Deans Brooks, Haertlein Oppose Statement by Secretary Flemming

Two Deans yesterday opposed a statement by Arthur S. Flemming, Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, that there is a "disturbing" lack of undergraduate engineers in the U.S.

Flemming noted a 4.4 per cent decline in enrollment for engineering courses, calling the drop a "serious setback in a field of education vital to our national security in a period of technological change." He pointed out a corresponding drop of 11 per cent in freshman enrollments.

"This is not necessarily a bad sign," Albert Haertlein '16, associate Dean of Engineering and Appiled Physics, asserted. "It is or greater benefit to the nation to have people in the fields they are most interested in." He emphasized that most students who drop engineering lack skill, not interest.

Allied fields such as electronics and atomic physics are attracting an increasing number of potential engineers, Haertlein added. He felt that the figures cited by Flemming did not in themselves indicate a trend since such statistics fluctuate often.

"Marginal Students" Leave

Harvey Brooks, Dean of Engineering and Applied Physics, agreed with Haertlein that it is mainly "marginal students" who leave the engineering field. Of approximately 20 College engineering majors who entered other areas this year, not one was a Dean's List student, he stated.

However, there has been a 10 per cent decline in new engineering majors, "which may or may not be alarming," Brooks observed. If this trend is really nationwide, "the situation could be serious, insofar as it represents a loss of talented people. In the present shortage of skilled technological men, more good engineers are needed," he concluded.