A new face, will greet the crowds at the first meeting of the University's largest course next fall. After eight years as director of Economics 1, Richard T. Gill '48, is turning the reins over to Otto Eckstein.

Gill, lecturer in Economics and master of Leverett House, said that he had decided last fall that he "wanted to teach something with more substantive economics and less administrative work." He will teach a new middle group course on the history of economic thought and will continue to teach Economics 108 -- a course on development and underdevelopment.

Ec. 1's new head, Eckstein, is professor of Economics on leave this year as a fellow of the Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford where he is working on a book on econometrics and wage pricing.

Eckstein served from 1964 to 1966 on the Council of Economic Advisors, the troika that yearly prepares a massive report on the state of the economy for the President. He was appointed a month ago to the National Advisory Council on Economic Opportunity which is studying the success of the poverty program for President Johnson.

In an interview yesterday Eckstein said he has "only a primitive knowledge of the course" and wouldn't plan any changes until he returns to Cambridge in July. He will give the course's introductory lecture but is not sure yet whether these lectures will continue to cover historical material as they do now