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Show 3 UNIVERSITY NEWS MASTER MINDS A NEW SYSTEM IN UTAH? Plans were inaugurated on the University of Utah campus this week by student organizations to take steps towards obtaining the semester system for the institution. institu-tion. Approximately two-thirds of the major institutions of higher learning in the United States now use the semester system in hich there are only two periods in th school year. The University and other colleges use the quarter plan of three terms for the regular regul-ar school year and one quarter for summer school. It is pointed out by persons favoring the adoption of semesters semes-ters that only two registration days would be required for a year's course of study and books for new classes would have to be pui-chased but twice. The present plan it is argued, complicates credit transfering to colleges which use the semester system, and make it impossible to have Christmas and spring vacation periods. The semester set-up would facilitate fa-cilitate smoother administrative operations, especially from the registrants standpoint, since grades grad-es would have to be recorded but twice a year instead of the present pres-ent three. The proposed plan will also eliminate much "cramming" for term tests since there would be but two tests weeks per year, freeing a third week for a spring vacation which students haye recently re-cently been petitioning for. Under Un-der the present set-up, there is j no time between the winter and spring quarters. From the instructors veiwpoint the semester plan would work nicely, too. Many professors claim that the course of study which they are expected to teach during dur-ing the quarter should require at least the time alloted to semesters Besides burdening students with excess loads in certain subjects, the present organization of the college year forces instructors to present the most essential features feat-ures of the course hurriedly and supply supplementary materia on-the on-the two term plan declare that lv if time permits. Exponents of a comprehensive course in many of the University subjects cannot can-not normally be obtained in one quarter's time. Further pedagogical discrimination discrimin-ation is made necessary under the quarter idea because most text books on the market are com-oiled com-oiled with the semester college in mind. Quarter colleges must, therefore, either expect to delate oart of the text, enforce unusual-lv unusual-lv heavy assignments or permit the latter part of the text to go unstudied. j The obvious advantages of the I semester plan are counter- bal anced by the reorganization in schedules, credits standards and curriculum which would be nec-essarv nec-essarv for immediate chansres. It is also pointed out bv administrators administra-tors that if the University adopted adopt-ed the proposal of two-porirwi : vears. it would disrupt credit transfers in other colleges in the state, since students are constaD- I tly transferring from one Utah college to another. THE MODERN UNIVERSITY University of Utah speech students will have an invaluable new piece of equipment to work with next quarter in the form ot a practice broadcasting station which is now being installed in Kingsbury Hall. Called officially a "voice science laboratory", the new studio will serve the double purpose of providing pro-viding scientific equipment, tor voice recording and study. The equipment will fill a long standing want of the phonetics and radio broadcastig students on the campus, cam-pus, about 200, of whom who will use the studio each quarter. Consisting of a control room and a studio, the new laboratory embodies many of the most efficient ef-ficient features known, which include a "floating window." with nearly three inches of glass to assure accustic protection. The walls and ceilings are lined lin-ed with a special composition of wood pulp which absorves vi-jbrations vi-jbrations and the door of the studio stud-io is filled with lead. The door frames are lined to prevent jar-rins" jar-rins" of the walls. The project has been planned 31H O) SuipjODDT! 'SIUA.C O.W1 JOI j faculty members of the sneech department, and many difficulties difficul-ties were encountered in itq construction. con-struction. Materials had to be ordered or-dered from New York and other cities, and were delaved because of defense orders. Several partitions par-titions had to be changed and a : window was blocked to make room in the basement of the building for the r.ew laboratory. |