December 25, 1976 - As part of Home for the Weekend series, this program examines Christmas from the perspective of some cultural customs that make up the varied ethnic background of Midwest. Includes segments of music, stories and interviews.
December 28, 1976 - Excerpts from a hearing on welfare reform, held by U.S. Rep. Jim Oberstar, D-Minn. The hearing features testimony from welfare recipients and from several Minnesota community officials.
January 1, 1977 - A Home for the Weekend program of readings and music with Minnesota poets Nancy and Joe Paddock.
January 8, 1977 - As part of Home for the Weekend series, this program examines the institution of schools. Are schools failing children? That is the question presented in various interviews with educators, parents, and politicians who critique the lack of teaching basic skills (reading, writing and arithmetic)
January 8, 1977 - In 1967 the legislature created the Metropolitan Council to address problems like waste disposal, transit, and urban sprawl. In this annual meeting of the Citizens League, members discuss the origins of the Metropolitan Council, where it is going, and the implications in other areas for this type of approach to regional government.
January 24, 1977 - Professor Sir Fred Hoyle, astronomer and a mathematician at Cambridge University in England, speaking at Nobel Conference XII - The Nature of the Physical Universe held at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter. Hoyle's speech was titled "An Astronomer's View of the Evolution of Man."
January 25, 1977 - Governor Rudy Perpich's budget speech to the legislature. Included is analysis by MPR's legislative experts Debbie Gage and Bob Potter.
January 27, 1977 - KUOM’s Andy Marlow interviews psychologist Wayne Dyer, about his book "Your Erroneous Zones," a straight forward approach to mental health.
January 29, 1977 - On this regional public affairs program, Joe Graba, Deputy Commissioner of Education for the State of Minnesota, talks to MPR’s Dan Olson about school budget. Topics include declining enrollments, local taxes, and cut backs.
February 3, 1977 - Highlight speeches from second Minnesota Horizons conference, a seminar for state legislators, sponsored by the State Planning Agency and the Commission on Minnesota's Future, designed to show lawmakers and citizens some of the long-range problems the state faces. This part of conference focuses on population changes, and the effects it has on state. Speakers include: State demographer Hazel Reinhardt, on the nature of population change Ed Hunter, Deputy Director of the State Planning Agency, on the changing state labor force Jim Solum, Director of the Local and Urban Affairs Office of the Planning Agency, on housing needs in the next 10-15 years