Economics Offers New Program for War; Physics Opens Field of Communications

A specialized war service program in electronics and communication engineering, to be regarded as an entirely new field of concentration, was approved yesterday afternoon at a meeting of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, according to Edwin C. Kemble, professor of Physics and chairman of the Department.

The field will include the following subjects: Mathematics C (Students with adequate secondary school training will be exempted from this course), Mathematics A, Mathematics 2, Physics A or as an alternate Physics B and D, Physics 4, Physics 21a and b, Physics 24a and b, Physics 25a, and Physics 71 or 23a. In addition to this, a half course in either Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics or Engineering Science will be required, while ordinary distribution and language requirements also apply.

Approved by Signal Corps

Many of the included subjects have been primarily for graduate students in the past, but, according to Emory L. Chaffee, Gordon McKay Professor of Physics and Communication Engineering, the fact that they will be given for undergraduates in the future "does not mean that their standards will be lowered."

Designed to help Physics students make themselves more valuable to the country's armed forces, the program has been approved by Colonel King of the Army Signal Corps. As the situation stands now, the Signal Corps will admit Juniors and Seniors enrolled in the field to the enlisted reserve. When these students receive their degree, they will be given officers' commissions, provided they pass the Army's physical requirements.

Both Kemble and Chaffee said, however, that they expected many of the best students not to take advantage of the Signal Corps plan and go instead into government research, where they will be of greater value to the over-all war effort.