Western Michigan University - Brown and Gold Yearbook (Kalamazoo, MI)

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SOCIAL SCIENCE Nancy Scott Jame: i Knauss Edith Seekell Davis Shilling George Comfort Otto Yntema Howard Bigelow Arthu r Manske Leonard Kercher Floyd Moore Charles Starring Robert Bowers That Western ' s Social Science department is concerned with the changing demands of world conditions on edu- cation is evidenced by its wilhngness to supplant its regular history, sociology, economics and political science courses with such new courses as a survey of comparative economic systems, economics of reconstruction, and origins of the present war. These courses have aimed, as have the traditional ones in the field, to give the student a thorough background and understanding of the impor- tant problems facing the world today and to lead him to see the solution of some of them. One of the college ' s most interesting instructors was added to the Social Science department this year. He is Dr. Robert Friedmann, a native of Vienna, Austria, who came to the United States in 1940. Dr. Friedmann graduated from the University of Vienna and taught in the Gymnasia there and also studied and taught at Yale and Goshen college before coming to Western. Another newcomer to the department is Dr. Margaret B. MacMillan, who happens to be the daughter of Western ' s Dr. Smith Burnham, head of the history department for a number of years, and the niece of Dr. Ernest Burnham who organized the Rural Education department here. Dr. MacMillan has taught history at Western for the past three trimesters. Although they ' re rather modest concerning their achievements, the other members of the department have found time this year, in spite of their extra teaching loads, to add to their impressive list of books and articles published, lectures given, and studies made. The school is justly proud of them and what they are accomplishing. Gerald Osborne Robert Eldridgc Western ' s Chemistry department serves a variety of functions in preparing students to teach highschool chem- istry and in giving the basic courses necessary for those going into specialized fields, graduate work, medicine, dentistry, or engineering. It also gives vocational chem- istry to medical technologists and laboratory technicians, and special chemistry courses for home economics stu- dents and Bronson nurses. More recently the Chemistry department has taught Navy students the chemistry of engineering materials course required in their V-12 program. An additional function of the Chemistry department is to furnish chemicals and chemical information to the Health Service and other departments on campus. The department is headed by Dr. Gerald Osborn who was honored this year by being appointed consultant in teaching of phyical science to the West Virginia state board of education. 26

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ENGLISH £lda Baumann - Virginia Perkins Edith Eicher Minnie Loutzenhi: William Brown George Sprau The English department, possibly more than any other, is responsible for the metamorphasis which takes place in college students. Its members aim at bringing out the half-hidden ideas of the typical college freshman, try to give him new ideas and atti- tudes and teach him to express those ideas and attitudes in clear-cut form and good style. The de- partment accomplishes this through its freshman and advanced rhetoric courses plus its general background courses in prose and poetry and the personalities and enthusiasm of the instructors themselves. Western was fortunate this year in having two new members added to the English department. They were: Mrs. Virginia Chase Perkins, author of the book The American Home and sister of Mary Ellen Lucille Nobbs Louis Foley Herbert Slusser Lorena Gary Helen Master Louise Walker Chase, writer and a favorite of Western ' s Adult Edu- cation program, and Mr. John Thompson, who both took time off from their graduate studies at the Uni- versity of Michigan to teach six freshmen rhetoric classes here. In addition to their teaching positions on campus, most of the English instructors are writers and speakers in their specialties. Many have published books, articles, stories and poems in past years; some are engaged in literary production at the present time or are working on further degrees. Credit should be given, too, to those who claim no writing or speaking talents but who, by their daily teaching, help to develop those talents in their students. FOREIGN LANGUAGE The Foreign Language department offers courses in Latin, French, German and Spanish which are designed to provide reading, writing and speaking skills in those languages. The department functioned under a new chairman this year, when Miss Mathilde Steckleberg took over the duties of Miss Elizabeth Zimmerman who retired last year. The newest addition to the deparement staff is Mr. Herman Rothfuss who was studying for his doctorate at the University of Minnesota before he came to Western. He is a native of Germany and came to this country in 1925. The Foreign Language department can easily claim to be the most traveled department on campus. Miss Marion Tamin came to this country as an exchange student from France in 1918. Both Miss Myrtle Windsor and Dr. Francis Noble have traveled widely in France. Miss Eunice Kraft studied at the American Academy at Rome, and Miss Steckleberg has studied in several uni- versities in Germany. Mr. Harry Greenwall has traveled Mathilde Steckelberg Frances Noble Eunice Kraft Marion Tamin Herman Rothfuss in South America, the Scandinavian countries, the Orient and Hawaii. 25

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ART One of the most active departments on Western ' s campus is the Art department. Although its staff has been reduced by the war, it still offers a large variety of courses in design, painting, and modeling. The department is headed by Miss Lydia Sied- schlag who is largely responsible for planning the interior decoration of Western ' s newer buildings. One of her special projects this year has been redecorating the new president ' s home on campus. During the ' year Mr. John Kemper published an article titled Marionettes in the School Arts magazine. He also exhibited paintings in the Kalamazoo Artists Exhibition and in the Michigan Lydia Siedschlag Hazel Paden Artists Exhibition at the Detroit Institute of Arts. Miss Hazel Paden, who is a member of the National Association of Women Artists, exhibited her water color paintings in New York this year. PUBLICITY Homer Dunham Blanche Draper The Publicity department can claim partial responsibility for the growth of Western in recent years. Theirs is a combination publicity and public relations job, for they write all the articles about Western for outside press associations and the pamphlets for the school. Miss Blanche Draper has served twenty-seven years, and Mr. Homer Dunham sixteen in this busy department. BUSINESS EDUCATION Edna Whitney John Brickner Agnes Anderson Western ' s Business Education department, an outgrowth of the previous Commerce department, has expanded rapidly in the last few years. Its faculty personnel has been increased to six mem- bers to accommodate the students who are major- ing in this field. The newest addition to the staff is Mr. Paul Kircher who took his undergraduate work at the University of New Mexico. This year the department has arranged a four- year degree course in secretarial administration for majors in office training and a curriculum for the training of coordinators and teachers of coopera- tive business education for Michigan high school vocational departments. Dr. Hanna, who is on leave of absence from the department, is now the commanding officer of the Depauw University V-12 unit as well as the Navy units at the University of Indiana and the Uni- versity Medical School. Mr. Glen C. Rice has been elected president of the Michigan Vocational Education Association. 27