CAU's new CyberTower web site offers short courses, discussions

By Bill Steele

Want to broaden your horizons but don't have time to attend a class? How about a short course from Cornell Adult University (CAU)?

Now you no longer have to be in Ithaca to do that, or even wait for summer. CAU's new CyberTower web site offers an array of "study rooms," each representing a short course taught by a Cornell faculty member. CyberTower also will include monthly discussions with faculty members on current topics and issues moderated by Glenn Altschuler, the Thomas and Dorothy Litwin Professor of American Studies and dean of the School of Continuing Education and Summer Sessions.

CyberTower (the name is meant to suggest a virtual building on campus) will be promoted to alumni and prospective students as a sort of sampler of the diversity and expertise of the university faculty, but will be open to anyone. There will be a fee of $39 for one year of use.

Study rooms are being created by members of the faculty. Each one will open with a video-streamed lecture, supported by links to selected web sites, reading lists and other resources. There also will be a "conference room" where CyberTower users exchange messages with one another, moderated by the faculty member in charge of the room.

The first group of study rooms, now open, includes "The Bible and History" (Gary Rendsburg, Near Eastern studies), "The Columbian Encounter" (Mary Beth Norton, history), "Imagining the Holocaust" (Daniel R. Schwarz, English), "A Brief History of English Garden Design" (Donald Rakow, Cornell Plantations director ), "Maya Civilization " (John Henderson, anthropology ), "Human Paleontology" (Kenneth A.R. Kennedy, ecology and evolutionary biology) and "Health and Nutrition: Who can you trust?" (David Levitsky, nutritional science and psychology).

The first faculty forum will go online in September with James Garbarino, the Elizabeth Lee Vincent Professor of Human Development and co-director of Cornell's Family Life Development Center, discussing "Parents Under Siege: Why Do Bad Things Happen to Good Parents and What Can We Do About It?" Each subsequent month during the academic year, Altschuler will bring together leading members of the Cornell faculty to chat and debate about a current issue or topic online. Users can read the conversations at any time and may relay questions and comments to the forum participants.

The CyberTower web site is http://www.cybertower.cornell.edu. CyberTower can also be reached through the Cornell home page at http://www.cornell.edu. Visitors can take a virtual tour or register online via secure credit card payment.

Further information can be obtained from the CAU office at 255-6260 or by e-mail at cauinfo@cornell.edu. Information about other CAU programs is available at http://www.cau.cornell.edu.