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University Daily Kansan
Friday. Jan. 16. 1959
Bendix Corp. Will Build KU Reactor
The Bendix Aviation Corporation received today $132,600 from the University for construction of a nuclear "training" reactor to be complete by this fall.
"The reactor is scheduled to be in operation by the end of this year," said Russell Mieler, associate professor of chemical engineering and director of the training program.
The reactor will be used by engineering students to learn about its design and preparation and to conduct experiments on foods and materials.
Set to Go Year End
"We could possibly have it by August but our new engineering building will not be completed by then," Prof. Meisler said.
The reactor will sit in 16 feet of water, which will serve as a window, a protective shield, to slow down neutrons, and cool the reactor Dr. W. E. Kock, general manager of the Bendix research division said the reactor will use highly enriched Uranium-235. The unit with a top power output of 10,000 watts, is especially designed for use in the engineering laboratories of universities to teach all branches of the nuclear art. It is being built to meet all requirements of the Atomic Energy Commission.
Cubans Tell of Batista Crimes
Logs Go Into Reactor
The reactor will be equipped with graphite "logs" to slow neutrons to about 5,000 miles an hour for study purpose. Students will be able to study the effects of these slow neutrons which are responsible for increasing the radioactivity of material and changing its atomic structure.
HAVANA — (UPI) — The newspaper El Mundo said today the government should give fuller publicity to "the crimes of (ex-president Fulengcio) Batista agents" to offset criticism in the United States and elsewhere of "war crimes" executions which total nearly 250.
El Mundo's proposal was published as authorities prepared to start the trials of 631 Batista supporters imprisoned in the Cabana fortress here.
Fidel Castro reacted sharply to U.S. criticism, saying that "I won't sell out to the Americas, nor will I take orders from them." His statement followed U. S. Congressional demand for a U. N. investigation, a trade embargo and a ban on tourists.
The revolutionaries charge that Batista supporters murdered 20,000 persons in the past six years.
Dr. Francisco Muller, director of the Havana morgue, said the beaten or bullet-riddled bodies of 603 youths, believed to have been rebels captured by the police, were dumped at his door while Batista was in power.
Angry lawmakers called for a United Nations investigation, a trade embargo against Cuba and a ban on tourist travel to the Caribbean vacation spot.
A recent survey by the U. S. Census Bureau found that Americans took a total of 107 million trips of 100 miles or more to visit friends and relatives in 1957.
Muller estimated that only about a fifth of the rebels killed in the Havana area during that time passed through his hands. He said the others probably were thrown into the sea, burned or buried in unmarked graves.
In one instance, he said, police demanded an autopsy report saying that a doctor was killed by a hit-and-run driver when the condition of the body clearly indicated he had been beaten to death.
The former ambassador, Earl T. Smith, resigned after the new Casto government accused him of having aided Batista.
Chairman Wayne Morse (D-Orc) of the Senate Foreign Relations Sub-committee on Latin American Affairs said he expected the United States to name a new ambassador to Cuba "momentarily" to convey this country's concern over the executions.
Congressmen Seek Cuban Investigation
WASHINGTON — (UFI) — Indignation mounted in Congress today against Cuban rebel leader Fidel Castro's mass executions of followers of ousted dictator Fulgencio Bataista.
But state department and congressional sources said flatly the United States would not intervene directly to halt the killings.
For example, under a neutron bombardment, glass and crystal turn black and plastics become hard and brittle.
Harvard Man Recommends Cut in Nation's High Schools
Materials for study will be placed in tube-called bean poles-about six inches in diameter and seven feet long, which lead through the shield to the reactor.
Equipment or material can be placed in these tubes to be near the reactor or to permit the emission of fast or slow neutrons.
NEW YORK — (UPI) — James Bryant Conant, president emeritus of Harvard University, will recommend on the basis of a two-year study that the nation's high schools be reduced in number from 21,000 to 9,000, it was learned today.
Secretarial Tests Open
The State Personnel Division will give examinations in February or March for three classes of secretarial positions.
Applications are also being accepted for Statistical Clerk and Psychiatric Aide I.
Two of the classes require skill in shorthand, speedwriting or stenotype. In the third class, an employee types from copy, rough draft or recordings.
The three classes are Secretary I and II (Stenographic) and Secretary I (Non-Stenographic). Applicants for these classes should return their completed applications to the Personnel Division by Feb. 9.
Application forms and information may be secured from the Personnel Division, State Department of Administration, 801 Harrison St. Topeka.
The study, which will be published Jan. 28, was based on visits to 55 high schools in 18 states. Conant found only eight of these schools satisfactorily fulfilling the job of providing students with a general education, job training or preparation for college.
Conant said a major reason for inadequacy is the smallness of many of the nation's secondary schools. He said the number of high schools should be reduced by about 13,000 in order to provide "comprehensive schools for all the youth living in a town, city or district."
"I early became convinced that a high school must have a graduating class of at least 100 to function adequately as a comprehensive school." Conant said.
The educator and former ambassador to West Germany, whose study was financed by a $370,000 Carnegie Corporation grant, said only a few of the schools visited provided a wide enough range of academic studies with sufficient challenge to make students want to work hard.
"The able boys too often specialize in mathematics and science to the exclusion of foreign languages and to the neglect of English and social studies," he said. "The able girls, on the other hand, too often avoid mathematics and science as
well as the foreign languages."
These include:
While noting that no radical change in the basic pattern of American education is necessary in order to improve the schools, Conant's report will offer 21 specific recommendations for improvement.
More intensive study of English, with English composition occupying half the total time in a four-year course.
Three of four years of social studies including two years of history and a senior course in American government or American problems.
At least one course in mathematics and in science for all pupils.
A four-year course of one foreign language should be available no matter how few students want it.
A full-time counselor or guidance officer for every 250 to 300 pupils.
A tuition-free summer school for bright and ambitious pupils as well as repeaters.
Grouping of students by ability subject for subject because the exceptionally able student in English social studies may be slow in math.
Special work, special tutors and, if possible, a special twelfth grade class of college level work for the highly gifted students.
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