Communication Commons^™

Liberal Arts 2.0, Bridget B. Baird

Convocation Addresses

The title, Liberal Arts 2.0., "stems from the term Web 2.0, which refers to the recent evolution of the Web as interactive, participatory, collaborative and collective. Web 2.0 includes blogs, wikis, user-generated media, social networking: like much of what it describes, the definition is amorphous and inexact." Baird believes that Web 2.0 and all that it implies will necessitate a revision of the way we do liberal arts and thus the title “Liberal Arts 2.0.”

Her premise: that a liberal arts college is a place where teaching and research are improved by digital tools, where students are taught to negotiate …