New York University - Violet Yearbook (New York, NY)

Page 23 text:

ECONOMICS Cbriirman-Professor Walter W. Haines. Arfilzg Cbrzirvzazzz-Associate Professor Benjamin Katz. I was born in Brooklyn in 1923 and raised in a quaint section called Sheepshead Bay. This area still retains some of the flavor of an English fishing village at the same time as it harbors tarnished vestiges of the Gay Nineties resort it once was. My teachers alerted us early to the signilicance of history and the turbulent course it was following in those cataclysmic years of the Thirties, I recall vividly the parade of alphabet agencies of the New Deal which we school children memorized and joked about, our family gatherings around a huge radio to hear a presidential fireside chat which sounded solemn and hopeful to my ears, and the bitter, often violent, economic strife of the mid-Thirties filling the local moviehouse screen with newsreels of angry men clubbing others on picket linesg farmers spilling milk on the ground rather than sell it for a pittanceg and barely clad, skinny babies crying for food. These impressions fashioned my initial interest in economic issues and spawned a desire to contribute in meaningful measure toward a more stable and wealthier society. At James Madison High School, I had several unusual instructors whose imprint I hope I reflect in my own teaching. One marvelous lady taught us European history by means of assigned books, term papers, daily reading of the New York Timer, and the Socratic method. In that classroom, Hitler was a living hgure-and a frightening one. Three undergraduate years at Brooklyn College flew by in a swirl of exciting courses and changing plans to major in first one and then another department. After three eventful years in service. half of them spent in Europe, I began graduate study at Harvard, This was the busiest time I have experienced, as I devoted myself to acquiring technical proficiency and to earning a doctoral de- gree in preparation for a career in research and teaching. Arrirtazzt Proferrorr-Robert L. Hatcher, Bruno Stein. Adjmmf A.r.rirla17! Proferror-Bernard Hallote. Izz- rfrzfc1fo1'r-jonas Prager, Patricia F. Bowers, Pamela Kacser. ENGLISH Chrziwmzfz-Professor Edwin L. McAdam. I was born in 1905 in St. Paul, Minnesota, where I at- tended public schools until my graduation from high school. I worked two summers on a farm and two or three more in a real estate office. I went to Carleton College in Northville, Minnesota, from which I graduated in 1927. The following year I taught in a two-room high school in a small village in South Dakota. There I learned trigonometry for the first time because I had to teach it as well as a number of subjects which I had studied before, such as Latin, English and His- tory. The following year I went to the University of Minnesota and received an M.A, in English in 1929. I then taught for three years as an instructor in the American University at Washington, D.C., taking two graduate courses evenings at George Washington University. In 1932 I went to Yale and finished my doctoral work in 1935. I was an instructor at Yale from 1934 to 1957. In 1937 I came to New York University as an assistant professor and, except for four years service in the Navy as a Lieutenant and Lieutenant Com- mander during the war, I have been here ever since. As a doctoral thesis I have edited the Poemr of Samuel johnson and this was published in collaboration with Professor Nichol Smith of Oxford in 1941. I spent four summers doing re- search at Oxford. which is an ideal place to do research since when one gets tired of work he can go swimming or punting on the river. Since coming to New York University I have taught both graduate and undergraduate courses. and I have always found both types of work exciting. Since 1950 I have been Chairman of the English Department at University College and for two years I was Acting Dean of the Graduate Schools of Arts and Sciences. In i'ecent years I have published a book on Dr. johnson and the English Law and have edited two volumes for the Yale edition of Dr. Johnson, one of which has been publishedg the other will appear in a year or two. In March of this year I published. with a friend, a modern selection from Johnsons Dii'fio1mry, which cost a great deal of work but provided also many hours of entertainment. I have one more book in my head which I hope to do within the next two 'or three years. I am unmarried. My hobbies are music, gardening and travel. My favorite spot is Puerto Rico because it is always warm and I can not be reached by telephone. Proferrozzr-Gay W. Allen, George L. Anderson, john W. Knedler, Edwin H. Miller, Elkin C. Wilson. Arroci- nfe Proj'e.r.ror,r-Dan H. Laurence, Richard D. Mallery. A,1iJ'f.l'ftIllf Proferror-Gaynor Bradish. In.i'fi'11rfoi'-Mar- tin Grief.

Page 22 text:

