Ewen, and Bart J. Bok, Robert Wheeler Willson Professor of Applied Astronomy, are the co-directors of the Radio Astronomy Program. Bok signalizes the Bloemfontein effect in that he took up radio astronomy seriously when the University gave up the South African installation. He has since attained world stature in the field, and is one of the key planners of the projected National Radio Astronomy Observatory. Ewen, through his firm, the Ewen-Knight Corporation, has developed the electronic apparatus of the telescopes.
The Meteor Project
Professor Fred L. Whipple, chairman of the Department and Director of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, is the leading figure in the meteor project. It has centered in the New Mexico desert, where meteor showers have been photographed from twin stations for many years.
This subject will be brought closer to home soon when a radar network is constructed in Southern Massachusetts to study meteors. A million-watt transmitter will bounce radar waves off meteors onto a string of six receivers spaced seven miles apart. The program is to be completed in conjunction with M.I.T.'s project Lincoln.
Donald H. Menzel, professor of Astrophysics, who succeeded Harlow Shapley in 1953 as Director of the Observatory, leads the solar and ionosphere work. The Observatory has given up its part in the operation of the High Altitude Observatory at Climax, Colorado, but still shares the newer Sunspot, New Mexico, site of the Air Force's Sacramento Peak Observatory. The instruments include the largest coronagraph in the world, and four super-Schmidt meteor cameras there and at the companion meteor station at Mayhill, New Mexico.
The Air Force is also cooperating on construction of a 28-foot radio telescope near Fort Davis, Texas, to study solar radio noise.
But this growth has not been without difficulties. Additional opportunities for research lead to increased interest in research on the part of Faculty members, and there is the danger that teaching and student-faculty contacts will suffer as a result. This is a very serious threat, especially so in a Department which has as few Faculty members as the Department of Astronomy, where only five now hold permanent posts. There are, of course, many lecturers and research associates, but their teaching contributions vary widely.
What's Happened?
Certainly the undergraduates feel that this has happened to some degree. They do not articulate an entire case, but point to certain recent decisions, such as dropping a program by which students could work for room and board at Agassiz Station during the summer, or the restriction of opportunities for the use of telescopes. If pressed, they will concede that there are perfectly good reasons for these moves, but nevertheless they contend that they indicate a tendency on the part of the new Administration to pay more attention to research and construction than to teaching.
Faculty viewpoint on this is divided. Menzel, ultimately responsible for the condition of the instruments, contends that observing is not especially valuable for undergraduates and that any extensive observing program conflicts with studies. He also questions the safety to the instruments if students not "especially advanced" use them. Menzel feels, however, that there is no essential conflict between the research and teaching aspects of the Observatory's work, and points to the success of graduate programs.
Bok, on the other hand, is somewhat caustic on the subject, and observed, "a university that does not exist for teaching has lost direction." Bok has worked to interest students in the field, giving this year the new Natural Sciences 7, and starting the series of concentrators' dinners, in which undergraduates meet with Faculty members and guests about every three weeks to discuss various special subjects in astronomy.
Whipple adopts an intermediate position. Conceding that undergraduate instruction has suffered recently, he blames not any fundamental disorientation, but says that the increased research facilities make this inevitable when permanent staff is not increased.
The Department recognizes the problem, he says, and is making what he feels is a successful effort to combat it. The first aspect of this effort is to lay emphasis on making strong courses out of Astronomy 1a-1b. With the advent this last fall of Natural Sciences 7--Problems of the Earth and Universe, given by Bok and L. Don Leet, professor of Geology--the Astronomy Department has felt free to make Astronomy 1a and 1b more technical courses. This year's approach emphasized a mathematical background which had been unnecessary in the past.
Other courses have been strengthened in similar fashion. Astronomy 120--Practical Astronomy--has been made into two half-courses instead of one, and to some extent, simplified. Astronomy 140--Introduction to Mathematical Astronomy--has also been made into two instead of one.
On courses, the one suggestion of