Face to Face in Time and Place

Valparaiso University Center for the Arts

That is the theme of the conference I attended over the weekend at Valparaiso University.  (SPEAKER BIOS) So much of the conversation was relevant to AmCon in general and to our recent discussions of space, place, and campus in particular.

The first speaker (Gretchen Buggeln) presented a history of campus design from the colonial days to the present and illustrated with images much that we have considered.  Although she did not show slides of St. Olaf campus, I could easily make the connections with familiar observations: the preference for rural or small town-settings in the 19th century, early buildings that combined all the college functions in one place, use of topography, etc.

The second and third speakers (follow link above) considered "hacker ethics" and globalization as relevant features of the current context for education.  I'm looking forward to having the text of these as much went zipping by in the oral presentation.  Nonetheless, I did catch some key points.  Here are some reflections:

1. If the "hacker ethic" promotes engaged pursuit of knowledge, and is able to regard an activity or project as both difficult and fun, then there is potential for the non-hacker educational process to "exploit" it for the more "traditional" goals that include pursuit of knowledge and cultivation of character.
2. The tools of technology, while not morally neutral, are nonetheless, open to various uses.  In fact, in most instances, use of technology has more than one moral or social consequence at a time.
3. Duration of presence is an important factor in shifting one's perception of a location from space one moves through to place in which one dwells in community with others.
4. If globalization in the 21st century is in large degree a globalization based on personal relationships and consumer transactions, then it may well be that we are striving to be global citizens in a cosmopolis (world city) that does not (yet?) exist.  And if this is true, than one of the central tasks of this student generation and many after it, may be to construct that cosmopolis.
5. On the other hand, it is prudent to recall that globalization is not an entirely new phenomenon.  Perhaps one shift is a sort of democratization.  But this I mean that awareness of and interdependence upon the  work of people around the world is no longer limited to an elite or a relatively few.  Clothes made in Indonesia are sold at low prices at Walmart and other American retail outlets; villagers in rural Turkey have stalllite dish, television reception in their homes.