Tour the Winter Visual Arts Center with Franklin and Marshall's Sheldon Wenger, Assistant Director for Project Management. Designed by Steven Holl Architects. Drawing on Franklin & Marshall College’s motto Lux et Lex, the Winter Visual Arts Center for the Art, Art History, and Film Department is conceived as ‘light’ in complementary/contrast to the ‘heavy’ exemplary brick architecture of the 1856 ‘Old Main’ original campus building. A gradual exterior ramp connects from Old Main’s axis to a second-floor entrance of our new building, just above a ground floor entrance facing the newly formed ’Arts Quad.’ The building activates the southern end of the campus as a new campus destination as well as reinforcing the college’s historic axis by extending it to the south and reaching out to the town.
‘Back Stage Tour’ - Led by campus celebrities, AVP & Director of TSS, John Coccia, and Director of IET, Teb Locke. This dynamic duo will lead participants on an ‘excellent adventure’. This informal and surely entertaining tour of some of our more highly tech-enabled spaces will likely be both informative and a good time. Sites on the tour will range from our ‘guerrilla efforts’ to birth a contemporary studio from an ancient and largely abandoned campus space to our maker space, hybrid-optimized classrooms and a few of our other campus favorites. We will happily stop off at some ‘tech sad’ spaces and maybe you can give us a few of your favorite ideas for making something better and more usable with limited resources, for example. Join us for a campus walkabout.
Did you know Lancaster was once infamous as a “wide open” city for vice? Around 1900, police and other officials encouraged and even participated in prostitution, gambling, and drinking. Join Alison Kibler, professor of American Studies and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, on this history tour, walk the streets of Lancaster with an expert guide and learn about the brothel keepers, bartenders, and pool hall hustlers who shared the streets with corrupt politicians and righteous reformers a century ago. Discover the history of wage-earning women, Lancaster nightlife, and changing sexual values through the stories of the men and women of Lancaster’s red-light districts. The tour lasts 90 minutes and ends near the evening Reception location, Tellus 360.
This tour is off-campus. Attendees will meet the tour guide at 38 Penn Square in Downtown Lancaster. It is a 90-minute walking tour (wear comfortable shoes). It will conclude at the location of our Opening Reception.
We welcome you to explore a variety of local dinner options and use this time to connect with your colleagues. We think all of these are solid choices. They are varying price points. Many are walking distance from the hotel.
Dr. Nina Kollars is an associate professor in the Cyber and Innovation Policy Institute at the US Naval War College. She holds a Ph.D. from The Ohio State University in political science and an M.A. from GWU in international relations. She holds a number of editorial and policy affiliations to include: executive board member of Cyber Conflict Studies Association; and an editorial board member for Texas National Security Review. She publishes on cybersecurity, hackers and military innovation. She presented her own hacker project at DefCon27, “Confessions of a Nespresso Money Mule.” She will soon publish her book “Trustworthy Deviants: White Hat Hackers and Security.” Kollars is also an Executive Bourbon Steward.
Beverages and light snacks are available throughout the day. Take a break and chat with colleagues, get some work done, or visit the exhibition on view highlighting computer history at Franklin & Marshall over the decades!
I helped 12 faculty and the Curriculum Committee "level-set" on AI teaching/learning, shed some tears, doubt, debate, and ultimately approve an “AI as a Partner” course for me to teach students.
Join an informal roundtable and open Q&A with Dr. Nina Kollars, the morning keynote. This informal session will be an opportunity to talk about all things information security, the threat landscape and emerging trends. Moderated by Alan Bowen, Chief Information Security Officer, Franklin and Marshall College
Join our roundtable on integrating digital tools for accessibility to support inclusive practices. Share experiences, challenges, and solutions for creating equitable learning environments for all.
For a year you've have been telling alumni about storage reduction. Delete day comes! Goodbye alumni storage. Next day: Faculty says “I’ve lost ten years of research data” What would *you* do?
