NAEB Newsletter (Oct 1958)

44 ATTEND ETV MANAGEMENT SEMINAR Forty-four ETV managers, consultants and ob¬ servers attended the second NAEB ETV Manage¬ ment Seminar held at Madison, Wisconsin, August 24-27, 1958. The meeting, primarily a “work session,” gave the managers an opportunity to discuss com¬ mon problems and hear from consultants on fund raising, relations with faculty and other talent, ef¬ fects of national legislation and legal problems. Three members of the board of directors of the ETRC attended the closing session, giving ETV man¬ agers their first opportunity to meet and discuss com¬ mon problems with representatives of the board. The board members attending were Leland Hazard, Pitts¬ burgh; Raymond Wittcoff, St. Louis; and Richard Hull, Columbus. Kenneth Yourd, newly named vice- president and treasurer for the ETRC, attended the entire seminar. The seminar, made possible by a grant from the Ford Foundation, was planned by Richard Rider, WILL-TV, chairman of the NAEB TV Operations committee; Harold E. Hill, NAEB Associate Director; and' a subcommittee consisting of William Harley, WHA-TV; Richard Burdick, WHYY-TV; and Loren Stone, KCTS. Local arrangements at the University of Wisconsin were handled by Harley. A brief report of the seminar will be prepared by the planning committee and will be distributed to those who attended. It is possible that an oral re¬ port will also be presented at the forthcoming NAEB Convention in Omaha, October 14 - 17. —NAEB— MEMO FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR —Harry Skornia The past few weeks have brought numerous sem¬ inars, workshops and meetings: the Purdue - NAEB Conference, the NAEB ETV Management Seminar, and the Region I NAEB Meeting. Reports on all of these will be found separately in this issue of the NEWSLETTER. I also attended meetings of the Program Com¬ mittee of the UNESCO National Commission, Sep¬ tember 3, and the National Commission itself, Sep¬ tember 11 and 12. The fine work , of the UNESCO National Commission is so deserving of the support of all of us that I could not resist mention of these in¬ spiring meetings. As we settle down for the fall season, I would like to continue with the editorials begun some months ago. This month I am concerned with the general status of education in the U. S. and our relation to that status. I believe we all realize that the educational “crisis” of the U. S. has not been created, but only further dramatized, by Sputnik and other recent de¬ velopments. I hope you will all agree with my belief that ed¬ ucation is bigger than radio or television; the latter are considered by the NAEB, in its use of them, as tools and instruments of both formal and informal education, to be used responsibly, subject to the highest standards which we can devise. Recent developments illustrate the need for or¬ ganization and integrated leadership if education is to maintain its balance, gain in respect, and make wise use of new techniques and tools. As Alfred North Whitehead said some years ago: “The novel pace of progress requires a greater force of direction if disasters are to be avoided.” We need to give firmer and firmer direction to what we are trying to do. We need to develop a philosophy, and sets of stand¬ ards and principles, which will enable us to meet, quickly and adequately, the immense responsibilities of television and radio as important instruments of our age. Every movement depends upon the people who make it up. It will not be Washington, Ann Arbor, New York or Urbana offices or organizations, or even funds alone, which will make educational broadcast¬ ing an indispensable part of American education, or a respected and dependable alternate broadcasting service for the U. S. It will be people: people with courage, standards, and ideals: not a separate corps of “broadcasters,” but professional, qualified educators who understand broadcast implications, tools and techniques. It will be professional educators with the highest possible social and educational concerns and goals. It will be people who feel a responsibility to help explain the complexities of today in ways that will make in¬ telligent decision-making possible, and the involving of the most intelligent minds in the U. S. in inter¬ national, national and local decision-making. It will be people who can help reestablish, unashamedly, re¬ spect for the intellectual, and intellectual effort . . . in the humanities as well as in science. It will be OCTOBER, 1958 See You In Omaha 5