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Faculty Committee to Sponsor Radio Workshop's Experiments

Technique of Radio Plays Part Of Study Including Education And Social Sciences

Experiments in the art and science of radio will be carried on here beginning in the near future, it was learned yesterday with the announcement of a Faculty committee of thirteen sponsors. The name of the organization which will conduct them is the Harvard Radio Workshop.

The Workshop held its last of several organization meetings yesterday under the direction of Archibald MacLeish, Curator of the Nieman Collection of Contemporary Journalism, and is expected to start actual work next week.

The experiments will at first be confined to problems of radio technique which are held to be in an embryonic state and no actual broadcasts will be made immediately. Recordings with the equipment of the Film Service studio in the basement of the Biological Laboratory, are to be used in the meantime.

Divided Into Five Parts

Five committees have been formed, dividing the activities of the Workshop into as many parts. These are Literary, General Educational, Social Sciences, Music, and Technical.

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Financial support of the organization is as yet uncertain, but President Conant has expressed interest in it and it is felt that the formation of the Faculty committee may eventually mean direct aid from the University.

MacLeish, who with the adoption of a constitution yesterday resigned as Director of the Workshop and became merely a member of the Faculty committee, has written two plays for the Columbia Broadcasting System's radio theatre, "Fall of the City", and "Air Raid." He has expressed enthusiasm for the possibilities of radio drama but believes that techniques are extremely undeveloped.

Besides MacLeish on the committee of sponsors are Harlow Shapley, Paine Professor of Practical Astronomy; Howard Baker, instructor in English; Gordon W. Allport '19, associate professor of Psychology; Walter H. Piston '94, associate professor of Music; William Y. Elliott, Professor of Government; David Worcester, '27, instructor in English; David T. W. McCord '21, Executive Sec- retary of the Harvard Fund; Kenneth B. Murdock '16, Professor of English; James R. Brewster '25, Director of the Film Service; Theodore Spencer, assistant professor of English; Frederick C. Packard, Jr. '20, assistant professor of Public Speaking; Ernest J. Simmons, assistant professor of English; and Theodore Morrison '23, assistant professor of English.

One of the problems which will be studied is that of radio propaganda, in which Professor Elliott is interested. Professor Shapely has been broadcasting astronomical material over short-wave station WIXAL and may experiment with forms of presentation under the General Education division.

Five men were elected as representatives of the various divisions to the temporary Executive Board yesterday. They are Harry P. M. Brown '41, Literary; James Laughlin IV '39, General Educational; Lawrence A. Radway '40, Social Sciences; George W. Phillips '39, Music; and S. Roger Sheppard '40, Technical

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