NAEB Newsletter (Nov 1958)

PROGRAMS ► A new type of instruction has been added to the training offered inmates of the Draper Correctional Center—ETV. Assistant Warden John Watkins said a special room has been set up and a number of inmates are now taking courses offered on Alabama’s ETV network. The institution, which has approxi¬ mately 640 first offenders, most of them teenagers, offers classes in a wide variety of subjects. ^ ETRC and NBC are presenting a new ETV series for young people of all ages, entitled, “Ad¬ venturing in the Hand Arts.” This is a series about people and things—primitive people living today in remote corners of this atomic world—and the beautiful, useful things they make with their own hands. The films show how and why these people make pottery, jewelry, baskets and cloth. The Girl Scouts of the U. S. A. is the major producer, work¬ ing closely with ETRC and NBC. ^ The United Nations Day concert performances by the world famous cellist, Pablo Casals, and the Boston Symphony Orchestra, with Charles Munch conducting, was telecast live from the General As¬ sembly auditorium of the United Nations, Friday October 24. This program was presented under the auspices of META (Metropolitan Educational Tele¬ vision Association) in conjunction with United Na¬ tions Television. It is said to be the first time Mr. Casals has consented to play for an American tele¬ vision audience. The concert was broadcast on radio to 48 countries to celebrate the 13th anniversary of the U.N. The international broadcast, as announced by the Office of Public Information of the U.N., opened in New York with the Boston Symphony in a per¬ formance of Honegger’s Fifth Symphony. Secretary- General of the U.N., Dag Hammarskjold, delivered a brief U.N. Day message, followed by Casals and Mieczyslaw Howzowski playing Bach’s Sonata No. 2 for cello and piano. The program then switched to UNESCO in Paris to pick up Yehudi Menuhin and David Oistrakh playing Bach’s Double Violin Concerto. Climaxing the concert was the performance of the final move¬ ment of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony by the Or¬ chestra de la Suisse Romando, conducted by Ernest Ansermet, which originated in Geneva, Switzerland. Beethoven’s Ninth has become a tradition in U.N. Day observance. ^ Miss Betty Adams, back from a tour that took her into Poland, Turkey and the Soviet Union, is directing the first course for college credit to be pre¬ sented by a TV station in New England, WJAR-TV, Providence, Rhode Island. Miss Adams made films and tape recordings in Paris, Warsaw, Ankara, Is¬ tanbul, and Moscow. They will supplement a TV course on the philosophy of communism. ^ A television course in Basic Russian is being given by META and St. John’s University in New York City. Dr. Alan Willard Brown, META’s presi¬ dent, said that the course in the Russian language would be fascinating as well as useful. ^ There is a dilemma in some offices of WCBS-TV, New York, concerning the future of syndication of “Sunrise Semester”—not so much a case of not wanting to or that stations will not desire the educa¬ tional series, but what method will be used for dis¬ tribution. This year’s courses are on videotape, with the resultant problem being to store the expensive tape in the vaults for a year for future syndication or to erase the programs and thus have the tape available. No decision has been announced. PERSONNEL We have two more “pioneers” to add this month. They are: Milford Jensen, Director, WCAL, St. Olaf College, Minnesota and Michael Hayward, Chief, Op¬ erations, Radio and Visual Services Division, Of¬ fice of Public Information. TV TECHNICAL TIPS —Cecil S. Bidlack In our last column, we mentioned October meet¬ ings of interest to educational broadcasters. We thought the 34th Annual NAEB Convention in Omaha one of the best. Of the 227 persons registered, only five were engineers: Carl Menzer of WSUI- KSUI, Bud Phillips and Bob Stumme of the Univer¬ sity of Iowa TV studio, Clarence Deal of KOKH, Oklahoma City and the writer. While this isn’t a large representation, it’s the best yet. With next year’s convention in Detroit, in the center of NAEB station concentration, we trust more engineers will be there. With the three studios of the Detroit ETV Foundation, as well as a number of educational radio stations, it isn’t too early to begin plans for a one-day technical program. Ann Arbor is near, where the University of Michigan has three TV installations, as well as ETRC headquarters. We could make up an interesting tour and see how the Detroit area stations operate. I’m sure the 1959 Convention committee would' appreciate your sug¬ gestions. You can send them to me and I’ll see that they reach the right persons. In the meantime, you can begin working on the boss to take a carload of his staff to Detroit. —NAEB— We’d like to pass along the four points made by “Jim” Ebel, Vice-president and general manager of KOLN-TV, Lincoln, Nebraska, and former chief en¬ gineer of WILL, at the Wednesday afternoon panel session of the NAEB Omaha Convention. If I were an Educational Broadcaster, I would: 8 NEWSLETTER