questions asked. During the first year of its operation, it loaned money to 420 students; only
two loans were not repaid when the borrowers left College. By 1968, Dean Lowe reported that
through January 15, almost 600 students had borrowed from this fund which by then totaled
almost $12,000.
Culture Course.
Bothered by the lack of a humanities course dealing with major writers after
1900, a group of 15 students and humanities Professor Konrad Hopkins, with Chairman Don
Stillman's approval, petitioned the Standards and Curriculum Committee for the course to be
offered in spring 1966.
The delay in a response from the Committee led the group to offer the course to any
interested student as a noncredit course meeting on Monday evenings at 8:00 p.m., just as
Professor Stephen Schicker's "Black Humor" course had been offered in fall 1965.
Using the March 1966 issue of
Holiday
magazine as a starting point, the class soon
launched into discussions of modern music, art, literature, drama, and architecture. For one
class, Hopkins played American composer George Antheil's "Ballet Mechanique," a work using
airplane engines and door bells as musical instruments, and then opened the floor for a
discussion of their reactions to and reflections on the music. Interestingly, some felt uneasy;
some found in it a sense of power; some a neurotic quality which they felt was typical of life in
this technological age. Other works considered were Ginsberg's poem,
Howl
, and Brecht's
Three Penny Opera
.
NiMo Professorship.
As part of Operation 71, and with a grant of $60,600 from Niagara
Mohawk, Clarkson established a cooperative engineering program to encourage greater student
interest in the utility industry. This program established not only a Niagara Mohawk
professorship of power engineering, but also an undergraduate cooperative program using
laboratory equipment provided by Niagara Mohawk. During the summer, Niagara Mohawk
even employed several students enrolled in the power engineering sequence. This program
expanded the electric power engineering program at Clarkson and included related research on
"total-electric" design, power system stability, and energy conversion.
Pictured ID Cards.
Acting on a suggestion from the Student Council, the College
administration issued laminated student ID cards with student pictures on them. Because the
College did not own the equipment necessary to produce these, it had to contract off campus for
the work.
Junior Weekend.
Diverging from the traditional Junior Prom idea, the Class of 1967 planned a
new way to celebrate Junior Weekend. It began with a concert-dance in the Civic Center on
Friday with two 40-minute shows by a group, "The Toys," and dancing for all to a back-up
band between shows.
Saturday night's affair was different, also, by having "Club-68" replace the prom.
Decorated in red and gold, the Alumni Gym was transformed into a pseudo night club with a
seven-piece orchestra for the dancers. One of the highlights of the evening was a comedy and
folk-music floor show by "Shelly and Paul." At midnight, the Junior Weekend Queen was
crowned. As a smash finale to the weekend, the nationally known group "Lovin' Spoonful"
performed in concert on Sunday afternoon. All events were free to all Clarkson students.
