NAEB Newsletter (July 1, 1963)

Associate Dean Marcia Edwards pointed out that even before he received his Ph.D. from Columbia in 1933, he had “moved strongly into a new field of education—education by radio.” He studied school broadcasting in many European countries during those years, and served on the President’s Advisory Committee on Education, in Washington. In the summer of 1938 he went to the summer session at the University of Minnesota as a visiting lecturer in radio in education, and thus began his 25-year association with the university. ^ Duff Browne, associate director of radio and TV at the University of Texas, has assumed new duties as director of a project to aid southern states in developing and using recorded material for ETV. The USOE has awarded a contract to the SREB for the project. ^ Rob Downey, public affairs editor of Michigan State Uni¬ versity’s WKAR and WMSB (TV), has been elected presi¬ dent of the Central Michigan Chapter of Sigma Delta Chi. He is the first member of the broadcast journalism media to serve in this office. y Robert D. Squier, TV program director for the University of Texas, left June 24 for Saudi Arabia to spend eight weeks as a TV consultant to the Arabian American Oil Company public relations department at Dhahran. This is his third such assignment in the past five years. INSTRUCTION ^ On June 9, St. Louis University conducted its first “com¬ mencement” rites for its program of televised course-work called “Community Campus.” Programs are presented Satur¬ day mornings over KTVI (commercial) and repeated over KETC (educational) on weekdays. The graduating class of 90 ranged in age from 17 to 78, and in formal education from sixth grade through college. Each graduate had watched a minimum of 270 class programs, completing six courses in each of three divisions—basic skills, basic appreciation, and basic knowledge. ^ Some 200 students who have taken part or all of their work on television were among the 1300 graduates of Chicago’s junior colleges last month. Most of the 200 students took, on an average, almost a full semester’s college work on TV; 9 finished the entire junior college program via television; 20% of the 200 were on the dean’s honor list. ^ First aid instruction via television enabled Mrs. Robert Pickle of Bethany, Oklahoma, to aid in saving the life of a neighbor baby recently. Mrs. Pickle was one of the 1253 “graduates” of a Red Cross first aid course offered over KETA, Oklahoma City. When pneumonia stopped the breath¬ ing of her four-month-old neighbor, Mrs. Pickle applied the first aid methods she had learned until the baby arrived at a hospital. Medical authorities reported that she was “instru¬ mental in saving .the life of the baby.” y St. Louis University is currently offering a course on Com¬ munism via radio. Lectures are broadcast on Monday after¬ noons via KMOX, commercial radio station, and text assign¬ ments supplement the lectures. ^ This spring the University of Missouri has completed a three-year TV course recording project, partially supported by a $90,000 Ford Foundation grant for released time for professors. At the end of the project, the university has eleven regular courses on videotape. ^ The May program bulletin for WNED-TV, Buffalo, sum¬ marizes a fall, 1962, survey of the 321 schools participating in WNED’s in-school programs: “60,000 students in 2,000 classrooms viewed a quarter million hours of televised in¬ struction ; 79% of the schools are using ETV programs; where comparative figures are available, student participation has doubled this year over last; a majority of principals and teachers felt there was a definite improvement in instruc¬ tional values and production quality; the average cost per student for a full semester was $.71.” ^ Radio is being used to teach Spanish by the elementary NAEB Headquarters: Suite 1119, 1346 Connecticut Avenue, N. W., Washington 36, D. C. Phone 667-6000 Area Code 202. Spanish department of the Dade County (Fla.) Schools and WTHS (FM). When the recording is completed in late 1964, 720 programs will be ready in the conversational Span¬ ish series for Grades 1 through 6. Miss Clementine Carlaftes, coordinator of elementary conversational Spanish for the county schools, originated the idea for the radio lessons. WTHS programed Grades 1 and 3 during the past school year; next year Grades 2 and 4 will be included. ^ North Carolina State College this spring introduced the uni-lesson, in which the object is to make the student an ac¬ tive participant in a single-telecast lesson on a specific topic. Visual and audio functions of the medium focus on the ma¬ terials to be learned; the instructor appears only when it is necessary to communicate directly to the student. The first uni-lesson dealt with the Scholastic Aptitude Test of the Col¬ lege Entrance Examination Board, the second with the cul¬ tivation of roses. STATE & REGIONAL ACTIVITIES ^ September, 1964, is the goal for the operation of Kentucky’s new ETV network, O. Leonard Press, vice chairman of the Kentucky ETV Authority, announced recently. He said the network should be completed by next spring to allow technical testing for several months. ^ Colorado’s ETV committee sponsored an ETV workshop at the University of Colorado earlier this year, at which groups from various campuses in the state met to learn more about ETV. The workshop culminated in a special 40-minute documentary program on ETV which was fed directly from the university’s studios into the Colorado General Assembly over the microwave link from Boulder to Denver. Future plans call for activation of Channel 8 in Pueblo and Channel 12 in Boulder. PROGRAM'S ^ WFBE-FM, Flint (Mich.) school station, is using its fa¬ cilities to acquaint the public with education problems in the community. Dr. Lawrence L. Jarvie, general superintendent of community education, has been recording a “Superintend¬ ent’s Report” after each twice-monthly meeting of the board of education. Each report is broadcast three times. Dr. Jarvis has also held radio press conferences with student editors. Dearborn (Mich.) Public Schools Superintendent, Stuart . Openlander, has also been featured in a radio series this spring. On “A Place to Learn,” he has discussed vital issues involving Dearborn’s educational structure. Mrs. Marion Corwell, associate director of school relations, produced and directed the programs. ^ “Pox on Their House,” IERT award-winning program pro¬ duced by the Indiana University Radio and TV Center, is a documentary investigation of the increase in venereal disease in Indiana. The program was presented with clinical frank¬ ness, and the Indiana University School of Medicine and the State Board of Health served as consultants. Jack Sheehan wrote the documentary. ^ Texas Writers of Today is the title of a series presented earlier this year by KLRN, Southwest Texas ETV station. Included among the writers are E. P. Conkle, J. Frank Dobie, Fred Gipson, and Mary Lasswell. ^ WMTH-FM, Maine Township (Ill.) High School station, this spring ran the second season of Playhouse 207 , a series of student-acted and student-directed radio plays. ^ WMSB (TV), Michigan State University, has licked the problem of foreign films which run 27 or 28 minutes. Each week the station videotapes an average of three or four one- minute Home Notes with Rosie O’Grady, of the Michigan Cooperative Extension Service. ^ WNYC-FM-TV, New York City, plans an increasing num¬ ber of programs in the coming months on the changes taking place at Flushing Meadows, site of the World’s Fair of 1964- 65. ^ KQED, San Francisco, this spring televised the Asilomar Conference of the World Affairs Council of Northern Cali¬ fornia for the first time in its 17-year history. Speakers in¬ cluded Asian experts from various places. JULY, 1963 3