Undergraduate education in a graduate school: The University of Texas iSchool experience

Abstract

Mary Lynn Rice-Lively is associate dean, School of Information, The University of Texas at Austin. She can be reached by email at marylynn ischool.utexas.edu T he University of Texas at Austin (UT) is a large, research level I university. For the fall semester of 2009 the total UT enrollment increased to 51,032 students, an increase of 1,048 students (2.1%). At the same time the undergraduate enrollment increased by 2.2% to 38,168 (74.8% of the total student enrollment). Unquestionably, undergraduate education is important to the mission of the university. In September 2004, following two years of strategic planning, the UT Commission of 125 submitted a 25-year planning document to the president of the university. (See more information on the commission at www.utexas.edu/com125/.) Among the strategies proposed in the final report was the mandate to develop a new undergraduate core curriculum. Another response to the initiative was to form a School of Undergraduate Studies, created in 2006, to function at the official college-level unit. Fourteen of UT’s colleges offer 333 degree plans, 123 of which are bachelor’s degrees. In sum, the above initiatives underscore UT’s commitment to the education of undergraduate students. So when did undergraduate library and information studies begin at the University of Texas at Austin? The first undergraduate service course focused on librarianship and information seeking was recorded in 1931, when the course, “School Library Work for Teacher Librarians” was added to the UT course inventory. Subsequently, the iSchool, formerly the Graduate School of Library and Information Science, offered multiple sections of a very popular, UT undergraduate staple, “Children’s Literature.” The large lecture-style class (100-300 students per section) has been taught since the 1970s and has drawn undergraduates from the entire spectrum of academic disciplines. More recently, in the late 1980s and early 1990s the school offered courses introducing students to “library and information use” strategies, as well as a course on “Internet resources and services.” While the “library use” class was discontinued due to underenrollment, the Internet course (first offered in 1993) has evolved into another popular lower-division undergraduate course, now called “Information in Cyberspace.” In 2002 the UT Office of the Provost formed the Bridging Disciplines Program (BDP), which offers concentrations that represent areas of innovative faculty research, teaching and collaboration at UT. A cross-college panel of faculty members guides each program concentration. (See more information at www.utexas.edu/ugs/bdp.) After completing 19 credit hours of coursework, research and internship experiences, students earn a certificate demonstrating a secondary area of specialization that complements the major. By studying an issue from a variety of disciplinary perspectives, they become more flexible, versatile thinkers, prepared for a professional world that values collaboration and innovation. Students in the BDP also gain access to unique research and internship experiences at UT and around the world, giving them hands-on experience applying what they have learned in the classroom. From 2003-2006 I taught two lower-division undergraduate courses of the BDP program. In Technology and the Global Community, team taught with a colleague from the College of Engineering, guest faculty from around campus discussed how technology had changed their fields and the way