Jeri Taylor Was Awarded the Distin

Membership Matters: This publication is paid for in part by dues-paying members of the Indiana University Alumni Association. Vol. 15 Winter 2005–06 Star Trek’s Jeri Taylor: a new star in IU galaxy eri Taylor was awarded the Distin- Star Trek: The Next remembers that his very fi rst broadcasting guished Alumni Service Award at a Generation to be class was taught by Jeri! Jceremony in Bloomington on June given to the Lilly Taylor was one of the fi rst women 18. This is the highest award given by Library. sportswriters in the country. Later, she Indiana University that is reserved for IU Jeri (Suer) Taylor taught herself screenwriting and built a alumni. Recipients are chosen for service graduated Phi Beta career as a writer and producer. When she and achievements in their fi eld of endeavor Kappa in 1959 with started working, she was a single mother, and signifi cant contributions benefi ting the a BA in English, raising three children ages 12, 9, and 2. community, state, nation, or the university. although many of Her approach to establishing a career was Taylor is best known as writer and Jeri Taylor her memories are one of steely determination: “I focused a executive producer for Star Trek: The Next Deborah Conkle, IU Photographic Services from classes and great deal on goal-setting. I devised my Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, involvement in the RTV department. One own formula for setting goals, took the and Star Trek: Voyager. To these and other of the few females in the department at the steps I outlined, and faithfully recorded my programs, Taylor brought her identifi cation time, she worked on a variety of projects, progress. This process kept me centered with the disenfranchised and her strong, including some teaching for RTV. Ken as I tried to carve out a career in a very optimistic belief in tolerance and decency. Beckley, president and CEO of the IU competitive fi eld.” She helped arrange for all 178 scripts of Alumni Association and a telecom alumnus, (continued on page 6) POST-PRODUCTION CELEBRATION: Studio 5 was transformed into an accounting offi ce by students in this semes- ter’s T436 Advanced Studio Production class. Slow Children at Play, affection- ately known as SCAP, is in its 12th season. Students work cooperatively to write, direct, act, and produce original comedy. This 30-minute sitcom, “Account for Everything,” included studio and fi eld production tapes. The story-line follows a newly hired replacement in an accounting fi rm and his trials and relations within the offi ce. The show was produced live to tape before an audience of more than 100 students and parents and aired on campus IUSTV in October. 1 DEPARTMENTAL NEWS ver the past several years, telecommunications has been (You can read that article at www.iub.edu/~telecom/telecomment. deliberately moving into the arena of interactive games. html.) Here, you’ll read about a pioneering conference hosted OAlways striving to lead, rather than follow, the department by professor Ted Castronova that required participants to engage has hired faculty to teach a growing array of courses on games, in a game in order to generate serious, concrete results. You’ll game design, and the game industry. The last issue of Telecomment also learn about a team of extremely talented students who have highlighted the department’s expanding curriculum in interactive developed a sophisticated interactive game that you’re invited to games, especially as it was implemented at the undergraduate level. play online. Edward Castronova, associate The reality of virtual worlds professor of telecommunications, is ideo games are changing. There are do to the rest of society? The IU Depart- a leading expert on online still teenage loners who while away ment of Telecommunications will play an societies and the videogame indus- the hours in front of game consoles important role in answering these loom- try. Since 2001 he’s been studying V in their basements. However, the more fre- ing and challenging questions. Similarly, online social games to research the quent usage pattern is for people, mostly in the opportunities will involve institutions possibility that these represent a their 20s and 30s, to get together in small like our department. Think of it: here we newly evolved economic and social groups and join online games that consist have pocket societies, patterned with all frontier. He regularly consults with of still larger groups: dozens, hundreds, the forces of genuine human society, but leaders in business, government, even millions of people sharing the same existing in a controllable environment. education, and software design online activity at the same time. Synthetic worlds are like a petri dish for about the implications of virtual Online games have evolved into full- social research, one that we’ve never had worlds. In September 2005, he fl