H&SS faculty clearly find the prospect of an Information MegaCenter
very exciting.  If anything, this is an understatement:  some have expressed
a near Hallelujah! upon hearing the concept.  There is a sense among many that
the information age is being driven by a new generation that is technologically
sophisticated to a degree that screams out for research and curricula with an
ethos and content that H&SS and Rensselaer are well-positioned to provide.

H&SS professors have put together an "Information Group" within the
School, and have charged it to brainstorm about the shape and texture
of the MegaCenter, to specify the first wave of H&SS-led projects for
the Center, and to describe a long-term relationship between
information technology and the humanities and social sciences at
Rensselaer. The Information Group will be meeting at least once a
week.  At its first meeting, there seemed to be a collective sense that
the MegaCenter, at least initially, should be conceptualized as
something completely untrammeled by presuppositions regarding its
physical space, location, and information infrastructure.  Some
expressed the idea that the MegaCenter, building on networking and
distance learning technology of a sort that already distinguishes
Rensselaer, could include elements in tune with the sophisticates who
are inventing our future:  for example, perhaps the MegaCenter could
reach out into the Troy area in the form of "cyber cafes" allowing
professors (and, of course, the Net as a whole) to be electronically
present, and students (including non-Rensselaer ones) to learn in 
environment that coincides with the very notion of being "wired."