Comments on Indian institutes
OCT 01, 1967
Writing of “An Institute in North Bengal,” in our June issue, Everett M. Hafner described the effort as a “failure”. He gave several reasons: inadequate planning, language barrier, visiting‐staff ignorance of earlier reports and recommendations, flaws in Indian higher education, frustration and insecurity among the Indian participants. He also made several recommendations for more useful future activities: sympathy, patience, careful selection of sites, staff and participants, recognition of India’s cultural heritage. Writers of the several letters that follow are sometimes in agreement, sometimes in violent disagreement with Hafner’s view. Hafner replies to his critics in a letter which confirms his opinion.
In his recent article “An Institute in North Bengal” (PHYSICS TODAY, June, page 44) Everett M. Hafner has recorded his views regarding the Summer Institute for College Teachers (Physics) held at our university in June–July 1966 under the auspices of the University Grants Commission and the United States Agency for International Development. At the very outset, he has characterized the outcome of the institute as a failure, on which point I totally disagree. I maintain that the institute achieved the same degree of success as other similar institutes held simultaneously in other universities in India.
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More about the authors
S. N. Sen,
Professor and Head, Department of Physics, University of North Bengal.
William A. Blanpied,
Case Western Reserve University.
Olexa‐Myron Bilaniuk,
Swarthmore College.
Ravi Dutta Sharma,
Yale University.
K. V. Rao,
University of Oxford.
Everett M. Hafner,
University of Rochester.
© 1967 American Institute of Physics
