Tufts students and faculty came together Thursday evening to discuss how changing technology affects daily life and how to apply this understanding.
About 40 students and 40 members of the faculty filled the Carmichael faculty dining room for the Ex College's annual Opening Up the Classroom program. This year's event was "All Wired Up, Virtues or Vices of the Connected Life."
Tickets for the event were $3 for students. Each student who purchased a ticket was also entered into a raffle for an iPod Shuffle.
Sophomore Benjamin Swartz attended the event to discuss the impact of technology today. "I'm here because I'm very into technology and I thought it would be a good place to discuss technology that affects our lives," he said before the event. "I hope to get out an interesting discussion and a fun evening."
According to Ex College Director Robyn Gittleman, the purpose of the event was "to get the faculty and students to talk and meet each other and pick out common problems [regarding technology] and to hear two sides, three sides and even four sides of every issue."
The evening started with dinner. Each table then discussed different scenarios of the impact of technology.
To help facilitate discussion, participants filled out a questionnaire to measure their technological knowledge. The questionnaire gauged participants' knowledge of current technological devices, current technological services and the older, "legacy" technologies, including transistor radios, Super8 movie cameras, and Betamax decks.
Sophomore Nicolette Schlichting helped organize the event. "It's to give students the opportunity to meet professors they might not normally meet and vice versa," she said.
Freshman Shawna Russo said that aspect of the event was what she enjoyed most. "Coming from my small high school, I haven't really had the same sense of student-teacher relationship here at Tufts," she said. "The dinner really has opened the faculty to us and I really feel like I'm interacting with them ... I'm really glad I came. I'm definitely again next year."
This was the 16th year for Opening Up the Classroom. Last year's topic was "Tufts Life: Expectation vs. Experience."
