A Referendum on the State of Astronomy at Harvard: Choosing Harlow Shapley's Successor

Details A Referendum on the State of Astronomy at Harvard: Choosing Harlow Shapley's Successor A Referendum on the State of Astronomy at Harvard: Choosing Harlow Shapley's Successor

Dec 2006

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2006aas...209.5104d&link_type=abstract

2007 AAS/AAPT Joint Meeting, American Astronomical Society Meeting 209, #51.04; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, V

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

Harlow Shapley, the Director of the Harvard College Observatory for over three decades, was scheduled for retirement in 1952. His predecessor, E. C. Pickering, had held the office for some 42 years. Therefore naming successors at Harvard was something of a rarity, and as a result, the process engaged many issues that illuminate how astronomy as a profession changed during Shapley's tenure, and the changing place of Harvard astronomy within the profession. Harvard's case was not unique--similar issues were raised at other major American observatories when it came time for a change in administration--but no American Observatory was scrutinized as closely as was Shapley's, or as sharply. Despite Shapley's wishes, echoed by his senior staff, for a quick decision on a successor, Harvard President James B. Conant asked J. Robert Oppenheimer to form a blue ribbon review panel to assess the state of astronomy at Harvard before a search for a new director could take place. The committee, mainly physicists, came back with a brutal assessment. My paper will outline this assessment and examine its recommendations as indicators of how the norms, standards and practices of the American astronomical profession were undergoing profound change in the Cold War era. This research has been supported in part by a grant from the Naitonal Science Foundation.

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