also questioned the constitutionality of the law because it might discriminate against fraternities
and sororities.
Another Kendall Award.
Dr. Janos Fendler, Clarkson chemistry professor, became the fourth
Clarkson faculty member to be awarded the highest prize in national chemistry from the
American Chemical Society, the Kendall Award. Previous winners included Clarkson
professors Stephen Brunauer, Milton Kerker, and Egon Matijević.
Main Street Hazard.
After receiving numerous complaints about the dangers of crossing Main
Street between Snell Hall and Lewis House, Clarkson's vice president, Bill Dempsey,
investigated and proposed to the Village Board that the College be allowed to purchase a
section of the street, and close it to traffic, thus removing the hazard. If that could not be done,
then the College proposed that parking not be allowed on the street.
At the Village Board meeting, Dempsey discussed the dangers to students crossing the
street when cars were parked along both sides and offered to pay the Village $50,000 for that
stretch of the road. Trustee Claffey scoffed at the price, and responded with the figure of
$500,000 as being more realistic. Dempsey stated that his quotation emerged from his estimate
of the cost of undeveloped land. He continued by requesting the Village to post "No Parking"
signs along the street from Pierrepont to State Street to help alleviate the dangers. Residents of
State Street, however, opposed that parking ban because they felt that it would cause their quiet
street to become a speedway. After two public hearings, the Village passed the proposal to ban
parking on Main Street, but only in front of the downtown campus.
Ice Skate-a-thon.
To raise money for the American Cancer Society, Alpha Phi Omega
sponsored an Ice Skate-a-thon on February 25 in Walker Arena. Prizes included a pair of new
ice skates, one Pizza Hut pizza a month for six months, and Northern Music gift certificates.
Four-Plus-One Program.
The School of Management established with State University
College in Potsdam a program which allowed a student at State to complete a four-year
Bachelor of Arts degree with a Liberal Arts curriculum and then enter Clarkson's graduate
program to earn an MBA degree in one year. Students had to plan their undergraduate programs
carefully to include courses that served as a foundation for graduate study in management. This
program gave students an understanding of business and managerial concepts built on a solid
liberal arts foundation.
It was one of eight existing 4+1 programs between various colleges throughout the state
including St. Lawrence, Ithaca, Alfred, Colgate, Hobart and William Smith, Skidmore, and
Siena, and such out-of-state schools as Norwich, Middlebury, St. Michael's, and Providence.
IFRIC.
Staffed by a group of the nation's leading computer scientists, including Dr. Martin
Sipser of MIT, Clarkson hosted a new Institute For Retraining in Computer Science (IFRIC)
geared toward the retraining of college faculty to teach computer science. Funded by a
$216,000 grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, this two-summer program was under the
joint auspices of the Mathematical Association of America (MAA) and the Association of
Computer Machinery (ACM). Its goal was to help meet the demand for college teachers of
computer science. It ran eight weeks for each of two summers.
