MULTIPLE CHOICE
Princeton Talks,
America Listens
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CAREERS
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This year, as it celebrates its 10th anniver-
sary by donating its tape archives to the
Museum of Broadcasting in New York
City, "American Focus" claims the biggest
audience (2 million-3 million) and widest
network (more than 400 stations) of any
public-affairs interview-and-discussion se-
ries on radio. Its guests have included Sen.
William Proxmire (who called it "relevant,
timely and provocative"), Walter Cronkite
("a valuable public service") and Art Buch-
wald ("everything I said was a lie"). But
"American Focus" doesn't originate in
Washington or the glossy high-rise studios
of New York's Broadcast Row. Its home is
an old eating club on the Princeton campus
and its volunteer staff consists of about 30
Princeton undergraduates.
Originally called "Focus on Youth," the
show was started in 1974 by Garth Ancier,
a studentsatLawrenceville School near
Princeton. When Ancier entered Princeton
that fall, he brought the program with him.
Shell Oil joined as sole sponsor in 1976, en-
suring financial stability, and the program
has had no trouble finding distinguished
guests or unpaid staff. "A lot of people do it
because it's a good extracurricular activity,"
says executive director Rich Buchband.
"And some lean to careers in broadcasting.
For them it's a good look into the business."
Ancier, thefounder, now worksin program-
ming at NBC; the show's third president,
Sandy Kenyon, is an entertainment reporter
for Cable News Network. (For the record,
Buchband and executive producer Jon Mar-
golies plan to gotolaw school.)
career advice." Penn plans to supplement
the FAP soon with an Alumnae Advisory
Program specifically for women and a
Black Alumni Advisory Program.
What frustrates counselors to near mad-
ness is this: programs are useless unless
students use them, and use them in time.
For every student who complains about his
counseling and placement service, there
are five counselors to complain about the
students. "Students are apathetic about the
job search," says Glenn Rosenthal, place-
ment director at Ball State in Muncie, Ind.
"They don't seem to realize the effort they
must put in to become an outstanding can-
didate for employment." Adds Colby's
James McIntyre: "Some students assume
that once we look at their resum, we can
match them with a job. But our main func-
tion is to prepare them to look on their
own." True enough, looking for a job can be
a scary, exhausting process, but there's no
good reason to forgo professional help when
it's offered. "We're here," Cornell Career
Center director Thomas Devlin says sim-
ply. "It's the student's responsibility to
come to us."
SILL BAROL with SEN SHERWOOD in, Cambridge,
Mas.,DOONNA SMITH in Coloado prings,
CAROL EISENBERG in waterville, Maine,
BARBARA MISLE in Ann Arbor, CLAYTON
STROMBERGER in Austin and bureau reports
Western Michigan fitness dorm: A residence hail 'for the health of it'
A Gym-Dandy Dorm for Fitness Freaks
Many schools have theme dorms-for
French majors, jocks or hackers-but
Western Michigan has come up with a new
wrinkle: health dorms. This semester two
WMU dorms, Eicher and LeFevre, have
become "health-oriented residence halls,"
offering 400 students such red-blooded
advantages as workout equipment, a sauna
and an aerobics room, plus fruit-juice
vending machines and specialized cafeteria
service. The two dorms also feature
weight-watching classes and calorie-count
signs for the various food items. This com-
prehensive emphasis on "wellness" already
has a rallying cry: "Eicher-LeFevre, For
the Health of It."
College officials say they set up the special
fitness program in response to vigorous stu-
dents who already had their own aerobics
and bicycling clubs. But WMU was con-
cerned with more than just the well-being of
its undergraduates; last year Eicher and Le-
Fevre were closed for lack of residents. Says
Todd Voss, a residence-hall manager at
WMU: "We really have to market things
these days to attract the kids."
are all those loyal alumni who have been quite frequently jobs come later through
through job hunts. Ohio State's Partners in alumni contacts." Patricia Rose, director
Education maintains a pool of 900 alumni of Penn's Career Placement service, sug-
contacts. The benefits of such a program gests that alumni, too, benefit from the
are "enormous," says Stanford placement school's seven-year-old Field Advisory
center director Christopher Shinkman. Program. "They feel that they are part of
"An informational interview is a lot less the university," Rose says, "and are hon-
stressful than a real job interview, and ored to have students come to them for
M
A Rose Bowl Score
For Caltech's Squad
Caltech senior Dan Kegel formally sub-
mitted his senior project last semester: an
"electronic bulletin-board controller." In-
formally, Kegel and some friends figured
out a way to install it at the Rose Bowl,
which is near the Caltech campus in Pasade-
na. His final exam came New Year's Day,
before 103,000 spectators and an estimated
57 million television viewers. In the fourth
quarter, the scoreboard-which a moment
before had read: UCLA 38, Illinois 9-
suddenly flashed: Caltech 38, MIT 9. Ke-
gel's professor said he'd earn an A for his
crafty work, and the students were even
asked to advise the 1984 Summer Olympics
committee on technological security. But
the city of Pasadena dropped a penalty flag;
misdemeanor charges are now pending
against Kegel and another student.
In their defense, Caltech's two tricksters
might point out that pranks have been an
unofficial part of the Caltech curriculum
since at least 1940, when a Model T Ford
was taken apart, reassembled and left run-
ning in an absent student's room. There's
even precedent for this year's stunt: in 1961,
Tech students stealthily revised instruc-
tions for the Washington Huskies flashcard
section so that the Rose Bowl display at
halftime spelled out Caltech forward and
Washington backward. Some say Caltech
President Marvin Goldberger actually in-
spired this year's effort during commence-
ment last spring when he exhorted students
not to "rest forever on the laurels of 1961."
Goldberger insists that the administration
certainly doesn't encourage pranks-but he
does describe them as "good clean fun."
Doctored scoreboard: The city threw a flag
.A
procrastinate tastefully
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NEWSWEEK ON CAMPUS/MARCH 1984