Education: Lessons from Oak Ridge

For weeks after a reunion party of University of Tennessee faculty members, Physicist William G. Pollard had a burning idea on his mind. One of his colleagues —a woman physicist—had just returned from a wartime job with the atomic energy program at the University of Chicago, and during the party she suddenly made an exciting suggestion. Oak Ridge, said she, had so many facilities that U.S. universities lacked. Why couldn't it be made into a permanent educational institution itself? A few months later, Pollard took a leave of absence from the University of...