From biotechnology to time travel, technological and scientific advances and theories have an impact on the way business is conducted, according to Diane Ferry and Christine Kydd, associate professors of business administration.

With the goal of preparing students for a business world that must deal with those advances, Ferry and Kydd have developed an experimental course, "High-Technology Business Issues." The course, which met for the first time during Winter Session 2002, made use of technology as an instructional tool as well as its subject matter.

"We're trying to expose students to as many high-tech and scientific topics as possible, specifically those topics that will affect business," Kydd says. "We're also trying to get them to use technology."

The 24 students met three times a week, with each of the five weeks focused on a different topic, such as quantum physics and time travel, communications technology and biotechnology. Each week included a videoconference that brought experts from various locations into the classroom electronically for panel discussions and interaction with students.

Other class meetings featured student discussion and brainstorming sessions in a special campus conference room equipped with individual computer stations.

Ferry notes that one goal of the course is to familiarize students with the kinds of high-tech tools that are commonly used in the corporate world. At one videoconference, in which technical difficulties delayed the appearance of one of the three expert speakers from a distant location, Ferry told the class: "You're seeing firsthand how complicated this process can be. That's why we want you to have this experience."

Winter Session students say the course lived up to their expectations.

"It's rare to have a business course that offers so much of a technology focus and also bridges science and business," says Luke Roth, BE 2002.

Mike Palermo, BE 2002, says he enrolled in the class hoping to get a glimpse into the future of business. "We didn't learn about what has happened," he says. "We learned about what's going to happen."