Summer Band Camp Expected To Bring 1,200 Students to KU
Those green bleachers the buildings and grounds crew have been erecting this past week north of Malott Hall, between Hoch Auditorium and Hayworth Hall, are not for graduation exercises, as some students have supposed.
The bleachers and the adjoining platform will be the scene of a concert each Sunday evening during June and July by young musicians attending the annual Midwestern Music and Art Camp.
Russell Wiley, professor of band and camp director, started the program 27 years ago with less than 20 campers enrolled. This summer he anticipates having over 1200 campers to participate in the camp's nine divisions.
NO LONGER confined to music and art alone, the camp now offers programs in science, journalism, speech and engineering, as well as theater, dance, art and music. The music camp is divided into junior high and senior high divisions and accounts for the greatest number of campers.
Over 700 campers will split up to form four bands, four choirs, and two orchestras. During the six-week
PushtheButton Strain the Heart
CHICAGO —(UPI) Automation is causing nervousness, heart strain and exhaustion in the men who push the buttons on modern machinery, according to an industrial expert.
Dr. Rolf R. Coermann, head of the biotechnology department at West Germany's Max Planck Institute for Industrial Physiology, said the adverse effects of automation are just now starting to show up.
"It is no longer a source of surprise for us to find that the heart rate is higher for the man who operates a bank of machinery by a flick of a button on a control panel than for the man who does heavy physical work." Coermann said.
He reported to a Chicago medical school audience yesterday on the results of a study of young control panel operators in West Germany.
"Work demanding a high degree of continual mental alertness with respect to production puts a greater strain on the heart than heavy physical labor," he said.
After a three-year technical training period in automation skills and five years "on the job," the workers displayed a "marked nervousness and slowing down of reaction time."
The men tested worked mainly in coal mines, steel works and post offices, Coermann said.
"A chief indicator in the measurement on the effect of his work on the pushbutton man is the heart rate, and in the studies it has been shown that if the average rate increases above a certain limit, there is a decrease in actual productivity and an onset of prolonged exhaustion." he added.
Coermann said in many cases it was found that persons appearing to be doing relatively simple work are actually victims of "physiological systems overload."
"The need for continuing attention and vigilance, the need for continuing mental alertness, appear to increase the heart rate substantially," he said.
This problem, Coermann said, is beginning to be of concern to the managers of the factories who are beginning to recognize it.
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Many of the music campers, Prof. Wiley said, eventually turn up in his KU concert and marching bands during the school year.
camp, the young musicians will be guided by the professional batons of 11 guest conductors, one of whom is Sol Caston, conductor of the Denver Symphony.
ONCE REFERRED TO as "the greatest public relations medium the university has," by former chancellor Franklin Murphy, the music and art camp is a growing institution. "The camp is not a local affair anymore," Prof. Wiley said, "half the campers come from outside of Kansas." Last summer, 35 states were represented, and Prof. Wiley predicts there will be campers from 44 states this year.
Taking its present rate of growth into consideration, the camp may someday attract more high school age musicians than the green bleachers can hold.
BUT PROF. WILEY and university officials have had the foresight to plan ahead for the anticipated increase. Plans have been already drawn up for a $250,000 amphitheater to be located west of Potter Lake.
"The location is ideal," Prof. Wiley said. "The audience can be seated on the hill opposite the amphitheater, on the other side of the lake."
No definite date has been scheduled for construction of the proposed amphitheater, Prof. Wiley said. "The only thing that remains is to raise the $250,000."
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