Dunners, Pottery-Putter-Togetherers, Star Counters, And Butterfly Pinners Given Work

Feeding laboratory rats, pinning butterfly specimens onto cards, collecting overdue bills for the college, counting stars on photographic plates, pasting bits of Indian pottery together, digging mud out of fossils--such is the variety of jobs done by undergraduates.

More than two hundred men a year have been put to work since the spring of 1932, when the Temporary Student Employment plan was inaugurated. Under this plan, the college sets aside $40,000 annually for the employment of undergraduates in the various departments of the university.

An attempt is made to give work which will be of interest to them. A few students specializing in history and government have been given employment as assistants to faculty research men in those departments. Others interested in poetry and music have been allotted to the psychological laboratories to assist in experiments in the aesthetics of poetry and music. A student with knowledge of photography has been assigned to the Astronomical Observatory's photographic staff.

When the Peabody Museum received a large shipment of broken pottery from Panama, students were employed to sort out the pieces, and to assemble them. As a result of this jug-saw puzzle work, the museum today is the possessor of a very fine collection of several hundred complete specimens of pottery.

Widener Library has used many students to catalogue over 75,000 public documents. Students have also done cataloguing in the Treasure Room and have performed various routine library duties. One who invented a new system for filling documents in the library archives has been hired on a part time basis to work out his plan.

In the other departments, students deliver mail, manufacture museum cases and cabinets, assist in research of all kinds, compute experimental results, plot graphs, run errands, catalogue specimens, and type manuscripts.