
notebook  back  to  me,  I  found  exuberant 
red  check  marks  on  nearly  every  page. 
Next  to  the  one  in  which  I  declared 
myself  a  heel  were  no  less  than  two 
checks  and  the  words,  "Take  this  fur- 
ther." 

And  so  I  choose  to  believe  that,  when 
I  left  my  gray  journal  aboard  the  Silver 
Star,  it  was  with  the  subconscious  hope 
that  it  would  one  day  meet  up  with  a 
reader  as  accepting  as  Miss  Staats, 
someone  more  tolerant  of  me  than  I  was 


of  myself.  In  my  journals  since  then,  I 
have  always  addressed  such  an  ideal 
reader.  She  understands  me  precisely  as  I 
wish  to  be  understood;  looks  over  my 
shoulder  and  nods  approvingly  when  I 
do  something  clever  or  noble;  moves 
back  to  a  respectful  distance  when  I 
berate  myself  for  moments  of  coward- 
ice, only  to  return  fully  refreshed  as  soon 
as  the  tirade  is  over.  I  have,  I  suppose, 
internalized  Miss  Staats. 


m 


e  are  well  advised  to  keep 
on  nodding  terms  with  the 
people  we  used  to  be, 
whether  we  find  them  attrac- 
tive company  or  not,"  Joan 
Didion  writes  in  her  essay  "On  Keeping 
a  Notebook."  "Otherwise  they  turn  up 
unannounced  and  surprise  us,  come 
hammering  on  the  mind's  door  at  4  a.m. 
of  a  bad  night  and  demand  to  know  who 
deserted  them,  who  betrayed  them,  who 
is  going  to  make  amends." 

At  one  point,  a  few  years  back,  I  had 
reversed  Didion's  image.  It  was  I  who, 
quite  literally,  was  hammering  on  the 
past's  door,  finding  constant  excuses  to 
go  back  and  visit  the  college  I  had  fled. 
But  now  my  curiosity  about  the  past  has 
dimmed  to  a  simple  fantasy  about  the 
lost  gray  journal:  that  someday  I  will  get 
it  back.  If  nothing  else,  this  harmless 
preoccupation  has  given  me  an  aware- 
ness of  other  people  who  are  hunting 
their  own  ghosts. 

Last  summer,  while  teaching  a 
prose  class  at  a  college  prep 
program  in  New  England,  I 
encountered  one  of  these  kin- 
dred spirits.  I  was  now  cast  in 
the  role  of  Miss  Staats,  trying  to  per- 
suade skeptical  teenagers  that  they,  too, 
might  find  it  rewarding  to  write  down 
their  thoughts  and  observations  in  a  note- 
book. Their  complaint  was  an  echo  from 
8th  grade:  "What  are  we  supposed  to 
write  about?" 

But  one  girl,  a  short,  talky  kid  whom 
I'll  call  Libby,  kept  handing  me  entries 
pages  thick.  They  were  a  wonderful  con- 
firmation of  Didion's  belief  that  "keep- 
ers of  private  notebooks  are  a  different 
breed  altogether  . . .  children  afflicted 
apparently  at  birth  with  some  presenti- 
ment of  loss."  Most  of  her  writings  were 
about  her  father,  who  had  become  ill 
when  she  was  very  small  and  died  soon 
afterward.  She  could  remember  little 
about  him  directly,  but  she  had  a  clear 
image  of  him  because  relatives,  family 


friends,  and  store  keepers  on  the  block 
where  she  lived  had  all  told  her  many 
times  what  a  fine,  compassionate  man  he 
was. 

"I  know  I  would  have  liked  him,"  she 
wrote.  He  had  been  forced  to  walk  with 
a  cane  near  the  end  of  his  life,  and  of 
that  she  said,  "I  wish  I  had  been  old 
enough  to  help  him.  I  know  I  would  not 
have  minded  walking  slowly  with  him." 

And  there  was  more:  stories  about 
him,  including  one  about  a  dying  father 
and  baby  daughter,  neither  of  whom  can 
sleep  at  night.  It  was  all  lovely  stuff.  But 
finally  my  curiosity  got  the  better  of  me, 
and  I  asked  Libby  if  she  had  any  idea 
why  she  was  thinking  so  much  about  her 
father  just  then. 

She  answered  the  question  with 
another  journal  entry,  about  a  conversa- 
tion she  had  had  with  her  mother  just 
before  coming  to  summer  school.  It  was 
time  Libby  knew  something  of  her  own 
history,  her  mother  said.  She  had  been 
conceived  by  artificial  insemination 
from  an  anonymous  donor,  because  the 
illness  of  her  father  had  left  him  sterile. 
Libby 's  mother  was  sorry  to  drop  this  on 
her  all  of  a  sudden,  but  there  was  never 
going  to  be  a  "right"  time,  and  Libby 
was  old  enough  now  to  know. 

"I  felt  as  if  the  wind  had  been  perma- 
nently knocked  out  of  me,"  Libby  wrote 
in  her  journal.  "In  one  sense,  nothing 
had  changed,  but  in  another  sense,  it  was 
as  if  my  father  was  no  longer  my  father." 

And  yet  there  was  still  this  image  that 
had  become  part  of  her,  and  the  frighten- 
ing, alluring  knowledge  that  somewhere 
out  there,  her  natural  father  might  well 
still  be  alive.  In  a  way,  the  bomb  her 
mother  had  dropped,  far  from  severing 
her  from  a  father  she  had  already  lost, 
gave  her  new  license  to  seek  him  again 
in  her  mind.  "Sometimes  now  I  imagine 
turning  the  corner  onto  a  familiar  street, 
and  there  he  is,"  Libby  wrote.  "Our  eyes 
meet  and  we  recognize  each  other." 

The  way  I  see  it,  I  am  no  more  likely 
to  be  reunited  with  my  lost  journal  than 
Libby  is  with  her  fantasy  father.  In  either 
case,  a  reunion  would  probably  result  in 
disappointment.  But  both  of  us  are  free 
to  fill  our  journals  with  imaginings  of 
such  a  meeting,  and  from  imaginings 
often  come  stories. 

Joe  Levine  remains  a  frequent  train  trav- 
eler, claiming  trains  are  still  the  best 
place  to  get  any  writing  done.  He  asks 
only  that  you  call  him  in  New  York  if  you 
ever  find  his  lost  journal. 


IV       ALUMNI  MAGAZINE  CONSORTIUM 


THE 

COMING 

OF 

CHAOS 


One  day  three  years  ago, 
sitting  in  his  office  idly 
skimming  through  a  bor- 
rowed textbook,  Jack 
Clark  found  himself 
looking  into  a  bewildering  new  world. 

The  book  was  Theoretical  Ecology, 
edited  by  a  Princeton  biologist,  Robert 
May.  The  subject  was,  of  all  things, 
insect  and  animal  populations.  And 
there,  on  page  1 1  or  so,  May  was  saying 
that  some  laughably  simple  little  equa- 
tion exhibited  behavior  he  called 
"bizarre."  Clark,  associate  professor  of 
mathematics  at  Western  Maryland  Col- 
lege, had  his  doubts. 

Many  equations  have  unusual  proper- 
ties, he  knew.  But  this  one,  for  heaven's 
sake,  was  not  one  of  them.  If  anything,  it 
was  among  the  most  familiar  in  all  of 
mathematics.  "It's  a  parabola,"  Clark 
thought  to  himself,  referring  to  the  equa- 
tion's geometrical  representation,  a  sta- 
ple of  high  school  math  courses.  "How 
complicated  can  it  be?"  What  could  be 
so  bizarre  and  bewildering  about  it? 

"I  looked  at  it,"  he  recalls.  "And  it 
was." 

The  equation  was  a  model  for  estimat- 
ing the  future  size  of  an  insect  population 
on  the  basis  of  its  present  size,  taking 
into  account  its  natural  growth  rate  and 
making  allowances  for  losses  due  to  food 
shortages,  predators,  crowding,  and 
other  environmental  checks.  It  was  not  a 
particularly  sophisticated  model.  "It's 
the  simplest  possible  example,"   says 


Clark.  "You  can't  look  at  anything  sim- 
pler." Yet  the  behavior  it  predicted  was 
"absolutely  mind-boggling." 

To  use  the  equation,  you  simply  plug 
in  the  current  year's  population  and  com- 
pute the  next  year's,  then  use  that  to  fig- 
ure the  following  year's,  and  so  forth. 
"Iteration,"  mathematicians  call  it.  The 
results  hinge  on  the  natural  growth  rate, 
a  sort  of  compound  interest  factor  related 
to  the  species'  reproductive  capacity. 
Below  a  certain  value,  not  surprisingly, 
the  population  dies  off.  For  growth  rates 
a  little  higher,  the  population  climbs, 
then  levels  off.  All  of  this  is  to  be 
expected. 

Then  things  get  sticky.   For  a  still 

This  emerging  area  of  study 
helps  to  predict  the  unpredict- 
able. But  it  also  uncovers 
anarchy  in  unexpected  places. 
Chaos  theory  is  the  flutter  heard 
round  the  world. 


By  Robert  Kanigel 


higher  growth  rate,  you  get  a  surprising 
twist.  One  year,  starting  with  a  small 
insect  population,  you  might  have  plenty 
of  food  and  other  resources,  therefore 
unchecked  breeding.  The  result?  A 
higher  population  the  following  year. 
The  year  after  that,  thanks  to  fevered 
competition  for  mates,  food,  and  breath- 
ing room,  many  of  the  insects  die  off. 
Then,  the  next  year,  population  is  back 
up.  It's  like  the  story  of  Joseph  in  the 
Bible,  said  Leo  Kadanoff,  a  University 
of  Chicago  physics  professor  explaining 
the  same  equation  recently  to  a  group  of 
physics  students  and  faculty  at  The  Johns 
Hopkins  University.  Joseph  prophesied 
seven  years  of  feast  followed  by  seven  of 
famine.  Well,  under  the  right  circum- 
stances, this  funny  little  equation  pre- 
dicts just  such  a  feast-or-famine  cycle. 

All  this,  though,  still  lies  within  the 
bounds  of  intuition  and  common  sense. 
But  now,  at  yet  higher  values  of  the 
growth  rate,  the  equation  predicts  even 
more  outlandish  results.  Now  the  popu- 
lation doesn't  simply  oscillate  between 
feast  or  famine  year  by  year,  but  among 
four  discrete  population  levels  in  a  regu- 
lar cycle.  And  with  higher  values  still, 
you  get  an  eight-year  cycle,  until  ulti- 
mately, the  population  shifts  among  an 
infinite  number  of  levels  over  an  infi- 
nitely long  cycle. 

At  this  point,  the  population  neither 
dies  out,  nor  climbs  toward  a  plateau, 
nor  takes  regular  swings  from  year  to 
year.  In  fact,  it  seems  to  conform  to  no 


MAY  1987       V 


From  the  roll  off  dice  to 
a  roiling  waterfall, 
chaos  researchers  seek 
the  patterns  in  seem- 
ingly random  events. 
Edward  N.  Lorenz  at  MIT 
generated  the  butterfly 
(preceding  page,  top)  in 
solving  equations  on  his 
computer. 


pattern  at  all.  Say  you  start  off  with 
300,000  insects.  The  next  year  the  equa- 
tion might  predict  840,000.  The  third, 
537,000.  The  fourth,  994,000.  The  fifth, 
23,000.  The  sixth,  89,000.  It  never  goes 
above  or  below  certain  values.  But 
within  that  range  there  seems  to  be  no 
rule,  no  law,  no  pattern  that  applies. 
Why,  to  someone  not  privy  to  what's 
going  on,  the  population  might  seem 
quite  unpredictable,  the  outcome  not  of 
an  equation  methodically  churning  out 
preordained  results  but  some  random 
process  subject  only  to  cosmic  whim. 

More  wonders  lay  ahead.  "When  you 
play  around  with  that  simple  equation," 
says  Clark,  who's  been  mesmerized  by  it 
ever  since,  "you  come  back  shaking 
your  head."  In  it  he  would  find  "Lorenz 
masks"  and  "strange  attractors"  and 
"Feigenbaum  numbers"  and  stunning 
computer  graphics  and  all  manner  of 
strange  and   wonderful   mathematical 


behavior.  "The  deeper  you  look,  the 
more  mystifying  it  becomes.  If  you  take 
the  bifurcation  diagram  and  really 
explore  it,  you're  led  from  one  mystery 
to  another.  The  problem  itself  seems  to 
be  fractal-like,"  Clark  adds,  referring  to 
mathematical  shapes  that,  like  the  map 
of  a  seacoast,  retain  their  complexity  no 
matter  the  scale  at  which  they're 
observed.  For  Clark,  "it  was  the  most 
amazing  stuff  I've  ever  seen." 

There,  sitting  quietly  in  his  office  in 
Lewis  Hall  in  Westminster,  Md.,  and 
skimming  through  a  borrowed  book, 
Jack  Clark  had  stumbled  into  the  emerg- 
ing field  of  chaos. 

Chaos  theory  is  about  pattern 
and  form,  randomness  and 
order.  The  simple  equation 
so  seductive  to  Clark  is  but 
the  tip  of  an  iceberg,  the 
simplest  manifestation  of  a  new  area  of 


study  that  has  hypnotized  scientists  and 
scholars  around  the  country.  "Every- 
body's into  chaos,"  says  Thomas 
Bridges,  a  Worcester  Polytechnic  Insti- 
tute mathematician.  Researchers  are 
using  chaos  theory  to  seek  hidden  pat- 
terns in  heartbeats  and  electroencephalo- 
grams. To  analyze  fluid  flow.  To  model 
arms  buildups  that  could  lead  to  nuclear 
war.  To  study  the  tumbling  of  Saturn's 
moons. 

Chaos  theory  has  scant  respect  for  tra- 
ditional disciplines.  The  math  and  phys- 
ics journals  are  full  of  it,  of  course.  But 
it's  also  the  topic  of  conferences  attract- 
ing people  who  might  otherwise  never  sit 
in  the  same  room  together,  like  stock 
market  analysts,  neurobiologists,  and 
philosophers.  And  a  lot  of  them,  when 
they  first  encounter  the  subject,  find 
themselves  shaking  their  heads  in  awe 
the  way  Jack  Clark  did. 

Chaos  theory  says  that  out  of  pristine 


VI       ALUMNI  MAGAZINE  CONSORTIUM 


mathematics  can  emerge  a  seeming  anar- 
chy. Yet  viewed  another  way,  it  holds  out 
the  promise  that  complex  phenomena 
once  written  off  as  the  natural  conse- 
quence of  a  random  universe— the  ups 
and  downs  of  the  stock  market,  the  roil- 
ing turbulence  of  a  waterfall,  the  sudden 
swings  of  the  weather,  the  mysterious 
rises  and  falls  of  animal  populations, 
perhaps  even  the  idiosyncrasies  of 
human  personality— might  profitably 
come  under  the  scientist's  magnifying 
glass  for  a  second  look.  This  new  disci- 
pline seems  to  say  that  amid  the  seeming 
confusion  of  everyday  events  lurks  a  hid- 
den harmony. 

"A  new  paradigm  in  scientific  model- 
ing," chaos  theory  has  been  called. 

That,  as  it  happens,  is  among  the  more 
modest  appraisals  of  it.  Joseph  Ford, 
professor  of  physics  at  Georgia  Institute 
of  Technology,  says  chaos  theory  por- 
tends "a  third  revolution  in  physics,"  the 


next  step  after  relativity  and  quantum 
mechanics. 

And  Ralph  Abraham,  a  University  of 
California  at  Santa  Cruz  (UCSC)  mathe- 
matician, goes  Ford  one  better.  Chaos 
theory,  he  declares,  "is  as  important  his- 
torically as  the  discovery  of  the  wheel." 

How  long  before  a  falling 
apple  reaches  the 
ground?  To  what  speed 
must  a  rocket  be  pro- 
pelled to  reach  earth 
orbit?  These  are  great,  old  problems, 
beloved  by  every  high  school  physics 
teacher  for  their  straightforward  equa- 
tions and  unambiguous  answers.  They 
are  models  for  the  kind  of  analysis  in 
which  classical  physics  glories.  But  rela- 
tively few  real-life  problems  yield  to 
such  neat  solution. 

Chaos  theory  helps  with  some  of  the 
untidy  problems. 

In  1776,  the  French  mathematician 
and  astronomer  Pierre-Simon  de  Laplace 
declared  that  one  had  only  to  know  the 
position  and  velocity  of  every  particle  in 
the  universe  in  order  to  predict  its  whole 
future  course.  "Determinism"  is  the 
doctrine  associated  with  that  boast:  the 
idea  that  inviolable  physical  laws  com- 
pletely account  for  all  subsequent  events. 
And  down  through  the  years  scientists 
and  mathematicians  have  sought  to  dis- 
cover these  laws. 

But  this  has  not  proved  easy,  the  uni- 
verse only  occasionally  arranging  itself 
with  falling-apple  neatness.  As  F.  Tito 
Arrechi,  an  Italian  laser  physicist, 
observed  at  a  recent  chaos  conference  in 
California:  "Ideal  problems  are  just  in 
the  textbooks,  for  the  joy  or  desperation 
of  students."  So  to  wind  up  with 
something— some  model  of  real-world 
behavior,  however  flawed— scientists 
make  simplifying  assumptions. 

