Building a Virtual Community

Dr. Hal Haskell

Southwestern University

In this presentation a founding member of the Sunoikisis project will outline the history and development of the Sunoikisis initiative.  Sunoikisis began as the collaborative program in classics of the Associated Colleges of the South (ACS).  This consortium comprises sixteen small liberal arts colleges, throughout the Southeast that range in size from roughly 900 to 3500.  Founded in 1991, the ACS has a mission to make the case for liberal arts education and to strengthen academic programs of the member institutions.  Technology has proven to be a key factor in accomplishing this mission.  The Sunoikisis program developed from two ACS pilot technology programs in classics and archaeology.

ACS classics faculty first began meeting in the summer of 1996 at Rhodes College for workshops on technology in Classical Studies.  From the beginning this group sought to answer needs for a greater range of faculty expertise, an expanded curriculum, and more study abroad opportunities.  All of these needs go back to small department size resulting from the combination of a less popular discipline and a small institution.  With few majors, students have fewer peers for camaraderie and competition within classics.  Faculty numbers are low, as well, which exposes students to fewer approaches to and specializations within classics.  Students do not get as broad a sense of classics as a discipline, and their restricted major may make them less competitive when applying to graduate programs in classics.  Finally, a smaller institution means that students have fewer practical experiences with classics or outlets for research.  Faculty, too, may lack a diverse research community and pedagogical support network.  The Sunoikisis group found its solution to these problems with technology-enabled collaboration. 

Sunoikisis engaged in its first major undertaking in the realm of archaeology with both students and faculty participating in an excavation at Hacimusalar in southwest Turkey from 1998-2005.  This program consisted of a spring one-hour intercampus course on archaeological methods and a summer field school in HacImusalar.  The course prepared students for the summer field school by introducing them to the field of archaeology in general and the excavation at HacImusalar in particular.  The archaeological field school offered students the opportunity to study abroad, interact with students and faculty from other schools, and conduct archaeological research on a level usually only available to graduate students. 

An important part of the digital infrastructure that makes this excavation work well is an innovative archaeology data collection and publication system.  The Choma system (www.choma.org) integrates a database of excavation data including objects, excavation notebooks, and mapping via Geographic Information Systems (GIS).  Unlike other archaeological projects, all data collected are entered into the system (mostly on site) and are integrated with all other data.  These materials are then available for use in teaching, research or publication.  The entire system has been made freely available for use by other archaeological projects.  This initial project gave Sunoikisis faculty and students experience in applying technology for collaboration in teaching, learning, and research.

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