Step Taken For Telecommunications System
By Joe Kupec
The Olmsted Building has a
new, high-tech, sculpture--a satellite
dish, along the road to the parking lot.
The presence of this High-Tech Icon
indicates the arrival of Penn State
Harrisburg's participation in university
and worldwide telecommunications edu
cation.
Satellite dishes act as the down
link, receiving signals transmitted to a
satellite from a land-based station.
Presently, all campuses in the Penn-
State system are installing dishes and
running cable to classrooms intended for
use in teleconferencing. According to Dr.
William Mahar, chairman of the
Humanities Division, the dish is only
the fust part of a program to provide all
classrooms in the Olmsted Building
Autumn Leaves Bring Back Memories
By Michele Hart
My mother always loved fall.
Every Sunday afternoon in late
September and October she would pack
the three of us kids and my dad into our
station wagon so we could drive around
for hours "enjoying the colors of the
leaves."
I don't really remember seeing
much in the way of leaves on those
afternoon drives, I was always too busy
torturing my little sister or being
tortured by my older brother. We would
sit in the back seat and pull each other's
hair, get into slap fights, and worst of
all move into each other's "space." I can
hear myself now:
"Mommy! Patrick has his
finger on my part of the seat. Make him
move it or I'll bite him."
My mother would patiently
turn around and look pleadingly at my
brother
"Why do you always do this to
her? Please sit on your side of the seat
and leave her alone."
The discipline over, Mom
would turn her head back to the window
with telecommunications capability. At
this time, rooms in the east wing of the
Olmsted Building are tied into the
satellite dish. This links the television
studio, Humanities and Behavioral Sci
ence classrooms for teleconferencing
capability.
Eventually, all majors in any
classroom on campus will be able to tie
into a lecture transmitted from any com
monwealth campus with transmitting
capability.
Another benefit of the dish,
according to Mahar, is the capability to
receive domestic television programming
from Canada, South and Central
America, and Asia. Access to inter
national television broadcasting would
permit students studying languages to
practice comprehension skills. The
capability of receiving domestic TV
and watch the scenery go by. Every
once in awhile we would hear her
whisper to dad: "Bill, please slow down,
I can't see the leaves if they are a blur."
As far as I was concerned the
only good things about those rides was
the possibility of getting ice cream if we
behaved.
Even when we lived in Texas,
where there are only two seasons, hotter
than hell and hot, mom would take us
for rides to see the leaves change. We
never had the heart to tell her that the
only thing the leaves in Texas do is turn
brown and die, and that's from the
drought, not a change in seasons. I'm
pretty sure mom knew that anyway, she
was raised in Texas.
But, - something made her quest
for watching the leaves change continue.
It really didn't matter to her whether the
leaves went from green to yellow to
orange or from brown to dead, to her
they were changing and it was
something to watch.
I never understood the ritual and
I was glad when I didn't have to go along
anymore. I teased my sister and called
programs would allow students and
faculty to follow international news
from a perspective not normally avail
able through the major U.S. news
media.
"Given the capability of
translation it is conceivable that one
could listen to a speech or interview
with Daniel Ortega, President of
Nicaragua, or hear the Canadian side of
why their negotiators walked out of the
U.S.-Canada trade talks that occurred
recently," Mahar said.
The conspicuous location of the
dish is one of those inherent quirks that
her a baby because she still had to spend
her Sundays in the back seat of the
station wagon. My friends all made fun
of my mom. They said she was like the
mother on the Waltons, and I agreed
with them. She told us we could laugh
at her all we liked, looking at the leaves
was something she was always going to
enjoy.
The station wagon Is long gone
now and so are the kids. But. last
Sunday when I called home no one
answered. I called and called
all afternoon. I was beginning to get
worried.
Finally at about seven I called
and my mom answered.
"Where have you been all
afternoon? I was starting to wonder."
"We went for a drive to see the
leaves," she answered, "the colors are
just starting to change. And then we
stopped for ice cream
on the way home."
• A strange sense of melancholy
came over me.
For some reason I felt left out.
I wanted to be there. I wanted to
accompany high technology. According
to Mr. Ben Widmir, physical plant
supervisor, plans called for locating the
satellite dish on the roof of the Olmsted
Building. The contractor, Scientific At
lanta, after conducting signal reading
tests on the Olmsted Building roof,
determined that there was too much
signal interference from other sources.
The conspicuous presence of this
twenty-first century educational tool
serves as a symbol of Penn State
Harrisburg's keeping pace with new
technologies for research and education.
Photo by Inc Kupec
terrorize my sister and scream at my
brother, and I wanted an ice cream cone.
Most of all I wanted to look at the
leaves. I wanted to make up for all the
rides I ruined for her when I was a kid. I
wanted to take the time to see what she
sees and marvel in the changing of the
seasons.
Then I realized what it was that
I really wanted; I wanted to go home, I
wanted to be a child again so I could see
what I had missed.
"Hey mom, how about if I
come home next weekend? Maybe on
Sunday you and me and dad could go for
a ride."
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