A Generation in Search of a Future

Abstract

To many executives and practicing engineers, the turmoil in the universities has been a bewildering phenomenon. At the Fourth of March meeting at M.I.T. to protest the misuse of science and engineering (IEEE Spectrum, April 1969, p. 8), Professor George Wald of Harvard?notable for his undergraduate teaching as well as for the research on vision that brought him a Nobel Prize?addressed the question of what is worrying the young. He spoke without a text, but a tape preserved his eloquent indictment of the way things are. The standing ovation it evoked is testimony that his talk resonated strongly with the minds of the audience convoked by the Union of Concerned Scientists, an M.I.T. faculty group. It is printed here, with his permission, for the insight it gives into the ferment which, though less strong on engineering campuses than in some other places, is giving social relevance a strong place in the values and professional aspirations of the next generation of electrical engineers.

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