1952: 3rd National Surveying Teachers Conference
University of Illinois - Camp Rabideau, Blackduck, Minnesota
August 3 to 8, 1952
Brother B. August Barry, Chair Program Committee; Professor Milt Schmidt, Chair Local Arrangements.
The third national conference was held at Camp Rabideau. The camp, located near Blackduck in northern Minnesota, had ample and comfortable accommodations for the 71 delegates and 45 family members. The five day program was well organized and executed by program chairman, Brother B. Austin Barry of Manhattan College, the 1951-52 chairman of Committee VIII.
Excellent papers and discussions upheld the traditions of former conferences and centered on conference objectives; instructional procedures; surveying camps; textbooks; course evaluations; need for surveying education; new developments in surveying, photogrammetry, and geodesy; and research in surveying. Several resolutions and committee recommendations were approved. One resolution paid tribute to Professor W. H. Rayner, recently retired from the University of Illinois and one of the Rainy Lake pioneers, who originally suggested the site for this conference.
The old problem of reduction of time devoted to surveying courses in the civil engineering curriculum came up again - as it usually does in meetings of surveying teachers. It is interesting to note that Professor George Harding recommended a positive solution. He proposed that educational institutions recognize that the surveying profession has developed to the point where a separate degree-granting department is the logical answer. Such a department could then teach as a service whatever is required by civil engineering, architecture, forestry, mining, etc., and proceed in its own right to prepare students for a career in surveying. He predicted this would come by 1967.
Those in attendance at the Blackduck meeting will well remember when the camp heating plant boiler exploded, jetted up about 250 feet high, sailed over two buildings, and made a direct hit on Professor Art McNair's parked station wagon and totally demolished it. It could have been tragic, but no one was injured.
References
Bolkas, D., Olsen, M. J., & Ghilani, C. D. (2022). SaGES and the National Surveying Educator's Conferences: History of Surveying Education and Future Challenges. Surveying and Land Information Science, 81(2), 97-126.
Curtis, K. S. 1987. Fifty years of national conferences of teachers of surveying. Proceedings of the XIIth national surveying teachers conference. Madison, WI, July 5-10.
Wolf, P. R. 1997. Sixty Years of Surveying Teacher Conferences. Surveying and Land Information Systems 57(3): 133-146.