[Air-L] Forming a new program in ICT - recommendations?

[Michele H. Jackson]

Hello -- I've been following the discussion of where a PhD should study with great interest. I have a somewhat related question and am very interested in your opinions and advice:

I am on a committee that has been given the charge to "discern the intellectually coherent mission (or missions) that will enable distinctive research, scholarly, and creative contributions in ICT" on our campus.  ("Distinctive" here means of excellent academic quality, as in "of distinction".) Our recommendations are to be high level -- i.e., what is the model or general structure our campus should implement? (e.g., we should recommend whether the unit should give graduate or undergraduate degrees, but we don't have to plan out the curriculum).  We have no constraints on what direction to go...we could recommend a college, department, school, program, support unit, research institute, center, etc. 

Our committee is very interdisciplinary (engineers, social scientists, humanists, natural scientists, business professors, artists).  We are soliciting input from stakeholders across campus, through several small meetings and also public forums. We are also trying to learn from our peers, gathering models of what other universities are doing. And we are talking to industry representatives.

The University of Colorado-Boulder is a state university, with approximately 30,000 students. We are a comprehensive Research I/AAU school.

This is a unique opportunity for us -- do have any thoughts or recommendations?

Many thanks in advance,
mj

Michele H. Jackson
University of Colorado at Boulder
Associate Professor, Department of Communication
Director, ASSETT http://assett.colorado.edu
Co-Director, CASE for Sustainability http://comm.colorado.edu/case
jackson at colorado.edu
303-492-8139