Linearity  is  one  assumption  that  helps 
most  to  make  the  equations  manageable: 
double  the  input,  double  the  output.  Tri- 
ple the  input,  triple  the  output.  The  more 
you  do  something,  the  proportionally 
greater  effect  it  has.  The  word  linearity 
comes  from  what  you  get  when  you 
graph  the  results— a  straight  line. 

Most  phenomena,  of  course,  are  not 
linear.  The  rise  and  fall  of  animal  popu- 
lations is  one  example.  Another  is  the 
turbulent  flow  around  an  airplane  wing. 
Human  behavior  is  about  as  non-linear  as 
you  can  get.  Yet  non-linear  equations 
become  hopelessly  complex.  In  fluid 
mechanics,  for  example,  "you  start  with 


these  horrible  differential  equations  and 
usually  you  can't  solve  them  in  even  the 
simplest  boundary  conditions"  (the  spe- 
cial cases  that  sidestep  some  of  the  math- 
ematical obstacles),  notes  Robert  Brown, 
professor  of  physics  at  Case  Western 
Reserve  University  (CWRU).  The  equa- 
tions do  describe  the  behavior,  yet  using 
them  for  any  but  the  simplest  cases  is 
next  to  impossible.  So,  as  Brown's  col- 
league, mathematician  Michael  Hurley, 
says,  "you  tend  to  ignore  the  non-linear 
problems  altogether  because  no  tech- 
niques are  available  to  solve  them."  The 
world  in  all  its  rich  complexity,  then, 
remains  elusively  outside  the  theoreti- 
cian's reach. 

But  now,  with  the  coming  of  chaos 
theory,  all  this  may  change.  Chaos  the- 
ory helps  scientists  to  understand 
nature's  messy  and  maddening  unpre- 
dictability. 

Indeed,  it  predicts  unpredictability. 

With  simple,  linear  systems,  if  you're 
a  little  bit  off  in  counting  up  how  many 
you  have  of  something  or  in  noting 
where  you  are,  then  somewhere  down 
the  line,  your  answer  is  a  bit  off.  Not  so 
in  chaotic  systems.  There,  if  you're  just 
a  little  off,  your  prediction  is  blown  to 
pieces.  The  laws  of  physics  still  apply; 
except  for  quantum  mechanical  effects, 
which  predict  uncertainty  at  the  sub- 
atomic level,  the  outcome  is  preor- 
dained. It's  just  that  predicting  the  out- 
come is  impossible.  The  back  alley  crap- 
shooter  "determines"  the  roll  of  the 
dice.  He  shakes  them  up,  perhaps  mut- 
ters an  incantation  over  them,  then  rolls 
them  onto  a  stretch  of  familiar  sidewalk. 
Yet,  loaded  dice  excluded,  he  can't  pre- 
dict how  they'll  fall.  And  the  best  physi- 
cist in  the  world,  using  the  best  com- 
puters in  the  world,  can't  do  any  better. 

Mathematicians  call  it  "sensitive 
dependence  on  initial  conditions."  To 
illustrate  its  power,  James  P.  Crutchfield 
and  three  other  chaos  researchers 
describe  an  idealized  billiards  game  in 
which  the  balls  roll  and  bump  their  way 
around  the  table  with  no  loss  of  energy. 
In  such  a  game,  they  note,  even  an  all- 
knowing  player  in  perfect  control  of  the 
cue  stick  would  be  powerless  to  make  the 
balls  go  where  he  or  she  wished.  Were 
the  player  to  ignore  an  effect  even  "as 
minuscule  as  the  gravitational  attraction 
of  an  electron  at  the  edge  of  the  galaxy," 
the  balls  would  be  out  of  position  after 
one  minute  of  bouncing  around  the  table, 
the  researchers  theorized  in  Scientific 
American  (December  1986). 


MAY  1987       VII 


Kadanoff  at  Chicago  gives  a  more  con- 
sequential example.  Imagine,  he  says, 
that  a  weather  forecaster  could  instantly 
consult  the  past  century's  weather  maps, 
with  their  temperatures,  barometric  pres- 
sures, cold  fronts,  developing  storms, 
and  the  rest— all  precisely  recorded. 
Well,  you  might  think,  to  develop  an 
accurate  long-range  forecast  (predictions 
for  one  or  two  days  are  easy)  maybe  you 
need  only  go  back  through  the  stack  of 
weather  maps  until  you  find  one  just  like 
today's.  Say  that  day  was  May  15,  1892. 
To  predict  the  weather  for  two  weeks 
from  today,  just  pull  out  the  map  for  May 
29,  1892,  and,  presto!  you've  got  it! 

It  doesn't  work,  of  course,  not  even 
approximately.  And  that's  one  reason 
most  meteorologists  think  that  detailed 
long-range  weather  forecasting  is  impos- 
sible. In  this  grossly  non-linear  system, 
all  it  takes  is  the  tiniest,  seemingly  most 
insignificant  difference  between  today's 
map  and  the  1892  map  to  throw  your 
predictions  completely  askew. 

The  unpredictability  of  cha- 
otic systems  is  the  dark  side 
of  the  new  field.  The  bright 
side  is  that  behind  much  of 
what  passes  in  nature  for 
formlessness,  anarchy,  or  mere  chance 
resides  order— an  order  hard  to  discern. 
Chaos  theory  gives  scientists  a  way  to 
find  the  pattern. 

"It's  miraculous.  You're  not  going  to 
believe  it.  A  lot  of  people  haven't 
grokked  it  yet,"  says  UCSC's  Abraham, 
warming  up  to  tell  you  about  the  liberat- 
ing experimental  approach  that  chaos 
theory  permits.  Want  to  find  the  hidden 
order  in  something  even  so  agitated  and 
irregular  as  a  waterfall?  OK,  you  select  a 
point  of  reference  in  the  middle  of  the 
fall.  You  rig  up  mirrors  or  lasers  or  what- 
ever you  need  to  pick  up  the  reflected, 
shimmering  whiteness  of  one  point  in  the 
flow,  then  aim  it  back  at  a  photo  cell.  At 
regular  intervals  you  sample  the  intensity 
recorded  by  the  photocell,  digitize  it,  and 
feed  it  into  a  computer.  Then  you  mas- 
sage the  data,  performing  simple  manip- 
ulations on  it,  and  assemble  it  into 
matrices— big  banks  of  numbers.  Plug  it 
into  a  computer  graphics  software  pack- 
age, plot  it  out  on  the  screen,  and  see 
what  you  get. 

Then,  not  necessarily,  and  maybe  not 
by  following  just  this  scenario,  and 
maybe  only  after  much  diddling  with  the 
data,  what  you  get  on  the  screen  just 
might  be  lovely,  feathery,  swirling  pat- 


terns. Quite  often,  they  are  the  same  pat- 
terns others  have  recorded  in  other  sys- 
tems, sometimes  so  recurrently  that  by 
now  the  patterns  have  names— like 
Lorenz  masks  and  Birkhoff  bagels  and 
Rossler  funnels,  each  one  honoring  the 
scientist  who  discovered  it.  "It's  amaz- 
ing, just  amazing,  that  this  trick  has 
worked  for  so  much  data,"  says  Abra- 
ham. Problems  in  chemistry,  fluid  flow, 
epidemiology,  and  astronomy  have  all 
benefited  from  this  and  kindred 
approaches. 

What  Rob  Shaw  did  back  in  the  1970s 
exemplifies  the  freedom  the  new 
approach  grants.  One  day,  according  to 
the  story,  Shaw,  then  a  graduate  student 
at  UCSC,  was  bothered  by  a  drip  in  his 
laboratory  faucet.  It  didn't  go  drip  .  .  . 
drip  .  .  .  drip  .  .  .  like  some  faucets.  But 
rather,  when  the  valve  was  set  just  right, 

it  went  drip drip  .  .  .  drip  .  drip  . 

drip 

drip  .  .  .  drip  in  no  perceptible  pattern.  It 
followed  a  script  that,  before  the  coming 
of  chaos  theory,  might  have  been  written 
off  as  random.  Intrigued,  Shaw  rigged  up 
a  microphone  so  that  each  drop  recorded 
the  time  of  its  arrival,  then  fed  this  into  a 
computer  and  graphed  the  results.  The 
data  created  a  sinuous  three-dimensional 
curve  that  wound  up  in  a  book,  The 
Dripping  Faucet:  A  Model  Chaotic  Sys- 
tem. 

Note  that  the  strategy  Abraham 
describes  and  Shaw's  work  demon- 
strates does  not  require  analysis  of  the 
forces  acting  on  some  hypothetical  tiny 
particle  of  water,  as  a  more  traditional 
approach  might.  There  are  no  differential 
equations  to  solve,  no  traditional  mathe- 
matics at  all.  All  you've  got  are  num- 
bers. All  you  do  is  play  with  them.  And 
midst  the  waterfall's  thunder  or  the  fau- 
cet's drip,  all  you  seek  is  pattern. 

Lorenz  masks,  Birkhoff  bagels, 
Rossler  funnels,  and  the  other  recurring 
patterns  are  geometric  representations  of 
what  mathematicians  call  "strange 
attractors." 

An  attractor  is  simply  the  value,  or 
group  of  values,  to  which  a  system  is 
remorselessly  drawn,  and  it  need  not  be 
"strange."  A  roast  placed  in  a  freezer 
will  ultimately  cool  to  the  temperature  of 
the  freezer.  A  lump  of  clay  dropped  on 
the  floor  will  land  there;  it  won't  get  up 
and  run  around.  Mathematically,  the 
freezer  temperature  and  that  spot  on  the 
floor  are  examples  of  point  attractors. 
But  neither  one  is  a  strange  attractor. 

Drop  a  hard  rubber  ball  on  the  floor 


and  you've  got  something  a  little  differ- 
ent. Without  air  resistance  and  friction 
(and  with  a  lively  enough  ball  even  with 
them),  the  ball  will  occupy  a  series  of 
positions— up  and  down,  up  and  down- 
in  a  regular  and  predictable  way.  This  is 
called  a  periodic  attractor;  but  it's  still 
not  "strange." 

A  strange  attractor  still  draws  the  sys- 
tem to  a  range  of  values.  But  now  there 
seems  to  be  no  readily  apparent  pattern. 
But  there  is  a  pattern,  it  turns  out,  one  so 
awesomely  convoluted  that  it's  never 
obvious  at  first  glance.  Only  when  plot- 
ted out  by  the  computer  in  what  mathe- 
maticians call  "phase  space"  does  it  take 
the  shape  of  Lorenz  masks  or  Rossler 
funnels  or  the  rest.  Were  purely  random 
processes  at  work,  the  resulting  com- 
puter plot  would  be  nothing  but  a  fea- 
tureless smear  of  points. 

While  outcomes  represented  on  a 
Lorenz  mask  are  free  to  roam  anywhere 
on  that  elaborately  twisted  and  folded 
contour,  making  prediction  impossible, 
they  are  at  least  confined  to  that  sea  of 
swirls.  They  can,  unpredictably,  assume 
many  values— but  not  any  values. 
Therein  lies  the  peculiar,  almost  para- 
doxical, nature  of  strange  attractors.  The 
path  of  the  ball  played  in  a  pinball  game 


VIE       ALUMNI  MAGAZINE  CONSORTIUM 


can't  be  predicted;  yet  you  know  that,  in 
the  next  second,  it  won't  wind  up  clank- 
ing around  in  a  communications  satellite 
over  the  North  Pole.  Edward  N.  Lorenz 
at  MIT  discovered  Lorenz  masks  while 
proving  that  accurate  long-range  weather 
forecasts  are  impossible;  still,  one  can 
state  confidently  that  Miami  won't  face 
snow  in  August. 

Lorenz  masks  and  the  other  shapes 
reveal  the  aesthetically  satisfying  form 
sometimes  lurking  in  apparent  chaos.  A 
similarly  satisfying  mathematical  pattern 
describes  nature's  descent  into  chaos. 

About  a  decade  ago,  Mitchell  Feigen- 
baum,  a  particle  physicist  then  visiting 
Los  Alamos  National  Laboratory  in  New 
Mexico,  began  studying  an  equation 
similar  to  the  insect  population  one  with 
which  Jack  Clark  later  became  so 
absorbed  in  Westminster,  Md.  With  that 
equation,  if  you  push  up  the  growth  fac- 
tor far  enough,  the  population  begins 
oscillating  between  feast  and  famine. 
Push  it  up  more  and  the  two-year  cycle 
bifurcates  into  a  four-year  cycle,  then 
eight,  and  so  on.  "Period  doubling"  is 
the  mathematical  term.  Well,  playing 
around  with  a  hand-held  calculator, 
Feigenbaum  discovered  that  the  values 
of  the  growth  factors  at  which  these 


bifurcations  took  place  were  all  related 
by  a  common  number,  4.669,  now 
known  as  Feigenbaum 's  number. 

This  was  intriguing  enough.  Even 
more  intriguing,  when  Feigenbaum 
looked  at  completely  different  equations 
that  bore  no  outward  resemblance  to  the 
insect  population  equation— systems 
similar  in  that  they  degenerated  into 
chaos  through  period  doubling— he  got 
exactly  the  same  number.  And  got  it 
down  to  15  decimal  places.  This  was 
downright  bizarre.  Embedded  in  the 
mathematics  governing  the  onset  of 
chaos  lay  a  kind  of  strange  universality. 

There  is  something  heady,  even  intoxi- 
cating, about  a  science  that  draws  a  route 
map  to  chaos  with  a  hand-held  calcula- 
tor. That  reveals  enchanting  computer 
swirls  lurking  behind  a  jumble  of  con- 
fused data.  That  encourages  an  experi- 
ment, like  Rob  Shaw's  with  the  dripping 
faucet,  requiring  nothing  more  than  what 
someone  once  described  as  "a  contrap- 
tion that  looks  like  a  precocious  child's 
project  for  the  science  fair." 

Is  it  any  wonder  that  chaos  theory  fires 
the  imagination  of  scientists?  Or  that,  as 
Abraham  says,  "people  are  in  love  with 
chaos"?  The  old  mathematics,  with  its 
simplifications  and   idealizations,   had 


A  look  at  insect  popu- 
lations led  Jack  Clark 
at  Western  Maryland 
College  to  the  world  of 
chaos. 


Villanova  physi- 
cist Kenneth 
Hartzell  found 
unpredictable 
fluctuations  in 
a  free  electron 
laser. 


CWRU's  Michael 
Hurley  (below  left)  and 
Robert  Brown  see 
some  potential  in 
chaos  theory. 


But  even  in  fluid 
turbulence,  this  new 
focus  can't  provide  all 
the  answers,  adds 
WPI's  Mayer  Humi. 


Imagine  a  billiards 
game  where  no  energy 
is  lost.  One  electron 
could  alter  the  result. 


MAY  1987       IX 


failed  the  laboratory  scientist,  said  Sher- 
vert  H.  Frazier,  director  of  the  National 
Institute  of  Mental  Health.  He  gave  the 
introductory  remarks  at  a  National  Insti- 
tutes of  Health  conference  last  year 
devoted  to  such  biomedical  applications 
of  chaos  theory  as  the  study  of  irregular 
heartbeats,  muscle  tremors,  and  manic- 
depressive  mood  swings.  "The  'messy' 
new  mathematics  sounds  more  promis- 
ing. I  like  the  new  words  of  the  field," 
Frazier  adds.  "'Chaos'  and  'strange 
attractor'  sound  like  syndromes  with 
which  I  can  identify  as  a  psychiatrist." 

This  funny-looking  new  mathematical 
kid  on  the  block  seems  better  suited  to 
the  complexity  and  unpredictability  of 
nature,  Frazier  is  saying,  than  does  the 
chaste  mathematics  first  handed  down  to 
us  by  Newton. 

^^  ^_  ^_  hen  James  B.  Ramsey 
^^     ^^      T  was  a  student  at  the 

^L  ^^t  /University  of  British 
^y  ^/Columbia  in  Canada,  he 
V  V  helped  to  work  his  way 
through  school  as  a  trader  on  the  Van- 
couver Stock  Exchange.  He  specialized 
in  certain  mining  stock  often  subject  to 
wild  fluctuations.  An  assay  would  be 
announced  and  the  stock  would  shoot  up. 
News  that  cast  doubt  on  the  assay  would 
send  the  stock  plummeting.  A  contract 
with  the  Japanese  or  plans  for  a  tunnel 
through  the  mountains  to  reduce  the  cost 
of  getting  the  ore  to  market  could  send  a 
stock  from  $5  to  $20  in  five  minutes. 

