A Liberal Arts Vision
for a University Planetarium

by Kerry Magruder

| Preceding page: What is a Planetarium? |

Who am I? Why did I write this?

What is a planetarium?

  1. First read What is a planetarium?, written to precede this page.

When and where did you do it?

Construction of a planetarium represents a major, long-term commitment on the part of many people, including university planners, administrators, physical plant engineers and craftsmen, and technical specialists familiar with the special challenges of planetarium design. At OBU the process involved the following stages:

  1. The W. P. Wood Science Building, completed in 1985, included plans for a planetarium theater on the ground floor. A special room was built at that time with a suspended aluminum dome overhead, 8.25-meters in diameter.
  2. In 1994, a Professor-Director (yours truly) was hired to coordinate planetarium design and installation.
    • It is imperative that a university bring an experienced planetarium director on board as early as possible during the planning stages. Don't wait until the facility has already been constructed!
  3. The room was remodelled by OBU Physical Plant personnel in early 1995.
    • A circular gallery wall and rear projection booth were constructed.
    • A new power panel and 40 electrical circuits were carefully planned and installed.
    • Considerable attention was given to HVAC improvements essential for creating an appropriately quiet theater environment and for handling the large quantity of heat produced by both equipment and people.
    • For pedagogical reasons, seating capacity was set at 25 persons, with the console and a demonstration/stage area at the front. (A 10-meter dome would allow comfortable, adult-size, unidirectional seating for 35-40 people.)
  4. A Goto GS-T star projector was built by Goto Corporation of Japan and installed in May of 1995.
  5. Initial installation of auxiliary equipment was completed by early fall of the same year. This equipment included multiple slide projectors, special effects projectors, and state of the art video and digital sound systems, all seamlessly integrated with the planetarium automation system.
  6. University classes and other groups began coming for special shows, laboratories, and activities throughout the 1995-96 academic year and thereafter.

 

| Who | What | When - Where | How: Target Audiences (Science, Liberal Arts, Academic Life, etc.) |

Why should a liberal arts university construct a planetarium theater?

The OBU Planetarium is uniquely defined by its liberal arts mission, as the only university-based planetarium in the state of Oklahoma. Unlike most planetariums, it does not function as a part of a commercially-operated science museum with programs designed primarily or exclusively for elementary ages. Moreover, it is unique even when compared with other university-based planetariums across the country, which typically serve either a supporting role for graduate-level astrophysics programs, or function as an adjunct to the academic programs of the university (comparable to, say, athletic programs) by providing elementary-school shows as a service to the community with long term goals of recruitment, public relations, and/or revenue enhancement.

I was determined that, at its heart, the OBU Planetarium express the liberal arts mission of the university. We designed the planetarium to provide unique educational experiences across the curriculum for undergraduate students. A planetarium is not just a science toy, or a high-tech entertainment center. Its educational possibilities contribute to a liberal arts university, beginning with all areas of natural science and science education and extending to the humanities as well. This is the meaning of the motto adopted by the OBU Planetarium (taken from an emblem of Tycho Brahe): Svspiciendo Despicio or, Looking up, I look down. By coming into the planetarium and "looking up," we believe liberal arts students find illumination to more perceptively "look down" at whatever they explore in the terrestrial world outside the planetarium.

The liberal-arts mission of the OBU Planetarium was immediately manifest in two fundamental characteristics, which became evident in all we did during my tenure as Director:

  1. PROFESSOR-DIRECTOR:
    The first Director (yours truly) was a professor, which proved essential for the planetarium's integration into academic programs. The Director carried a half-time teaching load in the Natural Sciences Division, in addition to supervising the ongoing operations of the planetarium. Having a professor-director ensures that colleagues enjoy open access to the planetarium for their classes and other events, and that they are provided with needed technical support. A professor-director ensures that planetarium activities reflect academic priorities.

     

  2. STUDENT STAFF:
    The planetarium is student-staffed, which provides work-study employment and undergraduate research opportunities for students with a variety of interests and majors (at OBU student workers included English, History, Education, Psychology, and Computer Science majors as well as Science majors). The first audience is always university students, as student workers produce programs of their own choosing, and present them to their peers in a variety of settings (science classes, humanities classes, Friday night public shows, etc.). For this reason, at OBU our shows were designed to interest adults, not just elementary children (even our shows for elementary children were interesting enough to hold our students' attention!). Our "serve students first" policy was in effect even when presenting shows to outside groups (elementary classes, public shows for the community, university alumni at homecoming, etc.), because it was students who select, develop, and present the shows.

    (Note: These two points are not meant to be an exhaustive list of staff. Although we provided our own secretarial and even janitorial support, the Science Division Secretary was regularly indispensable! And most importantly, a full time Planetarium Technician staff position would have been nice, even highly advisable, but it was not funded during my tenure.)

