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October 2022
Dear Faculty, Staff and Students in the Klingler College of Arts & Sciences,
Midsemester greetings! With changing leaves and cooler temperatures, autumn in Milwaukee
is in full swing. I hope that midterm exams and assignments have given you a chance
to reflect upon the past several weeks and to set goals for the rest of the semester.
October is Cybersecurity Awareness Month, so this seems like the perfect time to remind faculty and staff to complete the
Marquette cybersecurity awareness education training, as announced in Marquette Today. This is also a great opportunity to highlight our programs in
data science, computer science and mathematical and statistical sciences. This month
our Center for Data, Ethics and Society together with the Center for Cybersecurity Awareness and Cyber Defense hosted a symposium on ethical hacking. Recently the Civic Dialogues program hosted a panel on The Power of Big Tech. Such events build upon our college’s strengths including nationally ranked programs
like the Ph.D. in Computational Mathematical and Statistical Sciences, the Master’s
in Computer and Information Science and our undergraduate major in Computer Science.
The Department of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences and the Department of Computer Science serve as hubs for the study of data science at Marquette, which in fact spans departments
across our college and the university.
Marquette has unique opportunities to engage in data science research and teaching
from broader and deeper perspectives. Data science, computer science or statistical
and mathematical sciences are foundational to a number of projects animated by our
mission. In addition to data ethics, examples include community engaged projects in
the Near West Side aided by geospatial mapping, the Poverty Research Initiative and the BLEST Hub as well as confidential computing, hazard mapping, solutions to food insecurity,
peer health education, medical imaging and mathematics education. We are increasing
our investment in mathematics preparation, working to ensure that we meet students
where they are to provide the needed support for their success. The 2022 Way Klingler Teaching Enhancement Grant went to a team including A&S faculty to create a new model for math teaching that
may be applied in other fields. Our partnerships across Milwaukee and southeast Wisconsin
are enhanced by the Northwestern Mutual Data Science Institute and engagement with organizations like the Milwaukee Tech Hub Coalition and the Milky Way Tech Hub as well as the annual Summerfest Tech event.
Whether or not we are data science specialists, we all are called to engage with the
ethical implications of the increasingly techno-scientific world in which we live.
Witness the Vatican’s special interest in artificial intelligence (AI), due in part
to the understanding of the human being implicit in AI and machine learning. (See,
for instance, the Rome Call for AI Ethics.) There are many facets of data science that we should think about from a Catholic
perspective—for example, what it means when websites are harvesting and selling our
personal information, which biases may be embedded in algorithms or how big data constitutes
us as certain kinds of subjects. We have an opportunity, then, to ask: How might we
develop the best data science approaches and tools to promote human flourishing? How
to frame these areas to advance the Universal Apostolic Preferences of the Society of Jesus? How might we serve as a voice for values that transcend what is quantifiable?
All of these efforts illustrate that for the College of Arts and Sciences, the difference
is in the and. Numbers and virtues. Algorithms and principles. We will continue to seek ways to make the best use of data while keeping
our core purpose front and center. We are blessed at Marquette with a top-notch Office
of Institutional Research and Assessment that provides a wealth of information, much
of it publicly accessible on dataMarq. We must make data-informed decisions, balancing the numerical with the missional.
Such a balance was much in evidence in two recent Arts and Sciences meetings. During
the week of October 17 we hosted both the A&S Campaign Committee, which drives us
toward achieving our college goals in the Time To Rise fundraising campaign, and the College Leadership Council, comprised of alumni who
provide advice while serving as ambassadors for the college. Our work is enriched
in so many ways thanks to these groups of dedicated supporters.
In closing, I want to express my gratitude to the many faculty, staff and students
who have helped at Discovery Days and other Admissions events to welcome prospective
students and their families to campus. Prospective students who come to campus are
highly likely to enroll at Marquette. We know that students who have the opportunity to come here and experience our campus
firsthand often fall in love with the place. Thank you!
As always, please feel free to contact me with questions, concerns or suggestions. I appreciate hearing from you and exploring
ways we can all work together for the common good.
Dr. Heidi Bostic
Dean, Klingler College of Arts and Sciences
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