Educational screen & audio-visual guide (c1956-1971])

Some Notes On DAVI'S Ancestry Continued from Mar* Ii by William F. Kruse At the NEA's meeting at Oakland, California, in July, 1923, the official visual instruction program prepared by Superintendent Wilson featured the leaders of Academy and of Association in studied equality. The Association again held open house and enjoyed the prestige besides of being sub-lessor of more than one-fourth of the convention exhibit space, which it filled with all kinds of commercial exhibits from the growing visual education industry. A 100-seat screening room for continuous projection of films and slides was another Association activity. The visual instruction program closed with a unanimous vote requesting the NEA Board of Directors to create a Department of Visual Instruction. Chairman Wilson appointed leaders from both groups on a committee to present this request to the NE.A board. They were fortunate in having a powerful champion right on the board in Thomas E. Finnegan, then Pennsylvania State Commissioner of Education. His interest in visual instruction was such that he was destined soon to succeed Dr. Judd as committee chairman and, later, to head the Eastman Teaching Films development. Department of Visual Instruction, N.E.A. On July 6, 1923, Finnegan moved to grant the visual instruction specialists departmental status, whereupon a substitute was moved to refer the matter instead to a committee then studying the entire NEA departmental structure. The prevailing climate was not favorable to the creation of new departments. An application by the penmanship group had been denied. The by-laws at the time required "evidence of a permanent interest tui the part of at least 1,000 members," and the by-laws committee was proposing to stiffen this to require that a petition bear at least 250 signatures from an applicant group able to finance all its own special needs. To merit recognition, furthermore, such a group was required to be representative of a general educational trend as indicated by the existence of similar groups in considerable number of state or local associations, and to have held well-attended meetings for at least five consecutive years. But Finncgan's influence prevailed and so the Department was born, with H. D. Wilson designated as its first president. The two existing organizations did not merge with DVI until nine years later. Meanwhile each year saw two and sometimes three visual education programs: the Academy custoni.irily meeting with the superintendents in the spring, the Department with the parent NEA in the summer. In 1924, on invitation from the Department of Superintendence, DVI-NE.\ held its first official program one morning at Chicago's Morrison Hotel, while the .Academy ran its own show the same afternoon at the Art Institute, a few blocks away. The programs did not differ in any material degree and the papers delivered at both were printed impartially in The Educational Screen. the official organ simultaneously of all three groups. When the NE.\ met at Washington, D. C, in July, 1924, the impact of geography upon history may have had something to do with the breaking of the nominating committee slate and the election of .\ew York's Crandall as DVI president, instead of Wisconsin's Dudley. The rest of the slate was accepted without opposition. Crandall was re-elected annually until, three years later, he declined to continue. The Seattle meeting (1927) elected .\nna V. Dorris, of San Francisco; she was again chosen president at Minneapolis the following year. Her successors to the office were John A. Hollinger of Pittsburgh (1929), and W. W. Whitinghill of Detroit (1930 1931). Now Four Paths The NEA's "Committee on Visual Last issue of Visual Instruction News before merger with Educational Screen. Education" (ontinued until 1927, headed in turn by Judd, Finnegan and, finally, Frank Cody. Ihe .Association seems to have merged its activities with those of the Department during Crandall's administration, its original metropolitan New York fiase retaining considerable local autonomy. The .Academy kept up its own separate annual meetings and from 1927 to 1932 published its own official organ, "Visual Instruction News," originally a bulletin of the University of Kansas. It had the good fortune in 1923 to secure as its secretary-treasurer Ellsworth C. Dent, who filled th.s post until 1932 and did much to bring about unity that year. The Department, in 1930, had Dent on its program to present the Academy story and the following year passed a motion favoring merger, provided 1) that this would not jeopardize its NEA status, and 2) that the united organization make provision for the affiliation of classroom teachers through existing teacher organizations. The latter problem is yet to find a satisfactory nation-wide solution. The depression of the early 30's brought added pressure for unity. Policy differences had long disappeared; clashing personalities had mellowed; there was obvious overlapping of membership and function in the thiee parallel groups. "In 1931," F. Dean McClusky reminisces on his D.AVI Archives tape recording, "I woke up one morning to find myself president of the Academy and of the .Association, as well as vice-president of the Department." The Academy meeting in Washington in February, 1932, endorsed the merger idea; the Department meeting in July the same year, at .Atlantic City, finalized it. The name of the organization (temporarily) was to be "Department of Visual Instruction of the National Education Association combined with the National Academ\ of Visual Instruction." The official organ was to be called (also temporarily) "The Educational Screen, combined with the Visual Instruction News." The parent NE.A, through Secretary Crabtree, welcomed the unification and offered the use of the entire top floor of the NEA headquarters building if the Department could raise the money to finance its secretarial staff. But, as McClusky reports, "the Depression made money too hard to come by." It was not until years later, with the aid of a grant from Teaching Films Custodians, Inc. that a full-time staff member, Vernon Dameron, was engaged to look after all NEA audio-visual services, and, somewhat incidentally, also serve as the 182 EdScreen & AV Guide — April, 1958