OPINION
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The Michigan Daily
Vol. XCilI, No. 20-S
93 Years of Editorial Freedom
Managed and Edited by students of
The University of Michigan
Editorials represent a majority opinion of the
Daily Editorial Board
The Michigan Daily
Saturday, July 9, 1983
Brown University launches
drive to 'computerize' campus
Logi~c - 101
AGE and wisdom, so it is believed, go together
e maize and blue. As a person gets older they
are supposed to become wiser and more logical.
While that is probably true in most cases,
Soviet President Yuri Andropov and President
Reagan - two men with a fair number of
years under their belts - have proven to be ex-
ceptions to the rule. Their Cold War rhetoric
and escalating arms race can not exactly be in-
terpreted as "wise" or "logical."
Ironically, it was the reasoning of an 11-year-
old girl that recently brought this to the public's
attention.
The girl, fifth-grader Samantha Smith from
Maine, fearing the possibility of a nuclear war,
wrote a letter to Andropov seeking his assuran-
ces of peace. A few days ago, Samantha
received a reply from the Soviet leader saying
he was committed to peace and invited her
family to tour Russia as guests of the Kremlin.
Upon arrival in Moscow, Samantha told
reporters: "The Americans are not going to
start a war, either. So why are we still making
all these bombs and pointing them at each
other?"
Not only were Samantha's questions astute,
but they deserve some answers from both
Washington and Moscow. Indeed, that is what is
at the heart of the nuclear freeze movement in
this country; if we don't intend to fight a
nuclear war - which is what our President has
always claimed - then why must we continue
spending billions of dollars on newer and
deadlier nuclear weapons?
Similarly, if the Soviets don't intend on
waging nuclear war against us, then why do
they continue to build up their large nucler ar-
senal?
If Reagan and Andropov really are peace-
loving men, they ought to start acting like it.
For until they do, their actions of building and
deploying nuclear weapons will speak louder
than their half-hearted words calling for peace;
and only cause real peace between the two
countries to slip further away.
But then, any 11-year-old could tell you that.
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By William Beeman
PROVIDENCE, RI. -
"Professor, I am afraid that my
term paper's going to be late." It
was hardly the first time I had
heard these words from a
student, but the excuse was new.
"The printer was down," he ex-
plained. "I couldn't get it off the
computer."
"That's all right, just dump it
in my account," I said "I'll read
it on the terminal."
Not long after that exchange, a
colleague of mine returned from
Africa, where he was conducting
research on adolescent develop-
ment and social adjustment. He
held up a small gray box. "Here
are my field notes," he said. In-
side were a dozen floppy com-
puter discs. He had taken an Ap-
ple II to the field, and his data
now was ready for analysis on the
university's computer system.
These scenes are due to be
repeated frequently at Brown
University, where I teach an-
thropology. The university has
launched one of the most massive
institutional transformations
ever attempted in the United
States, committing itself to the
computerization of the entire
campus. The results of this
program could change the way
Americans learn - and deal with,
human issues - for years to
come.
rown is not alone. Carnegie-
Mellon University in Pittsburgh
and Drexel University in
Philadelphia also have decided to
undertake extensive com-
puterization programs. But
Drexel and Carnegie Mellon are
known for their emphasis on
technological training; they
already are beacons for number-
crunchers.
By contrast, Brown's im-
mediate aim is to develop uses
for computerization in teaching
and research in the humanities
and social sciences. It is the first
liberal arts institution in the
nation to attempt such a bold ex-
periment.
Two years ago a coaxial cable
network was installed here to
provide computer service
throughout 126 buildings. That
network - dubbed "BRUNET"
for the campus mascot, "the
Brown Bruin Bear" - is now the
largest and most heavily used
university system of its type in
the world.
BRUNET will become the
backbone for new networks of
"computer work stations" which
eventually will be available to
every student and instructor on
campus. There may be as many
as 10,000 of these stations in
operation by 1989.
The computer, its advocates
say, is not intended to alter the
creative process in scholarship.
It only promises to reduce the
mechanical workload.
Not all scholars see the com-
puterization program as an
unqualified blessing, however.
Brown historians William
McLaughlin and Perry Curtis
recently raised some nagging
questions about the new
program: Would the emphasis on
computers inhibit human in-
teraction, they wondered, as
students and faculty worked
away at their individual stations?
Would those scholars who.main-
tained traditional methods
become second-class citizens in
the academic community? What
effect would the cost of keeping
up this technology have on other
program funding?
Such legitimate questions not-
withstanding, there is little
doubt that the computer age has
created a valuable set of new
tools for scholars. Informational
data bases already exist on vir-
tually every subject, allowing
computers to generate pages of
references on a given topic in a
few minutes.
At present, these data bases
are prohibitively expensive for
an individual scholar. Under
Brown's computer development
program it will be possible to tap
hundreds of them. The entire
Brown library will be catalogued
on the computer, and the
catalogue will be accessible on
terminals anywhere on or off
campus. The system also will
allow faculty or students to
request books from other
libraries.
Foreign language teaching at
Brown also is expected to benefit,
as computers equip language
laboratories with an efficient
source of programmed instruc-
tion. Software to support com-
position in Arabic and Hebrew,
Greek, Hindi and other non-
Romance languages could make
awkward foreign language
typewriters obsolete. A foreign
language translator is even
promised.
The desired end, say university
administrators, is an extraor-
dinary democratization of infor-
mation, along with en-
couragement for the broadening
of scholarly research interests.
The result, ideally, would be an
explosion of interdisciplinary
studies, with payoffs that affect
American society in ways that
have not yet been imagined.
Beeman, an associate
professor of anthropology at
Brown University, wrote this
article for the Pacific News
Service.
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