Another School of Information is being created, this one at Arizona. Not sure Allen has the best grasp of regional geography though 🙂
Leaders at the University of Arizona are trying to make one school out of two; the goal is to get students ready to fill jobs for all sorts of fields involving computers.
By merging two programs at U of A’s School of Information, the school would then become an iSchool. These type of schools are evolving from programs formerly focused on specific tracks such as information technology, library science, and information science.
Schools focus on educating students for a range of professions from web development to data analysis. Today A panel of deans from the top iSchools across the nation discussed the future for U of A.
Ken McAllister, the Planning director of U of A’s School of Information says, “Information is ubiquitous, there’s no job anywhere that doesn’t rely on information. Our goal is to train the next generation of scholars and workers.” Deans from other successful iSchools gave their input saying the University of Arizona is the perfect place for this to happen.
Allen Renear, Interim Dean of the University of Illinois says, “It’s a major research national research university, iSchools flourish as places just like University of Arizona. Right now, there are no iSchools in the Southwest. U of A is looking to be the first one here to join 53 other iSchools across the world.