As generative AI tools continue to reshape possibilities across higher education, institutions must explore a spectrum of thoughtful, practical strategies that meet both their culture and operational goals. This panel brings together leaders from Wesleyan and Colgate to share three complementary case studies of how AI is being deployed to enhance administrative operations, campus support, and technical infrastructure. From empowering staff to experiment with AI tools, to introducing automated support in a high-touch environment, to building custom in-house solutions, this session offers a multi-dimensional look at how AI adoption can align with institutional values while paving the way for innovation. Rachel Schnepper will share how Wesleyan University launched an AI Staff Ambassador Program that trains administrative staff to explore efficiencies using generative AI tools like ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot. Karen Warren will follow with Wesleyan’s experience rolling out a ServiceNow chatbot to support the Workday transition, balancing automation with the personal touch their campus expects. Ahmad Khazaee and Tolga Dincer from Colgate University will conclude by showcasing their journey in developing and deploying custom, private AI tools on campus, including applications in research support, creative technologies, and systems automation. Together, these presentations demonstrate how institutions can creatively and responsibly adopt AI in ways that match their missions and needs. Attendees will walk away with models for staff empowerment, strategies for scalable support, and inspiration for building in-house solutions that respect data privacy while enabling cutting-edge exploration. Whether you're just beginning to explore AI or already deploying tools, this session offers grounded insights to spark your next move.
Leadership in IT increasingly means voicing ethical principles to our institutions as the custodians of technology. This talk addresses that responsibility.
We will discuss how small liberal arts colleges can leverage computing to contribute in significant and exciting ways to research, ncluding approaches to starting and scaling up a computing cluster.
Led by ITS, the Innovative Learning Environments (ILE) Program is a campus-wide initiative to reimagine and modernize Trinity’s educational spaces through strategic technology upgrades, flexible design, and long-term planning. This session will explore the vision behind ILE and the steps being taken to create dynamic, student-centered classrooms that foster creativity, collaboration, and academic success. In partnership with Academic Affairs, Facilities, and faculty, the A/V, Instructional Design, and TSS teams are delivering standardized upgrades, a 10-year classroom technology forecast, and targeted faculty training to ensure sustainable, future-ready learning environments.
We have wowed you with acronyms! Join us for a discussion of what research and education networks (RENs) can do for liberal arts colleges. We will start with a use case example in PA that involves several PA liberal arts colleges but would love to hear your experiences, ideas and also questions about how LACs are engaging with RENs wherever you are!
Families with approaching college-age children increasingly are interested in the financial return on their investment. They are also increasingly concerned about costs. The soon-to-be students are increasingly interested in the totality of their college experience, with increasing interest in a broad social scene, affiliation with a "big brand" institution, and breadth of special experiences. How do liberal arts colleges compete in this landscape? In fact, they can, and powerfully, and in this talk we'll explore how.
MHC and Colgate University share successes of project-based learning for student staff. We’ll cover topics from high-level frameworks guiding growth, to niche skills of digital fabrication and design.
Join the CLAC Information Security and Data Privacy Affinity Group [REDACTED] for an interactive discussion on current challenges and opportunities. We encourage participation from all who have an interest in data privacy, governance, and information security as our affinity group is focused on building community and leveraging our shared strengths. Come connect with peers, share knowledge, and strengthen your institution's defenses in our collaborative community.
This session will be a debrief of the two CLAC Mindshares on the topic of AI. The first was in October at Denison University and the second will be a CLAC pre-conference on June 9-10th. This session will summarize the lessons and approaches being used to evaluate and support AI efforts across CLAC institutions. We will collectively reflect on AI conversations that occurred throughout the CLAC conference and identify ways we can continue to support each other's AI efforts.
The session will explore how our structured, tiered training model — encompassing systems training, data analysis skills, and leadership development — drives strategic outcomes.
Explore how strategic storytelling and creative writing techniques enable IT teams in higher ed to convey complex goals, align stakeholders, and advocate for resources through compelling narratives.
Presenters detail the difficult journey of creating 16 shared credits (5 courses) across programs that have helped to address the enrollment declines in Hamline School of Education and Leadership.
How our LMS Evaluation made the Sr. Assoc. Provost say “This was a model for how to initiate broad systems-level change in a collaborative, inclusive manner. I’ve learned a lot through this process.”
Hamilton College Research Librarians developed a new workshop for new faculty introducing resources available and emphasizing support of student assignments and research projects
