| |
    
|
Several students have recently indicated interest in making hockey a major sport at Minnesota. Many Canadian universities and eastern schools already have high-profile hockey programs, and the climate is no less favorable in Minnesota than in those regions. Minnesota has the resources to support a hockey team: the Armory rink and a group of talented players.
Adding hockey would be beneficial to both the players of the sport and the university. The program would provide another outlet for fame and success at Minnesota, and it would offer those who excel at hockey rather than football or basketball a chance to hone and demonstrate their skills.
Hockey is capable of generating as much interest and excitement as any other sport. Minneapolis citizens enjoy winter sports of all kinds. As evidenced by Minnesota's performance in last year's intercollegiate hockey league, a hockey team here could produce impressive results within a short period of time.
Unfortunately, the university lacks a suitable rink size, publicity, and organization for a hockey team. Each of these problems, however, could be solved inexpensively. With effort, Minnesota could field another successful athletic team. -February 1921
The president of American Telephone and Telegraph Company, W.S. Gifford, recently wrote an article published in Harper's Magazine and entitled "Does Business Want Scholars?" It examined the relationship between scholarship and progress in the Bell System, a large organization. The scholastic records of 3,806 employees were acquired and divided into four groups: top 10 percent, top third but not top 10 percent, middle third, and bottom third of their respective classes. The employees were tracked by salary because pay is a reliable indication of high performance and advancement within the company. It was noted that a strong correlation existed between college scholastic achievement and subsequent career success. Ten years after graduation, the median salary of the employees in the top tenth of their class was over 10 percent higher than the median salary of the entire group. After 20 years, it was 30 percent higher; after 30 years, it was 55 percent higher.
The level of extracurricular activity of the workers was also studied as a determinant of prosperity. The study found that those who had some, but not too much, extracurricular involvement tended to have the best job performance. While it was found to be a fair indicator of success, participating in collegiate activities was not as key as scholarship. In addition, students who pursued literary, editorial or managerial fields enjoyed greater workplace achievement than those involved in art, music and drama. Students who worked to pay for their education suffered negative consequences in their careers, most likely due to their tendency to be low achievers because of time constraints.
Although employers often weight all three factors, they usually consider scholastic success to be most important. The message to students: Study, get involved to a moderate degree in extracurricular activities, and avoid working an outside job if at all possible.
-October 1930
As an engineering graduate, what are your best options for deferment of military service? One resource is your employer, who can request that you be deferred for up to one year while a replacement is found. The period of deferment can be extended if no replacement is available. Another choice is to join the Reserve OfficersÍ Training Corps (ROTC). In addition to receiving college credits and a commission upon graduation, you may receive a deferment if you complete your ROTC training before you graduate. After graduation, you will be required to complete two years of active and six years of reserve duty. If you wait to be drafted, however, you will be a private and paid $78 per month, less than a third of the $250 paid a recent ROTC graduate. You may enter Officers Candidate School, but your service time will be extended by at least a year. You final option is to enlist. The author of this article advises college students to find as many deferments as possible. "Getting it over with" may not be necessary if the circumstances of the war change, making the draft unnecessary or limited in scope.
-January 1954
As computers become more commonplace, an increasing number of people desire and need access to their capabilities. Most of them, however, lack the knowledge of computers and non-intuitive programming languages necessary to manipulate them. A reasonable solution is the development of a programming language in which the user could type commands written in standard English. Although this seems possible in theory, it is largely unrealistic in practice. Current computers are limited by their relatively small memory capacities, and an English-based programming language would require vast amounts of space to store not only the words but also the algorithms for the interpretation of sentences. Even if enough memory existed, searching the memory for a word or performing an interpretation would take a great deal of time, too much for practical purposes.
It is possible, however, to create a limited atmosphere in which the computer can handle queries and commands in English. When a specific task is performed repeatedly, it can be programmed to handle typical conversational communication regarding that topic.
-December 1967
