From Cheryl Geisler

Here is a copy of a proposal that I gave to Gary Judd concerning the MegaCenter a few weeks ago. Maybe it can be a starting point for our discussion. If so please distribute.

MISSION

Rensselaer will develop a new degree type, a family of degree programs offerable within each school, around issues central to the design of the information infrastructure for the 21st century.

This new degree type will be aimed at creating a new model for technological citizenship, one that integrates social, technical, and creative approaches to design, all in the service of society.

The degree programs will be organized around multi-year design projects aimed at designing specific areas of the information infrastructure. Each project will:

have a multidisciplinary faculty;
provide for a multi-year apprenticeship of undergraduate majors as well as multi-year involvements of graduate students and faculty;
serve as the hub for a series of undergraduate courses offered by affiliated faculty within their home departments and making up core requirements within the programs;
produce intellectual products (papers, books, grant proposals);
create new research working groups, generative of cutting edge esearch.

Within this general framework, faculty groups will come together out of common intellectual interests, generate research, courses, and apprenticeship for the life of those interests, and then disband or reconfigure themselves on a routine basis every 5-7 years.

Students should be able to complete the new degree type within an existing department whose faculty are involved in the core projects and whose career prospects and skills will be enhanced by involvement in this kind of multi-year design effort.

The number of projects to be offered at any one time will depend upon the efforts and interests of the faculty. Marketing efforts should be made to recruit students directly into these projects.

PROJECT TIMETABLE

This mission, or some successor version of it, should be implemented as follows:

Networking with current key players to develop support for the mission (or some successor mission) and identify key team players: 6-12 weeks.
Goal Development through a series of short, intense working meetings among key players who identify themselves through Networking, held over a short time span (e.g. 4 half-day design charettes): 2 weeks.
Public Commitment through a press conference and open faculty forum announcing the new degree program and pilot project, at the culmination of Goal Development.
Pilot Implementation though the initiation of 3-4 multi-year design projects, developed from a reconfiguration of existing initiatives: 97-98.
Marketing for new recruitment for class of 98-99: 97-98

The viability of the mission should be assessed at each stage. Within 3 months of inception, a robust grass-roots faculty network should have been established. Within 2-4 week after that, a public commitment should be made (ideally in July of this year). Pilot projects should be up and running in some form for 97-98, probably with students recruited internally. Marketing for 98-99 should be the key test of the future.