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Final Nail In The Coffin

by Howard L. Cohen

Last October Dr. John V. Lombardi, President of the The University of Florida, requested input for UF's second capital campaign program to begin in 1996. (UF's first campaign raised several hundred million dollars.) I sent a two-page letter proposing UF establish a planetarium facility for north central Florida, the only principal region of our state that still has no access to this most amazing and unique multimedia instrument. (A map attached to my letter showed the distribution of Florida planetariums and the lack of this facility in the north central region.)

I argued this need was so great that we should feature a planetarium as an objective of any future UF campaign. This situation is especially disturbing since the University of Florida has one of few astronomy graduate programs in the Southeast. UF is also the only university in Florida that offers degrees in astronomy (B.S, M.S. and Ph.D.) In addition, UF's astronomy program is one of the largest in our country (about 16 faculty, several postdocs and other visiting research personnel, 25-30 graduate students, and about 3,000 students per year enrolled in undergraduate courses).

On June 21 I received a letter from Paul Robell, Vice President of Development and Alumni Affairs that states: "President Lombardi has shared with me your suggestion for the capital campaign needs. After reviewing campus wide needs with the deans, the Provost and the President, we have not been able to incorporate your specific suggestions (for a planetarium) into the formal campaign needs list."

UF's lack of vision, especially in a state containing the launch facilities for its space program, puts the final nail in the coffin for any such university project for the next generation or more. Perhaps others will better understand the incalculable educational and cultural benefits this facility would have brought to hundreds of thousands of people of our region. Armund Spitz, American inventor and entrepreneur, recognized the enormous contribution a planetarium makes to a community's cultural wealth when he wrote:

"The planetarium is a time and space machine. It recreates the appearance and motion of the heavens. It is a tool for exciting educational experience, a generator of aesthetic amazement, a source of spiritual uplift, a proud boast in every community where a planetarium exits."

Today, multimedia hype fills the electronic airways, but the modern planetarium (invented in Germany early in this century) has already brought multimedia to millions of people for nearly four generations. Armund Spitz recognized the immense potential and versatility of a planetarium facility when, again, he wrote:

"The declaration was once made . . . that the planetarium is a limited instrument. It has just so many button and switches, projectors and motors, and can show just so many things and no more . . . This is an utterly narrow opinion . . . A piano has limited number of keys. A violin or a cello has four strings. What these instruments are capable of reproducing is not a factor of their physical limitations, but rather of the appreciation, imagination, and inspiration of their operators. A planetarium presentation bears the same relation to the projector as the performance of a concerto does to a piano or violin."

A community may have its buildings and streets, its parks and coliseums, but none more capably provide a clearer window into ourselves or our universe than a planetarium—a tool to teach, to inspire, to entertain—a tool for understanding, for appreciation, for fun—a window to allow our children not only what to see but also how to see. Unfortunately, this inspirational window of opportunity is now closed to future generations of north Florida citizens.

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