Old Chapel enters blogosphere
Brian Fung
Issue date: 9/19/07 Section: News
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Though some may have difficulty imagining top College administrators to be as plugged-in as the students they are responsible for, the newfound popularity of user-supported sites such as YouTube or Flickr has made it possible for virtually anybody to create a personal presence online. It should hardly come as a surprise, then, that President of the College Ronald D. Liebowitz and Dean of the College Tim Spears have also caught the digital media bug.
On Sept. 4, Spears launched a Weblog named "One Dean's View." In his first post, Spears welcomed students back to campus and introduced a number of issues he hoped to discuss. A week later, Liebowitz wrote an inaugural post on his own blog, "Ron on Middlebury."
But lest one mistakenly believe that Spears and Liebowitz are actually closet technophiles, complete with iPhone and Bluetooth headset, Spears said that they are still new hands at the game.
"I'm a complete beginner," said Spears, "[but] the most attractive reason for blogging is to speak directly to your audience. There's things you can do in a blog, there are ways you can communicate that you can't in an e-mail."
Spears does not claim to know exactly what he is doing, but said he is confident about the experiment because he expects the online medium to improve communication between his office and the student body.
Meanwhile, Liebowitz plans to use blogging as a way to efficiently disseminate information to the community beyond the College campus.
"Experienced bloggers advised me that, as president, other constituencies would be looking in," wrote Liebowitz in an e-mail. "And so, though I still hope students will check in and read the blog, I realize others are as or more likely to do so."
Indeed, while Liebowitz pledged to touch on issues that lie close to students' hearts, such as campus social life and work load, the president devoted somewhat more space in his opening post to the College's upcoming fundraising campaign and the growth of the Middlebury-Monterey Language Academy.
On Sept. 4, Spears launched a Weblog named "One Dean's View." In his first post, Spears welcomed students back to campus and introduced a number of issues he hoped to discuss. A week later, Liebowitz wrote an inaugural post on his own blog, "Ron on Middlebury."
But lest one mistakenly believe that Spears and Liebowitz are actually closet technophiles, complete with iPhone and Bluetooth headset, Spears said that they are still new hands at the game.
"I'm a complete beginner," said Spears, "[but] the most attractive reason for blogging is to speak directly to your audience. There's things you can do in a blog, there are ways you can communicate that you can't in an e-mail."
Spears does not claim to know exactly what he is doing, but said he is confident about the experiment because he expects the online medium to improve communication between his office and the student body.
Meanwhile, Liebowitz plans to use blogging as a way to efficiently disseminate information to the community beyond the College campus.
"Experienced bloggers advised me that, as president, other constituencies would be looking in," wrote Liebowitz in an e-mail. "And so, though I still hope students will check in and read the blog, I realize others are as or more likely to do so."
Indeed, while Liebowitz pledged to touch on issues that lie close to students' hearts, such as campus social life and work load, the president devoted somewhat more space in his opening post to the College's upcoming fundraising campaign and the growth of the Middlebury-Monterey Language Academy.
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