Let me show you a couple ways you might do this. I am very interested in the democratic potential of cyberspace, especially in what is made possible through what we call social software. For decades we have theorized about the social construction of knowledge, about how collaboration and innovation so often come together. In the early 1950s, the philosopher Karl Jaspers wrote in his famous text, Way to Wisdom, that “the truth begins with two.” And yet, until the advent of social software, true collaboration, dynamic collaboration, collaboration not between two but among several…or hundreds…or thousands…was slow and difficult if not impossible.

What I am talking about is Web 2.0, the whole world of blogs, wikis, podcasts, tagging, folksonomies, and social bookmarking. From where I sit these modes and methods of socially constructing knowledge are of huge significance to the mission of liberal arts colleges, and you, students, are ideally positioned to engage them.

Here are some claims I would make about Web 2.0. It repositions students so that you are not producing knowledge for the consumption and judgment of your professors or campus peers alone, but instead for engagement with a local or global community of knowers. These technologies enable those who use them to interact with a vast diversity of people globally around the most critical issues of our time. Social software decenters and distributes authority and expertise; it accelerates criticism and innovation by orders of magnitude over traditional scholarship; and it quite thoroughly blurs any line between the academy and the global public.

I want to show you a couple of web sites. Don’t worry about the addresses right now; I will make them available to you later. The first of which is called “Taking IT Global.” This is an on-line, transnational NGO by and for young people to engage global issues. There are segments with member-posted reports and action plans on global environmental issues, peace and conflict, poverty and globalization, social justice and human rights. The site connects young people around the world with one another and serves as a nexus of communication where they can share their views on how these issues look from where they all stand. It is a kind of distributed, yet collaborative, global network of knowledge production.

This first screen is an index of global issues that can be used to navigate to a wiki of sorts where you can learn about issues or contribute to the knowledge base.

This second screen is an index of podcasts on global issues or on projects or actions being undertaken to address them. Each podcast has an associated on-line discussion forum.

This third screen is an example of a country site. There is one for every country, and they serve both to inform global participants about national issues and to help organize local projects and actions within particular countries.

Finally, this screen contains downloads of action guides, which are essentially toolkits for community organizing. So this site connects global youth to one another within their countries and across borders. It is designed to advance understanding and organize activism.

The second web site is called “Dropping Knowledge.” It, too, is a web-based NGO. Here is what they say about themselves:

A non-profit initiative, dropping knowledge operates as an international non-governmental organization supporting social change. Using advanced web technology the initiative links the voices of individuals and organizations. Through multimedia-based campaigns and events dropping knowledge functions as a social amplifier, offers uncensored knowledge and invites people to take responsible action within an international network. The web-platform enables the global public to ask and answer questions, exchange ideas, and start initiatives around the most pressing issues of our time.

This screen is an index of YouTube-like video podcasts where folks from around the world have posted their questions about critical issues and ideas. It includes postings from a group of students in Mumbai, from Laurie Anderson, Arundhati Roy, a hotel concierge in Hanoi, and Daryl Hannah.

What I find most interesting about this project is its core concept. The project and the site are built on the premise that the first step in advancing global understanding is the posing of critical and well-formed questions: a premise shared by our own I.S. methodology. Interpersonal or cross-cultural dialogue are modes of inquiry, but the most important intellectual task is the formation of the problems, the issues, the questions to be examined.

This visual browse tool enables you to navigate your way to global dialogues taking place on all of these issues.

My conclusion, then, is this. I am not suggesting that cyberspatial global engagement is any substitute for the very intimate business of liberal inquiry we practice here. Nor is it a substitute for local activism, for testing one’s beliefs and values by putting them to work in our local community. What I am suggesting is that advancing understanding, making meaning, and ultimately cultivating humanity are, in their essence, social projects that are global in scope.

Therefore, my understanding of the mission of The College of Wooster is for us all to be committed to the rigorous work of changing our words into truth through dialogue ….and then changing that truth into love through civic engagement.

With that, with pride and gratitude, I hereby convene the 138^th year of The College of Wooster