Dear alumni & friends,
Greetings from Madison! We have reached the midway point of the spring semester, an especially busy time in Letters & Science. Admissions decisions are rolling out, and our advisors and academic affairs staff are hard at work preparing for our incoming fall class. And our graduating seniors are accepting job offers, as they embark on the first steps of their careers.
If you missed last month’s news, UW–Madison announced that Letters & Science has three of the top five fastest-growing majors on campus: data science (housed in the Department of Statistics), computer sciences and psychology. Why are these three majors in such high demand? As statistics department chair Yazhen Wang notes, “Our world increasingly depends on data and computing to produce knowledge and to make decisions.” Understanding how to analyze and assess that data, as computer sciences chair Remzi Arpaci-Dusseau writes, will be critical “for every student looking to gain the skills needed to succeed in the digital age.” Meanwhile, communications manager Mary Anderson notes that psychology teaches human-centered skills that are “needed to flourish in a variety of careers from health care to law, business, teaching, conservation and so much more.”
What is L&S doing to meet this growing demand for liberal arts degrees? First, we are hiring new faculty to ensure our students have the classes they need to succeed and to graduate on time. In the past year alone, we’ve added eight new faculty and instructors in statistics, five new faculty in computer sciences and eight new faculty in psychology, in addition to new faculty, instructors, teaching assistants and advisors throughout the college.
Second, we’re assessing the importance of a liberal arts degree in the 21st century by asking what it means to be critical consumers and creators of data, information and knowledge. Last fall, I launched the Liberal Arts 2030 initiative to help answer that question as part of a formal review of the L&S undergraduate curriculum. My hope is that this new curriculum will launch in 2025 and will include new degree requirements for all L&S students that help them successfully and ethically navigate a world transformed by the availability of tremendous amounts of data.
Finally, our career services center, SuccessWorks, continues to create industry partnerships that place our undergraduates in direct contact with some of the nation’s leading employers. Recently, 50 L&S students were invited to participate in consulting firm Deloitte’s Future of Work Institute, where they learned from industry experts how to navigate and lead in today’s workforce. In addition to expanding their professional networks, students explored ways to foster meaningful team dynamics that support employee well-being and work-life balance.
We could not complete this import work without the support of our incredible L&S community. If you’re able, please consider supporting Letters & Science today by visiting supportuw.org/giveto/LSSpring23.
Thank you, and On, Wisconsin!
Eric M. Wilcots, Dean
Mary C. Jacoby Professor of Astronomy
College of Letters & Science
University of Wisconsin-Madison