Newby Claims Firms Bypass Placing Depts.

Business and industrial firms are increasingly bypassing student placement offices at many universities in the country, including several Ivy League schools, Louis L. Newby, Director of the Office of Student Placement said yesterday.

"This is not the situation here at Harvard at the present time," Newby emphasized, "but it could develop in the future as the result of increased pressure on companies for college graduates."

He stated that the need for college-trained personnel, especially in the technical fields, was at a peak and that this has caused campus recruiting to become very intense.

Newby said that this increased recruiting has led to unpleasant situations at universities throughout the country. He pointed out Princeton, as an example of what he meant. The Director of the Princeton Placement Office has publicly attacked corporations for attempting to circumvent the office and for directly contacting members of the Princeton faculty and individual students.

"There have been isolated cases of this in the past at Harvard," Newby admitted, but he added that they could not be construed as any indication that this practice would become widespread here.

If, however, this bypassing of Placement Office should become a regular practice of the competing companies, Newby warned that he would have to take action, possibly by denying the services of the Office to the companies involved.