World-renowned choreographers and performers, one of the youngest composers ever to be awarded the Pulitzer Prize and an acclaimed abstract painter all graced a UD classroom during spring semester.

The artists appeared on different nights, showing the University Honors Program students samples of their imaginative works, demonstrating techniques, discussing the creative process and answering questions. And, they did it all without leaving their home base of New York.

"The opportunity for students to listen to--and, more important, to interact with--five different artists of such high caliber was very exciting," says Lloyd Shorter, administrator for music programs at UD, who designed the course in which the guest artists and University students were linked via state-of-the-art digital Internet2 technology. "If we tried to bring so many top artists physically to campus, the budget would be enormous and the time involved would be almost prohibitive. This technology is what made it all possible."

Guest artists were Rinde Eckert, a writer, composer, singer, actor and director; choreographers Moses Pendleton and Merce Cunningham; composer Aaron Jay Kernis; and painter Ellen Gallagher.

As a musician, Shorter says he's been skeptical about computer-based instruction, since high-quality sound transmission is essential. "You can use video on the web to talk to composers," he says, "but talking about music and actually hearing it are two different things."

When Shorter heard about Internet2 technology, in which expanded bandwidth capacity makes it possible to transmit high-fidelity sound, he says he wanted to give it a try. With a grant from the University's Center for Teaching Effectiveness, he began designing the interdisciplinary honors course that he taught for the first time last semester.

The grant money paid the five artists, all based in downtown Manhattan, to give lectures about their work, show samples of it and interact with UD students
in a question-and-answer session, with video broadcast to and
from each location. The artists spoke from an Internet2-wired studio at New York University, while the students gathered in
a similarly equipped studio in UD's Pearson Hall.

Shorter says the technical staff at both institutions gave "extraordinary support" to the cooperative effort. NYU, which billed the artists' physical appearances on its campus as a lecture series, wanted to gain experience with this use of technology, Shorter says, and the artists wanted to stay close to home. UD students benefited from exposure to the artists in a way that placed them "virtually" under the same roof.

"During the interview, I never noticed the technology," student Jessica Smith, AS 2003, wrote in a critique of one session. "By just accepting that the technology is there without specifically thinking about it, it created more of a real interview situation, [as if] Ellen Gallagher was actually in the room with us."

Shorter notes that the technology is just a means to the primary goal of the course, which is to expose students to a variety of art forms and whet their appetites for more. Students--who took the class as either a one-credit honors seminar or a three-credit course in which they also viewed videos, read about the artists and wrote papers--included no music majors and often had limited experience with live performances before taking the class.

"It's an insight into a world I've never seen," Diana Waxman, AS 2002, says of the course. "This is why we should come to college, to learn new things. We should be re-examining what we know and stretching our minds beyond that."

If students take that attitude from the class, Shorter says he's thrilled. Many of the students, he says, found the artists' innovative works difficult to understand at first, but after the lecture and the opportunity to interview them, they often asked where they could learn more. In fact, the title of the course summarizes what Shorter hopes students will focus on during the interview sessions: "How Did You Ever Come Up With That?"

"What has been so satisfying to me is that, after talking to these artists personally, the students really want to see more of their work," he says. "That was my goal all along."

--Ann Manser, AS '73, CHEP '73