Oberlin Observer. 1984-02-16

              Oberiin to oppose
Solomon law
in court brief
Oberiin will join Swarthmore and
Haverford in filing with the US Supreme
Court an "amici curiae" ("friends of the
court") brief opposing the Solomon
Amendment. The amendment makes
students ineligible for federal educa¬
tional assistance unless they have com¬
plied with the draft registration require¬
ment. It also requires colleges to obtain
certification of Selective Service regis¬
tration compliance from their students
who apply for federal financial assis¬
tance. It is named for its sponsor, Gerald
Solomon, Republican congressman
from New York.
The brief, which will be filed Monday
in connection with a suit pitting the
Selective Service System against the
Minnesota Public Interest Research
Group, argues in its draft form that the
amendment discriminates against young
male students "with limited financial
resources" who wish to attend small,
independent, liberal arts colleges and
thus violates "the principles of the Equal
Protection Clause embodied in the Fifth
Amendment's Due Process Clause." The
draft version of the brief also argues
that the Solomon Amendment "uncon¬
stitutionally infringes rights of free ex¬
pression and association guaranteed by
the First Amendment" and "constitutes
a serious and unwarranted governmen¬
tal intrusion into the educational pro¬
cess of a type which, if not prevented,
could seriously jeopardize the freedom
of American institutions of higher
learning."
Following oral arguments in the
spring, the Supreme Court is to decide
whether or not to uphold US District
Court Judge Donald Alsop's June 1983
ruling, which found that the Solomon
Amendment violated students' consti¬
tutional rights. The US Justice Depart¬
ment is arguing against this ruling, and
it is supported by the trustees of Boston
University, who have submitted a friend-of-
the-court brief supporting the Solo¬
mon Amendment, according to the
Chronicle of Higher Education (8 Feb¬
ruary).
Last spring both the general faculty
and the board of trustees of Oberiin
passed motions opposing the Solomon
Amendment (Observer 31 March 1983).
Cosby conceit to benefit
minority scholarships
Bill Cosby
Comedian Bill Cosby was totally se¬
rious last fall when he called President
S. Frederick Starr and offered to per¬
form a one-man show free of charge to
raise scholarship funds for minority
students at Oberiin. Cosby was respond¬
ing to an account in the New York
Times of Oberlin's sesquicentennial con¬
ference on the education of black Amer¬
icans. Starr gratefully accepted the of¬
fer, and shortly thereafter arrangements
were made for a performance in the
nation's capital.
Cosby will perform the Oberiin benefit
at 8:30 pm 29 February in the Kennedy
Center for the Performing Arts, Wash¬
ington DC. Ticket prices range from
$10 to $25 for general admission to $100
for patrons and $250 for sponsors. A
bus will go from Oberiin to Washington
for the performance if enough people
sign up for it, according to James G.
Lubetkin, director of college relations.
Sign-ups are at Wilder main desk.
The college is approaching 150 indi¬
viduals, organizations, and corporations
for financial support that, along with
the concert revenues, will form the core
of a permanently endowed Bill Cosby
scholarship fund for Oberiin minority
students. Two alumni are serving as co-chairmen
of the benefit event: Erwin N.
Griswold, who is former US solicitor
general, former Harvard Law School
dean, and honorary Oberiin trustee,
and Carl T. Rowan, syndicated colum¬
nist and former diplomat.
Cosby, a nightclub, movie, and tele¬
vision performer, has won four Emmy
and eight Grammy awards and is a best-selling
comedian of all time on records.
He is a graduate of Temple University
and has an MA and a PhD in education
from the University of Massachusetts.
Sloan recipients confer on technology
by Norman D. Henderson
To counter the increasing technologi¬
cal illiteracy among today's liberal arts
students, the Alfred P. Sloan Founda¬
tion in 1981 invited thirty liberal arts
colleges to submit proposals outlining
both course enrichment plans and new
programs that would lead to a "new
liberal arts curriculum." Oberiin was
one of ten colleges that received a
$250,000 award from the Sloan Foun¬
dation for this purpose {Observer 25
November 1982). Last month the presi¬
dent and one faculty member from each
of the ten colleges—Carleton, David¬
son, Grinnell, Lafayette, Mount Holy-oke,
Union, Vassar, Wellesley, Williams,
and Oberiin—met to consider their suc¬
cesses and difficulties during the first
year of the program. I represented Ober¬
iin along with President S. Frederick
Starr.
Workshops and seminars
All ten of the colleges have offered to
faculty workshops for training and fi¬
nancial support for developing courses
in technology and applied mathematics.
