José-Marie Griffiths: Good afternoon. I'm José-Marie Griffiths, the Chief Information Officer here at the University of Michigan. As you've probably already gathered, I was born and raised in England, so this occasion is especially meaningful to me in terms of the relationships it commemorates.

I'm pleased to join my colleagues in highlighting some of the ways the information revolution is changing higher education and some of the issues we anticipate you'll explore in the panel discussions tomorrow.

In my role here at the University, I see many different ways in which people are using technology in their knowledge-related endeavors. I've brought some video clips with me so you can see for yourselves some of the people and activities I'd like you to know about.

It is history that brings us together today. Yet, we are here to discuss the future. While it may seem that we're only here to talk about new and emerging technologies, our conversations must start with what we know and where we've come from.

The information revolution is not just about technology. It's also about who we are as people, and what we do.

It's about the imaginations of our grandmothers and grandfathers, our great-grandfathers and great-grandmothers, who looked to the future and saw possibilities, who drew maps and charted courses to create the futures they imagined - for themselves, their children and their children's children.

In the United States, this early charting first and foremost created a focus on education. Thomas Jefferson's scheme to divide the land into counties, parcels and acres created a system to ensure that each citizen would have access to an education.

The one-room schoolhouses indeed became the center of our communities and the foundation of our democratic system. And it wasn't long before the nation expanded those community schools into a system of higher education - a system designed to nurture and support an ongoing quest for understanding.

Built on those same ideals, our community is now an expanding community, drawing globally to create communities of knowledge, engaged in the shared pursuit of new knowledge and imaginings.

And, as old maps have progressed into new futures, new realities of buildings and intellectual imagination, technology, in the form of computers and telecommunications, have entered our landscapes.

We see these advances, some of them presented by our speakers today, woven into daily life on campus. They propel us to reaffirm who we are as individuals and as communities.

What is it that we are about, here at the University of Michigan? In higher education, in particular in a major research institution, we're engaged in an ongoing process of discovery, spanning all disciplines - discovery of new knowledge and rediscovery of old.

Our students not only travel to archeological digs but, using technology, they're able to share their experiences instantly with more people within and beyond the academy. We analyze the data and information we collect to develop new understandings.

Scientists and students come together electronically, collaborating in new ways, expanding the scope and scale of their efforts. New tools suddenly suggest new correlations or lines of inquiry not previously imagined. The graphic visualization of data helps us reach new levels of understanding.

We innovate, finding new ways of exploring and presenting our knowledge domains, in research, in teaching, in learning. The skill of the poet and the power of language come alive when students can apply their own imaginations to reconstruct(ing) or analyze(ing) a poem.

We encourage and embrace creativity in all its forms - art, music, dance, literature, thought. Our creative students are finding that technology profoundly increases the speed with which they're able to turn their imagined ideas into works the rest of us can appreciate and enjoy.

We experience our world, our own efforts and those of others. The University's Digital Music Ensemble has used technology to perform in real time with musicians anywhere in the world. Performing with a wide variety of other musicians, they enrich not only their own understanding of their craft and their art, but ours as well.

We express ourselves in many, many ways - intellectually, artistically, socially, physically. We're able to share our sense of life with others, as these children reveal their sheer joy and delight as they dance across the grass, presenting their unique expressions over a Web site from our Dance and Kinesiology departments. We invent new tools, techniques, and approaches to our activities.

Our engineering students are able to use technology at every stage of design and invention, again streamlining the progression of ideas and insights from imagination to creation.

All of these processes - discovery, analysis, innovation, creativity, experience, expression, invention - form the pillars of our academic institutions, our pursuit of understanding, and they reinforce our humanity. We use technology to serve and extend these processes. Because, the real power of technology is the way in which it puts people in touch with all aspects of our world.

First, technology puts people in touch with people - supporting, expanding and sustaining communities of knowledge, of shared interests. Interaction between faculty and students is extended and enhanced.

Second, technology puts people in touch with an ever-growing collection of knowledge resources. As you've seen in the Digital Library examples, our vision of libraries, data centers and media centers is expanding exponentially. We're faced with the challenge of reaffirming and redefining the role of our libraries and librarians.

Third, technology puts people in touch with facilities and equipment, particularly those which are too specialized and expensive to replicate in all local communities. These scanning electron microscopes here at the University can be used by children across the country from their classrooms. They can manipulate the equipment remotely and instantly see the results of their explorations.

Finally, technology connects people to a wide range of services, making them more convenient for individuals and enabling services that couldn't be managed without the technology to support them. We can stretch the touch of professionals far beyond their physical presence.

One of the key ways technology extends our range of influence is by expanding the dimensions of space and time.

 Traditionally we've operated in a same time, same place mode. In the traditional college course, students and professor come together in the same place - the classroom or lab - at the same time. If you miss the class session, you miss your opportunity to hear the professor's words, emphases, explanations and clarifications.

Now, using today's technology, we can operate in dimensions of same time, different place.

Medical diagnostics can be performed remotely, with the patient and equipment in one location, and the physician, hundreds or thousands of miles away, directing the procedure and seeing the results immediately.

Using technology, we can more easily relate events in different times and different places to our present day circumstances. For example, the papyrus letter - the soldier writing to his family - asking for his helmet, his new shield and a jar of those great olives! Technologies may come and go, but it's even more obvious that people are inherently the same.

We can also link the same place across time - architects can compare the use of a building 40 years ago with its use today.

The juxtaposition of the past and present provides a context for all that we're engaged in - a context essential for understanding who we are, how we came to be and where we might go from here.

Robert Frost, the poet who once taught on this campus, said, "Most of the change we think we see in life/is caused by truths being in and out of favor." Often we think we see change; at first glance the school children of today look far different from those of years ago. But we must challenge those first glances.

It's important that we avoid having technology frame our future. Technology engages us, it can be fun, as the enthusiasm of these children illustrates. But we must think about the core, the essence of what we do. Then we can shape how the technology can support and reinforce our endeavors.

Tomorrow's panels, we hope, will explore the shaping of future issues and activities in the areas of law, academe, business and the media.

Children are still children, and education is still about the nurture and growth of understanding.

While many of us are excited by the technological possibilities, this is not only about technology. It is also about reaching back to the truths of the past and stretching forward into the future.

Tomorrow, we need to imagine the future, "for once the mind is stretched by a new idea it never regains its original dimensions."

You see, it's not just about technology. It's about who we are and what we do and what we can become. Thank you.

Video:
Dr. Griffiths' RealVideo presentation (download RealPlayer)