Last modified: Monday, January 27, 2003
A new roof over IT's head
Nation's first School of Informatics coalesces in 10th St. building
The Indiana University School of Informatics officially gets a new home in Bloomington at 4:30 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 30, with university VIPs and Indiana political notables on hand to witness the school building's dedication.
"The School of Informatics, like technology, is dynamic, collaborative, and growing rapidly," said school dean Michael Dunn. "This building means a great deal to me, our faculty, our staff, and our students."
The new building, located at the corner of East 10th Street and Woodlawn Avenue, formerly housed the Alpha Omicron Pi sorority, which left the premises in 1996.
The growth of the nation's first school of informatics since its 2000 inception reflects a commitment by Indiana University and the state of Indiana to establish the school as one of the nation's premier centers for informatics research and education. Previously, classes and informatics faculty and staff offices were spread across the Bloomington campus. Indiana University also has informatics programs at IUPUI and IU South Bend.
Informatics studies the application of information technology (IT) to the arts, sciences and professions and examines how organizations and individuals use IT. A burgeoning of raw computer data in fields as diverse as human genome science and Internet service has led to an increased demand for informatics experts who can bring meaning to intimidating oceans of data. Informatics experts can, for example, help businesses make better decisions by using computers and other information technology to organize the businesses' own computer-stored sales data.
Transition to the new building was paid for from the budgets of the School of Informatics and Indiana University.
