Pusey Asserts New Function Of University

Post-doctoral training is becoming an increasingly important function of the large university, President Pusey told the Board of Overseers in his annual report released today. This trend is particularly evident in the fields of medicine, chemistry, and other natural sciences, he said.

Noting several developments which indicate such a trend, Pusey cited the fact that almost one-fifth of the 4,206 people now holding appointments in the University are engaged in post-doctoral research rather than in teaching. Twenty years ago, only about one-twentieth of the appointees were engaged in such research, he explained.

In the Medical School, where the increase in post-doctoral training is particularly marked, the President continued, some 1,600 already qualified physicians are enrolled in graduate courses or research activities of the Medical School and its associated teaching hospitals.

Pusey also cited as examples the University's chemical laboratories where 50 post-doctoral fellows are working today as opposed to six in 1928, and the University Library, used by scholars from all parts of the nation and the world.

This new function of a large university, Pusey maintained, is also an advantage to the undergraduate body. "If the college now has something special to say to undergraduates," he declared, "we are confident this is owed in large measure to its setting in the midst of a multiform dynamic University with a vital outreach into the world."

Among the influences from the new post-doctoral emphasis which "make their way into the program for undergraduates and shape its character," Pusey included "the range of the University's interest, the originality of its scholarship conducted at the highest levels, its immediate relevance for and involvement in current world issues," and, "above all, its widespread sense of high intellectual standard."