DONHAM SEES CHANGES IN U.S. ECONOMY

The Business School views the present defense emergency as the forerunner of a "long-time fundamental change in the social background of business," and is prepared to alter its curriculum accordingly, Dean Wallace B. Donham announced today in his annual report.

Two new courses in industrial mobilization and the economic problems of defense inaugurated the program this fall, according to Dean Donham, although many additional changes will be made in the future which are as yet indefinite.

In cooperation with defense officials, the Business School has started the accumulation of case materials on defense business from the Army Industrial College, from businessmen throughout the country, and from research in the nation's capital, he said.

Association with Army

The school is able to work closely with the Army Industrial College because about half of the faculty of the college graduated from the Business School. For nineteen years Harvard has trained army officers for work on that faculty.

In addition, the Business School intends to maintain research contacts with the defense offices in Washington, and with businessmen in general, for the purpose of giving information to other businessmen and securing additional teaching material, the report stated.

"We conceive that we have a special obligation to assist the small business man who cannot afford to maintain his own Washington representative for this purpose," Dean Donham said.

"The School must begin at once to train men to cope with the problems arising out of new conditions," he added. "The introduction of the courses on National Defense, from this point of view, is merely an initial step in preparing the School's curriculum for this task. What further changes may be necessary, I do not know.

"However, we are ready to adjust ourselves to new sets of facts and are planning to continue our research along present lines in order that we may be better able to play our part in assisting business and government in the years that lie ahead."