Evolving the Curriculum

Wednesday, April 8, 2026

What We Build Together

Hi all, 

Over the past year, this newsletter has created space to recognize the work happening across UMSI student operations. It has surfaced the teaching, mentorship, collaboration, and care that define this community. Reaching this one-year mark is a reminder of how consistently you show up for one another and for our students.

And it has been quite a year. External forces are encouraging us to think about what we do in new ways. Throughout this semester, we have been having several conversations about evolving our curriculum. How we incorporate AI into our learning objectives while recognizing the limitations of that technology. How we create new pedagogical exercises that attract and engage students. How we offer new types of content that the market is looking for. How we prepare our students for a market that is shifting rapidly. Special thanks to Tanya Rosenblat, Tawanna Dillahunt, Mark Newman, Steve Oney, and Josh Lee for leading those conversations.

Having listened to those meetings (and probably having spoken in them too much), I can see we’ve made a lot of progress, and we still have a ways to go. I believe we are circling in on a mix of theory and practice that will help set our students up for offering evergreen skills in their future careers. Many faculty are experimenting with new teaching techniques and new content in their courses. We continue to expand our curriculum and faculty are leading new courses for us. All of this is good work. Where we still have to go is to move even further along these lines, to understand even more who our students are and what their career goals are. 

This coming May we will have a retreat to continue to have these discussions and prepare for another year of rapid evolution in what and how we teach. We will talk about change management, and how to do this in a way that doesn’t unduly burden any given person. We will talk about how faculty and staff can work together to make the holistic student experience build towards something that is valuable. I look forward to that conversation.

Thank you for the many ways you contribute to this community.

Best,

Cliff 

Associate Dean for Academic Affairs

University of Michigan School of Information