mented that instruction at the Lowell Institute School is “not of The Technical Institute Type. It is strictly of MIT caliber, given by the same teachers as the day school, same text-books, same classrooms, and laboratories. Most importantly, the same philosophies attend this work as in the day school. It is our intention to give these night school students the same type of thinking instruction . . . but cannot have the same contact hours for a degree.”9 The growing dissatisfaction of the General Electric Apprentice Program’s students did not go unnoticed by the faculty and director of the Lowell Institute School, and in a letter dated June 12, 1952, to Mr. L. G. Dickerman, Superintendent of Apprentices at the General Electric Company, Professor Townsend shared his concern. “I want to express through you to Mr. Currier certain objections of our faculty members with our reference to your apprentice men attending the Lowell Institute School. Of late there has been an increasing number of men from Lynn who have openly admitted they have no real interest in coming to the Lowell Institute School, are not particularly interested in what the school has to offer and are only doing so because they ‘have to.’ This type of student has a very bad effect on the classroom, on the other students and other apprentices.”10 General Electric eventually announced its intent to end the program in April 1964, in part because only about one-quarter of the apprentices finished the program and ended up with jobs at the company.11 The Last Years of Dr. Townsend’s Leadership of the Lowell Institute School Toward the end of his leadership of the Lowell Institute School, Professor Townsend received the James H. McGraw Award in Technical Institute Education for 1957. The award, at that time $500, was made annually for outstanding contributions to the field of education, administered by the Technical Institute Division of the American Society for Engineering Education and sponsored by the McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc.12
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