By Tom Still
MADISON, Wis. – You don’t need a doctoral degree to know that higher education in the United States is going through dramatic change. Federal research dollars may be at risk in some areas; three Ivy League schools have struck deals with the White House over issues such as transgender athletes and merit-based admissions; and some observers are predicting college graduates will have a tougher time finding jobs in a market increasingly disrupted by artificial intelligence.
In short, it’s an ideal time for leadership at the UW-Madison to consider creating a new college to focus on computing, data and AI.
Seriously.
The notion of creating such a college was aired during a July 29 Tech Council Innovation Network luncheon in Madison by the head of the existing School of Computer, Data and Information Sciences (CDIS) and reinforced by representatives of two private-sector giants, Google and Microsoft, who said such businesses increasingly look for innovative academic partnerships.
In an environment where most universities are hungry for business partnerships, a proposal to create the first free-standing college since 1979 appears to be gathering momentum with campus leaders. It must also pass muster with the UW Board of Regents.
“Having a college that’s focused on being the prow of the ship is really important,” said Remzi Arpaci-Dusseau, who leads the existing school within the College of Letters and Science. “We want the impact of this thing not to be insular. It’s not to just generate more majors that are steeped in the topic matter but rather to have a much broader impact.”
What’s so special about being a college versus a school or even a department, which is how computing programs at UW-Madison were structured up until six years ago? It’s not about bragging rights or status, but being able to build business relationships, raise money and more quickly carry out a mission that’s in step with the times.
Consider this: UW-Madison offers about 230 different majors and certificate programs. The biggest two are within CDIS.
“We created the data sciences major just five or six years ago. It went from zero, having no students, to now it’s the second-biggest major on campus,” Arpaci-Dusseau told the largely business-sector crowd. “The biggest major, of course, is computer science. So, we have the two biggest majors on campus. … We’ve been growing like crazy.”
CDIS enrollment has nearly doubled from 3,200 to 6,200 students, and its research reach has expanded as well. To accommodate that growth, $267 million was raised to build Morgridge Hall, the largest privately funded project in UW-Madison history. It will open this fall at the intersection of University Avenue and Charter Street.
Also part of the discussion were Shaleen Deep, a senior research scientist in Microsoft’s Gray Systems Lab, and Milo Martin, an engineering director at Google and site lead of its Madison office. They emphasized the importance of academic research and technology “transfer” into the private sector and beyond.
“The (Gray Systems) Lab is basically taking on the hardest challenges,” Deep said, “doing a whole bunch of research in collaboration with CDIS and the students there, and then our job is to take the best of these research ideas and transition them into products for Microsoft and its customers.”
Martin made similar comments. His work with Google stands at the crossroads of hardware and software, focusing on topics such as processor architecture, performance modeling, compilers, runtime systems, data centers and security.
For Arpaci-Dusseau, now is the time to seize the moment and put UW-Madison in more of a leadership role when it comes to AI – given it will touch sectors ranging from engineering to nursing, from business to law, and from education to manufacturing. There’s even the promise of mapping the human brain in ways that will remove some of the mystery around how it works.
“Colleges are not created very often,” he said. “This is an opportunity to help shape the future of UW-Madison, with impacts that will last decades beyond our time.”
Higher education has its share of challenges these days. Perhaps UW-Madison can get ahead of the curve with a college designed to integrate basic research with business and societal needs.
Still is president of the Wisconsin Technology Council. tstill@wisconsintechnologycouncil.com.
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