Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 84.djvu/311

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THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE
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THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE

WORK IN ENGINEERING AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY AND THE MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

The corporations of Harvard University and of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology entered into an agreement in January, according to which all work in mechanical, electrical, civil, sanitary and mining engineering will be conducted in the new buildings of the Masachusetts Institute of Technology on the site recently acquired by the institute on the Charles River embankment in Cambridge, not so very distant from the site of Harvard University.

The university agrees to devote to the courses in engineering the income of the funds of the Lawrence Scientific School and the use of equipment not more urgently needed for other purposes, together with not less than three fifths of the Gordon-McKay endowment. This will provide at present some $60,000 a year, and may ultimately amount to more than $250,000. The institute devotes to the work all funds that it now holds for the purpose, and both institutions agree to use in future all funds acquired for the promotion of teaching and research in engineering. Buildings are to be erected only from the share of the funds supplied by the institute. All funds are to be expended through the bursar of the institute, but the corporation that supplies the funds is to prescribe the way in which they shall be expended.

All members of the instructing staff in the engineering departments referred to who give instruction in courses leading to degrees in both institutions are appointed and removed by the corporation that pays their salaries after consultation with the other corporation. The faculty of the institute is to be enlarged by the addition of the professors, associate professors and assistant professors in the school of applied science of Harvard University, and at the same time the professors of the institute receive the title and privileges of professors of the university. The president of the institute is the executive head for all work carried on under the agreement and is to make an annual report to both corporations. When a future president of the institute is to be selected, the president of Harvard University is to be invited to sit with the committee that recommends the appointment.

Students at the institute in the engineering courses mentioned are admitted to be candidates for degrees at Harvard University and have the same rights and privileges as students in the other professional schools. Students may receive degrees from either or from both institutions.

Both institutions are unaffected in name, organization and rights over their property and either institution may terminate the agreement on notice of at least five years, or a shorter period if mutually agreed on.

It will be remembered that some eight years ago the corporations of the I Massachusetts Institute and Harvard! University voted a plan of affiliation which was later abandoned owing, it was said, to the fact that the institute could not sell its present site for business purposes, though in fact the abandonment of the plan was due to opposition on the part of the faculty and