CHEMISTRY Cbnirnmn-Professor Thomas W. Davis. Like everyone else, I am fortunate to be living in the period of the most rapid growth of science and in the period of the greatest accomplishments of science, Among all the sciences, chemistry is marked by the complexity of the phenomena with which it deals and the profundity of the changes that give rise to these phenomena. In a sense, then, chemistry is the first of the sciences. During its existence of thirteen decades, New York University has been constantly concerned not only with the task of helping students to understand the existing store of scientific knowledge but also with the need to extend that store. Beginning with john W. Draper, the University's hrst professor of physics and chemistry and the first president of the American Chemical Society, an unbroken succession of faculty members has maintained and strengthened the University's ac- tive role as a source of new chemical knowledge. During the past forty years, I have been privileged to witness these things at lirst hand and in a small measure to be part of them. The rise of physical chemistry, the rejuvenation of organic chemistry, the availability of a startling array of instruments, many of them undreamed 'of forty years ago, have changed our science most notably. Changed too is the relationship of science to the non-academic world. Chemical companies are among the largest and most important in the country. Even banks take names that suggest a kinship to science. Governments have become interested in science in a major way and now more scientists are employed by governments than by any other agency. The national government, furthermore, has come to be an essential source of funds to support research in the universities who have found the costs otherwise soaring far beyond their ability to contrive. Despite the great changes, the purpose of science re- mains the same, viz., to understand more thoroughly the nature of the world and thereby, the better to understand ourselves. To witness these things and to be involved in them even in a slight way has been the chief feature of my life. Professors-Kurt M. Mislow, john E. Ricci, H. Austin Taylor. Armrinle P1'0fe5.r01'r-S. Carlton Dickerman, Edward Durham, joseph D. Gettler, Edwin S. Camp- bell, Henry M. Hellman, james N. Sarmousakis. Amin?- cznzf Professor-David I. Schuster. InJ1f1'nct0rJ-Ricliard Narvaez, Frances Yablonsky. CLASSICS Cfariirznmz-Professor Richard M. Haywood. I was born and grew up in Lynn, Massachusetts, and went to Dartmouth in the class of 1926, the first college class which was chosen by the consideration of personal and other factors in addition to scholarship, the method which is now the usual one. I took my Ph.D. at johns Hopkins in Latin with Tenney Frank, a man who liked to combine historical studies with his literary studies. Not only did I write a historical dissertation, on the elder Scipio Africanus, but I also was invited to join the group of scholars who produced An Economic Survey of Ancient Rome. In the first six years of my teaching at johns Hopkins, I wrote my section of the work, on the economic life of Roman Africa. Since then Roman Africa has been one of my steady interests, and I have written articles and reviewed books on the subject. In 1939-40, I had a Guggenheim Fellow- ship for further work on Africa and my family and I had gotten as far as Switzerland when the war broke out, my younger daughter was born in Zurich that October. In 1950, Washington Square College offered me an appoint- ment, and in 1952 I came to the Heights. This is a good place for a scholar and teacher and writer, and I have thoroughly enjoyed my work. The Mylh of Ronzeft Fall came out in 1958, a volume on the Near East and Greece is in process of publication, and the companion volume on Rome will soon be ready, During 1960-61 I had the Research Fulbright for Italy and made progress in Rome on a study of the Senate in the late Roman Republic and on an attempt to describe the city of Rome around 100 A.D. as a working social organism, a pair of enterprises which will take a little time, especially with the chairmanship of the Heights depart- ment and the post of adviser to the graduate students. Teach- ing and scholarship, with a little administrative work for duty's sake, is a good Way to live. Afyinfnzzf Profeffor-Charles W. Dumnore. Inm'nrt0r- Rita Fleischer.

Page 24 text:

GERMAN Cbairzzzfzfz-Professor Robert A. Fowkes. As an undergraduate, despite too many campus activities, I was on Dean's List and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. I received the Crisi medal for Italian, and played loudly in the orchestra fdouble bassj, sang in the Glee Club, ran cross-countryg the present coach, joe I-Iealey, was a classmate. I also dabbled in campus politics and was senior vice-presi- dent. I have taught full-time at NYU since 1938, and had previous part-time experience here and at Columbia College. I have been to Europe four times for travel and study, and am not, despite campus rumor, speaker of a great number of languages. I do speak a few, but have as a chief interest linguistics, the systematic study of language relation- ships, development. and structure. I am a bit of a fanatic on things Welsh tiny ancestral language,-language, literature, music, and am active in Welsh-American societies. I have taught the NYU Glee Club to sing Welsh and a few other languages: I taught Welsh at Columbia for four years, and was also a lecturer in Sanskrit there for fourteen years. -I was the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship for re- search on the Welsh language, and went to Aberystwyth fsiclj for work in the National Library of Wales. I am completing what will be the hrst etymological dictionary of that language Cand probably the lastj. I am a member and have held offices in several national societies, and am the author of between thirty and forty articles on Germanics, linguistics, etc. I have also written four small books, including no best-seller. A graduate of University College, I am still proud of the school, and hope to see it continue to flourish and improve where there is room for so doing. Izzrirzzctorr-Guenther Gerlitski, John D. Barlow, Fred Ulfers, Constantine Michos, Esther Schneider. GOVERNMENT AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS Chaimzazz-Professor Ralph A. Straetz. Friends often suggest to me that being a college teacher must be a wonderful and rewarding experience. And so it is. But the picture others have 'of the professor peering over his spectacles in a study, paneled on the inside, ivy-covered on the outside, and venturing out only to teach a class or two before returning to the purity of scholarly contemplation, is somewhat removed from reality. Books, classes, and study are certainly central to our lives, but surrounding and complementing them are such essential activities as faculty committee meetings, departmental meetings, conferences with students and colleagues, 'or with administrators, some sessions take hours, and other matters are settled during a five-minute walk across campus. These activi- ties only deal with my professional life. The effective college professor is usually also an effective citizen in his com- munity. Party politics, educational problems, church and re- ligious interests, promotion of the arts-such demands on one's time and energy are, or can be, enormous. Not all, but many college professors are thus involved. Many of our students come to us knowing where they are going professionally. Our task is to help them make sure that their original choice is correct from the point of view of aptitude, interest, and temperament. Sometimes we assist in gently dissuading a parent from insisting that a son or daughter must enter a profession where money and prestige seem assured. Increasingly, undergraduate training is not suffi- cient, so that students look to the college teacher for advice, suggestions, and recommendations about graduate schools and specihc areas of specialization. In general, if we have a guidance role, it is to encourage the student to reach academic decisions by himself, After consulting with others, he alone must select the area in which he can contribute most to the community. The spirit of an institution is something one senses and is not subject to clear and accurate description. Its most im- portant ingredient is the manner in which the pursuit of knowledge is carried on and complemented by a yearning for the creation of a better world for those who come after us. This ingredient I hnd in full force at University College. Profermr-Edward C. Smith. Arrorifzfe P7'0f6JJ01'-H. Mark Roelofs. Arrjrffmf Profermr-Irving L. Marko- vitz, James T. Crown Con leavej. Izzrfrzzclol'-Robert Burrowes.