6
Intimacy Technology
/ in a Boarding School Environment
Empathy
&
June 15-17, 2016
Shared Shelf
Recently, St. Paul’s became the first high school in the nation to
implement Shared Shelf to manage its digital archives through
the ARTstor Digital Library online research collection. The
e-management tool is widely used by colleges and universities.
Shared Shelf provides the SPS archives with a powerful digi-
tal management tool to catalog collections, using established
metadata standards. The new interface also pairs content from
the School’s photograph collection with the comprehensive
image collection in ARTstor, meaning the same interface that
powers the vast ARTstor collection can now be used to access
SPS archives images. As a result, not only is access to the SPS
archives much improved, but integration of the materials into
the curriculum is much easier and more flexible. Good news
for students and faculty.
The collection currently features more than 600 images
scanned from the School’s photograph collection, a number
that will markedly increase as digitization projects progress.
Future plans will also incorporate the School’s collection of
fine art and photography and potentially document other art
resources specific to St. Paul’s, including stained glass windows,
sculptures, woodcarvings, portraits, and antiques in the Chapel
of St. Peter and St. Paul.
From June 15 to 17, St. Paul’s School will
host a symposium entitled “Empathy,
Intimacy & Technology in a Boarding
School Environment.” The three-day con-
ference will bring together school leaders
and experts in the fields of adolescent
development, empathy, human sexuality,
technology, and social media to explore
the impact of technology on the emotional
health of young people. Results will be
published in a guide for peer school lead-
ership in the areas of policy and procedure,
academic impact, pro-social behavior,
curriculum, coaching, spiritual life, and
understanding the student voice. The
symposium will include presentations
by guest speakers, panel discussions, and
working groups to help attendees process
the information. Symposium faculty in-
clude experts in technology and society,
teen intimacy, cultural sociology, cultural
trends and their impact on children, and
the psychology of humans’ relationship
with technology.
Among those presenting will be Danah
Boyd, author and principal researcher
at Microsoft Research; Professor Donna
Freitas, who lectures at universities across
the United States on her work about college
students; Shamus Khan ’96, associate
professor of sociology at Columbia and
author of
Privilege: The Making of an
Adolescent Elite at St. Paul’s School
;
Catherine Steiner-Adair, author and
Harvard clinical psychologist; and Sherry
Turkle, an author and researcher on the
A Symposium Hosted by St. Paul’s School
psychology of people’s relationships with
technology.
“We are pleased to bring together these
experts and administrators to examine
how we educate young people within this
new paradigm,” says Rector Mike Hirsch-
feld ’85. “We plan to approach today’s
technology conundrum from a variety
of perspectives and develop a guide for
fellow educators in all school settings,
so we can harness the vast potential of
today’s high-tech landscape without
jeopardizing what makes us fully human.
By doing so, we will fulfill our mandate
to educate responsible, healthy students
and future world citizens.”
