Mission of the Graduate School of Education & Information Studies (GSE&IS)
GSE&IS is dedicated to inquiry, the advancement of knowledge, the improvement of professional practice, and service to the education and information professions. We develop future generations of scholars, teachers, information professionals, and institutional leaders. Our work is guided by the principles of individual responsibility and social justice, an ethic of caring, and commitment to the communities we serve.
Vision Statement for the Department of Information Studies (IS)
The Department of Information Studies seeks to define, study, and evaluate interactions among people, information and information technology in a pluralistic society. The Department values and promotes equity, diversity, accountability and intellectual openness.
The Department integrates wide-ranging scholarly, professional, technological and institutional perspectives in its teaching, research and public service. Across each of these activities, the Department engages with and is driven by real world information issues and communities and institutional needs. The Department also promotes the essential role played by information institutions such as libraries and archives as social, cultural, educational, and intellectual centers in our society.
In particular, we examine and encourage:
- The design of information systems and services for individuals, communities, cultures, disciplines, and literacies;
- The creation, preservation, documentation and curation of information in all its media and settings;
- Access to information, in all its manifestations, that empowers and enfranchises individuals and communities in and over time; and
- The framing of ongoing policy and institutional dialogue related to the social and intellectual implications of a global information society.
Goals for the MLIS Program
To educate MLIS students to become the top leaders, policy makers, and designers of information systems and services within the information professions.
To educate MLIS students with strong professional ethics and a sense of individual, institutional, social and professional responsibility.
To educate MLIS students with the skills to become change agents within their institutions and professional communities.
To educate MLIS students who are able to work effectively in culturally diverse environments.
To educate MLIS students who are committed to their own lifelong continuing professional education.
To redesign our curriculum continuously to reflect faculty strengths and rapidly changing environmental demands.