Once,  economic  theorists  would  have 
been  happy  to  predict  the  price  of  the 
stock  at  the  end  of  those  five  minutes, 
explains  Ramsey,  who  today  is  an  econo- 
mist at  New  York  University.  Yet  it  was 
only  within  those  five  minutes  and  before 
the  stock  had  stabilized,  he  remembers, 
that  he'd  had  a  chance  to  make  money. 
"In  10  minutes,  or  half  an  hour,  it  was  all 
over.  You'd  had  it."  Chaos  theory,  he 
believes,  offers  a  way  to  better  under- 
stand the  gyrations  of  a  stock  during  such 
tumultuous  intervals.  And  that's  one  of 
the  things  he's  working  on  today. 

Of  course,  as  he  has  found,  it's  not  so 
easy.  He  has  tried  to  apply  chaos  theory 
not  only  to  stock  prices  but  also  to  indus- 
trial production,  money  supply,  work 
stoppages,  and  other  economic  data.  But 
so  far,  none  of  those  ghostly  computer 
patterns  have  emerged  from  the  data. 
And  Ramsey  is  convinced  today  that 
"it's  very,  very  unlikely  that  any  form  of 
simple  [chaotic]  attractor  will  be  discov- 
ered for  economic  data."  Such  data  is  too 


influenced  by  a  complex  interplay  of 
forces  to  yield  to  anything  so  relatively 
straightforward. 

Is  chaos,  perhaps,  being  oversold? 

"Although  it  gives  scientists  a  chance 
to  get  a  hold  on  non-linear  problems," 
says  Hurley  of  CWRU,  "there  are  still 
lots  of  non-linear  problems  chaos  theory 
can't  handle."  For  example,  Jose 
Scheinkman,  an  economics  professor  at 
the  University  of  Chicago,  has  found 
evidence  for  non-linear  processes  behind 
apparently  random  economic  data— only 
to  find  himself  unable  to  describe  just 
which  non-linear  processes.  To 
Scheinkman,  chaos  theory  is  endlessly 
promising.  "But,"  he  cautions,  "we're 
just  starting." 

Some  traditional  scientists  are  known 
to  view  the  still  infant  science  as  flaky 
and  lacking  in  rigor,  and  its  proponents— 
virtually  all  of  them  interdisciplinarians 
of  one  stripe  or  another— as  dilettantes. 
Adds  Brown,  Hurley's  colleague  at 
CWRU:  "Some  think  there's  nothing 
going  on  here  as  long  as  they  can't  use  it 
to  design  a  better  torpedo  or  airplane." 

In  fact,  according  to  reports  from  a 
recent  conference  in  California,  engi- 
neers designing  the  tail  section  of  the 
Boeing  767  reduced  its  air  resistance 
using  mathematical  methods  sharpened 
on  problems  in  chaos  theory.  Chaos 
research  is  also  aiding  recovery  of  sec- 
ondary oil  reserves,  learned  the  partici- 
pants at  that  conference,  which  brought 
together  chaos  researchers  from  14  coun- 
tries. The  Navy  is  said  to  be  actively 
funding  chaos  study  because  it  could 
help  reduce  the  drag  on  ocean-going 
warships.  And  a  McGill  University 
physiologist,  Leon  Glass,  has  success- 
fully enlisted  chaos  theory  to  model  the 
behavior  of  cells  in  the  heart. 

Then,  too,  as  knowledge  begins  to  per- 
colate down  from  the  work  of  the  pio- 
neers, the  prospects  for  practical  applica- 
tion increase— because  now  scientists 
know  enough  to  look  for  it.  Kenneth 
Hartzell,  an  assistant  professor  of  phys- 
ics at  Villanova  University,  for  example, 
recently  found  a  suspiciously  chaotic 
clump  of  data  in  experimental  work  with 
a  free  electron  laser.  In  such  a  laser,  the 
paths  of  electrons  passing  into  an  evacu- 
ated region  between  two  mirrors  are 
twisted  and  turned  under  the  influence  of 
magnets  arrayed  along  the  outside,  gen- 
erating light.  Hartzell  found  that  when 
the  magnets  were  arranged  in  a  certain 
way,  the  train  of  electrons  fired  into  the 
laser,  normally  spaced  in  a  regular  and 


HI 

T  1 1 

Kevin  Weber 

As  intriguing  patterns 
appear,  drip  by  drip, 
cloud  by  cloud,  the  field 
of  chaos  whets  the 
appetites  of  some 
scientists.  Others  call 
it  flaky. 

predictable  pattern,  began  to  spread  and 
contract  unpredictably.  "The  bunching 
parameter  displays  very  high  frequency 
fluctuations  with  a  chaotic-looking  struc- 
ture," he  noted  in  a  paper  submitted  to 
Physics  Letters. 

Hartzell  couldn't  say  for  sure  just  what 
was  happening.  Was  it  chaos  or  wasn't 
it?  Still,  he  was  attuned  to  the  possibility 
of  it.  Ten  years  ago,  the  unusual  data 
would  have  been  written  off  as  experi- 
mental error. 

Around  the  country,  the  same  thing  is 
happening:  The  concept  of  chaos  is 
entering  the  vocabulary  of  intellectual 
work. 

Can  such  seemingly  intract- 
able social  problems  as 
crime,  poverty,  and  war  be 
interpreted  as  the  natural 
consequence  of  chaotic  sys- 
tems? Are  children  molded  by  small, 
seemingly  trivial  events— as  in  the 
"Rosebud"  story  from  the  film  Citizen 
Kane— as  much  as  by  traumatic  ones? 
Could  it  be  that  while  parents  certainly 
do  influence  their  children,  it  can  never 
be  predicted  just  how? 

Might  musical,  artistic,  or  literary  cre- 
ation be  seen  as  powerfully  set  in  motion 
by  choice  of  the  first  measure,  the  first 


X       ALUMNI  MAGAZINE  CONSORTIUM 


brush  stroke,  the  first  sentence,  with  the 
final  piece  inexorably  flowing  from,  or  at 
least  exquisitely  sensitive  to,  these  "ini- 
tial conditions"? 

Could  an  understanding  of  dreams 
benefit  from  insights  granted  by  chaos 
theory?  Might  their  bizarre  nature  be  the 
by-product  of  a  chaotic  system  whose 
"initial  conditions"  are  the  brain  waves 
corresponding  to  some  final  waking 
thought? 

Still  in  its  infancy  as  a  discipline, 
chaos  hints  at  immense  explanatory 
powers  with  applications  as  yet  un- 
charted. Strange  attractors  "act  as  a  kind 
of  pump  bringing  microscopic  fluctua- 
tions up  to  a  macroscopic  expression," 
Crutchfield  and  his  co-authors  write  in 
Scientific  American.  Quantum  mechan- 
ics, they  observe,  "implies  that  initial 
measurements  are  always  uncertain,  and 
chaos  ensures  that  the  uncertainties  will 
quickly  overwhelm  the  ability  to  make 
predictions  .  .  ."  It's  impossible  to  esti- 
mate the  implications  of  that  insight  for 
helping  to  explain  the  maddeningly  con- 
fusing and  unpredictable  phenomena  of 
everyday  life. 

But  answers  are  hard  to  come  by.  Cau- 
tions Mayer  Humi,  a  Worcester  Poly- 
technic Institute  mathematician,  they're 
hard  to  come  by   even  in  the  study  of 


fluid  turbulence,  the  intellectual  progeni- 
tor of  chaos  theory  and  the  area  to  which 
it  has  been  most  directly  applied.  The 
problems  Ramsey  and  Scheinkman  have 
had  in  applying  chaos  theory  to  econom- 
ics testify  to  how  far  the  new  science  has 
to  go.  Application  to  yet  murkier  areas, 
obviously,  lies  still  further  in  the  future. 

Still,  as  yet  unfettered  by  established 
Truth,  chaos  theory  virtually  incites 
speculation:  Crutchfield  and  his  co- 
authors, for  example,  have  suggested 
that  an  animal  fleeing  from  a  predator,  to 
make  its  flight  path  more  random,  might 
rely  on  the  "amplification  of  small  fluc- 
tuations" so  characteristic  of  chaos.  And 
in  humans,  "innate  creativity  may  have 
an  underlying  chaotic  process  that  selec- 
tively amplifies  small  fluctuations"  in 
the  brain  and  molds  them  into  the  mental 
states  that  are  experienced  as  thoughts. 

Such  a  "sensitive  dependence  on  ini- 
tial conditions"  in  the  embryo  may  be  a 
factor  in  the  development  of  human  per- 
sonality, notes  Alan  Garfinkel,  a  kine- 
siologist  at  the  Crump  Institute  for  Medi- 
cal Engineering  at  the  University  of 
California  at  Los  Angeles.  And  schizo- 
phrenia may  also  result  from  chaotic 
process,  he  told  Judith  Hooper  and  Dick 
Teresi,  authors  of  The  3-Pound  Uni- 
verse.  Schizophrenics   "wander  quasi- 


randomly  from  one  thought  to  another. 
That's  extreme  sensitivity  to  initial  con- 
ditions. Then,  on  the  other  hand,  you 
have  very  rigid  behavior,  fixed  delusions 
and  obsessions.  Everything  reminds  you 
of  x.  Every  little  thing  takes  you  back  to 
the  'attractor.'" 

Again  and  again,  chaos  has  been  por- 
trayed as  helping  to  reconcile  the  philo- 
sophical concepts  of  free  will  and  deter- 
minism: The  future  is  determined  by  the 
present,  yes.  But  tomorrow  hangs  on  the 
knife  edge  of  today,  needing  but  the 
barest  breath  of  free  will  or  circumstance 
to  direct  it  one  way  or  the  other — toward 
a  Mother  Theresa,  or  a  Qaddafi. 

Fate?  Karma?  Chaos? 

Bring  up  chaos,  it  seems, 
and  pretty  soon  you're  talk- 
ing about  butterflies.  One 
writer  retells  a  Ray  Brad- 
bury story  in  which  a  time 
traveler,  cautioned  not  to  interfere  in  the 
world  he  visits,  inadvertently  tramples  a 
butterfly.  When  the  voyager  returns  to 
his  own  time,  the  world  is  changed  for- 
ever. 

Every  treatment  of  chaos— this  one 
will  be  no  exception— records  how  the 
flutter  of  a  butterfly's  wings  in  Tahiti, 
say,  could  conceivably  cause  drought  in 
the  Great  Plains.  (The  image,  as  it  hap- 
pens, goes  back  to  Lorenz,  whose  classic 
"mask"  has  also  been  compared  to  a  but- 
terfly in  flight.) 

Both  examples  illustrate  a  sensitivity 
to  change  in  natural  systems  that  the  but- 
terfly's lightness  and  delicacy  fittingly 
symbolize.  Indeed,  Western  Maryland's 
Jack  Clark  thinks  that  chaos  theory  may 
have  its  most  lasting  and  profound 
impact  on  ecological  studies.  "Natural 
systems  are  delicate  and  easily  sent 
askew,"  is  how  he  expresses  the  crucial, 
mathematically  validated  lesson  of  the 
new  discipline.  As  numerous  environ- 
mental calamities  attest,  "you  can  have  a 
nice  equilibrium  disturbed  very  slightly 
and  made  to  go  haywire." 

We  need  to  learn  that  lesson  again,  he 
says.  "Chaos  theory  may  have  come  just 
in  time  to  save  us  all." 

Robert  Kanigel,  a  Baltimore-based 
writer,  is  the  author  of  Apprentice  to 
Genius:  The  Making  of  a  Scientific 
Dynasty  (Macmillan,  1986).  This  book 
about  mentoring  relationships  among 
elite  scientists  grew  out  of  an  article  pub- 
lished by  the  Alumni  Magazine  Consor- 
tium. 


MAY  1987       XI 


Toward  a  More 
Perfect  Union 


By  Julia  Ridgely 


Sim*  j>tL*,~$,.,/i.s./, 


tMb4Mr.' 


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XE       ALUMNI  MAGAZINE  CONSORTIUM 


state  university's  student 
newspaper  plans  to  publish 
an  article  on  dormitory 
conditions.  The  reporter 
writes  a  piece  sharply 
criticizing  the  university 
for  failing  to  test  fire 
alarms  or  to  provide 
enough  emergency  exits.  The  student 
editor  submits  the  story  for  review  to  a 
faculty  adviser,  who  strikes  out  the  sec- 
tion on  fire  safety  because  it's  bad  public 
relations.  If  that  article  is  published,  the 
adviser  warns,  he  will  block  distribution 
of  the  paper.  He  then  searches  the 
reporter's  desk  at  the  newspaper  office 
and  finds  a  copy  of  a  confidential  memo 
from  the  director  of  housing— a  memo, 
he  suspects,  that  the  student  obtained  by 
devious  means.  So  the  university  expels 
the  reporter  without  a  hearing.  When  an 
instructor  writes  to  the  local  paper 
expressing  support  for  the  student,  she  is 
fired. 

Reading  this  scenario— culled  from 
real  cases— few  people  would  doubt  that 
the  university  had  violated  many  consti- 
tutional rights,  from  free  press  to  due 
process.  But  before  1961,  no  court 
would  have  agreed.  That  year,  the 
Supreme  Court  heard  the  case  of  nine 
black  students  at  the  University  of  Ala- 
bama who  were  expelled  without  a  hear- 
ing after  a  protest.  In  this  case,  Dixon  v. 
Alabama  State  Board  of  Education,  the 
Court  ruled  that  the  students'  constitu- 
tional right  to  due  process  had  been  vio- 
lated. In  1969,  in  the  Tinker  v.  Des 
Moines  Independent  School  District 
case,  the  court  broadened  the  principle, 
affirming  that,  "it  can  hardly  be  argued 
that  either  students  or  teachers  shed  their 
constitutional  rights  to  freedom  of 
speech  or  expression  at  the  schoolhouse 
gate." 

Just  as  new  to  the  courts  is  the  concept 
of  academic  freedom,  the  tradition  that 
generally  protects  college  teachers  and 
researchers  from  censorship.  "Most  peo- 
ple think  that  academic  freedom  is  a  con- 
stitutional right,"  says  Matthew  W. 
Finkin,  chair  of  the  American  Associa- 
tion of  University  Professors'  (AAUP) 
Committee  on  Academic  Freedom 
(Committee  A).  "As  a  legal  concept,  it's 
only  been  in  existence  about  35  years. 
The  idea  itself  goes  back  to  the  Middle 
Ages.  You  have  an  older  doctrine  that 
was  riot  legally  enforced  in  any  way  but 
has  begun  to  be  enforced  as  an  aspect  of 
constitutional  law.  The  fit  is  not  yet  a 
good  fit." 


Since  the  Middle  Ages,  too,  town  and 
gown  have  traditionally  remained  sepa- 
rate. In  the  United  States,  after  the  Con- 
stitution became  law  in  1787,  new,  pri- 
vate colleges  were  founded  in  the  hope 
that  they  could  avoid  state  control.  In 
1819,  they  received  the  Supreme  Court 
seal  of  approval:  The  landmark  Dart- 
mouth College  case  guaranteed  that  the 
private  college,  like  the  private  business, 
should  be  free  of  federal  restraint. 

In  the  142  years  between  the  Dart- 
mouth and  Dixon  cases,  the  courts  estab- 
lished few  other  legal  precedents  to  dis- 
tinguish between  the  privileges  of  public 
and  private  universities.  It  wasn't  until 
1961  and  Dixon  that  the  Constitution 
came  to  the  campus  gates.  Since  Dixon, 


The  Constitution  was  ratified  200 
years  ago.  But  colleges  are  still 
trying  to  reconcile  the  call  for 

rights  with  the  need  for  restraints. 


public  universities  have  struggled  to 
make  the  traditions  of  the  university  con- 
form to  the  necessities  of  the  law. 

Tracing  the  separate  paths  of  public 
and  private  institutions  is  not  easy, 
because  distinctions  can  be  unclear 
between  the  two  types  of  universities, 
between  state  and  federal  law,  and 
between  protected  rights  and  unprotected 
actions. 

Private  institutions  can  make  and 
enforce  their  own  rules  because  the  Con- 
stitution prohibits  only  state  actions  that 
restrict  rights.  Just  as  private  employers 
can  require  staff  to  quit  smoking,  wear 
suits,  or  submit  to  drug  tests,  private 
schools  can  require  students  to  obey  cur- 
fews, carry  I.D.  cards,  or  not  serve  beer 
at  on-campus  parties.  Yet  most  private 
colleges  also  recognize  the  value  of  giv- 
ing students  many  of  the  rights  and 
responsibilities  they  will  have  in  the 
"real  world"  while  the  students  are  still 
within  the  protecting  campus  walls. 

The  decisions  of  private  institutions 
can  be  more  difficult  and  painful  than 
those  of  a  court,  since  the  schools  must 
weigh  real  situations  not  only  against  the 
law  but  against  the  moral  ideal  of  a  col- 
lege or  university.  Administrators  often 
have  to  make  spur-of-the-moment 
choices:  When  must  a  demonstration  be 


stopped  because  it  interferes  with 
classes?  Should  a  newspaper  be  pub- 
lished even  if  it  offends  some  people? 
How  can  the  rights  of  an  individual  be 
weighed  against  the  needs  of  the  school? 
In  effect,  the  college  must  act  as  its  own 
court. 

