NAEB Newsletter (May 1, 1961)

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to the station, and once a week educators and a panel of parents are brought together to tackle the questions on the air. PERSONNEL ► Roy J. Johnson has been named interim director of the division of communications services at the Uni¬ versity of Miami, replacing Dr. Sydney Head, who is on leave of absence heading an NAEB project in the Sudan. Johnston comes to Miami from North Carolina, where he was director of WUNC-TV. ► Also at Miami, Paul Nagel, Jr., has been named acting chairman of the radio-TV-film department in charge of teaching and other academic activities. ^ Dr. Walter Emery, Michigan State University, received the Distinguished Alumni Award at the national convention of Pi Kappa Delta (national collegiate forensic fraternity) March 27, at Oklahoma State University. ► Arthur David Cloud, Jr., has been appointed general manager of WYES-TV, New Orleans. He replaces Duff Browne, who resigned. Cloud is return¬ ing to New Orleans after a four-year stay in Chicago, where he headed the radio-TV department of Camp- bell-Mithun, Inc., an advertising agency. PRESIDENT'S SAY-SO At this time last year there was serious discussion in progress concerning the possibility of transferring the NAEB Radio Network to the NETRC. Subse¬ quently negotiations broke down and the transfer was not voted upon at the NAEB convention in San Francisco. Negotiations have not been re-opened since. While it is conceivable that the transfer might be effected in the future, no such possibility currently exists. In any case, we should continue to preserve and strengthen the Network in every feasible fashion. In this respect, an inter-office memorandum prepared by Leonard Press (working on Network news pro¬ graming from Washington while on leave from the University of Kentucky) so impressed me that I felt it should be given greater currency. I am publishing it forthwith. —Bill Harley ARE THE RESOURCES OF MEMBER INSTITUTIONS BEING FULLY EXPLOITED? Among the most important of our resources, surely, are the faculties of our institutions. This re¬ source is nowhere near being fully exploited. And it should be. There is hardly a faculty in this country which does not number at least a few brilliantly original minds which are as articulate as they are knowledge¬ able. There is hardly a college in the country which does not have a Frank Baxter or an Alan Watts or an S. I. Hayakawa or an Alburey Castell . . . scholars who are at once authoritative, provocative, and enter¬ taining—who may not yet be known beyond their own campus but who deserve to be. With such enormous intellectual treasure in our institutions, it is a matter of unhappy wonder that the vitality of Network programing should seem to be draining off under a growing dependence on programs from outside agencies. The problem is one of balance. The Network should certainly be a window on the world outside, but it must never cease to be a window on the rich world inside as well. This is to suggest the need of a shift in emphasis. Why aren’t we mining more productively the wealth which is our faculty? Perhaps the answer is that too many of us think there is no point in offering our best faculty lecturers to the Network because, after all, every member school thinks its teachers are tops, as they unquestionably are. Or perhaps many of us have fallen into the habit of thinking that a program which doesn’t require extensive production is not unique enough, somehow, to be worth submitting to the Network. The answer to the first “perhaps” is, of course, that there is nothing as stimulating to the intellect, on every level, as an exchange of ideas and expression by a variety of exciting personalities. And member institutions are much more likely to attempt to do likewise than to petulantly refuse to program other faculties. The answer to the second is that it takes quite a production to equal the fascination, the humor, the depth, the inspiration—the sheer entertainment value —of an outstanding lecturer. And even such a pro¬ duction requires, at center, a display of no mean talent. A good teacher, on the other hand, needs little if any production. He provides his own. He is a master of pacing, of style, of content development. All he needs is your microphone and a conducive atmosphere. • Recommendation 1: Tape your top teachers in terms of series which you and they feel are worth developing for the large and critically responsive audiences of the Network. Submit two programs for each teacher. Be selective in the extreme ... it would be an unusual institution that did not seem to have many such superior lecturers. Select on the basis of subject as well as teacher . . . but we do not want MAY 1961 3