Inaugural Symposium

2:00-4:00 p.m., Clarkson University Alumni Gym

• Will "traditional" colleges and universities continue to exist or will they be replaced by virtual universities where knowledge is transmitted over wide distances via cyberspace rather than through person-to-person interaction?
  
  
• What will be the classroom of the future?
  
  
• And, what will be the definition of a campus "community"?

These are some of the issues that will be addressed in the symposium "Community, Computers, and the University Experience" on Friday, October 11, 1996, from 2:00 - 4:00 p.m. at the Clarkson University Alumni Gymnasium.

The symposium, being held in conjunction with the inauguration activities of Denny Brown as Clarkson's 15th president, will look at the way technology has changed educational institutions and how they conduct business. It will also look at the implications for the near future.

For Clarkson, which has clearly articulated its Vision of a Clarkson Education, the questions raised by this symposium go to the heart of the institution's mission. Can it continue to educate students in the latest innovations in technology and still maintain a personal, friendly, experientially-based learning community?

Educators from Clarkson, MIT, the University of Pennsylvania, St. Lawrence University, and the Western Cooperative for Educational Telecommunications (an educational cooperative of several Western States) will debate these issues in a format designed to explore the pros and cons of virtual communities. There will also be an opportunity for questions from the audience.

Keynote Speakers:

Stephen Doheny-Farina is the author of The Wired Neighborhood, a critical examination of the concept of virtual community. Published by Yale University Press, 1996, it is also on-line at http://www.yale.edu/yup/F96/doheny.html. His earlier book, Rhetoric, Innovation, Technology (MIT Press, 1992), analyzed the role of communication practices in the development of new technologies from the lab to the marketplace. Doheny-Farina is an associate professor of Technical Communications at Clarkson University where he teaches courses in rhetorical theory, video production, written and oral communication, and the social impacts of mass media. Recipient of Clarkson's Graham Award, a recognition of outstanding young researchers, Doheny-Farina received his B.S. from Indiana University of Pennsylvania, his M.A. from the University of Maine, and his Ph.D. from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

William J. Mitchell's most recent book, City of Bits: Space, Place, and the Infobahn, examines the largely invisible but increasingly important system of virtual spaces connected by the information superhighway. Published by The MIT Press, it is also on-line at http://www-mitpress.mit.edu/City_of_Bits. Mitchell is dean of the School of Architecture and Planning at MIT, where he holds a joint professorship in Architecture and in Media Arts and Sciences. He teaches courses and conducts research in design theory, computer applications in architecture and urban design, and imaging and image synthesis. A Fellow of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects, Mitchell taught previously at Harvard's Graduate School of Design and at UCLA. He received a bachelor of architecture from the University of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia; a master of environmental design from Yale University; and a master of arts from the University of Cambridge.

Patrick Naughton Clarkson class of '88, was instrumental in the creation and evolution of the programming language called Java into the language of the Internet. He is the author of The Java Handbook (Osborne/McGraw-Hill) and he is co-authoring, with Herb Schildt Java: The Complete Reference. Naughton is C.T.O. and senior vice president of Technology at Starwave Corporation. A 1988 Clarkson alumnus, in 1994 he joined Starwave, where he is now leading the development of platform strategies, applications, and tools to publish a suite of on-line services, as well as plotting their evolutionary course toward broadband communications.

Panelists:

Janice T. Searleman is an instructor of mathematics and computer science at Clarkson University with a research interest in artificial intelligence. She teaches an undergraduate research course in virtual reality with an associated virtual reality laboratory. Presently, she is co-authoring a book, titled Introduction to Cognition, incorporating the latest in cognitive psychology and neuroscience with artificial intelligence. Searleman received her B.S. in mathematics from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and M.S. in computer science from the State University of New York at Stony Brook.

William Vitek is an associate professor of philosophy at Clarkson University, where he teaches courses in ethics and applied philosophy. He is the author of Promising (1993), and co-editor of Applying Philosophy (1988) and Rooted in the Land: Essays on Community and Place (1996). Vitek has written numerous articles and essays on ethics, community, and rural life, and is currently working on a book, with the working title Citizenship for the New Century. He received his B.A. from Union College (N.Y.) and his M.A. and Ph.D. from CUNY Graduate Center.

Karen M. Johnson-Weiner, a lecturer at St. Lawrence University, holds a B.A. from Hope College in Michigan, an M.A. in English/TESOL from Michigan State University, and a Ph.D. in Linguistics from McGill University in Montreal. Her dissertation was in the area of neurolinguistics. Johnson-Weiner's research includes the study of the culture and language of distinct communities like the Amish and Mennonites. She is currently teaching English as a Second Language and working in the multidisciplinary First-Year Program at St. Lawrence University.

Virtual Participant:

Barbara Krauth is project coordinator of a new project sponsored by the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education, "Putting Principles into Practice," and also coordinated the Balancing Quality and Access project for the Western Cooperative. Krauth is the editor of the quarterly newsletter, which reports on developments related to educational telecommunications, and was the author of When Distance Education Crosses State Lines: Western States' Policies. Krauth has a B.A. in English from Indiana University, a master's degree in English from the University of Kent, Canterbury, England, and has done graduate work in the School of Public Affairs at the University of Colorado.

Moderator:

David J. Farber has been called the "Paul Revere of Cyberspace" by Wired magazine (Sept. 1996). He is the Alfred Fitler Moore Professor of Telecommunication Systems at the University of Pennsylvania, where he is leading research in ultra high-speed networking and electronic commerce. A member of the board of directors of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, he is active in the preservation of freedom in Cyberspace and the Internet Society. He is also a member of the board of trustees of the Internet Society, governor of the ICCC, fellow of the Glocom Institute of Japan and the Cyberspace Law Institute, and a member of the Advisory Board of the Center for Democracy and Technology. Farber was responsible for the design of the DCS system, one of the first operational message-based fully distributed systems, and is one of the authors of the SNOBOL programming language. He was founding Vice Chairman of SIGCOMM, one of the principals in the creation and implementation of CSNet, NSFNet, BITNET II, and CREN. He was instrumental in the creation of the NSF/DARPA funded Gigabit Network Testbed Initiative and served as the chairman of the Gigabit Testbed Coordinating Committee. His background includes positions at the Bell Labs, the Rand Corp, SDS, UC Irvine and the University of Delaware. He is a fellow of the IEEE and is the holder of the prestigious 1995 SIGCOMM Award.