In recent years, the Information School has launched new academic programs at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. It has hired new faculty members to expand its research repertoire into areas like cybersecurity and information ethics. And it has forged new and impactful collaborations across campus, as a founding department of the School of Computer, Data & Information Sciences (CDIS).
In short, the iSchool has grown and evolved as much as any department on campus in recent years. And since 2021, Alan Rubel has guided the iSchool thoughtfully and successfully through this transformative era.
As the iSchool moves into a beautiful new home, Morgridge Hall, Rubel is concluding his term in the director’s chair. He reflected on the rapid growth he has overseen, what Morgridge Hall means for the department, and the future of his research and of the iSchool itself. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Looking back, what stood out to you as highlights of your term as iSchool director? What are you most proud of?
We’ve built programs that we’ve long wanted to build, and those programs have been very successful. Our Information Science undergraduate major now has over 400 students after launching in 2022. The growth and success of that program has been really fantastic to see, because it integrates us with a lot of other units across campus whose students now take our courses, and it shows that UW–Madison students are really interested in the intersections we study between people and technology.
We’ve also been able to hire faculty at a pretty rapid clip, and that’s expanded the types and number of courses that we can offer at the graduate and the undergraduate levels. It’s also dramatically expanded our research and teaching profile, into areas like human-computer Interaction, cybersecurity, and the ethics of artificial intelligence. All of this growth means we are now too big for our space in Helen C. White Hall, which is a wonderful space, but we have outgrown it.
The thing I’m most proud of, though, is the fact that we remain a very cohesive and collegial department, even as we’ve undergone such rapid change and expanded to include a wide range of research interests, teaching specialities, and academic programs.
Our people show up, they participate passionately in our governance, in decision-making, in our social life. And that has been really fun and gratifying to be part of as director.
As director, you get to collaborate with a wide variety of people in the department. How has that experience changed your perspective on the iSchool?
There is so much more going on in the iSchool than I had ever realized before, and being in the director’s seat has allowed me to understand how seemingly different parts of the iSchool fit together and work together.
What the iSchool today specializes in is thinking about humans first at the intersection of humans, computational technologies, and data. At the same time, our roots and deep history are in the world of libraries and the field of library science, which now fits into the broader field of information science that our programs focus on. It’s all more interconnected than I initially realized.
What excites you about the move to Morgridge Hall and the opportunities it presents?
It’s exciting that we will be in a space at the true heart of campus. There will be so much happening all around us, whether in the other CDIS departments within Morgridge Hall, in the Discovery Building next door, or elsewhere in this thriving area of campus.
I think there are also going to be a lot of opportunities to develop new research, develop new classes, and otherwise collaborate in a variety of ways. We’ve already worked successfully with Computer Sciences and Statistics on decisions about the building, and now we’ll be able to collaborate even more closely with those departments, in-person, on projects across educational and research areas. In fact, some of those collaborations are already taking shape.
What’s next for you after a very busy term as director? What are you looking forward to?
I am excited to dive into research on the intersections of cybersecurity, law and philosophy. I’m interested in exploring the underlying values and philosophies at play in cybersecurity, and I’m looking forward to working with Clinton Castro and Rick Wash on a project in that area.
I’m also very interested in privacy and surveillance, and the ways that novel technologies can be used in ways that conflict with or undermine our privacy or institutional integrity, such as through corrupt business practices or anti-democratic impacts. I plan to conduct more work in those areas as well.
Finally, I’m looking forward to seeing Greg Downey serve as the next director. Greg is good at seeing connections and excellent at working with people. He has a wealth and range of experience, and that allows him to be creative and draw on successes and difficulties in other realms. He’ll be the right person to ensure that—now we have all these great people in place, and now that we are in this incredible new building—we maintain the kind of department structure and culture that empowers us all to thrive.
To learn more about Alan Rubel’s research, visit his personal website.