*Editor's note: This is the third installation in a weekly series profiling professors' approaches to teaching and academics at Dartmouth.**##
Despite the prevalence of online universities, professor of Chinese Justin Rudelson '83 is designing a new type of virtual university in which students and professors from around the world use enhanced video communication programs to interact with each other from their own homes. Rudelson whose students highlight his "enthusiasm" for the classroom has already used similar technology to bring international lecturers to his classes at Dartmouth and has put his students in direct contact with professors in China.
Rudelson said he first used the communication program iChat in 2006 when his children moved to another city and he was preparing to lead a Foreign Study Program to Beijing and wanted to keep in touch with them. After discovering how "amazingly powerful" the technology was, he decided to incorporate webcam technology into his language classes by having his students tutor high school students learning Chinese, he said.
For his Chinese classes this year, Rudelson requires his students to have 10 to 15 minute conversations each week with professors at the Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, which allow students to practice their pronunciation, he said. The BUPT professors receive English composition support from Student Center for Reading, Writing and Information Technology tutors for their work with Dartmouth students, according to Rudelson, who is also a professor at BUPT.
If Rudelson's students attend the Chinese Foreign Study Program, they will have the opportunity to meet the professor with whom they have been conversing, he said.
Webcam technology has allowed Rudelson to "bring in" speakers to his classes who would otherwise be unable to travel to the College. Over the past two years, Rudelson has had seven or eight lecturers speak to his classes using webcams, he said.
One recent speaker was Ahmed Rashid, a Pakistani journalist whom Rudelson described in an e-mail to The Dartmouth as the leading authority on Afghanistan, the Taliban and jihad movements in central Asia.
Emily Blackmer '13, a student in Rudelson's "The Silk Road" class, said she felt all of the speakers Rudelson brought in were "really interesting."
"I was engaged for two hours," Blackmer said of one of the webcam lectures.
Rudelson said he foresees the use of online video communication expanding at universities in the near future because it allows for students around the world to interact with one another in a cost-effective way.
Developing the technology for the university has been difficult because it necessitates a system that allows for 20 different video streams of differing bandwidths to come in at once, Rudelson said.
Beyond the use of webcam technology as a means of studying languages, several of Rudelson's students said that his excitement for class and use of anecdotes in class make him a unique professor.
"He's really enthusiastic," Daniel Hegedus '12 said. "He enjoys teaching a lot. He's quite amusing."
Rudelson focuses on making topics covered in class relevant to students, Cheng Cheng Li '12 said.
"He doesn't lecture," Li said. "He has a conversation with you."
Rudelson's enthusiasm for his class material is "contagious," John Nimmo '13 said.
"I feel like at least once a week he ends up on the floor in class," Nimmo said.
One of Rudelson's favorite topics to discuss in his classes is his favorite singer, Fan Wei Qi, several of his students said. Rudelson described himself as Qi's "number-one foreign fan."
Much of Rudelson's research has focused on depression in the Chinese population. Depression is widespread in the country, although it is rarely discussed because of the stigma that surrounds the disease, according to Rudelson. Qi has been the only celebrity to openly discuss her struggle with depression, he said.
Over the past few years, Rudelson has been working with Qi on a campaign called "Love Life" that encourages discussion of issues related to depression in China. Last spring, Rudelson began working with a group of Dartmouth students on "Love Life," which is also known as the "Hope Unlimited" campaign, and he said he hopes that there will be an official "Love Life" student group at Dartmouth in the future.
Rudelson said he hopes to arrange for Qi to come to New Orleans and work with area musicians to produce music that addresses depression in the city.
