Profs lead
interim tour
Karen Bos
staff writer
"Dissidents and Patriots: A
Literary Tour of Britain" is of-fered
to Augustana students
through Upper Midwest
Association for Intercultural
Education (UMAIE) and is be-ing
led by Carolyn Geyer and
Carole Barrowman, assistant
professors of English at
Augustana College during the
the 1986 January Interim.
Geyer led a student group to
England in 1983 and has added
Barrowman's historical
knowledge of Britain to develop
the intinerary and focus of this
year's course.
Barrowman said,"We are
looking at the literature in the
context of the background of the
authors." Thus, the experience
is "a little bit of a history
course, also."
The course will include visits
to Oxford, York, Edinburgh,
Alnwick, Bath and London.
The students will experience a
3-day homestay, which will give
them "a real taste of the culture
of the area," said Barrowman.
The visitations to historical
places will be related to the
works of authors such as
Shakespeare, Shelley, Sir
Walter Scott, and Robert Louis
Stevenson. Geyer said, "We
match the place with the literary
work...that makes the literature
come alive...makes it much
more vivid."
"We hope students will be
excited to read more of the
literature of the area," said Bar-rowman,
a native of Scotland.
"The exciting thing for me is
the chance to take a group of
students around. . . to show off
my home country."
Carolyn Geyer is looking for-ward
to having "students travel
in a study context. . .tremen-dous
resources. . . make the
travel a different kind of learn-ing
- learning through ex-perience
is exciting."
Details about the course may
be obtained from either Geyer
or Barrowman, They advise
that applications be submitted
as soon as possible. Applications
may be obtained from Jeanne
Kruse in the Provost office at
Augustana College.
Carole Barrowman and Carolyn Geyer
Sioux Falls, SD
Volume 69, Number 3
September 26, 1985
Vikings on MTV? No, its just the Pep Band playing the
"Augustana Rouser" for a Viking Days commercial.
Augustana College
Carol Hansen
New Honeywells in Humanities
Administration improving campus computers
Dawn Thurn
staff writer
As a part of an administrative
effort to improve the campus-
- wide computer system, a new
computer lab has been opened
in Humanities 103. The room is
used for some classes but at
other times is available for use
as an open lab.
For the past couple of years, a
committee has been researching
the academic computer needs of
the campus. Chet Whitney,
assistant to the president, is a
member of this committee
which decided that having a
cluster of 12 micro-computers in
Gilbert Science Center, the
Social Science Building and the
Humanities Building was essen-tial.
The clusters were to be
"open labs for students and
faculty" and "not associated
with certain classes," he said.
The administration is
presently looking at proposals
from various companies in-cluding
Honeywell, which is the
type of computer currently in
the Humanities cluster. These
computers were given to
Augustana last spring by
Honeywell for use while a pro-posal
is being worked on.
Whitney said that he is "fair-ly
confident we'll come to an
agreement with Honeywell,"
due partly to the fact that
Honeywell can also provide
other campus needs such as a
telephone system and a building
control system. But even if a
proposal isn't worked out with
Honeywell, a computer lab will
remain in Humanities. The ad-ministration
will either pur-chase
the present computers or
will find some other way to
replace them with an IBM-type
micro-computer. "We won't
just pull them out some Friday
afternoon," Whitney said.
The computers were housed
in GSC this summer and were
used for faculty workshops.
After these workshops, Pro-
COMPUTERS
see page 2
Distinguished alum defends liberal arts
Alan Petersen
news editor
Ten years ago, as an
Augustana senior, Carol
Hansen wrote a term paper in
defense of liberal arts education.
Last Friday, during convoca-tion,
Hansen returned to her
alma mater to speak on the
same subject.
Hansen, a Professional Staff
Member of the U.S. Foreign
Relations Committee, credits
her liberal arts background as
the key to multi-dimensional job
opportunities she has received.
The list is impressive. She has
worked with the CIA, National
Security Council, State Depart-ment,
and the Departments of
Agriculture and Commerce
since her graduation from
Augustana.
"Liberal arts is a good educa-tion
that gives you maximum
mobility • in life," explained
Hansen. "It's all sequential.
You take a good basic educa-tion,
throw in some good job ex-perience,
then every time you
re-write your resume, you've
created more job
opportunities."
She then pointed out three
problems that liberal arts is cur-rently
facing. Twenty years
ago, 20 percent of all college
students graduated from a
liberal arts institution - that
figure has dwindled to 7 percent
today. The breadth of instruc-tion
is beginning to erode, she
said. Since 1970, students
graduating wish English,
philosophy, history, and
modern language degrees have
all dropped by around 50 per-cent.
Finally, she pointed out, with
fewer people graduating from
liberal arts schools, there are
fewer people being trained to
teach in the liberal arts field.
"In my mind, that is why
they need defending," said
Hansen. "Liberal arts is losing
at the number's game. That's a
very dangerous trend I see in
higher education."
Hansen paints a grim future
for this country if liberal arts
colleges were lost.
"We'd lose an extremely im-portant
opportunity to train
Americans," she said. "62 per-cent
of all high school students
are now going to college. Our
goal should be to insure they
know a common culture;
something they can carry with
them the rest of their lives. No
successful society is ignorant of
it's past.
"We'd also lose the quality in
our educational system.
Something of the magic that
comes from liberal arts will be
gone. You can't get that from a
purely technical education.
Graduates are becoming too
specialized...they seem
lifeless."
Life, according to Hansen,
HANSEN
see page 2