The College eventually networked all computers so that students had access to other
students, to professors, to the central IBM computer, and to much of the outside world. A
flexible machine with graphical capabilities, the Z-100 had both 8-bit and 16-bit Intel
microprocessors, 128K bytes of machine memory, and a disk drive capacity of 320K bytes, or
the equivalent of a 100-page report. Each machine came equipped with software packages
which included the major languages of FORTRAN, BASIC, PASCAL, and MULTIPLAN.
Prof. Ralph Janaro, management department, became the first Clarkson faculty member to offer
a full course utilizing this new Z-100 when he taught MG110, "Computer Concepts in
Business."
Media representatives from all over the country were present to witness this first in
collegiate education. Along with a crew from CBS, reporters and cameramen from Syracuse,
and the two Watertown TV stations covered the story. In addition, reporters and photographers
from United Press International, Associated Press,
USA Today
; Syracuse, Watertown, and
Potsdam newspapers;
Enter
magazine; and
Life
magazine came to Potsdam for this event. This
personal computer program eventually was reported as far away as Hawaii and East Germany.
By the end of the academic year, it had been featured on the CBS Evening News, on
Good Morning America
; in
Life
magazine; and on the cover of
Newsweek On Campus
, a special
edition published by
Newsweek
magazine. Later in the year, this story was carried by such
newspapers as the
Christian Science Monitor, San Francisco Sunday Examiner and Chronicle,
New York Times, Boston Globe, The Star
(Johannesburg, South Africa),
Wall Street Journal,
Washington Post, Chicago Tribune
, and the
Rochester Democrat
.
Computer-Based Management.
Clarkson approved the creation of a new major in Computer-
based Management Systems. Housed in the School of Management, this interdisciplinary
program integrated management and computer skills to teach students how to apply computer
technology to the functions of management. It stressed the concepts, skills, and techniques
needed to apply computers to the solution of a wide range of business and industrial problems.
Its graduates could understand and keep abreast of technological advances while
simultaneously creating effective applications of that technology in business and industrial
environments.
This program gave students broad familiarity with the financial, productive, and
distributive activities of an organization; a knowledge of traditional accounting and
management reporting systems; an ability to analyze decision-making situations, and to identify
the information requirements of decision makers and problem solvers; an ability to define
information system requirements for managers, engineers, and analysts; an ability to synthesize
information requirements with the available hard- and software services available, and from
that to produce an effective information system design; and a background in the organizational
behavior and human factors involved in any innovation to the information systems.
Marketing Major.
Also housed in the School of Management was the new major in marketing.
Teaching students about this crucial link between the company and the all-important customer,
Clarkson's program went far beyond the principles of marketing. It included a sequence of
courses in marketing research, technical communication for managers, consumer and industrial
purchasing behavior, and marketing management and strategy.
