Spring 2007 Vol. V, No. 3

From the Editors

Dear Alumni and Friends,

For many of us, advances in technology in the last 20 years have fundamentally changed countless aspects of our lives at home and at work. We’ve dedicated this issue of MainGate to examining how technology is changing living and learning on campus today.

Many of AUB’s professors are also alumni, putting them in a perfect position to comment on how technology has changed the classroom experience—or not—from the days they roamed AUB’s halls (see “The Education Morph”). In “To Google or to Moodle,” Maysam Ali (BA ’07) finds that AUB students can’t do without their gadgets, which they use to speed up note-taking and to cruise networking sites like Facebook, looking for news on AUB clubs.

Technology is also affecting the kind of research that is being done at the University, and making new resources available to both AUB and outside communities. The AUB libraries have a treasure trove of scanned archival materials available on their sites, including collections of arts and political posters of the 20th century, and even hand drawn medical instructional posters from the 1930s and 1940s (see “Preserving History and Breaking Down Barriers: Digitizing AUB’s Libraries”). And whether the field is engineering, business, or biology, advances in technology are broadening areas of research for students and teachers across the board.

Our thanks go to all of you who have been sending in story ideas, class notes, and feedback on the magazine. Stay in touch!

Ada H. Porter and Ibrahim Khoury
Coeditors, MainGate
maingate@aub.edu.lb