Voc-ed, roommates, computers, address change, hand mail

Manufacturers like to hire vocational-education graduates, according to a recent survey by the National Association of Manufacturers and the National Center for Research in Vocational Education at Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio. For jobs requiring less than a four-year college degree, 85 percent of manufacturers would prefer vocational-education graduates over nonvocational graduates.

This positive perception of vocational education received further confirmation from the fact that over half of the employers said their companies benefited from vocational education; 60 percent said that new employees with vocational-education backgrounds require less training than other graduates for the same type of job.

A free bulletin, ''Getting along with your college roommate'' is available from the University of Rochester, Office of University Communications, Rochester , N.Y. 14627

With a major grant from the National Science Foundation and the electronics industry, Brown University has set up a 120-seat amphitheater equipped with a network of powerful new minicomputers designed and programmed to teach computer concepts. Along with the instructor, each student is equipped with a machine, on which he or she works while the instructor lectures. The instructor can cause problems to be displayed on students' terminals, monitor the progress of each student, and provide instant feedback in a manner similar to that employed in language laboratories. Brown believes it has acquired the ''computer classrom'' of the future.

Application forms for high school English, foreign language, and history teachers' summer grants for independent study, announced in the Nov. 8 Bulletin Board, should be obtained from Independent Study in the Humanities, Box 2915, Princeton, N.J. 08541, rather than the Council for Basic Education. The grant program, funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, will award up to 200 stipends of $3,000. The deadline for filing applications is Feb. 15, 1983.

High postal rates have prompted one university to resort to a more staid delivery system. At Kansas State University fall grades will be hand-carried to students, instead of being mailed. Approximately $3,600 will be saved. Students will be hired to hand out grades during the springtime registration. Students who are not returning to school will still receive their grades by mail.