8
THE SUMMER SESSION KANSAN
Friday, July 19, 1968
NASA contributes to KU research
By SANDY BARNETT Journalism Camp Reporter
Funds for a new $2.3 million Space Research Building to be located between the CRES, Center for Research, Engineering, Science, Center and Pioneer Cemetery have been made available to KU by a NASA grant.
B. G. Barr, associate professor of mechanical engineering at KU and associate director of the KU Center for Research in the Engineering Sciences, said that the new building is scheduled to begin operation in the spring or fall of 1970.
It will join CRES and three other research facilities, the U.S. Geological Survey Building constructed by the KU Endowment Association and leased to the Survey; a laboratory used by Prof. Takeru Higuchi, regents professor of pharmaceutical chemistry; and the Botanical Research Building, in the developing research area west of Iowa Street.
"KU'S SPACE Research Building should be the most important facility on the KU campus for communicating university research to the region." Barr said. "The National Aeronautics and Space Administration, which granted $1.8 million for construction of the new building, is particularly interested in developing ties between research centers, especially those in universities and the larger community in which they are located.
"Results where such close relationships have been developed have been remarkably beneficial to both parties," Barr continued. "The most notable examples of this type development are the clusters of research groups and technological industries in the Boston and Los Angeles areas."
Others, less sizeable but no less successful, have grown up in university communities in Stanford, Calif., and Boulder, Colo. The likelihood is strong that a similar development could be in store for KU and the surrounding region."
Barr said, "It is easy to see that such growth is conceivable by looking at the growth of space research at KU which led up to the NASA grant. In 1961 CRES began
operation. During the next five years, supported research in space - related areas increased about 20 times.
"SUPPORT WAS about $50,000 in 1961, and it was almost $1,000,- 000 in 1966," Barr said. "Interaction between regional industries and the research effort of the university was instrumental in this growth."
KU Chancellor W. Clarke Wescoe said the NASA Space Technology Building will be a major asset to the University's research effort, for which lack of space has been a limiting factor.
"The building will be a particular asset in the educational programs which stress application of man's knowledge to practical problems of man and his world society." Wescoe said.
A COMMITTEE of KU faculty members and administrators is now working with architects Hollis and Miller of Topeka on the building design. It is anticipated the three-storied Space Research Building will have a total floor area of 65,000 to 70,000 sq. ft. Current planning calls for a three-storied structure of two wings joined by a rather open central area.
The Remote Sensing Laboratory, now located in the CRES facility, will occupy about one third of the new building. Laboratory director is R. K. Moore, professor of electrical engineering at KU. His group has proposed design recommendations for spacecraft radars to be used in the advanced Apollo program for the mapping of planetary environments.
Another pioneer in relating university research to the surrounding larger community is KU's Business Engineering Technical Applications Group, known as the BETA program. Now located in the CRES building, the group is to be moved to the Space Research Building.
BETA WORKS on the premise that no firm can conduct all its own research. Small, private firms, in particular, could benefit from the scientific and engineering know-how produced by such efforts as the national space program. BETA provides a way for tapping that know-how.
Francis assumes Garden City post
Cliff Francis has taken up the duties of the directorship of the KU Southwest Kansas Center in Garden City, filling the vacancy created by the death of O. D. Calhoon, Jr., last December.
Francis, a native of Texas, retains the dual appointment of lecturer in English and technical writing at KU, where he has been since 1965 when he began candidacy for the Ph.D. degree in English.
DURING THE past year Francis has been assistant in industrial extension serving both KU Extension and the Kansas Industrial Extension Service. He has been doing research in engineering literature at KU and the Linda Hall Library in Kansas City, Mo., one of the nation's largest technical libraries.
As director of the KU Extension Center he will provide extension class service in 24 southwestern counties.
BETA was organized three years ago by professors from KU's Schools of Business and Engineering: B. G. Barr and R. R. Galts. Graduate students in both fields administer the program. These student representatives contact personnel in the region who are interested in using the program and finding out what type of information they are looking for.
Upon graduation from high school in Silsbee, Tex., Francis entered Tulane University on an honor scholarship to study electrical engineering in 1954.
M. A. degree in American literature in 1962 from Sam Houston State College, where he had been teaching both beginning and junior-level work.
After three years of engineering study and work in industry he changed his field to English at Lamar College, Beaumont, Tex. There he won the Eleanor Weinbaum Poetry award, acted in several dramas, and earned the B.A. degree in 1960. He earned the
Frances has now completed course work for the Ph.D. in English.
Answers to the business and industrial problems are then supplied, usually in the form of pertinent technical information, along with assistance in applying it to the particular needs of the firm.
research effort benefits members of the faculty, who now have a channel through which to seek and receive support for their research activities.
This institutionalization of the
IN 1965 Francis came to KU for additional graduate study and taught freshman and sophomore English and technical writing to junior and senior engineering students.
Francis is a lieutenant in the Naval Air Reserve. He and Mrs. Francis have two children, a son, age 6, and a daughter, 4.
Dr. John Lee Haslam will join the University of Kansas faculty in September as assistant professor of chemistry.
A native of Salt Lake City, Utah, Dr. Haslam earned the B.A degree in 1963 and the Ph.D in physical chemistry in 1966 from the University of Utah. For the past two years he has been a postdoctoral fellow at Cornell University with support from the National Institutes of Health.
RESEARCH THAT would serve as such a link between University researchers and the larger community was anticipated in the three tenets upon which CRES was formed;
Haslam joins in chemistry
As a linguist Francis knows a range of tongues from Old and Middle English through French and German to Fortran IV, a computer language.
THESE PRINCIPLES have been validated by the increasing significance of the research efforts at CRES. Its increase of the numbers of graduate students within the School of Engineering has been tremendous, many of whom participate directly in sponsored research.
1. The University is responsible for the performance of worthwhile research.
Most research projects at CRES are developed from the ideas and initiative of individual faculty members. The staff of CRES and the heads of departments can, when desired, help the prospective sponsor find a faculty member interested in the sponsor's area of research. Similarly, the interests of various faculty members are communicated by CRES to potential sponsors, both government and private.
2 Combining academic training with industrial practice enlarges our technological capacity.
3. The challenging problems of industry and government produce significant research goals.