Jane Q. Student wanted to make a documentary video tape on street musicians for academic credit last semester. She had to do this under special supervision, because there were no courses in video. She went to the Visual and Environmental Studies Department and was told she couldn't use its equipment. She went to Harvard Video Services and was told she had to pay hundreds of dollars for their equipment. She eventually found her way to a cable TV station in Somerville, signed up to use public access equipment on a weekly basis, and was able to produce her show.

In the process she ran into a lot of people concerned about video. Some were interested in artistic experimentation, some just wanted to communicate information in their field of interest, some were interested in programming and audiences, but they were all wondering the same thing she was: Why is it so hard to work with video at Harvard?

In an era when we are constantly assaulted by our own electronic technology, an era when satellites and television are as common as shoes and socks, an era that media critic Marshall McLuhan has aptly summed up as "the electronic age," you would expect to find some established means of learning about electronic technology in your college. After all, didn't McLuhan say, "We are no more prepared to encounter radio and TV in our literate milieu than the native of Ghana is able to cope with the literacy that takes him out of his tribal world and beaches him in individual isolation."

The electronic media are subtly and constantly altering our perceptual senses. But where does the student go to find out about them? Since television and video are visual media, the first place an intelligent undergraduate at Harvard would look would be the Visual and Environmental Studies Department. But, alas, the department has had a policy of "no video production" since 1974.

Robert Gardner, senior lecturer in Visual and Environmental Studies, who recommended the "no video" policy to the Faculty says, "In a better of possible worlds we would have video production. It is an important medium of expression and it's terribly important in a place like this in visual studies to undertake some work because video is an important medium in the country and in civilization. To leave out video and TV is quite artificial but it is required because of the practical exigencies of financing."

Between 1968 and 1975, students could take classes in video at Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts. The VES department spent tens of thousands of dollars on video equipment, acquiring four porta-paks (portable camera and recording decks for location shooting), monitors, and simple editing equipment. The film wing of the department was divided into three sections--16 mm film, photography and video.

VES 40 then included a section on video and spanned all the media. VES 147, taught by Robert Saudek, former television producer of Omnibus; a weekly television documentary series, and Eric Martin, his teaching assistant, was a seminar on TV that offered both practical and theoretical video experience.

Those were the days when the VES department was young (it started in 1968) and when Dean Rosovsky allowed it more money each year in order to get on its feet. Now that the yearly departmental budget is not rising fast enough to cover even inflation, the video scene has changed considerably.

By 1975 the only remnant of a video class at Harvard was Soc Sci 168 "Mass Telecommunications," taught by Saudek. The porta-paks and video equipment were in disrepair and Robert Kuglers's position as video supervisor was eliminated, leaving him to concentrate his efforts on 16 mm film.

The little video equipment at Carpenter Center that is still serviceable is now used once or twice a year as a research aid for 16 mm production. But there are now no classes in video offered, and students are not allowed to use the department's equipment for tutorials or independent study.

Studio Professor Midge Mackenzie feels the limited video resources at Carpenter Center are being used intelligently. The problem, she says, is that electronic technology requires too much special attention: special engineers and special maintenance techniques make costs prohibitive. Studio professor Alfred Guzzetti says he regrets not having access to more video equipment for VES 158r, "Sound and Image," a course he is teaching this semester on film and electronic music. He feels it is a good teaching tool because it can be used immediately and is erasable. Both Guzzetti and Gardner recognize a student demand for and interest in video, but don't want to hold out false carrots to students by offering a video program which is not adequately funded. "We ought to do it well if we're going to do it," says Gardner

So the student stumbles on, looking for some outlet for his or her interest in video. In and around the Harvard community there are other resources available besides Carpenter Center, but these are limited, too.

The best one can hope to do is to get involved with HUTV, Harvard's closed-circuit cable television. The cable is the ward of the telecommunications branch of the Harvard Office of Information Technology (OIT). Right now two student shows are being broadcast live over the cable weekly. One program, Noon Hits, which got rolling last fall, is a pot pourri of news, entertainment and university issues. It is broadcast on Thursdays from OIT's Video Production Center in the depths of the Kresge building on the Medical School campus.

Marley R. Klaus '79, a biology major who has been instrumental initiating Noon Hits and is the assistant producer of the program, says it is a good opportunity for students interested in video because it's new, and therefore anybody's ideas are welcomed. Any undergraduate may work on Noon Hits.

The other student program is "Home-Cookin," a country music show broadcast on Tuesdays at 1 p.m. Stewart Shofner '79 initiated it this month.