Ever  since  the  precedent  set  by  Dixon, 
public  higher  educational  institutions 
have  been  considered  an  arm  of  the  state. 
Their  actions  are  therefore  the  "state 
actions"  that  the  Constitution  prohibits 
from  abridging  freedoms.  A  student  edi- 
tor claims  that  cutting  funds  for  a  paper 
publishing  racist  articles  undermines 
freedom  of  the  press.  A  teacher  sues  on 
the  grounds  that  the  tenure  system  vio- 
lates the  right  to  due  process.  Suddenly 
private,  sensitive  issues  become  a  matter 
for  the  courts.  Fortunately  for  universi- 
ties, the  courts  have  slowly  been  devel- 
oping a  legal  idea  of  academic  freedom 
that  in  many  ways  parallels  the  tradi- 
tional one.  In  a  landmark  1957  decision, 
Justice  Felix  Frankfurter  outlined  the 
"four  essential  freedoms  of  a  uni- 
versity—to determine  for  itself  on  aca- 
demic grounds  who  may  teach,  what 
may  be  taught,  how  it  shall  be  taught, 
and  who  may  be  admitted  to  study." 

Private  colleges  are  still  deciding  what 
they  will  permit,  just  as  the  courts  are 
still  wrestling  with  what  public  institu- 
tions can  legally  restrict.  Such  efforts 
will  not  end  soon.  Free  expression  and 
tenure  review  will  continue  to  be  critical 
campus  issues,  judging  from  the  new 
flurry  of  student  protest  and  the  high 
stakes  involved  for  faculty. 

This  year,  as  the  nation  commemorates 
the  bicentennial  of  the  Constitution,  the 
relationship  between  colleges  and  the 
Constitution  is  still  in  its  youth.  The 
union  is  far  from  being  a  perfect  one. 

Free  Speech: 

'60s  Legacy,  '80s  Issues 

Last  year,  Yale  sophomore  Wayne  Dick 
offended  a  large  part  of  the  campus  com- 
munity by  handing  out  fliers  parodying 
the  annual  Gay  and  Lesbian  Awareness 
Days  (GLAD)  as  Bestiality  Awareness 
Days  (BAD)  and  targeting  a  student 
activist  and  a  pro-gay-rights  professor. 
Yale's  board  found  Dick  guilty  of  harass- 
ment and  sentenced  him  to  two  years  of 
probation.  The  organizers  of  GLAD 
called  the  satire  slanderous  and  intimi- 
dating; the  law  school  dean  said  that 
Dick  "ought  to  be  ashamed  of  himself." 
Nat  Hentoff  of  The    Village   Voice 


MAY  1987       XIII 


helped  to  draw  national  attention  to  the 
case  as  an  issue  of  free  speech.  Had 
Wayne  Dick  really  stepped  outside  the 
bounds  of  protected  speech,  or  was  he 
just  being  punished  because  his  views 
were  unpopular?  Dick  asked  Yale  Presi- 
dent Benno  C.  Schmidt,  Jr.,  to  take 
another  look  at  the  decision.  Schmidt,  a 
constitutional  scholar,  had  been 
appointed  as  president  right  after  the  first 
ruling  in  Dick's  case.  In  his  inaugural 
address,  Schmidt  had  declared,  "There 
is  no  speech  so  horrendous  in  content 
that  it  does  not  in  principle  serve  our  pur- 
poses." At  the  second  hearing,  Schmidt 
pardoned  Dick.  The  incident  ended  in  a 
torrent  of  praise  for  the  value  of  free 
expression  in  higher  education. 

In  many  ways,  the  Dick  case  is  typical 
of  the  way  private  colleges  and  universi- 
ties handle  these  cases.  Dick's  less-than- 


"In  addition  to 
plain  and  simple 
First  Amendment 
censorship,  there's  a  very  strong 
education  interest  in  not  censor- 
ing what  students  have  to  say," 
notes  a  press  specialist. 


scholarly  means  of  expressing  his  opin- 
ion, and  the  fact  that  it  personally 
insulted  a  few  people  and  offended 
many,  led  to  the  first  decision  to  punish 
him.  But  over  time,  the  broad  issue  of 
protecting  freedom  of  speech  came  to 
outweigh  the  narrow  one  of  his  crude 
parody.  President  Schmidt  declared  that 
the  case  showed  "the  paramount  value 
an  academic  community  should  give  to 
freedom  of  expression,  even  to  expres- 
sion that  is  distasteful  or  silly." 

Because  the  Constitution  has  the  status 
of  an  honored  guest  rather  than  a  federal 
marshal  at  private  colleges,  these  institu- 
tions may  take  the  idea  of  free  speech  as 
an  educational  tool  a  step  further.  Some 
use  a  standard  similar  to  a  journalist's 
idea  of  "balance"  and  try  to  create  a  caf- 
eteria of  ideas  for  students.  Thus  they 


can  defend  inviting  Jeane  Kirkpatrick  or 
Jesse  Jackson  to  speak,  on  the  grounds 
that  the  college  is  not  endorsing  their 
views  but  offering  students  an  educa- 
tional opportunity. 

State  universities  don't  always  have 
the  luxury  of  forming  policy  from  princi- 
ple. In  1969,  in  the  Tinker  case,  the 
Supreme  Court  ruled  that  a  group  of  high 
school  students  was  entitled  to  wear 
black  armbands  in  protest  of  the  Vietnam 
War.  Even  more  important,  the  court  felt 
the  students  were  entitled  to  the  full 
range  of  First  Amendment  rights. 

This  decision  came  at  the  peak  of  an 
era  in  which  students'  desire  for  more 
involvement  in  politics  and  in  critical 
social  issues  had  led  to  a  national  "free 
speech"  movement  on  campus.  The 
movement,  a  symbol  of  student  activ- 
ism, began  in  1964  when  the  University 
of  California  at  Berkeley  took  action 
against  a  group  of  young  Republicans. 
They  had  brought  buses  on  campus  to 
transport  students  to  the  Republican 
National  Convention,  thus  breaking  a 
Berkeley  rule  against  political  activity  on 
school  property.  By  the  time  the  Berke- 
ley free  speech  movement  died  down, 
there  was  little  that  students  weren't 
allowed  to  say,  print,  distribute,  or  show 
on  campus. 

This  doesn't  mean  that  students  at  state 
schools  have  no  rules  to  obey.  They  must 
still  adhere  to  the  law  on  everything  from 
the  state's  legal  drinking  age  to  local  fire 
codes.  They  also  face  campus  discipline 
should  they  break  those  laws.  Just  two 
years  ago,  Berkeley  arrested  students 
protesting  against  investments  in  compa- 
nies doing  business  in  South  Africa.  The 
students  had  occupied  Sproul  Hall,  site 
of  many  of  the  free  speech  movement 
protests.  The  university  made  clear  that 
First  Amendment  rights  didn't  extend  to 
blocking  campus  buildings. 

The  Supreme  Court  agrees,  recogniz- 
ing that  some  restraints  on  free  expres- 
sion may  be  necessary  to  keep  the  peace 
on  campus.  Last  year,  in  Bethel  School 
District  No.  403  v.  Fraser,  the  high  court 
said  that  school  officials  had  the  right  to 
stop  a  student  government  candidate  at  a 
required  school  assembly  from  giving  a 
campaign  speech  packed  with  sexual 
puns.  Some  civil-rights  activists  criti- 
cized the  decision  as  backing  down  from 
Tinker.  Justice  William  Brennan  set  the 
limits  in  his  concurring  opinion:  "School 
officials  ...  do  [not]  have  limitless  dis- 
cretion to  apply  their  own  notions  of 
indecency.  Courts  have  a  responsibility 


to  insure  that  robust  rhetoric  ...  is  not 
suppressed  by  prudish  failures  to  distin- 
guish the  vigorous  from  the  vulgar." 

Just  as  the  actions  of  the  '60s  opened 
the  door  to  free  speech  on  campus,  the 
issues  of  the  '80s  may  force  schools  to 
decide  how  far  open  the  door  may  swing 
before  there  ceases  to  be  a  difference 
between  the  atmosphere  of  the  university 
and  the  rest  of  the  world.  Today's 
protests— on  such  issues  as  South  Afri- 
can investments  and  CIA  recruiting- 
take  aim  not  only  at  social  problems  but 
at  the  heart  of  the  university  itself.  Pro- 
testers demand  that  the  college  account 
for  its  investments,  defend  its  recruiting 
policies,  justify  whom  it  chooses  to 
honor,  and  explain  why  it  treats  the  sur- 
rounding community  as  it  does.  In  this 
new  age  of  protest,  higher  education  may 
be  pondering  how  great  a  blessing  liberty 
can  be  on  campus. 

Free  Press: 

The  Value  of  Many  Voices 

"The  vast  majority  of  calls  we  get  are 
problems  with  censorship,"  says  Mark 
Goodman,  executive  director  of  the  Stu- 
dent Press  Law  Center  in  Washington, 
D.C.  "The  most  frequent  topic  for  cen- 
sorship is  stories  that  are  critical  of  offi- 
cials or  school  policy.  We  have  calls 
from  college  newspapers  where  adminis- 
trations have  confiscated  copies  or  have 
fired  student  editors  or  suspended  them 
from  school." 

Often,  college  funds  are  used  to  sup- 
port publication  of  campus  papers;  at 
public  institutions,  public  funds  are  often 
involved  as  well.  Yet  because  the  Consti- 
tution bars  the  states  from  curtailing 
press  freedom,  student  papers  at  state 
schools  are  free  to  ridicule  the  board  of 
trustees,  to  refuse  to  advertise  gay 
dances,  or  to  reject  ads  for  the  Army.  In 
local  cases,  the  same  right  has  been 
extended  to  campus  humor  magazines, 
underground  papers,  and  political  tracts. 
With  so  many  types  of  publications, 
some  of  which  go  out  of  their  way  to 
shock  and  offend,  chances  are  good  that 
competing  activist  groups  or  administra- 
tors will  try  to  draw  the  line. 

College  editors  were  involved  in  about 
half  of  the  556  cases  reported  to  the  Stu- 
dent Press  Law  Center  last  year.  In  some 
instances,  school  administrators  failed  to 
understand  that  the  law  limits  their 
actions.  But  often  the  cases  centered  on 
hazy  legal  points:  Can  a  student  paper 
run  an  editorial  endorsing  political  candi- 


XTV       ALUMNI  MAGAZINE  CONSORTIUM 


dates?  Can  it  refuse  to  accept  "roommate 
wanted"  ads  that  specify  lesbian  room- 
mates only?  Because  the  Supreme  Court 
has  ruled  on  only  one  student  press  case 
(involving  an  underground  newspaper), 
most  state  courts  regard  the  issue  as  one 
of  first  hearing,  meaning  they  must  thor- 
oughly research  all  precedents  before 
hearing  the  case.  Student  editors  who'd 
rather  not  go  this  long  route,  even  with 
the  aid  of  civil  rights  attorneys,  often 
choose  to  settle  out  of  court. 

Student  journalists  at  private  schools 
don't  usually  have  the  option  of  taking 
legal  action  in  censorship  cases.  Instead, 
they  rely  on  the  school's  belief  in  free 
speech,  and  its  fear  of  bad  publicity,  to 
protect  their  independence.  A  current 
theory  that  a  clear-cut,  hands-off  policy 
may  protect  private  schools  from  libel 
suits  involving  student  publications  gives 
an  added  incentive  to  administrators  to 
keep  their  distance. 

"In  addition  to  plain  and  simple  First 
Amendment  censorship,"  Goodman 
says,  "there's  a  very  strong  educational 
interest  in  not  censoring  what  students 
have  to  say."  He  adds  that,  in  his  experi- 
ence, private  schools  "for  the  most  part 
recognize  the  serious  educational  utility 
of  not  censoring." 

At  many  institutions,  the  laissez-faire 
policy  has  grown  out  of  years  of  control 
and  confrontation.  As  the  newspaper  of 
record  for  a  Catholic  institution,  Vil- 
lanova  University's  award-winning 
weekly  paper  is  expected  to  reflect  the 
church's  teachings  on  such  sensitive 
issues  as  homosexuality  and  abortion. 
June  Lytel,  professor  of  English  and 
adviser  to  The  Villanovan  for  almost  13 
years,  says  that  "the  policy,  generally 
speaking,  has  evolved  over  the  years  into 
'Leave  well  enough  alone.'"  Where 
before,  administrators  would  have 
demanded  to  review  or  delete  articles, 
they  are  now  more  likely  to  trust  the  stu- 
dents to  demonstrate  a  sense  of  "social 
responsibility." 

In  addition,  college  officials  may  now 
be  more  conscious  that  free  speech  as  an 
issue  can  cause  more  trouble  than  free 
speech  as  a  fact.  Students  who  become 
campus  editors,  Lytel  says,  "are  bright 
and  interested,  but  they  tend  to  want  to 
be  remembered  as  having  championed  a 
cause."  Yet  she  adds,  among  administra- 
tors and  teachers,  "I  think  there's  been  a 
recognition  that  if  you  yak  about  some- 
thing as  if  it's  a  thunderstorm  when  it's 
just  a  breeze,  you  get  a  thunderstorm  in 
reaction." 


Professors  and  Privileges 

In  the  anticommunist  fervor  of  the  '50s, 
faculty  members  at  many  universities, 
public  and  private,  were  asked  to  sign 
loyalty  oaths  or  risk  losing  their  jobs.  But 
with  this  stunning  exception,  govern- 
ment regulation  of  faculty  has  been 
directed  mainly  at  teachers  in  public  pri- 
mary schools,  and  then  usually  at  the 
curriculum,  beginning  with  the  cele- 
brated Scopes  "monkey  trial."  In  1926, 
John  Scopes,  a  Tennessee  biology 
teacher,  was  found  guilty  of  breaking  a 
state  law  banning  the  teaching  of  evolu- 
tion. It  wasn't  until  1968  that  the 
Supreme  Court  reversed  the  Scopes  deci- 
sion, saying  that  the  state  had  no  right  to 
place  unconstitutional  restrictions  on  its 
employees. 

Efforts  to  silence  individual  teachers  in 
or  out  of  the  classroom  have  been  more 
common.  On  campus,  the  appearance  in 
recent  years  of  a  special  interest  group 
called  Accuracy  in  Academia  (AIA) 
raised  fears  of  a  resurgence  of  '50s-style 
political  censorship.  Using  student 
informants,  AIA  seeks  to  discover  and  to 
report  classroom  cases  of  "error"— 
usually  a  presumed  liberal  bias.  The 
group's  small  size  and  low  budget,  how- 
ever, make  it  less  of  a  real  threat  than  an 
ideological  one. 

Courts  have  ruled  against  restricting 
teachers'  free  expression  on  the  grounds 
of  public  interest.  The  country  needs 
good  teachers  and  cannot  afford  to  ban 
people  from  the  profession  because  of 
their  personal  beliefs  or  what  they  say  or 
do  outside  the  classroom.  In  1952,  in 
Wieman  v.  Updegraff,  Justice  Frank- 
furter offered  his  famous  opinion  that  "to 
regard  teachers— in  our  entire  educa- 
tional system,  from  the  primary  grades  to 
the  university— as  the  priests  of  our 
democracy  is  .  .  .  not  to  indulge  in 
hyperbole." 

In  the  close  quarters  of  a  university, 
where  personal  beliefs  and  principles  are 
eagerly  discussed,  it's  not  always  easy  to 
separate  protected  "extramural  utter- 
ance" from  the  personality  and  ideas  of 
teachers.  An  outspoken  critic  of  the 
administration  who  is  denied  tenure  may 
be  suffering  from  the  spillover  effects  of 
his  or  her  beliefs. 

Faculty  who  already  have  tenure  are 
generally  safe  from  attack.  But  "it  does 
come  out  earlier  within  the  career"  of 
younger  faculty,  as  well  as  while  a  candi- 
date is  applying  at  another  institution, 
notes  William  Van  Alstyne,  professor  of 


law  at  Duke  University  and  a  member  of 
AAUP's  Committee  A.  Senior  faculty 
may  have  opinions  quite  different  from 
those  of  junior  faculty  being  considered 
for  tenure.  "They  may  reason  their  way 
to  a  negative  vote  by  thinking  that,  if  the 
candidate  has  a  certain  belief,  it's  a  sign 
that  he  or  she  is  unfit,"  says  Van  Alstyne. 

Tenure  cases  center  more  often  on  due 
process  than  on  free  speech.  Due 
process,  a  provision  of  the  14th  Amend- 
ment, guarantees  that  fair  procedures 
will  be  used  by  the  government  in  deter- 
mining punishment  or  promotion.  In  ten- 
ure cases,  due  process  is  invoked  less 
frequently  than  the  Civil  Rights  Act, 
since  many  such  cases  center  on  charges 
of  discrimination.  But  due  process  does 
come  into  play  in  cases  like  Davies  v. 
Kahn. 

Last  year,  Stanford  University  invited 


"Athletes  may  be  subject  to 
special  kinds  of  discipline  and  regula- 
tion, but  that  doesn't  give  the 
university  carte 
blanche  to  violate  / 

their  rights,"  a  \  * 

lawyer  contends. 


