1948 - New Members       Nevertheless, the Association was by no means indifferent to its main problem of getting new members into the profession. At the 1948 Annual Meeting, the Secretary-Treasurer reported that although the number of young men who were interested in becoming land surveyors was high, the number actually attempting to become qualified remained small. This indicated the existence of certain obstacles and difficulties which few candidates were able to overcome, and the Examining Committee produced a report which contained proposals for their alleviation. Up to that time, the sole route of qualification for new Alberta Land Surveyors had been by way of articling and examination under the DLS regulations, followed by a couple of written papers and an oral examination on Alberta survey law and field practice. After the war, both the Association and the University of Alberta had advised prospective entrants to the profession to follow that route, because the DLS system provided a ready-made means of examination in academic and technical subjects, and candidates could obtain both DLS and ALS qualifications in the shortest space of time. The Examining Committee reported, however, that this approach had not produced the results that had been hoped for. In 1947, nineteen candidates in Alberta had written the DLS preliminary examination, and although some of them were university students, only three had passed. The difficulty appeared to be in the examinations on mathematical subjects, partly because the DLS Board, having in mind the need for a higher level of mathematical proficiency in federal government survey work, had raised its examination standards, and partly because several of the candidates had obtained little solid nourishment from the mathematics courses given in the schools at that time. The Examining Committee had therefore recommended to the ALS Board of Examiners that the Board should run a complete set of ALS examinations, with somewhat easier mathematical papers than those of the DLS examinations but of a sufficient standard to meet Alberta land surveying requirements. This the Board had agreed to do, but first it would be necessary to amend the Act in order to bring the syllabus, which the Act then spelled out in antiquated detail, up to date and to enlarge the membership of the Board to provide a sufficient number of examiners. Unfortunately, the Act could not be amended before 1949, but during 1948 the necessary revisions of the syllabus were worked out, a new set of examination regulations was drafted, and the Board was enlarged to include five members of the Association and four members of the University staff, with Dean R.M. Hardy of the Faculty of Engineering, who was also a member of the Association, serving as chairman. Discussion and endorsement of these proposals was the main item of business at the 1948 meeting, and nothing else of historical note appears in the proceedings except the election of Mr. C.W. Lester to the office of Secretary-Treasurer and Registrar, replacing Mr. J.H. Holloway who in 1947 had succeeded Mr. A.P.C. Belyea as Director of Surveys.   Back - 1947 - Oil and the Land Surveyor Forward - 1949-1950 - Preoccupied with Examinations