edged synthetic worlds, replicas of our before. Imagine what tragedies could have convened Ludium I, a gathering of world but with some magic and mysterious been avoided if we had had the opportunity 34 academics and game designers things added. A medieval themed world to set up and study some small Communis- on the IU Bloomington campus, to will have the same kinds of markets and tic societies, under controlled conditions, play a competitive game of concept romances and politics as our world does before deciding to reshape entire countries generation. In December 2005, — remember, these are real people inter- according to those principles. Castronova was part of a lengthy acting in it — but, being medieval, it will Far less dramatic examples of exciting news story about video games and also have magic wands and dragons. And research possibilities immediately spring to synthetic worlds on National Public while the magic wands and dragons aren’t mind. Concerned about human social and Radio’s All Things Considered real, the trading, negotiating, fi ghting, economic response to the spread of things and appeared on the CBS-TV pro- and boasting that surround them certainly like Bird Flu? Well, we have no place to gram 60 Minutes. In this article, are real. When millions of humans share a study that, really, unless we want to design Castronova describes the evolution space, even a fantasy one, the society they a virus and set it loose in the real world to and signifi cance of online synthetic constitute exhibits all of the patterns of see what happens. Instead, why not build worlds. (To learn more, visit http:// our society. If supply and demand work a pocket world and let folks put characters mypage.iu.edu/~castro/ and follow basically the same way in all kinds of human in it? Psychological research shows that links to the Terra Nova blog.) settings, from ancient Athens to modern people do identify with these characters and Manhattan — and they do — then they would certainly try to avoid losing them to work the same way in a killer virus. Then we would have a tool Middle-Earth, Nar- for studying not only how viruses spread, nia, or any other kind but how the combination of administra- of densely populated tive organization, information networks, synthetic world that and the economics of vaccine production the game industry industries interact to help or inhibit the might build. Thus, as disease’s effects. video games evolve into Many other examples — money supply an ever more robust theory, political structures, environmental alternative to daily life policy, and on and on — could be cited, on Earth, they present but while these would all be extremely both challenges and interesting to study through synthetic opportunities. worlds, there is a cost. Synthetic worlds are The challenges in- expensive to build and maintain, so we are volve the explicit com- talking here about a Social Science Super- parison of our world to collider — a project that costs millions but these best-of-all-worlds produces millions in benefi cial research. It emerging online. Who would be cool if such a thing were to be will go there? How built at IU — the coolest impact of video much time will they game research that I could imagine. spend? What will that — Edward Castronova 2 Guardians of Kelthas magine that the emperor of Kelthas has died and a civil war has erupted among his heirs. Monsters and bandits are ravaging the Iland and its citizens. So, Hero Companies are formed to provide protection. You become one of the Hero Companies and battle the competition for control. Sounds like fun, right? For graduate student Steve Cornett, it has taken nearly three years and a 200-page document to envision, craft, organize, and now manage this massive digital card game. So, maybe that doesn’t sound like “fun” anymore. But for Cornett and his ever-growing team of designers, this is a labor of love, as well as hands-on train- ing for the job of their dreams. Cornett has been hooked on computer games since he was 4 or 5. He came to IU in 2001 after considering several top-tier schools. “I found the computer science and design programs very infl exible at other schools. In contrast, IU offered me the Indi- vidualized Major Program.” The IMP allowed Cornett to build a curriculum based on his end goal of becoming a lead designer of interactive computer games. He’ll graduate in May 2006 with four degrees in fi ve years: the BA in game design through IMP, ‘Guardians’ IU team members a master’s in telecom’s MIME program, and the BA and MA in Current IU graduate students computer science. • Steve Cornett (lead designer, lead producer, “Guardians of Kelthas” is the offspring of a much simpler game, programming), MIME “Heros Inc.,” Cornett’s fi nal project for T570 Art Entertainment • Mike Green (senior artist), MIME & Information, taught by Thom Gillespie.

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