The second program, held in November, was moderated by Dr. John F. Schwaller, Associate Provost, and featured Research Associate Peter Thornton of the School of Forestry, and Dr. Steven D. Sheriff, Chairman of the Department of Geology, who shared their perspectives on appropriate uses of electronic communication in science teaching. Electronic aids for science teaching bring factual information in stimulating forms to lower-division students. Thornton and Sheriff find that the students' interest is aroused and they are eager to learn more. There are cyberspace sources that make extremely small, extremely large, extremely slow or rapid phenomena and events more understandable than some printed resources. Models and simulation can represent phenomena more vividly than charts and graphs.
Graduate students undertake development of programs designed for their unique fields of research.
Perhaps in the near future cyberspace will permit instructors to teach well with less effort in beginning courses and devote more effort to advanced courses. The third and final program on cyberspace in the classroom is Electronic Teaching Initiatives Through Information Power and Cyberspace, featuring Mansfield Library programs and facilities. Professor William Elison, Social Sciences Librarian and CD-ROM Coordinator, will analyze the development of power of electronic access to information, as available at the Library, while Assistant Professor Sue Samson, Humanities Librarian and Bibliographic Instruction Coordinator, will explore the current capabilities of access to information power. Spring Banquet William Bevis, Professor English at the University of Montana, will be honored with the 1997 H.G. Merriam Award at the Annual Spring Banquet of the Friends of the Mansfield Library. Bevis joins a long line of distinguished writers since 1982 to receive this award, the first being poet Richard Hugo.