Norman  Davies,  a  distinguished  scholar 
of  Eastern  European  history,  to  be  a  vis- 
iting professor.  Reviewers  had  praised 
his  book  on  the  history  of  Poland,  but 
noted  with  concern  that  the  work  paid 
almost  no  attention  to  the  role  of  anti- 
Semitism  in  Polish  history.  Davies 
wanted  to  join  the  full-time  faculty  at 
Stanford.  He  was  twice  considered  and 
rejected  for  a  tenured  position,  the  sec- 
ond time  after  a  close  vote. 

Davies  sued,  convinced  that  historian 
Harold  Kahn  and  other  faculty  members 
had  defamed  his  academic  reputation  and 
blocked  his  appointment.  A  lower  court 
ordered  Kahn  to  explain  in  a  deposition 
what  he  had  said,  written,  and  done  in 
the  faculty  meeting.  The  appeals  court 
later  overturned  that  ruling. 

Matthew  Finkin  of  the  AAUP  praises 


MAY  1987       XV 


the  appeals  court  for  "facing  the  music" 
of  a  difficult  question.  "There's  no  such 
thing  as  a  defamatory  idea,"  he  says. 
"The  court  came  to  grips  with  the  fact 
that  there's  a  conflict  of  values  between 
the  need  to  protect  against  defamation 
and  to  allow  scholarly  debate." 

Freedom  of  speech  for  faculty  has 
been  well  established,  not  only  because 
it  is  in  the  tradition  of  academic  freedom 
but  because  it  is  in  the  interest  of  educa- 
tion. But  when  faculty  members  sign 
research  contracts,  either  for  the  govern- 
ment or  for  private  industry,  they  may 
lose  many  of  their  privileges. 

Most  schools  have  strict  guidelines  on 
what  limits  companies  can  place  on 
researchers— whether,  for  example, 
someone  developing  a  new  widget  for  a 
corporate  sponsor  can  be  required  to 
agree  not  to  publish  articles  on  widget 
design  theory  in  technical  journals.  Gov- 
ernment control,  however,  can  extend 
well  beyond  the  bounds  of  a  contract.  On 
grounds  of  security,  the  government 
requires  some  employees  to  submit 
everything  they  intend  to  publish  for 
review;  this  rule  has  been  applied  to  pro- 
fessors engaged  in  government  research. 

Some  faculty  may  be  so  eager  for 
grants  that  they  sign  contracts  without 
fully  understanding  the  consequences, 
Van  Alstyne  says.  But,  he  adds,  "the 
AAUP  cannot  have  these  things  judged 
wholly  according  to  volition  or  nonvoli- 
tion  of  the  participants.  Most  of  us  [at  the 
AAUP]  have  taken  the  view  that,  what 
the  government  can't  do  by  statute,  it 
can't  do  by  contract."  Some  restraints, 
for  example  on  publishing  very  sensitive 
military  work,  may  be  appropriate.  But 
at  some  point,  he  says,  the  restrictions 
would  greatly  change  "a  university  in  the 
sense  that  we  now  understand  it.  We  all 
draw  lines  of  some  kind,  but  the  hazard 
is  there:  the  doctrine  of  the  opening 
wedge." 

Search  and  Seizure's 
Latest  Challenge 

No  recent  civil  rights  issue  has  caused 
greater  concern  than  that  of  drug  testing, 
which  pits  the  desperate  national  need  to 
control  drug  abuse  against  one  of  the 
gravest  invasions  of  privacy  imaginable. 
The  question  is  creeping  into  colleges  by 
way  of  the  sports  field.  The  National 
Collegiate  Athletic  Association  (NCAA) 
policy  of  drug  tests  for  national  athletic 
events  has  led  many  universities  to  start 
their  own  testing  programs.  They  don't 


want  to  be  embarrassed  should  their 
teams  make  it  to  national  competitions 
and  fail  the  drug  tests. 

A  typical  program  at  the  University  of 
Colorado  involves  random  testing  not 
only  of  players  but  of  student  trainers 
and  cheerleaders.  An  uncomfortable 
aspect  of  the  program  is  that  it  requires  a 
coach  or  faculty  member  to  be  present 
during  urine  collection  to  prevent  fraud. 

The  Fourth  Amendment  protects  citi- 
zens against  unreasonable  search  and  sei- 
zure, requiring  "probable  cause,"  or  rea- 
son for  suspicion,  before  a  court  will 
issue  a  search  warrant.  David  Miller,  an 
attorney  with  the  Colorado  Civil  Liber- 
ties Union,  which  has  filed  suit  against 
the  university,  believes  that  probable 
cause  is  at  the  heart  of  the  issue.  "The 
NCAA's  own  studies  show  there's  less 
drug  use  among  athletes  than  among  the 
general  population,"  he  says.  "Athletes 
may  be  subject  to  special  kinds  of  disci- 
pline and  regulation,  but  that  doesn't 
give  the  university  carte  blanche  to  vio- 
late their  fundamental  constitutional 
rights  in  a  most  egregious  fashion." 

But  just  as  in  cases  of  drug  testing  on 
the  job,  the  right  to  privacy  must  be 
weighed  against  the  value  of  inhibiting 
drug  use.  Athletes  are  already  subject  to 
restricted  diets,  mandatory  workouts, 
and  regulated  schedules.  Why  shouldn't 
they  submit  to  drug  tests  in  return  for  the 
privilege  of  being  on  a  team? 

Although  some  of  the  legal  questions 
may  be  the  same,  the  difference  between 
a  bed  check  and  a  urine  sample  is  the 
degree  of  intrusion  and  seriousness  of  the 
consequences.  At  the  University  of  Col- 
orado, students  who  test  positive  for 
drugs  are  taken  off  the  team  but  are  not 
reported  to  the  police.  Presumably,  a 
university  has  an  interest  in  helping  stu- 
dents get  off  drugs,  not  sending  them  to 
jail.  Yet,  says  Judd  Goldin,  a  private 
attorney  working  on  the  case,  "all  it 
would  take  would  be  a  tough  prosecutor" 
to  obtain  the  records  and  prosecute  the 
students.  "There's  some  irony  there,"  he 
adds.  "They  say  they're  playing  police, 
but  they're  really  not." 

In  March,  a  Stanford  senior  became 
the  first  student  athlete  to  win  a  case 
against  the  NCAA's  drug-testing  policy. 
Simone  LeVant  considered  the  policy  to 
be  "patronizing  and  paternalistic"  and 
an  invasion  of  her  privacy.  In  ruling  in 
her  favor,  a  California  Supreme  Court 
judge  called  the  testing  policy  "over- 
broad," intrusive,  and  unconstitutional. 
He  blocked  the  NCAA  from  barring  her 


from  a  diving  competition  after  she  had 
refused  to  sign  a  form  consenting  to  uri- 
nalysis. The  decision,  although  based  on 
the  right-to-privacy  clause  in  the  Califor- 
nia Constitution,  may  be  so  broad  that  it 
could  sack  the  whole  drug  testing  pro- 
gram, LeVant's  lawyers  contend. 

The  scarcity  of  lawsuits  may  be  due  to 
the  fact  that,  so  far,  drug  testing  applies 
only  to  what  might  be  called  a  special- 
interest  group  of  students.  Says  Art  Spit- 
zer,  an  attorney  with  the  ACLU's  Wash- 
ington, D.C.,  affiliate,  "I  think  if  the 
university  tried  to  extend  the  policy  to 
non-athletic  teams  like  the  intercollegiate 
debate  team,  we  might  get  a  plaintiff. 
Student  athletes  aren't  interested  in  liti- 
gation, they're  interested  in  playing." 

Rights  and  Religion 

In  1940,  when  the  AAUP  issued  its 
Statement  of  Principles  on  Academic 
Freedom  and  Tenure,  it  allowed  univer- 
sities to  make  clearly  stated  exceptions 
"because  of  religious  or  other  aims  of  the 
institution."  But  changes  both  in  reli- 
gious denominations  and  in  the  universi- 
ties have  made  such  distinctions  largely 
unnecessary.  The  AAUP's  1970  Inter- 
pretive Comments  on  the  Statement  indi- 
cated that  "most  church-related  institu- 
tions no  longer  need  or  desire  the 
departure  from  the  principle  of  academic 
freedom  implied  in  the  1940  Statement, 
and  we  do  not  now  endorse  such  a  depar- 
ture." 

Like  employees  anywhere,  instructors 
at  colleges  or  universities  with  a  religious 
affiliation  are  aware  that  they  may  have 
to  give  up  certain  rights  for  the  privilege 
of  teaching  there. 

Spitzer  of  the  ACLU  wrote  a  brief  on 
behalf  of  Georgetown  University  last 
year  after  some  students  sued  to  be  able 
to  establish  a  gay  interest  group  on  cam- 
pus. "Many  private  universities  take  the 
position  that  part  of  what  they're  here  to 
teach  is  respect  for  the  same  principles 
that  underlie  the  First  Amendment," 
Spitzer  says.  "There  are  others  whose 
whole  purpose  is  to  serve  some  less  uni- 
versal goal.  There's  no  copyright  on  the 
word  university,  no  reason  a  gay  group 
can't  set  up  a  gay  university.  A  private 
university  is  within  its  moral  rights  to 
say,  'We  believe  in  freedom  of  speech, 
but  there  are  certain  other  things  that  we 
believe  in,  too.'" 

Julia  Ridgely  is  assistant  editor  of  the 
Alumni  Magazine  Consortium. 


XVI       ALUMNI  MAGAZINE  CONSORTIUM 


THE  ENTREPRENEURIAL  SPIRIT 


SIXTH  IN  A  SERIES 


A  Peddler's  Tale 


Scene  1:  Institute  Park,  early 
1900s.  A  boy  brings  lunch  to  his 
dad,  who's  on  break  from  the 
American  Steel  and  Wire  Com- 
pany in  Worcester's  Northworks  build- 
ing. From  their  spot  on  a  knoll  in  the 
Park,  they  look  up  at  Worcester  Tech, 
the  college  on  the  hill.  "Someday,"  says 
the  father,  "I'd  like  to  see  you  go  there." 
The  boy  smiles  and  nods. 
Scene  2:  Various  locations,  spanning 
many  decades.  As  the  boy  grows  into  a 
man,  his  successes  are  many.  In  Worces- 
ter, New  York,  and  cities  throughout  the 
country,  he  quietly  makes  a  name  for 
himself  in  manufacturing  circles.  He 
does  attend  the  college  on  the  hill,  but 
only  for  a  year. 


Whether  you're  selling 

milk,  wire,  or  ball 

bearings,  it's  all  a 

matter  of  finding 

yourself  a  niche,  says 

0.  Vincent  Gustafson. 

Photos  by  Robert  S.  Arnold 


By  Michael  Shanley 


Scene  3:  Harrington  Auditorium,  Wor- 
cester Polytechnic  Institute,  May  1985. 
Sixty  years  after  leaving  WPI,  the  boy- 
turned-man  is  on  stage  before  thousands 
of  graduating  seniors,  parents,  and  hon- 
ored guests.  He  steps  forward  to  receive 
an  honorary  doctor  of  engineering 
degree.  Unlike  the  graduates,  he  looks 
not  to  the  future  but  to  the  past.  He 
thinks  of  lunches  in  the  Park.  He  thinks 
of  his  father.  He  thinks,  "I  finally  got  it." 

These  episodes  chronicle  a 
part  of  the  life  of  O.  Vincent 
Gustafson  '29,  a  man  too 
restless  to  be  contained  by 
the  four  walls  of  a  classroom. 

"I  never  felt  I  was  ready  for  WPI,"  he 
admits,  meaning  never  quite  ready  to 


SPRING  1987       31 


slow  down  long  enough  to  earn  a  degree. 
"I  saw  too  many  things  that  could  be 
done  outside." 

It's  not  surprising,  really,  when  you 
consider  that  Gustafson  had  a  series  of 
successful  business  enterprises  already 
under  his  belt  by  the  time  he  hit  college. 
Not  surprising  once  you  understand  that 
in  his  early  teens  he  had  eight  or  10  kids 
working  for  him  in  his  newspaper  distri- 
bution business.  Not  surprising  after 
you've  grasped  this  astonishing  fact: 
before  he  was  18  years  old  he  had  saved 
$5,000,  a  small  fortune  by  1920s  stan- 
dards. 

"I  peddled  papers  every  day  of  the 
week— mornings,  nights,  and  Sundays," 
explains  the  founder  and  chairman  of 
Worcester's  Lundquist  Tool  &  Manufac- 
turing Company.  "On  top  of  that,  I 
worked  on  farms  throughout  the  area,  or 
in  a  nearby  factory,  standing  on  a  box, 
turning  wooden  ice  pick  and  screwdriver 
handles  on  a  lathe.  There  were  no  labor 
laws— and  no  deductions  from  your  pay, 
either." 

But  as  he  learned  to  climb,  he  also 
learned  to  fall.  In  the  Great  Crash  of  '29, 
he  lost  nearly  all  of  that  $5,000  and 
whatever  else  he  had  saved.  "I'd  been 
playing  the  stock  market  even  when  I 
was  selling  papers,"  Gustafson  explains. 
"In  '29,  when  I  was  at  American  Steel  & 
Wire,  I  saw  RCA  stock  fall  from  105  to 
6  or  7  in  a  matter  of  weeks." 

It  wasn't  the  last  time  he  would  take  a 
beating.  Throughout  his  career  he  would 
take  risks,  reaping  the  rewards  and 
accepting  the  losses.  Even  in  recent 
years,  as  a  venture  capitalist,  he  has  suf- 
fered setbacks  among  the  triumphs.  A 
consummate  entrepreneur,  though,  he 
discusses  losses  and  gains  in  the  same 
evenhanded  manner. 

Gustafson  learned  early  how  to  roll 
with  the  punches  in  the  capricious  world 
of  big  business. 

"After  my  first  year  at  Tech,  my 
brother,  Russell,  and  I  bought  a  6,000- 
quart  milk  business  on  Union  Street,"  the 
Worcester  native  explains.  "The  milk 
came  by  train  from  New  Hampshire  to 
the  Lincoln  Square  freight  depot.  After 
about  six  months,  we  were  served  with 
papers  notifying  us  that  there  were  chat- 
tel mortgages  on  two  of  our  four  pasteur- 
izers. We  were  just  kids  and  our  lawyer 
had  neglected  to  tell  us  about  the  mort- 
gages. So  we  lost  the  business"— and 
went  on  to  the  next. 

He  planned  to  begin  his  sophomore 
year  at  WPI  in  February  of  1926,  but  at 


32       WPI  JOURNAL 


the  time  the  college  didn't  permit  stu- 
dents to  begin  their  studies  midway 
through  the  year. 

"My  father  had  worked  for  many 
years  at  American  Steel  &  Wire  at 
North  works.  That  was  back  when  it  was 
one  of  the  greatest  wire  mills  in  the 
world.  He  got  me  a  job,  but  the  only 
hours  available  were  from  7  o'clock  in 
the  evening  to  6  o'clock  in  the  morning." 

For  the  next  four  years,  he  learned  the 
wire  business,  moving  from  the  produc- 
tion line  to  a  supervisory  position.  When 
he  had  time,  he  took  classes  at  North- 
eastern University's  extension  at  the 
Worcester  YMCA.  To  complete  the 
required  lab  work,  he'd  take  the  Saturday 
train  to  Northeastern 's  Boston  campus. 

At  the  same  time,  Gustafson  was 
involved  in  another  venture  with  his 
brother.  "After  the  milk  business  went 
under,  we  bought  a  hay  and  grain  store  at 
Lincoln  Square.  We  sold  paint  and  glass, 
oil,  and  chemicals — everything  people 
needed  around  their  houses  or  farms. 

Eventually,  Gustafson  became  chief 
wire  inspector  at  American  Steel.  To  get 
an  idea  of  the  magnitude  of  the  operation 
at  Northworks,  consider  this:  there  were 
12,000  to  14,000  people  working  in  that 
one  division.  (Worcester  as  a  wire  mill 
center  had  about  25,000  workers  in  the 
industry.) 

But  it  was  the  mid- 1930s;  Europe  was 
on  the  verge  of  war,  and  production  in 
factories  like  American  Steel  would  soon 
be  regulated  by  the  government. 

At  about  that  time,  in  1935,  Gustafson 
was  approached  by  a  New  York  City- 
based  company  that  represented  three 
Swedish  steel  mills.  (American  Steel  got 
its  raw  material  from  Sweden,  home  to 


the  world's  purest  supply  of  ore.) 

The  company,  Ekstrand  &  Tholand, 
Inc. ,  was  looking  for  a  sharp  young  man 
with  a  knowledge  of  the  steel  and  wire 
industry.  And  it  wouldn't  hurt  if  he  could 
speak  and  read  a  bit  of  Swedish. 

"I  was  frightened  to  death,"  says  Gus- 
tafson of  the  prospect  of  moving  to  New 
York.  "After  all,  I  was  just  little  Vinny 
from  Worcester." 

But  little  Vinny  was  too  smart  to  turn  it 
down. 

