To help meet the demand of professionals in understanding information technology, the Media Studies Department is proposing the addition of a new master's degree in digital humanities.
The Faculty Senate Academic Affairs Committee approved an initial proposal for the program on Jan. 29. The entire Faculty Senate will vote on the proposal in today's meeting.
According to Assoc. English Prof. John Unsworth, the proposed master's program is "nationally one of the first programs of this sort."
It also would be the first graduate component of the Media Studies program, Unsworth said.
The proposal states the need for a program to produce "trained professionals who understand both the humanities and information technology."
According to the proposal, the program would offer graduate students "the training to apply information technology to the intellectual content of the humanities and to experiment with the analytical possibilities that information technology offers the humanities."
One asset of the program that has generated support is the incorporation of a variety of departments at the University, former Faculty Senate Chairman David T. Gies said.
The proposal states that the core requirements would be fulfilled in the Media Studies Department. But in addition to enrolling in humanities electives in the College, students would have the opportunity to fulfill their humanities electives in the University's other schools, such as the Law School or Education School.
Students in the program would participate in internships, teach seminars and lead discussions for MDST 110, Information Technology and Digital Media.
To receive the master's degree, students also will have to demonstrate competency in at least one computer programming language, which could be fulfilled by taking a computer science course in the Engineering School.
About 15 students would be accepted each year, he said.
Estimated total costs for the program are about $291,000. Included in this are the costs of paying students in the program to staff MDST 110 and paying faculty to teach six new courses each year and supervise theses.
"I am optimistic that it will pass," Unsworth said.
There has been a lot of student interest in the program and no detectable resistance to it, Gies said.
If the Faculty Senate approves the new proposal they will send it to the Board of Visitors and the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia.
If passed, the earliest the program could start admitting students is fall 2002, Unsworth said.
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