Conant Urges Expansion of State College

Speaking before a Joint Ways and Means Committee of the State General Court yesterday, President Conant advocated the transfer of students now at Fort Devens College to Massachusetts State College at Amherst for their final two years of study.

Established last year as an emergency institution to help relieve the post-war crowding of local colleges, Devens' original charter only provided two years of study there. As Chairman of the Advisory Committee on the project, President Conant presented his plans for extending it to a full four year college.

Amherst Site More Practical

He advocated in his address that since a large number of students enrolled at Devens were engineering students it would be more practical for the State to provide additional facilities at Amherst rather than expand the Devens site for what would be only temporary use.

To transfer the students to an established institution and expand its facilities for their use would be better than building up Devens merely to provide for the temporary emergency President Conant said. He felt that the large number of applicants to Massachusetts State College in recent years justified the project for future as well as present use.

Will Speak at Congressional Hearing

President Conant entrains this morning for Atlantic City, where it is rumored he will receive the American Educational Award for 1946 tonight. Following this, he will address the American Association of School Administrators there.

On Thursday, he will continue to Washington to testify before the interstate and Foreign Commerce Committee of the House in behalf of the new National Science Foundation Act now before Congress.