scholarly journals Measurement and decision making at the University of Michigan in the 1950s and 1960s

2010 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 189-207 ◽  
Author(s):  
Floris Heukelom
2021 ◽  
Vol 51 (2) ◽  
pp. 232-268
Author(s):  
David P. D. Munns

In the 1950s, American public universities began training a vast new cadre of nuclear engineers, technicians, and scientists in specially designed and built “teaching reactors.” As this article describes, a generation of nuclear engineering undergraduates and graduate students were exposed to an open, accessible, and above all, visible demonstration of nuclear energy through educational “swimming pool”–style reactors. Distinct from reactors for either weapons or power production, the swimming pool reactor was specifically configured to be a pedagogical tool. Educational programs were created around federally and industrially sponsored reactors for training, part of the massive Cold War era transformations of Midwestern, Western, and Southern public colleges and universities. This article offers the Ford Nuclear Reactor at the University of Michigan as an example of how the peaceful pedagogical atom developed after the 1950s. As I argue, teaching reactors were one product of the conservative compact made between government, public universities, and private industry in the early 1950s that underpinned the famed Atoms for Peace movement, with its technology and information sharing and international training priorities. Indeed, teaching reactors resolved for Eisenhower’s administration the tension between a desire for centralized control of the atom and the powerful vision of a future of prosperity brought about by open education and use of nuclear materials. This paper is part of a special issue entitled “Revealing the Michigan Memorial–Phoenix Project.”


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Lavender ◽  
Courtney McAllister

The University of Michigan Press, with support from the Mellon Foundation, asked John Lavender, of Lavender Consulting, to conduct a review of the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) Humanities E-Book collection (HEB) following its launch on Michigan’s new Fulcrum platform. ACLS-HEB is an online collection of over 5,400 high-quality humanities books from over 100 publishers. Now that the market for e-books has matured, part of the review was a comparative study of e-book platforms run by publishers, university presses and e-book vendors; 17 platforms were selected. The review looked at the key features offered by each platform, how they handled searching, content delivery, displaying results, ability to view and download and other key features, there was no attempt to judge the value of the content. Following this review, Michigan Press felt that it would be beneficial to share the results with the wider community. As well as being of interest to publishers, the review will also be relevant for librarians making purchasing decisions and vendors selling e-book services. In addition to synthesizing the results of the e-book platform review, this paper presents a librarian’s perspectives on e-book assessment criteria. Courtney McAllister, Electronic Resources Librarian at Yale University’s Law Library, describes the importance of attributes such as accessibility compliance, library branding, and metadata. Library collections are shaped by a plethora of concerns and criteria. This paper seeks to outline some key elements to consider as part of e-book platform decision-making.


1979 ◽  
Vol 46 ◽  
pp. 96-101
Author(s):  
J.A. Graham

During the past several years, a systematic search for novae in the Magellanic Clouds has been carried out at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory. The Curtis Schmidt telescope, on loan to CTIO from the University of Michigan is used to obtain plates every two weeks during the observing season. An objective prism is used on the telescope. This provides additional low-dispersion spectroscopic information when a nova is discovered. The plates cover an area of 5°x5°. One plate is sufficient to cover the Small Magellanic Cloud and four are taken of the Large Magellanic Cloud with an overlap so that the central bar is included on each plate. The methods used in the search have been described by Graham and Araya (1971). In the CTIO survey, 8 novae have been discovered in the Large Cloud but none in the Small Cloud. The survey was not carried out in 1974 or 1976. During 1974, one nova was discovered in the Small Cloud by MacConnell and Sanduleak (1974).


2006 ◽  
Vol 1 (9) ◽  
pp. 601
Author(s):  
Tonia J. Buchholz ◽  
Bruce Palfey ◽  
Anna K. Mapp ◽  
Gary D. Glick

1995 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 133-137 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juan Fernández ◽  
Miguel A. Mateo ◽  
José Muñiz

The conditions are investigated in which Spanish university teachers carry out their teaching and research functions. 655 teachers from the University of Oviedo took part in this study by completing the Academic Setting Evaluation Questionnaire (ASEQ). Of the three dimensions assessed in the ASEQ, Satisfaction received the lowest ratings, Social Climate was rated higher, and Relations with students was rated the highest. These results are similar to those found in two studies carried out in the academic years 1986/87 and 1989/90. Their relevance for higher education is twofold because these data can be used as a complement of those obtained by means of students' opinions, and the crossing of both types of data can facilitate decision making in order to improve the quality of the work (teaching and research) of the university institutions.


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