Penn's Choice

When Harold Stassen resigned as president of the University of Pennsylvania to become Mutual Security Director in the Eisenhower Cabinet, his former trustees apparently made up their minds about one thing: they wanted a president who would not be perpetually running for the presidency of the U.S. Last week the university finally announced its choice: 49-year-old Physicist Gaylord P. Harnwell, who has been on the Penn faculty since 1938.

A big (6 ft. 1 1/2 in.) man with a thick thatch of greying hair, Physicist Harnwell, a graduate of Haverford and a Ph.D. from Princeton, arrived at Pennsylvania to find it teaching the same sort of physics it was giving back in the 1890s. Within a few years, Harnwell had revolutionized his department, managed a $2,700,000 physics building. He was awarded the Medal for Merit for his war work in Navy radio and sound research, including sonar.

Science students have long considered his Physics 510 an awesome course, but in matters academic, Harnwell doesn't mind being tough. "The closest things to my heart," says he, "are the quality of the faculty and the intellectual energy of the undergraduates."

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