January 26, 1980 - Dr. Gerry Webers, a geology professor from Macalester College in Saint Paul, led a scientific expedition of over 150 researchers to the in the Ellsworth Mountains in Antarctica. There, using Camp Macalester as a base of operations, the scientists gathered information on the continents weather, magnetic structure and past life. Webers and others believe that Antarctica was once a part of Africa. And, to support their belief, they have found fossils of animals and plants that could only have lived in a climate much warmer than that of the South Pole's. For about the next 18 minutes, we hear a portion of a tape journal that Webers sent back from the Antarctic.
February 23, 1980 - John Holt, an author and educator, speaking at Unity Unitarian Church as part of that church's Wider Ministry Lecture Series. The title of his talk is, "Education versus Learning." For years, Holt has been raising eyebrows with his analysis of how we teach and learn. He’s published eight books and scores of articles on the subject.
March 1, 1980 - On this Weekend program, Albrecht Thiemann, representing a German-based group called the Action Reconciliation Service for Peace, talks of the Holocaust and about insuring that such a thing does not again come to pass.
March 8, 1980 - MPR’s Nancy Fushan profiles and interviews poet and novelist Marge Piercy.
March 22, 1980 - Anthony Bouza, Minneapolis police chief, speaking before a Citizens League breakfast in Minneapolis. Bouza talked about first month in office and elaborated some on what he hopes to do in the next few years.
April 12, 1980 - Marilyn Solberg, instructor of psychology at St. Mary's College in Winona, speaking at a symposium sponsored by Southeastern Libraries Cooperating and the Minnesota Humanities Commission at the Winona Historical Society. Soldberg shared her thoughts about the family, and the decline in “traditional” family.
April 12, 1980 - MPR’s Nancy Fushan profiles and interviews poet Galway Kinnell.
April 19, 1980 - On this Weekend program, MPR’s Rich Dietman interviews Lyman Steil, Chairman of the Speech and Communications Division of the Rhetoric Department of the University of Minnesota, about listening and how to become better at it. Steil also is a consultant to several corporations that are trying both to teach their employees to listen better and project the image that they are responsive firms because they listen.
April 26, 1980 - On this Weekend program, MPR’s Rich Dietman interviews Ruth Mattson Taylor about speaking with the dead. Through the help of British clairvoyant Margaret Flavell Tweddell, Ms. Taylor says she communicated with her deceased father, A.D. Mattson, who was a Lutheran minister, on numerous occasions during which time he told her some of what it is like "on the other side.” Ms. Taylor recently finished editing a book entitled, "Witness from Beyond."
April 26, 1980 - At the Midwestern Conference on Folk Arts and Museums held in Saint Paul, art historians, professors, and museum directors met to discuss the issue of defining folk art. Determining what's art and what's not art is an old question. But among those experts in the folk arts, the dilemmas appear especially keen. Nancy Fushan attended the conference and prepared this report.