DEPARTMENT HISTORY |
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Jerry Service was hired shortly after Roman and also came with an earned PhD, in his case from Ohio State and the first in our department to be a PhD "in Physics." Since few faculty hires from this time until the 1960's came with a PhD, one is led to think that the Depression economy might have had something to do with the availability of Roman and Service. Service also had a large number of publications though he preferred short technical books and similar publications rather than articles in the scientific journals. During the 1930's the department produced about a dozen scientific publications, all in some area of geophysics. Any extra state funding dried up rather quickly during the depression years resulting in faculty pay cuts and virtually no new hires during the late 1930's. At the same time the research effort tapered off to pre-1930's levels and the emphasis returned to the engineering education role of the department. Scientific publications by the Physics faculty were few and far between starting in the late 1930's and for at least the next 30 years. While the department continued to include a strong geophysics presence in the curriculum, it considered itself foremost a "teaching department." The curriculum in physics was gradually filled out to include the basic courses needed for a physics major, which first appeared in 1941 as an option under the BS in General Science.
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It appears that in the late 1920's and
very early 1930's there was a significant push, backed up with
some State funding, to further develop geophysics research within
the department and an MS program in Geophysics was created. In the
early 1930's, the early Depression years, 
