By Ann McBride
Arizona Daily Wildcat
The Conference on Information and Communication Sciences held Friday examined what communication-related studies at the UA should look like in the future.
The one-day conference featured five professional members from the communications field who spoke about rapid changes in technology and how it will affect the job market, society and universities.
The conference was held in conjunction with the Commission on Communications and Information, formed in February by Provost Paul Sypherd to study current communication-related majors at the UA including journalism, media arts, communication, library science, management information systems and computer engineering and computer science.
A 66-page "Discussion Draft" made available during Friday's conference said course analysis "revealed significant overlap in concept and duplication of course offerings across campus." The draft discussed a single degree program which it referred to as "communication, computer and information sciences" and would include aspects from all communication-related majors.
Commission chairman Jay Nunamaker said the interdisciplinary degree program would probably involve five or six degree programs Ÿ rather than only one Ÿ due to the complexity of the many different UA course offerings. Nunamaker said this single or multiple degree program could either be housed in a common location or it could be a "virtual" organization outside of a physical sense.
The commission has not been given the directive to restructure these programs, but is to come up with the overall vision or concept for the program. Nunamaker hopes to present Sypherd with the "vision" by the end of December.