Sunrise Semester
| Sunrise Semester | |
|---|---|
| Genre | Educational Telecourse |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language(s) | English |
| No. of seasons | 25 |
| No. of episodes | 800+ |
| Production | |
| Location(s) |
New York City; New York University |
| Camera setup | Multi-camera |
| Running time | 30 minutes |
| Production company(s) | CBS |
| Release | |
| Original network | CBS |
| Picture format |
Black-and-white (1957-66) Color (1966-82) |
| Audio format | Monaural |
| Original release | September 9, 1957 – October 1, 1982 |
Sunrise Semester is an American educational television series that aired on CBS from September 1957 to October 1982. It was produced in conjunction with the College of Arts and Science at New York University (when the program started, the Washington Square and University College of Arts and Science). During June, July and August, the program was known as Summer Semester. It was one of the first examples of distance learning, telecourses, or MOOCs. Lecturers presented NYU credit courses in studio on a wide range of academic subjects, and these broadcast courses were offered for credit to anyone who paid the course fees. The program earned five Emmy Awards during its lifetime.
The program was so named because it was broadcast in the early morning, in New York at 6:30 a.m. In the 1950s and early 1960s, it was preceded on CBS by The Modern Farmer.
Sunrise Semester was developed by Warren A. Kraetzer, director of the Office of Radio/Television at New York University, and Sam Cook Digges, general manager of WCBS-TV, and started on WCBS before becoming a network program. Thomas Brophy, assistant director under Kraetzer, was the administrator of the program until his retirement in 1973, when he was succeeded by Mrs. Pat Myers. New York University planned the courses and provided faculty; beginning in 1963, CBS taped and distributed it to network affiliates. The first course was Comparative Literature 10: From Stendhal to Hemingway, taught by Floyd Zulli, Jr., an Assistant Professor of Romance Languages.Neil Postman taught a course in 1976.
After a first broadcast at 3:30 p.m. on Saturday, September 17, 1957, the program aired at 6:30 a.m. in New York and at varying early times between 5:30 and 7:30 a.m. elsewhere. It consisted of two courses per semester on alternating days from Monday through Saturday, each broadcast half an hour long (90–95 hours a year). Initially these were broadcast live, requiring a 4:30 a.m. makeup call for the lecturer. After adoption by the CBS network, the three lectures for each course were taped in a single weekly session, between 11:15 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. The setting was an unadorned lecture room, with a chalkboard and a projector. There was no editing and no provision for retakes; Myers said she advised professors who made "a horrendous goof" to "faint". Payments to the instructors were too low to permit rebroadcasting or the sale of tapes under union regulations: initially instructors received $25 per broadcast. NYU students at first paid a $75 fee to receive undergraduate credit for one of the courses; by 1974 this had risen to $250. Other institutions were free to use the program for their own credit courses, without payment to NYU. Beginning in 1971, NYU also allowed high-school students to take the course for credit before enrolling in the university. A primary source of funding was a grant from the Sperry and Hutchinson Foundation.
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