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Golden Anniversary

May 25, 2018

Fifty years ago this month, WHOI Director Paul Fye (seated, right) and Howard Johnson (seated, center), president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), signed a memorandum aboard the research vessel Chain to create the MIT-WHOI Joint Program in Oceanography. The journal Science called this partnership between two independent institutions “unusual, if not unprecedented,” but it has stood the test of time. The program is considered one of world’s best graduate programs in oceanography. Witnesses included (standing, from left) Burr Steinbach, WHOI dean of graduate studies; Jerome Wiesner, MIT provost; and Frank Press, head of MIT’s Earth and Planetary Sciences Department. To celebrate, there will be an alumni reunion at WHOI on July 21, and a symposium at MIT on Sept. 27, followed by a celebration the following day at WHOI. (Photo courtesy of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Archives)