Faculty "Drafted" To Serve Defense

Seventeen University Faculty members including President Conant have been "drafted" by the government to serve as special advisors on national defense policy. Many of them spent part of their summer vacations in Washington, while a few still have leaves of absence to work with Federal agencies.

Appointed to the National Defense Research Committee by President Roosevelt on June 18, President Conant went to Washington last summer to help correlate and organize scientific research for the army and navy. The principal task of his Committee is to mobilize industrial and university scientists and to coordinate their investigations.

Not Much In Washington

The work of the Committee is sufficiently advanced so that President Conant will not have to spend much of his time in Washington this fall, according to the lead article in the current issue of the Alumni Bulletin.

Heading the list of Government Professors who worked with the government last summer is Professor William Y. Elliott, who, as consultant of the National Defense Advisory Commission, had an opportunity to apply his theories of pooling necessary raw materials. Several faculty members served as statistical and economic advisors, including Alvin H. Hansen, Lucius N. Littauer Professor of Political Economy, who assisted the Federal Reserve Board.

Professor Sidney Post Simpson of the Law School was appointed aide to Robert P. Patterson, while Law School Professors advised the Department of Justice on special problems connected with the Alien Registration Law. Now working with the Evaluation Committee of the National Research Council is Professor Harlow Shapley, director of the College Observatory.