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RM-MLA PAST PRESIDENTS: III EDGAR THOMAS RUFF: 1952-1953 It was in a winter of the early '40's that Professor Edgar T. Ruff first heard the suggestion for the formation of a new regional MLA organization for the Rocky Mountain area. Surrounded by the rococo furnishings and faded elegance of the Driscoll Hotel in Austin, a group of professors at the south central regional meeting of the MLA complained to each other of the difficulties of travel in the great Southwest. Dr. Ruff, who had managed to reach the convention from the relatively close campus of Texas Technological College, heard stories of long delays and bizarre flight schedules, especially from the New Mexicans. Dr. Ruff became president of this new organization ten years later. Born in Indianapolis in 1908, Dr. Ruff pursued the study of languages at the University of Paris where he received a Certificat après examen in 1929. From there he went on to receive his bachelor's and master's degrees from Northwestern University. He did further graduate work at the National University of Mexico and the University of Kansas, and ultimately earned the doctorate from the University of Texas. He began his teaching career as master of French, Spanish, and German at Pembroke Country Day School in Kansas City, then was an assistant instructor in French at the University of Kansas. He later moved to a position as assistant professor of languages at Washburn College in Topeka. In 1938 he went to Texas with his wife, the former Mary A. Hanks of Titusville, Pennsylvania. Their three children, James Lynn, Diana Hanks and Mary Nelle, are all native Texans. Since that time, he has been a professor of languages in Texas institutions , and served as head of the Department of Modern Languages at the University of Texas at El Paso for twenty-two years. His department showed a steady growth from the days when he and Dr. John Sharp were among the very few interested in Latin-American affairs to the present programs of literature and linguistics in six languages. During his tenure he has been active in the Rocky Mountain Council for Latin-American General News 41 Studies, the American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese, the American Association of Teachers of French, the Alliance Française, and the Modern Language Association. His location at the "Pass on the Border" has provided him with opportunity for traveling, photography, and book collecting in lands to the south. Dr. Ruff's presidency of RM-MLA in 1952-53 was marked by the organizational innovation of posting both president and secretariat at the same college; initiating the practice of rotating meeting locations within the region to allow convenient travel for all members; and a membership working toward a gradual balance between teachers of English and those of foreign languages. A jovial and lively man, Dr. Ruff likes to recall the annual meeting held in El Paso—and the extensions to Juarez when it was invariably difficult to summon a quorum at the morning-after sessions. —From Frances Hernandez University of Texas at El Paso GENERAL NEWS Copyright Law Revisions Under Way This year, for die first time since 1909, die Congress will act on a general revision of die United States Copyright Law. This bill has already passed die House of Representatives and is now before a subcommittee of die Senate Judiciary Committee. The act has a number of revisions which will be helpful to audiors. For example, copyrights now in existence would have 19 years added to dieir term. Future copyrights would last until 50 years after die death of die author. Penalties on American writers for publishing their works abroad would be less severe; and authors would have die right to be paid for die reading or odier performance of their work on nonprofit radio or television, except in an organized program of instruction. However, there is one provision in the bill as passed by the House of Representatives which could operate to the disadvantage of authors. That is that non-profit radio and television stations nay make an unlimited number of permanent copies, by film or tape, of a performance of an...

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