Regional Planning Program Added to Designing School

Curtailing at least partially the effects of the ten percent slash made in the University budget last year is a new curriculum in regional planning which will go into effect in the Graduate School of Design.

The new program which will be under the guidance of John Merriman Gaus, recently appointed Professor of Regional Planning in the School of Design, is deseribed in detail in the last issue of the Alumni Bulletin.

It will be divided into two courses of study, the first being a three year course, and open to graduates of approved colleges. The second course will be a graduate course extending from one and a half to two years in length and open to students who have completed the first course or its equivalent.

Solve Professional Problems

Intended to comprise the solution of professional problems in planning and given under the direction of men engaged in actual practise, the second of graduate course will give students a chance to gain actual experience in the field of regional planning.

Degree in Architecture

So far as practical, the first course of study will be identical with the curriculum leading to the bachelor's degree in Architecture, and the special technique of planning will not be introduced until later years. Those who complete the curriculum which includes special courses in social psychology, economics, government, business administrations and municipal engineering, will be awarded the degree of Bachelor of Regional Planning.

The man who is to be in charge of the new curriculum, Professor Gaus, has been professor of political science at Wisconsin since 1927, and before that taught at Amherst and at the University of Minnesota. He was chairman of the technical committee of the National Resources Planning Board, and he has been a consultant of the board since 1935.

He was also Executive Secretary of the Wisconsion Executive Council, a member of the Massachusetts Commission on Unemployment, a member of the staff of the Massachusetts Commission on Unemployment, a member of the staff of the Massachusetts Supervisor of Administration, and a staff member of the New York State Reconstruction Commission. Professor Gaus is a graduate of Amherst.

The resumption of teaching in the field answers the plea of Dean Hudnut in his recently published annual report in which he stated that due to cuts in the budget of the School of Design it had been found necessary to discontinue the curriculum in regional planning.