Education: Putting the Pieces Together

General Motors' Board Chairman Alfred P. Sloan Jr. has long been convinced of a couple of facts of industrial life: too few engineers know much about business, and too few executives know enough about science. M.I.T. Alumnus Sloan (1895) has already given his alma mater $600,000 to finance courses that would train students in both. Last week he went a huge step further. The step: a gift of $5,250,000 for a School of Industrial Management.

About half the money will go for housing and equipping the school. The rest will go for staff and maintenance. The school will have its own dean and faculty, about 500 undergraduates and graduate students. It will give courses in economics, history, applied psychology, as well as industrial technology. "Our civilization is so involved," explained Sloan. "We need people who know how to put the pieces together."*