Problems of an Atomic Age

Abstract

IN THE school year I953-54, Kent State University will offer for the fourth time a two-hour, interdepartmental, round-table course on the problems of an atomic age. Originally given as an experiment in the winter quarter of i950, the course has met with such continued student interest and response that it has won a place in the curriculum. Had the reaction of the students been less favorable, it is possible that by reason of its importance the course would still have become a standard offering of the university. The nature of the publicity that the course has received, taken as testimony of its intrinsic appeal, has encouraged its continuation. In i950 it was reported over a broad area. It was cited in a nation-wide broadcast by one leading newscaster, and a story on it was carried by at least one newspaper in England. Inquiries regarding the program came from such diverse organizations as the American Geological Institute and the Army's Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth. In the winter of i952 the course again received wide attention, with reports appearing in over fifty newspapers in states ranging from Massachusetts to California and from Minnesota to Florida and Texas. There is little question that a series of lectures and discussions on the meaning of atomic energy to contemporary world society can be enormously instructive. This would be true if the sole result were the revelation, to a receptive undergraduate mind, of how the tapping of new energy sources affected every phase of human behavior. It seems clear enough that at present and in the immediate future, interest will warrant a disciplined survey, at the college level, of the problems and prospects created by the release of nuclear energy. The most telling points touching on the success of the course relate to the nature of its origin and development. A freshman student, now an Ohio businessman, urged the value of such a course in a composition written for his English instructor. As it happened, the instructor-a professor of English-was a woman deeply interested in the problems of world affairs and active in the university committee directly concerned with promoting the study of international relations. It was she who, in the face of only passive interest on the part of colleagues, secured the active support of the dean of her college. From that time on, the course evolved in a series of interdepartmental committees and subcommittees. What had originally