Decision - Making Will Be Offered As Ph.D. Field

A program of courses in decision-making has been established for Ph.D. candidates in four fields.

The seven half-courses in Design and Control will emphasize the similar approaches of businessmen and engineers to the problem of improving efficiency. Students in the Business School, the Division of Engineering and Applied Physics, and the Departments of Economics and Statistics may elect the courses as part of their doctoral programs.

The courses range from prohability to decision theory, and all require proficiency in advanced calculus. One course will be a workshop in uses of the computer. Selected undergraduates who meet the requirements will be admitted to come courses.

Courses in Decision and Control are now scattered randomly throughout the University, but there is heavy duplication. Almost no effort, has been made to show businessmen or engineers that there are fruitful methods of attack other than their own.

Harvey Brooks, Dean of the Division of Engineering and Applied Physics, said the consolidation will eliminate waste and make the subject more inter-disciplinary.

The innovation was developed during the summer of 1963 when Yu-Chi Ho, associate professor of Engineering and Applied Math, and Arthur E. Benson Jr., Gordon McKay Professor of Mechanical Engineering, offered a summer course in Control of Dynamic Systems. They invited Howard Raiffa, professor of Business Administration, to give a guest lecture, and discovered that his techniques were not very different from their own.

They decided to do something about their discovery last summer. He said. A committee of eight deliberated for most of this year and came up with the consolidation idea.