NAEB Newsletter (June 1964)

^ Florida State University’s speech department will play host to about 60 students attending the Southeastern Summer High School Speech Institute June 22 to July 17. WFSU-TV will cooperate in the orientation program, and Duane Franceschi, program director for WFSU, will teach one of the daily classes. In his “Introduction to Radio and Television,” he will include a brief history, the social aspects of broadcasting, and practical demonstrations. The class will also actually pro¬ duce a TV program. ^ The Alabama ETV Commission has announced a target date of this summer for its fifth station, WEIQ-TV. Of necessity, WEIQ will temporarily operate independently of the state network. The four network stations have a poten¬ tial audience, according to a recent report, of over 3 million residents, and 812,500 homes with 663,100 TV receivers. PROGRAMS ^ Flatworms performed on the Steve Allen Show a few weeks ago in a science show directed by University of Michigan psy¬ chologist James V. McConnell. The theme: How the lowly flatworms can learn, remember, and “transfer” memory from one to another—and what this could mean to man. One start¬ ling finding: Learning and memory are transferable from one flatworm to another via cannibalistic ingestion. ^ WGN-TV, a Chicago commercial station, has won the George Foster Peabody Award for Children’s Programs for its program series, “Treetop House.” ^ WGN-TV’s documentary series “All America Wants to Know” last month presented “Must It Be Bail Or Jai'l?” The show, which described the problems of the poor trying to raise bail and the aid given them by the Vera Foundation, took the audience inside the detention cells of New York City’s Department of Correction and followed a young man arrested on suspicion of felonious assault. ^ WBUR (FM), Boston University, has just completed its first season of broadcasting live concerts by the Boston Sym¬ phony Orchestra direct from Symphony Hall, Boston. It is believed to be the only University station in the nation to broadcast live concerts by one of the country’s top five sym¬ phony orchestras on a regular basis. ^ Westinghouse Broadcasting Company has announced that Frank Baxter, professor emeritus of English at the Univer¬ sity of Southern California, will be host of a radio and tele¬ vision series on William Shakespeare. The series is being pro¬ duced at KPIX, San Francisco, with the help of USC and the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust in England. ^ KAET, Tempe, Arizona, has added a new twist to sports broadcasting. In answer to an athletic conference ruling pro¬ hibiting live telecasting of baseball games, KAET is “visual¬ ly re-creating” them. Fans watching the station hear the live audio portion of the games, while the picture is mechanically recreated in the studio by use of a facsimile field; ball, strike, and out indicator; and running compilation of runs, hits, and errors. Action is instantaneously recorded and pro¬ gramed onto the game board. ^ For more than a year the Hampton Roads ETV Associa¬ tion, Virginia, has been producing a special wide-ranging pro¬ gram in economics five days a week, directed at twelfth grad¬ ers who elect to take the course for credit. In response to popular demand, it is now being shown at 9 p.m. each eve¬ ning. ^ Alabama’s ETV network is airing an 8-week series, “Ala¬ bama’s Underground,” in cooperation with the National Spe¬ lunking Association and local Grotto members. Co-hosted by a former Grotto president, Mike Cram, who is an avid cave photographer, the series utilizes 2,000 pictures to describe ex¬ plorations into the state’s many caves. ^ Benjamin C. Willis, superintendent of Chicago’s schools, is discussing “Chicago’s Schools in a Changing World” on a NAEB Headquarters: Suite 1119, 1346 Connecticut Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C., 20036. Phone 667-6000. Area Code 202. 10-week series on two commercial TV stations, WGN and WBKB. INTERNATIONAL NOTES ^ Television’s contribution to education was pointed up in the U. S.. Exhibition at this spring’s 20th Casablanca International Trade Fair. Theme of the U. S. exhibition was “Education— Tool of Modernization.” The show demonstrated advance de¬ sign instructional techniques and showed the application of education and training to communications, industry, agricul¬ ture, and discovery. ^ The “International Institute for Advanced Studies in Cinema,” a unique study of the cinema to be held in Vence, Alpes-Maritimes, France, this summer, will join two Boston University faculty members, Gerald F. Noxon and Robert Steele, and “about twelve students of film from around the world.” The six-week summer program in Vence, where many of the “greats” of the French film industry live, hopes to foster a “deeper understanding of the cinema and to make films.” ^ Deadline for application for Fulbright-Hays lecturing and research fellowships is August 1. For application forms and additional information write to the Committee on International Exchange of Persons, Conference Board of Associated Re¬ search Councils, 2101 Constitution Avenue, Washington, D.C., 20418. ^ Martin Ronan, a 24-year-old Syracuse University graduate student at the university’s Television-Radio Center, is busy becoming the first American to observe in depth the opera¬ tion of television in an East European country. Sponsored by the State Department and the Polish Committee on Television in cooperation with the university, Ronan is studying Polish television principles and practices during a six-week Warsaw stay, which began in late May. Publications • Martin Mayer’s Where, When, and Why is an analysis of the teaching of social studies in American schools, based on a report submitted to the American Council of Learned So¬ cieties and the Carnegie Corporation. Harper and Row, 206 pages. • The Miseducation of American Teachers by James O. Koerner is based on a two-year study of teacher training in¬ stitutions, supported by the Relm Foundation, Ann Arbor, Michigan. Houghton-Mifflin, 360 pages. • In print and photos, “The American Interest in UNESCO,” new from the U. S. National Commission for UNESCO, describes UNESCO’s activities in education, mass communi¬ cations, science, and culture. The brochure is on sale for 30c through the Superintendent of Documents, Washington, D.C., 20402 (Catalog Number S5.48 :AM3/2). • “The Double Standard: Are We Failing Our Schools in an Age of Technology?” an article by Lewis Rhodes, director of television at Central Michigan University, appears in the March Michigan School Board Journal. • UNESCO itself offers a number of reports and papers on mass communications. The latest is Number 41, Space Com¬ munication and the Mass Media. This and such other studies as Mass Media in the Developing Countries (50c) and World Film Directory ($1) are available from the UNESCO Publi¬ cations Center, 317 East 34th Street, New York 16. • The March issue of the E.B.U. Review contained these articles: “Role of Broadcasters in Space Communications” by Leonard H. Marks, and two articles on children’s program¬ ing, John Regnell’s “Stretching the Imagination” and Paul Taff’s “Television is for Children.” The Regnel'l article was about “Stories ’n Stuff,” long-running NAEB Radio Net¬ work children’s program produced at WILL, University of Illinois. • The School Library is the title of a 144-page illustrated book issued by Educational Facilities Laboratories, Inc., 477 Madison Avenue, New York 22. JUNE 1964 3