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Frank StantonFrank Stanton
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Session:         Page of 755

1953 to 1960, and then a trustee from '53 to '71. Could you talk about how that came about?

Stanton:

It goes back to my association with Paul Lazarsfeld. Paul was a believer that there should be in the social sciences something akin to the postdoctoral program that exist in science and medicine. Perhaps it existed in the social sciences, I didn't know it if it did. Paul and I talked about it in the thirties. He regretted that there wasn't something like that in this country. I think Paul would have liked to run such an institution. He was a -- in his own mind, I think he wanted a highly structured program. I felt if you brought bright people together, regardless of their focus, sparks would fly and people would find interesting things to do in a year of sabbatical.

Q:

So, by highly structured what do you think he meant?

Stanton:

I think that Paul would have had a core curriculum which everybody would have adhered to during that year, which was just exactly the thing that I didn't think should be imposed upon bright people. The idea was that you would take academics away from their administrative responsibilities, all the things that they might be doing, and let them have the opportunity to settle down and plan the rest of their career -- finish a book, open up new avenues of research. Take the pressure off and if they're the kind of people that we would select, then they would find their own opportunities to use that year to good advantage.

I think Paul would have had them work on the things that he was interested in, and be structured in the sense that he would lay out a plan.

Q:

Right.





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