He  went  to  New  York  and  for  the  next 
six  years  traveled  the  eastern  part  of  the 
nation,  logging  by  car  up  to  70,000  miles 
a  year.  He  sold,  among  other  products, 
the  wire  that  eliminated  sticky  valves  in 
automobiles,  a  breakthrough  that  is  still 
used  today. 

As  with  most  who  are  successful,  Gus- 
tafson wasn't  afraid  to  get  his  hands 
dirty.  He  was  a  product  engineer,  but  he 
did  whatever  had  to  be  done. 

"In  those  days,"  he  recalls,  "the 
Swedish  ships  came  in  on  57th  Street- 
Pier  97.  But  no  rail  freight  went  out  of 
Manhattan.  It  all  had  to  be  shipped  by 
barge  across  the  Hudson  River  to  the 
New  Jersey  side,  where  rail  traffic  dis- 
tributed it  throughout  the  country.  So  if 
your  ship  was  running  five  days  late 
because  of  the  weather,  and  you  had  to 


O.  Vincent  Gustafson  '29  and  Don 
Bouthillier,  quality  assurance  manager 
at  Lundquist,  make  adjustments  to  a 
state-of-the-art  computerized  coordi- 
nate measuring  machine  able  to  per- 
form statistical  analysis  and  statistical 
process  control  on  machined  orfabri- 
catedparts. 


get  your  steel  across  the  river  that  night 
and  get  it  on  its  way  to  Detroit,  well, 
you'd  be  down  there  on  the  pier,  with 
pails  of  beer  or  whatever  it  took  to  get 
the  shipment  moving,  to  get  that  barge 
up  against  the  side  of  the  ship  by  the 
hatch  doors  so  the  steel  could  be  dumped 
out  from  the  belly.  Many  a  day  I  stayed 
at  the  docks  until  I  saw  the  barge  sail 
across  the  river." 

J'  ust  as  Gustafson  juggled  several 
business  interests  as  a  teenager,  he 
dabbled  in  other  projects  while 
working  for  Ekstrand  &  Tholand. 
e  became  treasurer  of  General  Steel 
Warehouse  Company  of  Chicago,  an 
arm  of  E  &  K  with  huge  warehouses  in 
Cleveland,  Detroit,  Chicago,  Los 
Angeles,  and  Toronto. 

He  was  also  director  and  manager  of 
the  eastern  plant  of  Koebel  Diamond 
Tool  Company,  a  position  he  would  hold 
until  1974.  He  would  later  transfer  to 
Lundquist  the  Koebel  procedure  for  pro- 
cessing diamonds  with  iron  powder. 

And  of  course  he  was  dabbling  in  the 
stock  market  and  generally  keeping  his 
eyes  open  for  new  opportunities. 

"All  this  time,  though,"  he  notes,  "the 
war  in  Europe  continued  to  boil.  And 
even  though  neither  Sweden  nor  the 
United  States  were  in  the  war,  we  began 
to  lose  shipments  at  sea,  and  it  was 
becoming  impossible  to  supply  the 
assembly  lines  properly.  The  company 
was  losing  its  purpose." 

The  government  was  urging  people 
like  Gustafson  to  apply  their  skills  to  the 
war  effort. 

Expecting  to  be  drafted,  the  35-year- 
old  Gustafson  returned  to  Worcester  and 
took  a  position  with  Johnson  Steel  & 
Wire  Company. 

"At  that  time,"  he  explains,  "all  the 
great  Russian  and  European  cities  had 
what  were  called  anti-barrage  balloons  in 
the  air.  They  were  up  30,000  or  40,000 
feet,  and  the  German  planes  would  hit 
them  and  they'd  fall.  Since  the  balloons 
were  blown  around  violently  in  the  wind, 
it  took  fabulous  wire  to  make  the  cables 
that  held  them. 

"Johnson  Wire  was  a  mill  of  fence, 
barbed,  and  'common  product'  wire.  I 
became  their  general  manager  and 
helped  them  get  started  in  high-quality, 
high-tensile  cable  work." 

By  this  time,  Gustafson  knew  the  busi- 
ness as  few  others  did.  As  with  most  who 
become  experts,  the  knowledge  grew 
from  an  abiding  love  of  the  subject  mat- 


Gustafson  at 
Lundquist's  optical 
comparator,  which 
magnifies  fabricated 
parts  to  enable  test- 
ing of  sphericity  and 
linear  dimensions. 


ter.  Ask  him  what  makes  good  wire,  for 
example,  and  he'll  answer,  "What 
makes  good  wire  is  the  same  thing  that 
makes  good  people.  If  your  genes  are 
good,  and  you're  brought  up  right, 
chances  are  you'll  be  a  good  person.  In 
the  same  way,  if  you've  got  good,  clean 
ore,  and  your  production  process  is 
meticulous,  you'll  get  good  wire." 

It's  no  accident  that  Swedes  have  been 
at  the  forefront  of  the  steel  and  wire 
industry,  both  in  Worcester  and  through- 
out the  world. 

"The  Scandinavian  countries  have 
been  in  the  business  from  day  one,"  Gus- 
tafson explains.  "And  it's  because 
they've  got  the  ore  there.  So  when  some- 
one in  America  wanted  to  start  a  quality 
steel  or  wire  business,  they  went  to  Swe- 
den to  get  the  people  to  run  it." 

Instead  of  being  drafted  into  active 
military  service  after  returning  to 
Worcester,  Gustafson  was  deferred 
to  work  as  a  civilian  helping  the 
U.S.  produce  high-quality  steel.  A  rod 
mill  was  taken  over  in  Johnstown,  Pa., 
and  cleaned  up  to  make  top-grade  rods. 
The  rods  were  then  shipped  to  Worces- 
ter, where  Johnson  Wire  produced  wire 
and  other  products  for  the  war  effort. 

When  the  war  was  finally  over,  Gus- 
tafson bought  at  auction  a  company 


called  Lundquist  Tool. 

"It  had  no  business  and  was  closed 
down,"  Gustafson  says.  "I  just  bought 
the  facilities." 

He  had  an  idea— several,  actually. 

"While  I  was  in  New  York,  one  of  the 
Swedish  companies  that  was  a  member 
of  the  consortium  I  worked  for  had  prod- 
ucts called  iron  powder  and  sponge  iron. 
The  ore  in  Sweden  is  so  rich  that  it  runs 
about  96  or  97  percent  iron  right  from  the 
top  of  the  ground.  The  only  impurities 
are  sticks  and  stones  and  sand.  [Here  in 
the  U.S.,  on  the  other  hand,  the  ore  has 
high  percentages  of  impurities  such  as 
phosphorous  and  sulphur.] 

"Once  you've  screened  off  the  sticks 
and  stones,  you've  got  sand  [silicon]  and 
iron.  As  you  heat  that  up  in  furnaces,  it 
becomes  just  about  the  purest  iron  you 
can  get.  It  drops  onto  a  conveyor  belt 
like  a  cow  flop.  If  you  break  a  "cake,"  as 
we  call  it,  it's  like  molasses  candy— the 
silicon  turned  to  glass,  and  it  was  pure 
iron." 

In  the  big  mills  that  were  making  high- 
quality  steel  for  machining  parts,  he 
says,  they  would  throw  tons  of  these 
sponge  iron  cakes  into  the  furnaces— or 
heats— to  balance  the  chemistry  because 
it  was  a  known  element. 

From  Lundquist  Tool,  Gustafson  sold 
shiploads  of  cakes. 


SPRING  1987       33 


"We  also  ground  them  up  and 
screened  them  out  just  like  flour.  One  of 
the  first  products  that  material  was  used 
for  was  to  make  bearings  for  refrigera- 
tors, vacuum  cleaners,  and  any  other 
kind  of  equipment  that  had  bearings  you 
couldn't  lubricate." 

When  Gustafson  had  witnessed  this 
process  years  before  in  New  York,  it  led 
him  to  get  involved  in  another  of  his 
many  business  ventures.  "Back  in  1935, 
the  Koebel  Diamond  Tool  Company  in 
Detroit  developed  a  process  for  setting 
diamonds  in  iron  powder." 

Gustafson  became  manager  of  that 
company's  eastern  plant.  During  the  war 
years,  it  was  one  of  the  leading  suppliers 
of  diamond  tools  to  general  and  aircraft 
manufacturers. 

After  buying  Lundquist,  Gustafson 
brought  the  diamond  powder  toolmaking 
process  to  Worcester. 

"At  one  time,"  says  Gustafson  from 
his  corner  office  on  what  is  now  the 
administrative  wing  at  Lundquist,  "we 
had  about  50  people  on  this  floor  making 
diamond  tools.  And  at  another  location, 
we  had  about  30  people  making  six-foot- 
diameter  diamond  circular  saws  for  cut- 
ting stone  in  quarries." 

Eventually,  the  saw  business  was  sold 
to  a  company  in  Oregon  and  the  diamond 
tool  business  to  Norton  Company. 

"I  was  more  or  less  independent  wher- 
ever I  went,"  Gustafson  explains.  "I 
hired  myself  that  way  so  I  could  always 
have  two  or  three  other  things  going." 

During  the  war,  Gustafson  had 
received  advice  from  some  of  the  friends 
he  had  established  at  General  Electric 
plants  throughout  the  region. 

"  'Vinny,'  they  said,  'get  a  stamping 
plant  or  a  screw  machine  plant  and  go 
after  business  from  GE's  new  clock  divi- 
sion.' During  the  war,  electric  clocks 
weren't  made,  and  they  were  predicting 
a  booming  business  after  the  war  was 
over. 

"So  I  was  keeping  my  eyes  out  for  a 
place  where  I  could  make  tools  and 
stampings." 

After  acquiring  Lundquist  Tool,  Gus- 
tafson was  ready  to  fill  GE's  need  for  a 
plant  to  produce  parts  for  clocks  and  tim- 
ers. This  move  would  continue  one  of 
Gustafson's  lifelong  business  practices— 
"niche-filling." 

"There  are  areas  of  production  that  I 
call  the  'niche-fillers  of  the  world.'  They 
don't  have  to  be  especially  large  or  visi- 
ble, but  they  fulfill  a  definite  need.  If  you 
have  a  specialty  product,  you  can  proba- 


The  80-year-old  Gustafson  is  still  very 
much  on  the  move  at  Lundquist  and 
several  other  business  ventures  that 
compete  successfully  with  both  foreign 
companies  and  American  industrial 
giants. 


bly  stay  alive,  even  in  times  as  competi- 
tive as  today's." 

It  was  this  same  theory  that  led  Gustaf- 
son in  the  late  1950s  to  start  making 
bearings,  which  to  this  day  are  Lund- 
quist's  bread  and  butter. 

Today,  when  times  are  hard  for  com- 
panies like  Lundquist,  the  "niche- 
filling"  theory  is  a  lifesaving  device. 

"In  the  last  couple  of  decades,  tech- 
nology has  been  transferred  all  over  the 
world,"  Gustafson  notes.  "Where  once 
only  certain  American  companies  could 
produce  certain  products,  now  they  can 
be  produced  almost  anywhere.  American 
companies  have  been  forced  to  stream- 
line. They  can  no  longer  live  in  a  10- 
room  house  when  they  need  only  seven. 
They  have  to  fight  for  their  market  share 
now." 

Lundquist,  with  about  120  employees, 
(and  another  30  or  so  at  Lutco  Bearings, 
where  much  of  the  assembly  work  is 
done)  has  stayed  alive  by  finding  a  niche. 

"The  Japanese  will  come  over  here 
and  cut  their  prices  to  the  bone  for  a  five- 
million-piece  metal  parts  order,"  Gustaf- 
son contends.  "But  they're  not  so  inter- 
ested in  the  5,000-piece  orders.  We'll 
take  those  5,000-piece  orders,  and  fight 
for  our  share  of  the  bigger  orders— we 
still  get  some  of  those,  too. 

"In  the  bearing  business,  for  example, 
we  specialize  in  things  like  materials 
handling  equipment— farm  machinery, 
front-end  loaders,  fire  engines— and 
hinge  bearings  for  use  in  doors  that  just 
can't  fail— in  places  like  submarines.  We 
also  make  special  metal  parts  for  compa- 
nies like  GE  and  Xerox." 

Gustafson  knows  what  it's  like  to  lose 
the  battle  to  new  industrial  giants  like 
Japan.  New  England  High  Carbon  Wire 
Corporation,  of  Millbury,  a  company  he 
and  seven  other  area  businessmen 
acquired  in  1958,  closed  in  1980,  a  casu- 
alty of  the  new  global  economy. 

"At  one  time,  we  had  500  workers  in 
that  plant,"  he  recalls.  "And  we  were 
one  of  the  world's  biggest  producers  of 
specialty  high  carbon  and  alloy  wires. 
But  in  the  late  '70s,  we  fell  victim  to  the 
'Japanese  invasion.'  " 


These  days,  the  80-year-old 
Gustafson  says  he's  passing 
off  most  of  the  business 
responsibilities  to  the  youn- 
ger generation  (his  son-in-law,  John 
Stone,  is  president  of  Lundquist),  but 
you  wouldn't  know  it  by  looking  at  a  list 
of  his  activities. 

As  a  venture  capitalist,  he's  got  a  stake 
in  seven  or  eight  different  companies,  all 
in  the  manufacturing  arena.  "To  keep 
things  straight,  I  have  a  briefcase  for 
each  company,"  he  says  with  a  chuckle. 
Of  his  relative  success  over  the  years,  he 
offers,  "I'm  batting  better  than  .500. 
I've  lost  my  share,  but  I've  done  all 
right. 

Beyond  that,  he  holds  a  slew  of  direc- 
torships and  civic  positions.  He's  worked 
tirelessly  as  a  volunteer  for  a  host  of 
regional  agencies. 

"I'll  probably  never  retire,"  he  muses. 
"I  love  it  too  much,  and  I'm  too  rest- 
less." 

Still,  he  hopes  to  do  a  lot  more  travel- 
ing, and  looks  forward  to  spending  more 
time  gardening  and  working  outdoors 
with  his  large  family.  But  always  there'll 
be  irons  in  the  fire. 

"I've  always  been  a  peddler,  and  that's 
all  I've  ever  wanted  to  be,"  he  says, 
"I'm  willing  to  work,  I'm  willing  to 
spend  the  time  on  a  job,  and  I'm  not 
afraid  to  learn.  Practically  anybody  can 
succeed  in  a  given  situation,  if  they  dedi- 
cate themselves." 

Then,  as  an  afterthought,  he  adds, 
"But  you've  also  got  to  be  willing  to 
gamble." 

Will,  dedication,  and  a  dash  of  cour- 
age: a  prescription  for  entrepreneurial 
success,  a  characterization  of  the  life  of 
O.  Vincent  Gustafson. 

Michael  Shanley  is  a  freelance  writer  liv- 
ing in  Holden,  Mass. 


34       WPI  JOURNAL 


The  Interactive  Qualifying  Project 

continues  to  be  one  of  the  Plan's  most 

distinctive  features.  In  fact,  many 

graduates  see  their  professional  lives  as 

an  endless  stream  of  IQPs. 

The  IQP: 

A  Broader 

View  from 

the  Hill 


By  Paul  Susca 

Photos  by  Robert  S.  Arnold 


Imagine  a  country  where  a  third  or 
more  of  the  population  live  in  refu- 
gee camps.  You  could  be  thinking 
about  Somalia,  where  years  of  civil 
unrest  and  famine  in  western  Africa  have 
swept  one  to  two  million  people  into  the 
camps.  But  today,  solar  technology 
offers  a  shred  of  independence  to  the  ref- 
ugees, who  depend  on  government  aid 
for  their  daily  existence. 

Photovoltaics— solar  cells  that  turn  the 
sun's  energy  into  electricity— could  gen- 
erate the  power  needed  to  pump  water 
for  the  refugees  at  a  fraction  of  what  the 
Somalian  government  now  spends  on 
imported  diesel  fuel.  Solar  energy's  reli- 
ability,  independence,   and  low  cost 


Randall  Briggs  '86  (previous  page) 
was  a  winner  of  last  year's  Presi- 
dent's IQP  Award  for  his  research 
on  waste  problems  that  would 
result  from  industrial  activity  on 
the  moon. 


make  it  ideal  for  Somalia's  refugee 
camps,  says  physics  major  Nancy  Teas- 
dale  '88.  But  even  those  advantages  are 
not  enough,  she  points  out;  there  are 
social  factors  that  keep  photovoltaics 
(PV)  out  of  the  camps. 

Teasdale  is  in  the  midst  of  her  IQP— 
Interactive  Qualifying  Project— on  solar- 
powered  water  pumping  systems  in 
Somalia's  teeming  refugee  camps.  But 
her  work  has  taken  her  far  beyond  under- 
standing the  operating  characteristics  of 
modular  solar  cells  and  the  maintenance 
requirements  of  submersible  pumps. 
Understanding  how  the  solar  cells  and 
pumps  would  function  in  a  larger  socio- 
political system— and  whether  they  rep- 
resent "appropriate  technology"  for  the 
refugees'  needs— has  required  Teasdale 
to  delve  into  cultural  practices  of  the  ref- 
ugees, attitudes  of  the  native  govern- 
ment,  the  role  of  international   relief 


agencies,  and  the  political  situation  in  the 
region. 

