Rider University - Shadow Yearbook (Lawrenceville, NJ)

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lg.. As today's society expands more and more, new uses for computers in many facets of our life are developed. All of us have been affected by computers in one way or another, it is a computer that sets up our schedule cards, it is a computer that processes some of our bills and pays us from the government treasury. It was also a computer that worked so fast on the Fall, 1970 grades that it had most of them delivered by Christmas Eve. Many people feel that in our technological society, computers have become the masters and have reduced us to mere numbers. More than one person is dying to fold, spindle, or mutilate the next punch card he gets. Many more have the impression that persons who oper- ate the computer are cold impersonal extensions of the system, unswerving in their loyalty to its accuracy. Many of these notions were swept right out the win- dow with one visit to the Computer Center in Fine Arts and a talk with Barton J. Perlman, its director. For ln- 'T i... V4 .. ff terim, he taught a group of about twenty in basic com- puter programming in Fortran, one of the languages of computers. Perlman took in students solely on the basis of their curiosity and desire to learn. At first I was going to re- quire some math but dropped that since my program- ming problems were very basic. Fortran is the com- puter language that is most based on mathematics or algebra. Before one can use a computer as a tool in problem solving, he must learn how to program it for the sake of programming it. The first problems that the group had, said Perlman, are no more than learning exercises. Each person follows several steps in each problem. First, he draws up a flow chart solution to the problem, or a pictoral diagram of the solution. Second, he writes the program onto a coding sheet. Third, he keypunches the information onto punch cards, sorting them out if necessary on a sorter. Finally, they fthe cardsj go through the computer. Each project member is required to do seven prob- lems. One of them had the group working up a program for the scoring, averaging and billing of persons who have taken examinations in a hypothetical situation. In another, the group was to develop a program to find the root of an nth degree polynomial. Here is an excerpt from the instructions: B. SUBBOUTINE DIFER fA,B,NJ Using a subroutine similar to the title above compute the coefficients of the first derivative of the polynomial, given the A array as the polynomial coefficients and placing the derivative coefficients in the B array for use in the main program. Consider an nth degree polyno- mial in general form as: at + azx + a3x2 + -1 a,. ', xf' The students who entered this particular project did so out of mere curiosity, but found the problems harder than they first expected it to be. One coed in the group expects to transfer to Drexel soon and major in Com- puter Science. Perleman hoped that the members of the group would use the knowledge gained in January to solving prob- lems that they get in other courses. This is already being done, he said, by other courses-especially in- statistical analysis and quantitative methods. Comput- ers, given a set of circumstances can give us an objec- tive solution, one not swayed subjectively. 'W 25

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Independent Study Program: Take You Choice, If' lt's Not Closed Out by The Staff For the past two Januarys a strange calm has des- cended on the Rider campus. The halls of the class- room buildings are not jam-packed between periods, there is ample space in the parking lot and the snack bar is empty. But learning was going on just the same, even though not in the traditional method of classes, periods, lectures and finals. January has instead be- come the month of the Interim Study Period CISPJ where people can learn without worrying about getting this or that grade. The history of Interim Study's existence at Rider is in sharp contrast to the calm that now exists between the end of the first semester and the beginning of the sec- ond semester. The College Board of Trustees mandated that an ln- terim Study should be instituted in May, 1965. A com- mittee of nine studied it and reported on March 15, 1967, that it should be instituted. On April 3 of that year saw the faculty approve the report by a 72 per cent af- firmative vote. ln 1968 another study was undertaken. A report from the registrar's office stated that about 34 new profes- sors would be needed if every student was required to take Interim. At that time, changes in the core curricu- Ium and the semester hour system to a course unit sys- tem were under consideration. ln February, 1969 the ln- terim, a course unit system and core changes were made law by the administration, according to the Fli- der News of that time. All this was to be later considered a misunder- standing because faculty and students thought that the X i 24 new programs were being rushed through without their consent. The S.G.A. in a mass meeting approved a res- olution demanding that Interim not be instituted until questions regarding course unit systems were an- swered. Dr. Lawrence O. Ealy, then acting vice presi- dent for academic affairs, clarified the questions by saying that the only thing to become law on February 12 was lSP and that it only applied to freshman coming in September, 1969. The program, as it now stands, takes place in January of each year. All courses are worth three credits and are graded on a passffail basis. Dr. C. Howard Hopkins serves as director. But this is the only thing that all the projects have in common. In January 1971 a student could have worked in the mass media, watch courts of law, learn how to swim advanced strokes, study water pollution, watch and discuss famous movies, investigate the occult, fly airplanes, make puppets, study latest Red Cross tech- niques, taught in classrooms, etc. and so forth. The list goes on and on. Yet the main purpose remains to learn what one can, and all one can, in four weeks and to give January a new meaning in the school calendar. On the following pages are a collection of pictures and copy on four projects which stood out as unusual, innovative or offbeat.

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1' N 4, 'T 1'-f' iii? '1 Uk.5g5 H5-9 :Num The idea of having college students spend one month doing nothing but assembling puppets and a stage and then putting productions on for outside audiences is not as offbeat as it might sound. Puppetry is a very old art form, and is popular in other countries, where adults as well as children watch puppet performances. Attempting to bring this idea to America land this Col- legej were members of Donald Veix's Puppet and Mar- ionette Play Production ISP course. It was initiated to bring puppet performances to deserving groups, and to pass on the art of puppetry design and stagecraft to young people who plan to use such skills in their edu- cation careers. In the second week of the project, with headquarters in Maurer Building, disaster looks like it has already struck. Scatterred about the room in every corner are groups of two and three, busily working on their aspect of puppet play production. On the blackboard is a chart showing the schedule for completion of each stage. Veix has been in puppetry for a long time, so he thought it would be fun to have college students work- ing in this art form, too. He said that the puppet as an art form in this country is regarded as a form of chil- dren's entertainment, i.e., Bill Baird and his Muppets. In Europe, on the other hand, puppetry is an all-encom- passing medium. Keeping with his desire to have puppetry become a universal art form, Veix selected Beckett's classic Waiting for Godot from which to do an excerpt. Since younger school children were among the groups' ea- gerly-awaiting audience, a fairy tale, Beauty and the Beast and a Dr. Seuss story, Horton Hatches the Egg, were two of the other productions. Bay Brad- bury's The Martian Chronicles was also chosen. When Veix was asked why he offered such a project, one coed interjected, Cause he's crazy, that's why! Even in jest, that was the only negative comment heard about either Veix or the project. Almost all of the group had had him before and considered him to be extremely creative. The course description in the catalogue said that the third week would be for rehearsal of the productions and for suicide attempts. The suicides never occurred, 26 f . li 1 ff' A4 ,fxif I ,IPS Q -K Q L: 44. V! ,. n VU ,- V 5 Y I. 4 t 2 ' H i 44 however because of the dedication of the group's mem- bers. They spent every day from nine to three working on their separate tasks and enjoyed doing it. Most were taking the course because they enjoyed being creative and because they felt it would help, them as future educators, especially teaching the elementary grades. The final week was spent actually performing the plays at an orphanage, a high school, an old age home and even at the college. Which audience reacted best to the puppets? lt was hard to discern, but that's not really too important. What matters is that all those in the course got something out of it, whether a broken nail from hammering andfor Chopefullyj a greater appreciation of the art of puppetry. S5