From the Director’s Chair

Alan Rubel
iSchool Department Chair Alan Rubel

Fall semester is in full swing and there are so many things to be thankful for. One thing I am especially appreciating is the simple pleasure of life at UW: lively hallways, seeing colleagues and students, meetings without a headset.

This fall it was a pleasure to welcome our second cohort of MS Information students and launch our undergraduate major in Information Science. It’s been wonderful, too, to grow our iSchool staff: Stacy Harnett joined as our undergraduate advising coordinator, iSchool alum Casey Ineichen joined our Continuing Education team, Lisa Wyeth Woerpel is our new curricular representative, Carol Kaufman (also an iSchool alum) is our interim library manager, and Suzanne Swift is our new marketing and communications lead. We also are aiming to hire several teaching faculty.

I am especially appreciative of the enormous team effort for our MA-LIS accreditation. Working with faculty and staff to complete the enormous and exhaustive self-study, preparing for the external review team visit in October, and compiling years’ worth of documentary evidence about our faculty, our curriculum, and our students has given me an even greater appreciation for all the people who make our community the wonderful place it is.

 I couldn’t be happier to be a part of it.