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TOPUN, from front page "The series corresponds with the standard American history course offered at most colleges and universities in the freshman and sophomore years,” says Toplin. The professor’s approach, however, is not "stand ard” by any means. It will promote innovative educational television, according to Toplin, using a "two-pronged attack. One, to develop the series as prime-time television: exciting, entertaining, and inherently educational by virtue of the way it is presented,” says Toplin. "The second is to em phasize the controversy and debate surrounding the events, stressing the great interpretations of historians and how they disagree,” continues Toplin. "We want to stress the clash of ideas to make people aware that history is dynamic, that history is not dull but is alive with controversy,” explains the history professor. The program format will be modeled after a news show, using a professional historian (Dr. Dan Carter, history professor at Emory University in Atlanta) as anchorman to introduce the topic. Pro fessional historians, as reporters, will develop the story further. Traditional historical documentaries using a narrator to deliver a lecture in front of a camera "always struck me as being a bit dull,” says Toplin. Toplin wants to make this series for PBS exciting and entertaining by using the news show format and by bringing out a variety of views. "The in novative aspect of the course is that it proposes to show how historians go about the study of history,” explains Toplin. "We hope to give the viewer an understanding of the fact that the 'correct’ history of an event may be very controversial. We also want to show that there is a continuity to history, that some patterns are repeated year after year, so we can learn from the past.” Programs include FDR vs. the Great Depression, Teddy Roosevelt and the Age of Expansion and The Cold War. Mr. Wilson and the Great War, the fund ed pilot for the series, should be finished by June, according to Toplin. This history series is being funded as part of a 15-year grant, worth $10 million a year, made to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting by the An- nenberg School of Communications. Toplin will be working with 17 noted historians from around the country to develop the program content and work with South Carolina educational TV to complete production. One of the advisors is Dr. Melton McLaurin, chairman of UNCW’s history department. "UNCW will be the central idea headquarters, and the UNCW history depart ment will be heavily involved, professors as well as some students,” says Toplin. Toplin is not new to movie-making. He was responsible for a 1982 public TV program about Denmark Vesey, who led an unsuccessful slave rebellion in 1822. Denmark Vesey’s Rebellion was the first in a series of docu-dramas Toplin is pro ducing for PBS about historic figures associated with slavery in America. He got his start in the movie business in 1976, when the PBS TV station in Miami, Florida, called him looking for ideas for television programs. He submitted his idea about the series on slavery, the idea was accepted, and Toplin has been in the movies ever since. Betty Jo Welch Receives Teaching Excellence Award For the 15th year, the LaQue Center for Corrosion Technology, Inc. at Wrightsvllle Beach has given UNCW money for a scholarship In the chemistry department. This award provides a stipend to a student as well as an amount to be applied to the department of the recip ient’s major area of study. This year, Wilber W. Kirk (right), director of the center, presented a $1,000 check for the scholarship to Dr. William H. Wagoner (left), UNCW chancellor. Betty Jo Welch (center) received the 1983 Teaching Ex cellence Award at the July 27 meeting of the UNCW board of trustees. In this photo, she is shown receiv- "I enjoy teaching. I expect the best from my students, and they tend to live up to that.” That seems to be the basic philosophy of Dr. Betty Jo Welch, who received the Sixth Annual Teaching Excellence Award from UNCW’s board of trustees on July 27. When asked about the award, Welch says that "I always try to be better this year than the year before.” She says she continues to try harder, insisting that she is not necessarily the best teacher on campus, but that she represents the entire group of people who were nominated for the award. "I was speechless, I really was,” says Welch about the phone call she received from UNCW Chancellor William H. Wagoner, telling her of the award and asking her to be present at the meeting to accept it from the trustees. According to her, she could think of nothing to say. After waiting for a response from Welch, Wagoner told her he’d "never known a speech teacher to have nothing to say.” Welch was the first full-time speech teacher at UNCW when she came in 1970. Prior to her fami ly’s move to Wilmington (her husband Allan was transferred by DuPont), Welch had taught English at George Peabody College for Teachers, a small, private school in her hometown of Nashville,'Ten- nessee. "Coming to Wilmington in 1970 added tremendously to my education,” says Welch of the move. Peabody is an old, established college, whose students, for the most part, are from affluent families. "It’s a more cosmopolitan atmosphere at Peabody,” says Welch. "I had to adjust to the more provincial student body at UNCW,” she continues. It was a challenge to her to meet those students’ needs, to make their college experience appropriate Ing the award from John J. Burney, Jr., chairman o UNCW's board of trustees, as Chancellor William Wagoner looks on. and interesting for them, she says. . According to Welch, she has more opportunities for personal growth here than she would have ha at Peabody. "I don’t think I would have had t e chance to design a curriculum,” she Welch chaired the committee that developed t e curriculum for the speech communication degree at UNCW. Welch enjoys teaching, but she isn’t sure that er strength is classroom teaching. She enjoys toring,” helping students in a one-on-one basis wi decisions about their major, internships, chmce o courses, areas of concentration, and other that affect their academic life and, in a way, thei future. She likes to present all the options to a s u dent, perhaps showing what others have done wi their communications degree, so the student can decide for himself or herself. irMrW For students who want to graduate from with the speech communication degree, strongly advises a broad liberal arts base: wn mg and media courses, internships, political science, history, psychology, English. "Read as much a possible,” she suggests to today’s students. Welch says she remembers best those professo who expected a great deal from their studen , those who made her stretch. She remembers ly a professor she had as a graduate student w > on the last day of class, received a standing oy tion from his students. "That teacher had an irn pact on those students,” she exclaims, and s knew then she wanted to be that good. Obviously, as the 1983 Teaching Award demonstrates, many people at UN faculty, students and alumni—believe Betty Welch is that good. Helms Voices Concern Over Drug Trafficking At Subcommittee Hearing U.S. Senator Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), chairman of the Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere Affairs, held hearings on drug smug gling problems August 22 on the UNCW campus. Similar hearings were held in April in Elizabeth City and in Miami, Florida. "I am committed to investigate thoroughly the scope of the drug smuggling problem and to pro pose appropriate legislation to remedy it. This traf fic in human misery must be stopped for the moral and physical well-being of our people,” Helms added. Helms stated at the beginning of the hearings that it was his intention that the subcommittee recommend to President Ronald Reagan that "every reasonable step be taken to increase the war on drugs.” The North Carolina coast has become a primary entry point for drug smugglers because of the huge success of the war on drugs in Miami. It has become so much more difficult to smuggle drugs into that port that the trade has moved north. The focus of the Wilmington hearings was the local im pact on increased efforts by law enforcement of ficials at all levels to get rid of the drug traffic along the east coast. Republican Senator Jesse Helms
UNCW Today (University of North Carolina Wilmington Alumni Newsletter)
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