[Air-l] WHAT IS AN INTERNET COMMUNITY? HARVEY MUDD COLLEGE TO ADDRESS THIS QUESTION AT SYMPOSIUM

[Randy Ringen]

HARVEY MUDD COLLEGE NEWS RELEASE
Office of College Relations, Claremont, California 91711-5990

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE			CONTACT:  Randy Ringen
FEB. 27, 2002					  (909) 607-7924

WHAT IS AN INTERNET COMMUNITY? HARVEY MUDD COLLEGE TO ADDRESS THIS QUESTION
AT SYMPOSIUM
Scholars will examine the role of the "virtual community" in the Internet age

CLAREMONT, Calif.-Community in the Digital Age: Philosophy and Practice, an
interdisciplinary symposium on virtual communities, will be held on the
Harvey Mudd College campus in Galileo Hall, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., on March 9.
The symposium's aim is to discuss the impact of the Internet on the
philosophy and practices of community. The event is free and open to the
public.
	"This event gathers several of North America's leading thinkers on
the social implications of technology to debate an issue of concern to all
of us-the shape of public life in the digital age," said Darin Barney,
Hixon-Riggs Visiting Professor of Science, Technology and Society at Harvey
Mudd College and one of the conference organizers. "It is rare to have such
a high-caliber group of scholars together in the same room for an entire
day. It should be very exciting."
	Among the questions to be addressed at the symposium are the
following: Do digital technologies threaten community, or do they enable
and enrich it? How, and to what ends, are existing communities using these
new technologies? Are new forms of community emerging on the Internet? What
is the meaning of "virtual community"?
	Among those who will speak at the conference are Andrew Feenberg,
also a Hixon-Riggs Visiting Professor at HMC and professor of philosophy at
San Diego State University; Albert Borgmann, Regents Professor of
Philosophy at the University of Montana; Doug Kellner, George F. Kneller
Chair in the Philosophy of Education at UCLA; Hubert Dreyfus, professor of
philosophy in the graduate school at UC Berkeley; and Steve Jones,
professor and head of communications, University of Illinois, Chicago.
	The conference is sponsored by the Hixon Forum for Responsible
Science and Technology and the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences
of Harvey Mudd College. The conference organizers are Barney and Feenberg,
and professors Dick Olson and Tad Beckman of Harvey Mudd College
co-directors of the Hixon Forum.
	Harvey Mudd College is a coeducational institution of engineering,
science and mathematics that also places strong emphasis on humanities and
the social sciences. The college's aim is to graduate engineers and
scientists sensitive to the impact of their work on society. HMC ranks
among the nation's leading schools in percentage of graduates who earn
Ph.D. degrees. It is the pioneer of the internationally known Clinic
Program, established in 1963.
	Harvey Mudd College is a member of The Claremont Colleges
Consortium, the first consortium of colleges in the United States, which
offers students the expansive physical facilities and wide selection of
courses, faculty, student services and extracurricular activities of a
university, and the small classes and personalized education of a small
private college. The Consortium includes Pomona College (established in
1887), Claremont Graduate University (1925), Scripps College (1926),
Claremont McKenna College (1946), Harvey Mudd College (1955), Pitzer
College (1963), and the Keck Graduate Institute of Applied Life Science
(1997).