If  those  subjects  sound  foreign  to  the 
milieu  of  engineers  or  scientists,  then 
Teasdale  has  chosen  her  topic  well,  for 
that  is  the  intent  of  the  IQP.  A  degree 
requirement  for  WPI  undergraduates 
since  1973,  the  IQP  calls  on  students  to 
"define,  investigate,  and  report  on  a 
topic  of  their  choice  relating  science  and/ 
or  technology  to  some  social  need  or 
issue,"  according  to  Dr.  Lance  Schach- 
terle,  chairman  of  the  Division  of  Inter- 
disciplinary Affairs  (DIA),  which  over- 
sees IQP  work  done  by  every  WPI 
undergraduate. 

Both  "science  and  technology"  and 
"social  need  or  issue"  are  defined  rather 
broadly  by  the  program.  Indeed,  IQPs 
completed  during  recent  years  included 
writing  an  expanded  canoe  guide  to  the 
Nashua  River,  evaluating  the  55-m.p.h. 

Junior  Nancy  Teasdale  holds  a 
latest-generation  solar  photovol- 
taic cell,  a  module  that  can  be 
used  singly  or  in  arrays  up  to  the 
tens  of  thousands,  enabling  gener- 
ation of  electricity  in  even  the 
poorest,  most  remote  regions  of 
the  world. 


speed  limit,  and  investigating  sex  dis- 
crimination in  the  sciences  and  engineer- 
ing. And  one  of  this  year's  recipients  of 
the  President's  IQP  Award  focused  on 
programs  to  educate  high  school  students 
about  careers  in  engineering. 

The  rationale  behind  such  a  wide- 
ranging  program  lies  in  its  goals.  In 
order  to  encourage  engineering,  science, 
and  management  students  to  become 
more  aware  of  the  effects  of  their  profes- 
sions on  society,  Schachterle  explains, 
the  program  avoids  restricting  the  aca- 
demic disciplines  applicable  to  studying 


technology-society  interactions.  Since 
students  are  required  to  venture  outside 
their  own  fields,  giving  them  more  lee- 
way in  defining  their  projects  enables 
them  to  set  up  camp  where  they  feel  most 
comfortable— in  fields  such  as  history, 
literature,  sociology,  political  science, 
economics,  ethics,  or  management.  A 
practical  consideration  in  keeping  the 
disciplinary  barriers  down,  Schachterle 
adds,  is  the  desire  to  include  the  interests 
of  as  many  faculty  members  as  possible. 

Besides  enabling  students  to  become 
aware  of  the  interactions  of  technology 
and  society  and  encouraging  them  to 
make  policy  recommendations,  the  goals 
of  the  IQP  include  cultivating  the  habit 
of  questioning  prevailing  social  values 
and  structures. 

One  of  the  assumptions  that  IQPs  often 
force  students  to  assess  is  "the  more 
technology,  the  better."  Teasdale  is  com- 
pleting her  project  under  the  guidance  of 
Prof.  Edward  Clarke,  who  advises  more 
than  a  dozen  solar  energy-related 
projects  every  year.  Originally,  she 
reports,  she  assumed  that  photovoltaics 
could  be  easily  used  by  anyone.  After 
all,  "a  PV  panel  just  sits  there  in  the  sun 
and  does  its  thing  year  after  year,"  she 
notes. 

"But  that's  not  necessarily  a  good 
assumption,"  she  now  relates.  After 
studying  current  PV  technology  in  devel- 
oping nations,  Teasdale  contacted  a 
number  of  people  close  to  the  refugee 
problem,  with  the  help  of  Dick  Ford,  a 
professor  at  Clark  University,  who  is 
involved  in  the  study  of  international 
development.  By  conducting  interviews 
with  Somalian  government  officials  as 
well  as  with  relief  agencies  such  as  Save 
the  Children  and  Oxfam  America,  Teas- 
dale  learned  that  there  are  institutional  as 
well  as  cultural  obstacles  to  use  of  PV 
power  in  refugee  camps. 

For  one  thing,  she  found  that  some 
international  relief  agencies  and  govern- 
ments, which  provide  aid  based  on  the 
number  of  refugees  in  camps,  seem  to 
create  a  perverse  incentive  to  keep  peo- 


36       WPI  JOURNAL 


pie  in  refugee  status.  Moreover,  while 
PV  systems  are  virtually  maintenance- 
free,  the  water  pumps  they  power  do 
require  upkeep.  That  creates  a  conflict 
with  the  socially  defined  roles  of  women, 
since  they,  says  Teasdale,  make  up  the 
vast  majority  of  refugees  and  would  have 
to  be  trained  to  keep  the  pumps  working. 

Eventually,  the  social  aspects  of  Teas- 
dale's  project  took  on  dimensions 
broader  than  the  technical  alone.  Her 
report  contains  just  two  appendices  deal- 
ing with  PV  technology;  the  rest  of  the 
report  deals  with  the  attending  social 
issues. 

Her  report  concludes  with  a  call  for 
further  IQP  study  into  the  issue  of  appro- 
priate technology  as  well  as  the  specific 
problems  of  Somalia.  "The  opportunity 
is  here,"  she  says,  "for  someone  to  do 
something  that's  really  alive  in  this  area." 
In  fact,  it's  not  uncommon  for  individual 
IQPs  to  continue  from  year  to  year,  tap- 
ping the  creative  energies  of  new  teams 
of  students  whose  interests  coincide  with 
previous  teams'  goals.  WPI's  project 
planning  system  enables  this  type  of 


Mathematical  sciences  major 
Michael  Visintainer  '87  (left)  and 
Thomas  Petersen  '87  EE,  who 
completed  their  IQP  at  WPI's  new 
London  Project  Center,  studied  the 
effects  of  changes  like  the  growth 
of  private  health  care  on  the 
government-funded  British 
national  health  system. 


cooperation.  For  example,  for  several 
years  now,  a  new  team  of  four  to  five 
students  has  taken  over  joint  editorship 
of  the  GASCAN  Journal,  a  technical 
periodical  that  documents  the  efforts  of  a 
half  dozen  other  student  teams  complet- 
ing projects— also  multi-year,  multi-team 
efforts— on  experimental  packages  that 
will  fly  aboard  future  space  shuttle  mis- 
sions. 

While  alerting  students  to  their  respon- 
sibilities as  professionals  is  a  major  goal 
of  the  IQP,  each  project  approaches  this 
objective  differently.  "You  can't  make 


people  better  citizens,"  says  John 
O'Connor,  professor  of  Social  Science 
and  Policy  Studies  and  of  Management. 
"What  you  can  do  is  expose  them  not 
only  to  the  issues  but  to  the  thought  pro- 
cesses that  would  enable  them— should 
they  have  the  value  structure— to  become 
better  citizens  by  attacking  those  issues 
analytically."  O'Connor  encourages  his 
IQP  students  to  investigate  the  back- 
ground of  their  project  topics  in  depth,  so 
that  at  least  half  of  the  final  report  is  a 
review  of  the  issue's  social  context. 

O'Connor  is  one  of  the  coordinators 
for  IQPs  in  the  Health  Care  and  Technol- 
ogy division.  Under  his  guidance  senior 
Alan  Clune  EE  has  been  studying  the 
medical  malpractice  issue  since  last  fall. 
After  studying  the  social  dimensions  of 
the  issue,  Clune  has  concluded  that  tech- 
nology is  at  least  partly  responsible  for 
the  controversy.  "When  you  read  about 
technology  in  the  medical  field,  you  get 
the  impression  there's  nothing  doctors 
can't  do,"  Clune  says,  "so  you  undergo 
an  operation  with  very  high  expecta- 
tions, something  small  goes  wrong,  and 
you're  ready  to  sue." 

Technology  also  prompts  doctors  to 
attempt  more  heroic  procedures,  he  con- 
tends, which  may  be  more  error-prone 
and  hence  result  in  higher  malpractice 
claims.  The  deteriorating  physician- 
patient  relationship,  which,  he  says, 
shares  responsibility  for  the  malpractice 
problem,  is  also  linked  to  technology. 
"With  more  and  more  technology  you 
create  narrower  and  narrower  medical 
specialties,  so  instead  of  being  treated  by 
one  doctor  whom  you  get  to  know, 
you're  treated  by  a  number  of  doctors. 
As  the  relationship  becomes  depersonal- 
ized, patients  don't  mind  suing  the  anon- 
ymous doctors." 

Clune  has  been  looking  into  the  mal- 
practice insurance  problem  along  with 
partners  Brian  Jacobs  '88  EE,  Amy 
Petren  '88  MGE,  and  Susan  Swanson 
'88  EE.  Increasing  malpractice  premi- 
ums present  a  problem,  Clune  says, 
because  they  threaten  the  availability  of 


SPRING  1987       37 


»<•* 


" 


medical  care  and  high-risk  specialists  in 
particular.  Clune's  part  of  the  work 
focuses  on  legislative  approaches  under 
consideration  in  Massachusetts,  but  his 
impression  is  that  most  of  the  laws  pro- 
posed so  far  will  make  little  difference. 
What  is  really  needed.  Clune  asserts,  is 
better  internal  policing  of  the  medical 
profession,  which  he  says  can  be 
addressed  by  legislation,  and  by  improv- 
ing the  doctor-patient  relationship,  a 
problem  that  can't  be  solved  by  passing 
laws. 

While  Clune's  team  has 
addressed  health  care  close 
to  home,  mathematical 
sciences  major  Michael 
Visintainer  '87  has  gone  abroad  to  study 
financial  management  problems  in  the 
British  National  Health  Service.  Visin- 
tainer's  stay  in  London  was  part  of  a  pro- 
totype program  for  WPI's  new  London 
Project  Center.  While  most  students 
complete  their  IQPs  over  the  course  of  a 
year,  students  working  at  the  London  and 
Washington.  D.C..  project  centers 
plunge  full-time  into  their  IQP  for  one 
seven- week  term. 

Visintainer  and  his  partner.  Thomas 
Petersen  '87  EE.  focused  on  the  imple- 
mentation  of  a   set   of  management 


IQP  teammates  (left  to  right) 
Valerie  Tanigawa,  Caroline  Maho- 
ney,  and  Maureen  Theis  studied 
the  potential  effect  of  new  tech- 
nologies on  the  trimester  model 
for  abortion.  Not  pictured  is  their 
partner,  Tusha  Hoskere. 


reforms  that  went  into  effect  in  the 
Health  Service  in  1983.  Some  of  those 
changes  had  to  do  with  the  growth  of 
private  health  care,  which  is  being  used 
increasingly  by  wealthier  patients  who 
aren't  willing  to  wait  for  government- 
funded  care. 

Visintainer  formed  the  impression  that 
health  care  was  generally  available  and 
the  system  functions  quite  smoothly,  but 
he  points  out  that  his  project  was  limited 
to  a  fairly  wealthy  London  suburb. 
"Poor  people  still  get  the  same  care  from 
the  National  Health  Service.  It's  just  that 
the  wealthy  people  don't  wait  as  long  for 
a  routine  operation."  he  says. 

The  seven-week  schedule  of  off- 
campus  project  centers  requires  students 
to  hit  the  ground  running.  When  Laurie 
Bouchard  '87  ME  arrived  at  the  Wash- 
ington Project  Center  in  the  fall  of  1985, 
it  took  a  week  and  a  half  of  work  with 


project  sponsors  at  the  National  Associa- 
tion of  Manufacturers  (NAM)  before  the 
topic  was  fully  defined.  Bouchard  and 
her  partners.  David  Astrauckas  '87  CM 
and  Christopher  Boova  '87  CM,  used 
that  time  to  get  up  to  speed  on  the  state  of 
hazardous  waste  sites  under  Superfund, 
the  congressional  cleanup  program.  Each 
spent  the  rest  of  the  term  working  on 
separate  cases. 

Bouchard  says  she  was  amazed  at  how 
complex  the  Superfund  decision-making 
process  was.  She  was  especially  struck 
by  the  way  in  which  problematic  sites 
tended  to  get  tied  up  in  the  courts.  "Liti- 
gation would  go  on  for  a  few  years,"  she 
notes,  "and  the  hazardous  waste  site 
would  just  sit  there  and  get  worse  and 
worse.  Contamination  would  be  leaking 
into  the  groundwater  and  spreading 
toward  communities  and  residences," 
before  money  would  become  available 
for  cleanup,  Bouchard  says. 

The  project  sought  to  develop  recom- 
mendations for  NAM  members  when 
they  get  involved  in  Superfund  sites.  For 
example,  "potentially  responsible  par- 
ties" should  cooperate  more  fully  with 
Environmental  Protection  Agency  (EPA) 
investigations,  since  litigation  tends  to 
delay  cleanup.  "We  also  felt  that  if  the 
states  would  get  more  involved  in  their 


38       ViTI  JOURNAL 


hazardous  waste  sites,"  Bouchard  says, 
"then  that  would  take  some  of  the  burden 
off  the  federal  EPA"  Bouchard. 
Astrauckas,  and  Boova  were  among  the 
1986  recipients  of  the  President's  IQP 
Awards. 

Another  recipient  of  last  year's  prize. 
Randall  Briggs  '86  CM.  showed  that 
waste  disposal  problems  may,  in  the 
future,  not  be  limited  to  this  planet.  His 
project  focused  on  waste  problems  that 
could  accompany  industrial  activity  on 
the  surface  of  the  moon.  Briggs  found 
that,  just  as  on  earth,  environmental  pol- 
lution on  the  moon  could  limit  the  con- 
tinuation or  further  expansion  of  lunar 
bases.  Over  the  course  of  20  years  of 
lunar  base  activity.  Briggs  says,  space 
vehicles  with  conventional  chemical  pro- 
pulsion could  cause  the  formation  of  an 
atmosphere  around  the  moon,  interfering 
with  the  use  of  the  far  side  of  the  moon 
as  an  ideal  site  for  a  radio  astronomy 
observatory.  Contributing  to  the  forma- 
tion of  a  lunar  atmosphere  would  be  ille- 
gal, Briggs  adds,  because  the  1967  U.N. 
Outer  Space  Treaty  prohibits  placing 
anything  on  the  moon  that  would  con- 
taminate it  or  limit  scientific  pursuits  of 
other  nations. 

But  why  build  industrial  plants  on  the 
moon  anyway?  Briggs  has  a  good  answer 
to  that  question,  since  his  MQP  work  and 
his  present  graduate  work  at  WPI— all  of 
which  grew  out  of  his  IQP— have  to  do 
with  the  production  of  oxygen  from 
ilmenite.  an  ore  that  is  found  in  abun- 
dance on  the  moon.  Today,  he  says,  it 
takes  20  times  as  much  energy  to  trans- 
port something  from  the  earth's  surface 
to  low  earth  orbit  as  from  the  moon's 
surface  to  low  earth  orbit.  Thus,  the 
moon  is  a  good  place  to  look  for  rocket 
fuel.  "It's  estimated  that  40  to  50  percent 
of  the  shuttle  cargo  in  the  coming  decade 
will  be  used  for  propulsion.  That's  why 
most  people  agree  that  oxygen  will  be 
the  first  product  produced  economically 
on  the  moon."  he  adds.  Lunar  soil  could 
also  be  mined  for  use  in  shielding  mili- 
tary satellites. 


Sitting  in  Goddard  Hall's  lounge  under 
a  fantastic  mural  of  outer  space.  Briggs 
says  he  wants  to  help  society  avoid  pol- 
luting the  lunar  environment  the  way  we 
have  polluted  so  much  of  earth's  environ- 
ment. "A  lot  of  people  think  it's  lunacy 
to  worry  about  polluting  the  moon."'  he 
says,  pausing  for  his  pun  to  sink  in.  But 
seriously.  Briggs  says,  engineers  are 
sometimes  too  optimistic  about  the  abil- 
ity of  technology  to  solve  all  of  society's 
problems,  although  experience  has 
proved  the  need  for  caution.  "My  goal  is 
to  have  a  cleaner  moon."  Bnggs  says, 
"not  just  to  have  a  more  productive 
process  on  the  moon." 


Professor  of  English  Lance  E. 
Schachterle  is  director  of  the  Divi- 
sion of  Interdisciplinary  Affairs, 
which  each  year  oversees  some 
1,000  Interactive  Qualifying 
Projects,  carried  out  as  degree 
requirements  by  all  WPI  under- 
graduates. 


Society  demands  that  engineers 
and  scientists  provide  both  the 
benefits  of  technology  and  assur- 
ances that  the  costs  will  be 
acceptable.  Brigg's  project  shows  how 
society  may  affect  the  deployment  of 
technology.  But  often  the  interactions 
between  technology  and  social  issues  are 
hard  to  anticipate.  Society  enthusiasti- 
cally endorses  further  advances  in  medi- 
cal technology,  for  example,  and  then 
finds  that  difficult  questions  of  ethics 
arise  as  a  result.  That  makes  biomedicine 
a  fertile  field  for  IQP  work. 

