Category: Content Type (Page 6 of 36)

Newspaper: Dickinsonian
Date: April 12, 1979
Article: Shirt design contest held
Author: Sarah L. Snyder

What started out as a venture “purely for fun” quickly turned into fashion when an all-College contest to design a nuclear t-shirt took place last week.

The winning slogans were: “I’m Radiant – Carlisle April 1979;” “Hell No, We Won’t Glow;” “I Survived Three Mile Island . . . I Think;” and “Visit Harrisburg, Pennsylvania And Have 2.6 Children.”

Cavenaugh reported that the idea of making t-shirts resulted from casual conversations with people. He said that Professor Dennis Klinge and Dean of Special Programs Mary Frances Carson helped organized the gala event and after designs were selected, the silk-screening began Wednesday, April 4.

Students were charged a dollar to have a shirt screened and before expenses, over $300 were collected. Cavenuagh said that the money will be given to a suitable charity.

Newspaper: The Dickinsonian
Date: April 12, 1979
Article: College responds to Three Mile Island Nuke accident: Coping student exodus
Author: Jeffrey W. Blinn and Sarah L. Snyder

Imagine a student calling home the evening of April 1 – a week after spring vacation – to tell his mom and dad to “Come and get me, classes have been cancelled for the week.” “Ah come on, did you really think I’d fall for that April Fool’s joke,” would laugh the parents.

But this year April Fools was no laughing matter as on April 1 President of the College Sam A. Banks, addressing an uneasy audience, announced the suspension of classes for the week of April 2. This reluctant decision to cancel classes came about because by that Sunday approximately 75 percent of the student population had evacuated campus, fearing the worst from the crippled Three Mile Island Nuclear Power Plant.

Typically, to those who stayed, though, the only fools were those who left and to those who left, the only fools were those who stayed. Banks, however, throughout the week, warned against these kinds of attitudes that could promote “needless” fragmentation of the community.

No danger

Based on the advice from the Cumberland County Office of Emergency Preparedness, Governor Dick Thornburgh and the nuclear physicists on the College faculty, Banks indicated in communiqué after communiqué that Carlisle was not in imminent danger and that there was no need for people to evacuate the College.

Throughout the administration attributed undue concern to “misleading, conflicting and sensationalized information disseminated by national media.”

Nonetheless Banks, in conferring with his senior staff officers and faculty representatives on Sunday afternoon, realized that “the College couldn’t hold regular classes of the standards Dickinson has under those circumstances.” Despite administrative assurance, though, by Monday afternoon Dickinson was little more than a ghost college.

Perhaps some faculty captured students concerns at the by then traditional gathering (the first informational meeting was held Friday, March 30), when it was emphasized “If you have no ties to Carlisle, leave.”

“Better safe than sorry,” expressed one student evacuee, also reflected the sentiment of those students and faculty who left the area. Some students took advantage of the unscheduled break by heading south, while others returned home for lack of anything to do at the College.

Many uncertainties

Contributing to the decision to cancel classes was the College’s uncertainty regarding faculty status. The College did not know if classes could be manned on Monday and, thus, could not promise inquiring parents that their children’s classes would be held that week. Parental inquiries flooded the College switchboard, necessitating that it remain open round the clock throughout the weekend.

A United Telephone Company shift supervisor reported that “it’s a mess.” The supervisor explained that the Harrisburg trunk lines were in constant use since the accident at TMI Wednesday, March 28. “To handle all the calls we’ve had to extend shifts and call in extra personnel,” she said.

To complicate matters further, the Office of Emergency Preparedness requested that the College be available as an evacuation site in the event such action be deemed necessary. “To hold classes at the same time the College would be used as an evacuation site would be impossible,” said Banks. If used as a mass care center, the College would have housed in its public area 500 nursing home residents and 400 fire-fighting personnel.

Decision defended

According to Banks, there was unanimity among the group who made the decision to cancel classes for the week. He revealed that the group considered last Wednesday as a possible day to resume classes. This plan was dismissed because of the anticipated communication difficulties with students, plus five to seven day evacuation period as projected by Civil Defense experts.

Once the decision was made to cancel classes for the week, it became the objective of the administration to keep operations as “realistically normal” as possible. For example, sporting events and the Black Arts Festival went on as scheduled. Towards that end all support staff operations continued unfettered and alternative classroom instruction was adopted. (See related articles.)

