‌This past fall I was accepted to the Ammerman Center for Arts and Technology as a student scholar. The Center is one of the five academic centers on campus, which provide resources to students and faculty doing interdisciplinary work on a specific subject. This is the second in a regular series of posts I’ll be writing during spring semester about finding my path as a new member of the Center (read post 1). 

In their first semester at the Center, students take a special gateway course called History of Arts and Technology. This will help me with my goal as a Center scholar to create connections between my major (philosophy), the arts, and technology. The course is taught by professors in a variety of departments, currently Art Professor Nadav Assor is teaching the course.

My gateway course met briefly on the first day of classes so we could introduce ourselves. Then we went to the Ammerman Center Banquet. It was a great opportunity to get acquainted, especially with my fellow sophomores involved in the Center, and to catch up with the friends I made last week during the physical computing workshop. The banquet was lovely. My favorite part was the Sundae Bar.

For our next class, we went on a tour of Ammerman Center spaces around campus. I haven’t taken a real campus tour since I matriculated here, but this one was unique and took me to places that even as a student I had never been to. I was amazed how the Center is literally all over campus because it collaborates with several different departments.

We began in New London Hall where Computer Science Professor James Lee took us on an adventure with the student-faculty built visualization wall.

At Olin Hall, Film Professor Ross Morin '05 showed us the film studio and told us about his filmmaking classes.

Professor of Music Art Kreiger demonstrated how to make electronic sounds in the Cummings Electronic and Digital Sound Studio.

Then acoustical recording engineer and Professor Jim McNeish showed us the Fortune Recording Studio control room and isolation booth, and told us about recording various members of the Conn community such as President Katherine Bergeron.

Digital Scholarship and Visual Resources Librarian Lyndsay Bratton demonstrated the Shain Visualization Wall to us. And we got to see the powerful computers available to all students in the Digital Scholarship & Curriculum Center at Shain (everyone loves having two monitors).