Seventy Years Of The Worcester Polytechnic Institute: Page 303

Dr. Hollis was selected to convey the greetings of American engineers to the British Institute of Civil Engineers, and later to the engineers of France, both of which assignments he carried out in scholarly and convincing fashion. He also made his influence felt in the field of engineering education, though at times he was widely at variance with his colleagues on the faculty. In March, 1921, he was influential in bringing to the Institute a large group of engineering educators, who organized at that meeting the New England section, Society for the Promotion of Engineering Education.

Increased income made possible an addition to the salary budget of about ten per cent in 1919-20, and of about thirty per cent in 1920-21, but it did not provide for an expansion of the regular instruction staff. The need in this direction was temporarily met by the appointment of numerous graduate assistants and student assistants, a makeshift that the faculty deplored. Two members were added to the faculty in 1920: Harris Rice, '12, with five years' teaching experience at Tufts and Harvard, as assistant professor of Mathematics; Herbert F. Taylor, '12, with eight years' experience in railway, military, and sanitary engineering, as assistant professor of Civil Engineering. Carl D. Knight was promoted to a full professorship in Electrical Engineering. In June, 1921, Dr. Raymond K. Morley was elected Sinclair professor of Mathematics, an honor fully merited because of his mathematical and teaching abilities. Dr. Lester B. Struthers came from the University of Indiana to succeed Professor Joslin as head of the Modern Language department.

Herbert S. Busey, instructor in mechanical drawing since 1912, resigned in 1920 to become draftsman in a Worcester industry. Charles B. Hurd, '15, graduate assistant and instructor in Chemistry since 1915, left to do graduate work for his doctor's degree at Clark University. Wayland M. Burgess from Rhode Island State became an instructor in Chemistry, and William L. Phinney from Dartmouth, an instructor in Mathematics, both in 1920.

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