Newspaper: Dickinsonian
Date: April 12, 1979
Article: Small crew keeps WDCV broadcasting
Author: Peggy Collins

Although classes were cancelled and hundreds of students evacuated the campus last week, WDCV FM remained on the air to provide students with up-to-date reports on the Three Mile Island situation.
According to Program Director Gail Gordens, the station functioned with a skeleton crew of licensed DJs with help from volunteers on a sign-up basis.

Gordens explained that experienced and licensed personnel who have not been working at the station this year volunteered to fill the empty show slots and do news shows. She added that it is possible that non-licensed personnel also provided man-hours for the station. She said that his was possible if a licensed DJ “signed on” the unlicensed member.

Federal Communication Commission regulations, noted Gordens, require that the station remain on the air while school is in session. Although the College remained open, since classes were suspended for the week WDCV was not required to operate.

Normally WDCV must broadcast a minimum of six hours a say, six days a week, said Gordens.
During the past week, WDCV provided special news shows every hour and released statements from the College. The station also provided the community with reports from the Physics department and broadcast live the informational meetings that were held evenings.

Gordens noted that News Director Don Bush coordinated the entire station during the crisis period and kept the station on the air continuously from Friday, March 30 until the end of the broadcast day on Monday, April 2.

WQVE FM 93 of Mechanicsburg asked WDCV for permission to broadcast from the WDCV studios should the Mechanicsburg area be evacuated, noted Gordens. She said that contingency plans were arranged whereby WQVE would use the College station in the event of an evacuation. Gordens said that WQVE installed two phone lines in the WDCV studios to handle its business and personal calls.

Station Manager Dave Dixon stated that he received phone calls from both Carlisle and the College community indicating that “people were glad that WDCV remained on the air,” Dixon also said that the listening audience increased during the week of the crisis.

Commenting on the impact of the station the Three Mile Island scare, Dixon concluded, “This even has proved to the College and the community that WDCV is a service of information. Without the station, Carlisle would not have known what the College was doing.”

Newspaper: Dickinsonian
Date: April 12, 1979
Article: Student participates in protest
Author: Jenny Jordan
(Ed. Note: In the following article Jenny Jordan writes her impressions of an anti-nuke demonstration that she attended in Harrisburg, Sunday, April 8.)

Last Sunday, several of us went into Harrisburg for the anti-nuke demonstration, protesting the proposed reopening of the Three Mile Island Reactor plant. It was a strange event, both disappointing and refreshing.

When we got into Harrisburg, I said, “Let’s be sure to park far enough away so we don’t get caught in any traffic mess.” As it turned out, we could probably have parked right in front of the Capitol steps.
There were between one and two thousand people there, which I found a surprisingly small turn-out. After all, 3000 people showed up for a rally in Groton, Connecticut and 5000 showed up for one in San Fransico. In Germany demonstrators yelled, “We all live in Pennsylvania,” yet not too many Pennsylvanians seem upset about the events which captured the concern of the rest of the world. Even though they are the closest to the events, indeed, were caught in the middle of them, the people of central Pennsylvania do not seem too concerned about them.

The only answer I can come up with to explain this attitude, is “out of sight , out of mind.” Now that the worst is over and we are no longer headlines, people would just as soon forget Three Mile Island and get back to normal.

One other feature about the rally was strange – it was hard not to feel as though you were at a sixties revival. It was almost eerie the way the demonstration started out with “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” and was interspersed with other protest songs. Other anti-Vietnam slogans were slightly changed and converted to use as anti-nuke slogans.

The speakers included a diverse group: organizers of the Three Mile Island Alert, elected officials, a high school English teacher, and a physician were among them. While many of the speakers were very good, making valid points and clarifying others, they did not seem to be making use of the crowd to its fullest potential. It was essentially a very quiet group, almost a passive group.

But in spite of all this, the Harrisburg demonstration had its own surprises. The most pleasant one was the wide variety of ages represented, from babies to people in their sixties. Little kids were mixing with students in blue jeans, blue collar workers and nuns alike were carrying protest signs. Even the eleven and twelve year olds were listening to what was being said and expressing opinions. Entire families came. The organizers and workers themselves included teenagers as well as middle aged housewives. If nothing else, the gathering proved that the issues at hand concerned not just one limited group of people, but everyone.