A  team  of  four  undergraduates  is  cur- 
rently finishing  their  IQPs  on  the  unex- 
pected effect  that  technology  is  having 
on  the  abortion  issue.  Juniors  Tusha 
Hoskere  MEB  and  Caroline  Mahoney 
EEB  have  teamed  up  with  sophomores 
Valerie  Tanigawa  EE  and  Maureen  Theis 
MEB  to  look  at  the  legal  issues  involved. 
The  Supreme  Court's  Roe  vs.  Wade 
decision  in  1973  established  the  trimester 
model  of  abortions.  The  medical  tech- 
nology of  that  time,  the  Court  ruled, 
could  not  sustain  fetuses  outside  the 
womb  before  the  third  trimester.  More- 
over, abortions  later  than  the  first  trimes- 
ter posed  increased  risks  to  women. 

'When  Roe  was  decided,  having  a 
second  trimester  abortion  was  more  risky 
than  going  full  term,  and  therefore  the 
state  had  the  right  to  regulate  it." 
explains  Mahoney.  "Now  we're  finding 
that  having  an  abortion  is  much  safer 
than  childbirth.  So  we're  saying  that  the 
line  between  the  first  and  second  trimes- 
ter should  be  eliminated." 

Of  even  greater  concern  to  the  IQP 
team  is  the  so-called  viability  line  for 
fetuses,  the  point  at  which  they  can  sur- 
vive outside  the  womb.  So  Mahoney  and 
her  partners  ventured  forth  to  interview 
physicians  and  nurses  in  neonatal  inten- 
sive care  units. 

In  1973  the  viability  line  was  consid- 
ered to  be  28  weeks.  Technology  has 
since  pushed  the  line  closer  to  24  weeks. 
Moving  the  line  even  earlier  would  put 
additional  pressure  on  the  trimester 


SPRING  1987       39 


Professor  Edward  N.  Clarke,  direc- 
tor of  the  Center  for  Solar  Electrifi- 
cation, works  with  dozens  of  stu- 
dents each  year  on  projects 
involving  solar  photovoltaics, 
which  he  says  will  revolutionize 
electrical  generation  in  the  years 
to  come. 


model,  but  Hoskere  says  that  it  isn't 
likely  to  get  any  earlier  in  the  next  10  to 
15  years.  "We  had  doctors  tell  us  that  the 
fetus  cannot  survive  before  24  weeks 
because  it's  not  mature  enough,  and  the 
doctors  want  to  improve  the  chances  of 
survival  of  25-week  and  older  fetuses 
rather  than  try  to  push  back  the  line  even 
earlier,"  Tanigawa  explains. 

Still,  as  technology  advances,  the  via- 
bility line  can  be  expected  to  eventually 
fall  earlier,  enabling  safe  abortions  even 
later  in  the  pregnancy  and  thus  heighten- 
ing the  conflict  between  the  rights  of  the 
fetus  and  those  of  the  mother.  So  the 
focus  of  the  project  is  whether  the  tri- 
mester model  is  in  jeopardy,  and,  if  so, 
what  the  alternatives  are.  "Most  of  the 
lawyers  we  talked  to  said  the  Roe  trimes- 
ter model  was  the  easiest  and  simplest 
way  to  decide  the  abortion,"  Hoskere 
reports.  "Most  of  them  had  problems 
with  the  model,  but  they  could  not  sug- 
gest a  better  one." 

In  February  the  four  students  were  still 
mulling  over  their  recommendations. 
Mahoney  and  Tangawa  favored  a  system 
that  would  allow  abortions  up  to  24 
weeks;  beyond  that  the  fetus  would  be 
considered  viable  and  therefore  entitled 
to  its  right  to  life.  Hoskere  and  Theis 
favored  a  more  technocratic  system  rely- 
ing on  scientific  data  on  individual  cases. 

Taking  on  such  a  controversial  issue 
for  an  IQP  may  be  tough,  but  Theis  says 
there's  more  to  be  learned  that  way.  You 
have  to  see  both  sides  of  the  issue,  she 
asserts,  and  present  the  information  in  an 
unbiased  way.  But  those  who  work  in  the 
field  are  forced  to  take  a  stand. 

"With  this  issue  I'm  swayed  more  by 
the  mother's  rights,  but  still  the  fetus  is 
potentially  a  human  being,"  Tanigawa 
says.  "That's  a  conflict  that  people  are 
dealing  with  every  day  out  there." 

This  project  is  also  showing  that  engi- 
neers do  not  have  to  be  involved  with  a 
controversial  technology  in  order  to  have 
an  impact  on  social  issues.  Mahoney 
points  out  that  working  on  the  develop- 
ment of  a  neonatal  care  machine,  for 


example,  could  have  an  unanticipated 
effect  on  the  abortion  issue,  forcing  an 
engineer  to  consider  the  social  impact. 
She  describes  the  engineer's  dilemma: 
"You're  trying  to  save  infants'  lives; 
you're  not  trying  to  oppress  mothers' 
rights!" 

As  a  result  of  her  work  on  the  project, 
Tusha  Hoskere  thinks  that,  as  a  practi- 
tioner following  graduation,  she  will  be 
more  likely  to  examine  the  personal 
motivations  behind  technical  arguments, 
since  personal  and  professional  ideas 
cannot  always  be  separated.  "When  we 
talked  to  doctors,  they  said,  'Well,  do 
you  want  my  personal  opinion  or  my 
professional  opinion?'  "  Hoskere  says, 
"And  that's  when  it  hit  me  that  those  two 
ways  of  thinking  have  to  come  together." 

The  experiences  of  other  students  and 
faculty  members  also  show  how  IQPs 
can  be  effective  in  getting  students  to 
think  about  the  role  of  engineers  in  soci- 
ety. "When  you  place  something  that 
seems  to  be  highly  technical  and  scien- 
tific into  a  social  and  political  context,  it 
takes  on  a  whole  new  shape,"  says  Ken- 
neth Ruscio,  assistant  professor  of  social 
science  and  policy  studies,  who  is  advis- 
ing Hoskere  and  the  others  on  their  IQPs. 
Many  of  the  IQPs  Ruscio  advises  have  to 
do  with  the  interaction  of  technology 
with  the  political  process.  (For  Ruscio 's 
views  on  the  interactions  of  technology 
and  government,  see  the  WPI  Journal, 
Winter  1987.) 

One  of  those  projects  is  being  done  by 
junior  Isaac  Davidi,  an  electrical  engi- 
neering major  who  has  been  looking  into 
reforms  in  the  Defense  Department's 
procurement  process,  including  the  tech- 
nology used  in  testing  new  weapons  sys- 
tems. One  impression  he  formed  was 
that  the  people  who  design  complex 
weapons  systems  don't  seem  to  realize 
that  the  people  who  use  them  don't  have 
the  same  technical  background.  Davidi 
says  he'll  remember  that  when  it's  his 
turn  to  design  machines. 

But  the  biggest  lesson  Davidi  learned 
is  how  big  and  complex  the  government 


is.  In  interviews  with  Pentagon  officials 
and  congressional  staff  members,  he 
says  he  found  resistance  to  reforms  and 
obstructions  to  a  rational  decision- 
making process.  "My  opinion  is  that 
although  they  think  they  have  enough 
checks  and  balances,  as  long  as  you  have 
people  who  are  determined  to  push  pet 
projects  through,  we  can't  have  enough 
checks  and  balances,"  he  says. 

One  of  this  year's  winners  of  the  Presi- 
dent's IQP  Award  also  shows  that  deci- 
sions about  the  management  of  tech- 
nology—especially when  affected  by 
public  opinion— can  run  contrary  to  what 
seems  rational  on  the  basis  of  scientific 
data.  Robert  McGuirk  MGE  and  John 
Phelps  ME  won  a  1987  award  for  their 
product  liability  case  study  of  the  morn- 
ing sickness  drug  Bendectin.  The  two 
seniors  reviewed  dozens  of  epidemiolog- 
ical and  toxicological  studies  but  found 
that  there  were  insufficient  data  to  impli- 
cate Bendectin  for  increased  risks  of 
birth  defects.  The  drug  was  removed 
from  the  market,  they  say,  because  of  the 
concern  produced  by  the  well-publicized 
allegations  of  a  few  lawyers,  and  the 
manufacturer's  concern  that  liability 
judgments  would  be  made  on  the  basis  of 
"courtroom  hysteria." 

Recognizing  bias  in  the  presen- 
tation of  technical  information 
seems  to  be  a  lesson  learned  in 
many  IQPs.  Tim  Richer  '88 
EE  has  been  working  with  partners 
Bryan  Widmer  '88  EE  and  Jeff  Enos  '88 
ME  to  predict  when  various  photovoltaic 
technologies  will  become  economically 
competitive  with  fossil  fuels.  "I  can  see 
where  politics  comes  into  a  lot  of  deci- 
sions such  as  energy  issues,  where  peo- 
ple make  up  their  own  figures  just  to 
prove  their  points,"  Richer  observes. 
Now  he  is  excited  by  the  photovoltaics 
industry's  prospects.  A  secure,  reliable, 
and  environmentally  benign  energy 
source,  PV  is  already  used  in  remote 
locations,  and  Richer  expects  it  to  find 
more  widespread  use  in  the  next  four  to 


40       WPI  JOURNAL 


ten  years. 

Photovoltaics  is  one  area  of  societal 
and  technological  interaction  that  has 
attracted  a  number  of  IQPs,  primarily 
due  to  the  efforts  of  Dr.  Edward  N. 
Clarke,  director  of  WPI's  Center  for 
Solar  Electrification,  one  of  WPI's  two 
on-campus  IQP  project  centers.  Through 
the  Center,  Clarke  says  he  tries  to  "get 
all  students  to  realize  that  through  the 
IQP  effort,  they  are  part  of  the  unfolding 
energy  revolution."  And  through  the 
Center  for  Municipal  Studies,  Electrical 
Engineering  Professor  James  S.  Demetry 
'58  tries  to  share  with  students  his  own 
passion  for  involvement  in  local  govern- 
ments. (For  more  on  both  centers,  see 
The  Wire,  Spring  1987.) 

"The  IQP  demands  unconventional 
participation  by  the  faculty  adviser,"  says 
Demetry,  former  DIA  chairman.  "It's 
unlike  a  course,  in  which  the  teacher 
tends  to  dispense  wisdom,  and  much 
more  an  activity  in  which  the  teacher  has 
to  be  a  co-participant  in  learning."  For 
that  reason,  some  faculty  members  seem 
to  shy  away  from  advising  IQPs,  Deme- 
try says.  They  may  feel  uncomfortable 
advising  projects  on  topics  on  which  they 
are  not  already  experts. 

To  promote  widespread  faculty 
involvement  in  the  IQP,  Schachterle  says 
that  he  and  the  associate  DIA  chairs 
Douglas  Woods  and  PS  SS  and  Floyd 
Tuler  ME,  recently  restructured  the 
administration  of  IQPs  into  11  divisions. 
A  major  concern  of  the  new  division 


structure,  with  study  areas  ranging  from 
health  care,  economic  growth,  and  the 
environment  to  risk  analysis,  social  serv- 
ices, and  education  theory,  is  to  identify 
and  support  interdisciplinary  activities  in 
which  faculty  members  have  made  long- 
term  commitments. 

"We  want  to  encourage  all  faculty 
members  to  apply  their  disciplinary 
research  to  IQP  activity,  and  to  explore 
imaginative  ways  of  linking  IQP  advis- 
ing to  their  agendas  for  professional 
development,"  Schachterle  added. 
"We're  eager  to  see  new  faculty  mem- 
bers become  involved  in  the  IQP,  which 
is  increasingly  recognized  as  WPI's  most 
distinctive  academic  requirement." 

How  have  alumni  responded  to  the 
IQP?  In  order  to  answer  this  question, 
William  R.  Grogan  '46,  dean  of  under- 
graduate studies  and  one  of  the  architects 
of  the  WPI  Plan,  recently  commissioned 
a  professional  evaluation  of  the  IQP. 
Grogan  says  he  had  hoped  the  IQP  would 
help  remedy  many  of  the  weaknesses  of 
engineering  education  widely  discussed 
in  the  1960s.  WPI  was  especially  eager 
to  promote  a  greater  awareness  of  the 
social  consequences  of  engineering  and 
science  and  considered  the  IQP  a  pri- 
mary vehicle  to  make  WPI  graduates 
more  alert  to  both  their  professional  and 
their  civic  responsibilities.  At  the  same 
time,  such  heightened  sensitivity  was 
extremely  difficult  to  measure  quantita- 
tively, and  the  full  impact  of  the  IQP 
might  not  be  realized  until  the  entire  ca- 


reer of  a  former  student  was  completed. 

Thus,  what  the  evaluation  showed  was 
welcome  news.  By  a  ratio  of  eight  to 
one,  alumni  from  the  classes  of  1976 
through  1984  indicated  that  the  IQP  was 
effective  and  worthwhile.  Alumni 
argued  that  project  education  was  far 
more  successful  than  the  more  passive 
milieu  of  the  classroom. 

Somewhat  to  the  surprise  of  the  Plan 
designers,  alumni  regarded  the  IQP  as 
having  enormous  pragmatic  value  to 
them  early  in  their  careers.  They 
observed,  in  contrast  to  peers  from  other 
colleges,  that  in  starting  their  careers 
they  felt  better  able  to  deal  with  com- 
plex, multidisciplinary  issues,  more 
competent  in  working  on  teams  and  in 
writing  reports,  and  less  anxious  about 
communicating  their  work  to  nonprofes- 
sionals. 

They  had  special  praise  for  off-campus 
IQP  opportunities,  Grogan  reports,  and 
for  the  experience  they  had  as  undergrad- 
uates working  on  real-life  projects.  As 
one  graduate  observed,  "Life  in  industry 
is  an  endless  stream  of  IQPs! " 

Begun  in  1973,  the  IQP  program  was, 
in  fact,  13  years  ahead  of  its  time.  Only 
last  fall  did  the  Carnegie  Foundation  for 
the  Advancement  of  Teaching  release  its 
much-ballyhooed  report  identifying 
common  shortcomings  of  higher  educa- 
tion. College:  The  Undergraduate  Expe- 
rience in  America  cited  a  "disturbing  gap 
between  [colleges]  and  the  larger  world" 
and  recommended  that  each  student  pre- 
pare a  "written  thesis  that  relates  some 
aspect  of  the  major  to  historical,  social, 
or  ethical  concerns." 

With  its  emphasis  on  broadening  stu- 
dents' horizons  in  order  to  understand 
the  society-technology  interaction,  to 
contemplate  the  role  of  engineers  in  this 
complex  society,  and  to  question  deci- 
sionmaking processes  that  affect  technol- 
ogy, the  IQP  seems  to  be  on  the  right 
track. 

Paul  Susca  is  a  freelance  writer  living  in 
Rindge,N.H. 


SPRING  1987       41 


Spring 


Fever : 


A  gallery 
of  cartoons 

by  Charles  Strauss 


KNOWN  FOR  HIS  SUBTLE  HUMOR,  President  Jon  C. 
Strauss  seems  to  look  at  the  world  with  the  eye  of  a  good- 
natured  spectator.  Small  wonder,  when  you  consider  the  fact 
that  his  father,  Charles  E.  Strauss,  has  for  years  chronicled  life 
as  only  a  nationally  syndicated  cartoonist  can. 

As  springtime  rushes  in  to  finally  overtake  a  winter  that  was 
no  less  harsh  than  the  Farmer 's  Almanac  predicted,  we  comple- 
ment the  season  in  the  pages  that  follow  with  a  selection  of 
Charles  Strauss'  warm  humor,  published  beginning  in  the 
1950s  in  places  like  the  Saturday  Evening  Post,  Medical  Eco- 
nomics, Collier's,  and  The  New  York  Times  Book  Review. 

After  completing  an  A.B.  degree  at  Oberlin  College,  Strauss 


earned  a  certificate  from  the  Chicago  Academy  of  Fine  Arts 
and  did  additional  studies  at  Columbia  and  Rutgers  universi- 
ties. 

Besides  cartoons,  he  has  designed  book  covers,  advertising, 
and  printed  promotional  pieces;  completed  visual  scripts  for 
popular  cartoon  characters  like  Casper  the  Friendly  Ghost;  and 
illustrated  posters  and  greeting  cards.  He  is  a  syndicated  news- 
paper artist  of  King  Features. 

In  addition,  Strauss  has  served  as  an  instructor  in  cartooning 
at  the  New  York  School  of  Visual  Arts  and  an  art  instructor  at 
Delaware  Valley  Regional  High  School,  near  Milford,  Pa.  He 
makes  his  home  in  Frenchtown,  N.J. 


42       WPI  JOURNAL 


"  7 '  before  'E '  except  after  'C ', 


l8ht 


and 


SPRING  1987       43 


44       WPI  JOURNAL 


Alumni  Held,  renovated  and  rededicated  in  1986. 


ONGRATULATIONS 

CLASS  OF  1987! 


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Higgins  House,  new  home  of  the  Alumni 
office,  surrounded  by  spring  flowers.