It should be evident, from a moment's reflection on both of the above characteristics, that a liberal arts planetarium is not a money-making operation. The OBU Planetarium is class-sized, to enhance pedagogy rather than the bottom line. Although we did try to recoup some of our expenses, from the beginning it was clear that our mission was not to increase revenues, but to serve the academic programs of the university, and then to make those academic resources accessible to the community.

| Who | What | When - Where | Why |

How: Target Audiences

A target consists of nested concentric circles. If the planetarium theater is the bull's eye at the center, each circle represents the various audiences served by the facilty, one after another. As a liberal arts planetarium expands its reach into a broad spectrum of educational roles, the following audiences are targeted:

Circle 1: Science majors

A planetarium provides an ideal and unique opportunity for students to explore natural science. As the "inner ring" of the planetarium's "target," every student majoring in science benefits from the planetarium:

  1. Most obviously, many science majors find that the planetarium enhances their own academic programs, either by planetarium labs or by putting their knowledge to work in practical projects.
    • Of course, the most direct use of the planetarium may be for Astronomy and Physics students. No other setting compares with a planetarium for teaching celestial motions, observational astronomy, celestial mechanics, and even some aspects of modern cosmology.
    • In addition to these courses in natural sciences, students taking classes in History of Science, Computer Science and Mathematics (particularly geometry and statistics) are directly served by planetarium instruction and operation.
    • It makes sense for the planetarium director to be a professor in one or more of these areas.
  2. Perhaps it is not immediately obvious how students majoring in other areas of natural science benefit from the planetarium, even indirectly. However, the OBU Planetarium served the entire science division as a state-of-the-art multi-media theater.
    • Planetarium programs with special effects and whole-dome images are useful for Biology and Chemistry students as well, not just for the fields listed above.
      • Imagine an introductory cellular Biology lab taking a virtual tour of a cell, starting off by being surrounded by a whole-dome image of a cell, then dissolving into views of organelles and other structures.
      • Or an introductory Chemistry lab gaining familiarity with exponential numbers by a virtual tour of the universe, starting with life-size pictures of themselves and stepping, by one power of ten at a time, all the way out to galaxies and quasars, or all the way down to atoms and quarks.
    • Courses such as Ecology and Earth Sciences meet in the planetarium for educational videos, projected computer simulations, and multiple slide or PowerPoint illustrated lectures.
    • Science students use the planetarium theater for special presentations to their peers for classes, senior theses, and science clubs.
    • Real-time long-distance video-conferencing is also possible through a satellite feed.

 

Circle 2: Natural Science courses for Liberal Arts students

The planetarium provides all students with a compelling reason to frequently visit the science building!

 

Circle 3: History of Science

OBU offers two general survey courses in the history of science, GNSC 312 (to Newton) and 313 (after Newton). A planetarium enhances instruction in the history of science from archaeoastronomy to Copernicus to the present (though few planetaria at present have the scholarly resources to orient their programs within a history of science perspective).

 

Circle 4: Science Education and other Education students

A planetarium theater offers unparalleled advantages to education and science education majors.

  1. The planetarium serves as a pedagogical training ground, as lesson plans and activities are created by students, and then presented by them to elementary or secondary classes invited to the planetarium. Students gain valuable experience in collaborative learning, while the planetarium provides opportunities to carry out class projects, engage in undergraduate research, or find beneficial employment in which to hone their professional skills.
  2. The Planetarium Operations course is of particular interest to education students as a media course cubed. Diverse educational technologies are involved in the production of a planetarium show, and the planetarium serves as a valuable resource facility for students in educational technology courses.

 

Circle 5: Humanities, fine arts, and other university classes

A planetarium is a "magical place," transforming the imagination as well as the mind. A planetarium theater, made accessible with sympathetic and professional assistance to students in the fine arts and humanities, enhances the quality of learning across the curriculum.

 

Circle 6: Academic Life

Beyond the curriculum itself, the planetarium contributes further opportunities for academic life on campus.

  1. Its regular public shows add a new dimension to student life, as a unique medium for the exploration of broad world-view questions often addressed in our culture not through specialized academic courses so often as by imaginative cosmic visions (see The Mars Show for an example).
  2. Symposia and other special events are also held in the planetarium (see examples listed in Circle 1 and Circle 5 above).
  3. Shows for campus visitors, including alumni and prospective students, reflect the vibrancy of academic life all the more because of the conspicuous role of students in each aspect of planetarium operation. Students are the face of the university planetarium.

 

Circle 7: Area Elementary and Secondary level science programs

The planetarium makes the academic resources of the university available to serve the community and region, as students offer educational programs for families on Friday nights and by arrangement, and for elementary or secondary students during school hours. School shows, created and presented by education majors or other interested students, share a number of characteristics:

An elementary and secondary educational website is under construction to support primary and secondary teachers with learning activities for their own classrooms. Secondary teachers also will find many helpful activities in the Basic Celestial Phenomena website. These websites are also useful for families who visit planetarium events (Circle 8 below), and for interested browsers from literally around the world. Students share responsibility for responding to email inquiries generated by these websites.

 

Circle 8: Public family-oriented educational programs

Area families are invited to the planetarium for special evening shows and weekend activities. These include:

 

Now the target is complete....

Svspiciendo despicio!

 

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[Small Logo]©1999 Written by Kerry Magruder. Readers should be aware this is not an OBU page, and nothing written on this page is officially endorsed by OBU. For comparison, if you wish, an earlier version of this page is still posted on the OBU Planetarium website.