Most have also begun lecture series and
seminars related to computer applica-
Emeritus Professor John W. Kurtz
John William Kurtz, who began teach¬
ing German at Oberiin in 1932 and
retired in 1973, died 2 February at his
home in Oberiin. He was seventy-seven.
Active in the governance of the col¬
lege, Kurtz was elected to several terms
on the college faculty council. He was
chair of the German and Russian depart¬
ment from 1956 to 1970. It was his idea
to approach the Max Kade Foundation
in New York for financial support of
German programs, and he persuaded
the foundation to make a series of sub¬
stantial contributions to the college: it
gave funds for the Kade German House
and the German writer-in-residence pro¬
gram, for example, and it gave old mas¬
ter prints and nineteenth- and twen¬
tieth-century paintings to the art
museum.
Biography of Oberiin
Kurtz was author or coauthor of sev¬
eral books. After his retirement he com¬
pleted John Frederic Oberiin, which
was the first comprehensive English
biography of the Alsatian pastor for
whom the Oberiin colony was named.
He was twice granted leave of absence
from Oberiin to accept appointments to
US government positions in Germany.
In 1966 he was awarded the Officers'
Cross in the Order of Merit of the Ger¬
man Federal Republic for "outstanding
service in the manifold fields of German
American cultural relations."
Survivors include his wife, Edith,
whom he married in 1932, four sons,
nine grandchildren, and a sister. A
memorial service was held 5 February in
First Church.
tions, engineering technology, and ap¬
plied mathematics. (A description of
activities at Oberiin supported by the
Sloan Foundation may be found in a
booklet distributed this fall: Technol¬
ogy, Applied Mathematics and the Lib¬
eral Arts.)
Computer-related activities have in¬
creased strikingly at all ten of the col¬
leges; it seems that their expansion is
limited only by the rate at which new
equipment can be installed. Less strik¬
ing but equally significant are additions
to the curriculum in applied mathemat¬
ics, quantitative ideas, and problem-solving
strategies. Some schools are
offering freshman-level courses for stu¬
dents in the social sciences and humani¬
ties in quantitative concepts in decision
making or problem solving. New courses
are offered either by the mathematics
faculty or jointly by faculty members
from several disciplines: quantitative
reasoning is taught by examining case
studies in history, psychology, medi¬
cine, economics, and the physical
sciences.
Applied technology
The introduction into the curriculum
of applied technological concepts and
engineering principles has been limited
at most of the participating colleges, but
there are exceptions: Union is offering
to its liberal arts students two new
courses taught by members of its mech¬
anical engineering faculty: "Technology,
Society, and Human Values" and "Nu¬
clear Technology in War and Peace: A
Study of Issues and Choices." Vassar, in
a cooperative venture with IBM per¬
sonnel, has developed a course in tech¬
nological innovation designed for non-science
students but including a substan¬
tial science component.
Using only its own resources, Welles-ley
offered an extremely ambitious first-level
interdisciplinary course in applied
technology, which was developed by an
economist, a sociologist, a mathemati¬
cian, and a physicist last summer. Taught
experimentally to twenty students this
fall, the course covered modeling, logic
md electronic circuits, information and
measurement, statistical inference, and
a problem in decision analysis borrowed
from Sam Goldberg, Oberiin professor
of mathematics, concerning amniocen¬
tesis. Its interdisciplinary nature, small
class size, and well-chosen readings con¬
tributed to the success of this course at
Wellesley. For a substantial educational
impact, however, courses of this type
must be offered to larger numbers of
students.
Problems of implementation
Obstacles to establishing the new lib¬
eral arts curriculum encouraged by the
Sloan Foundation were discussed. These
included the lack of highly trained tech¬
nical staff, the inherent risk when non-science
faculty undertake projects in
technology and applied mathematics,
the difficulties of providing sufficient
computing equipment and modern scien¬
tific instrumentation, the lack of quan¬
titative and scientific skills among some
faculty and many entering students in
liberal arts colleges, and the problem of
accurately measuring changes in tech¬
nological literacy among students en¬
rolled in colleges.
Programs allowing technically trained
specialists to be in residence at liberal
arts colleges were strongly recom¬
mended. Starr described his efforts to
cooperate with industries with an eye
toward a possible sharing of personnel
or equipment. There was also support
for clear messages from major liberal
arts colleges to secondary schools en¬
couraging the teaching of quantitative
methods.
Ultimately, the success of the pro¬
gram depends on the students it reaches.
The concepts of technology and applied
mathematics must be introduced into
courses elected by a wide cross-section
of undergraduates. Support for course
development in these areas is again
being offered by Oberlin's committee on
technology and applied mathematics.
Norman Henderson is professor of
psychology.