Welcome IT Minor Students!

April 2008 update: Our list of Fall 2008 classes and the requirements for the IT Minor can be found in the Courses section of the website (see NavBar at right).

Are you graduating in May 2008? If you, make sure you've checked in with advisor Glenn Caffery to be sure you have all the requirements you need for the Minor! Once you're in your final semester (or have completed all your classes), you can fill out the Completion of Minor form available on our Forms and Documents page to make your minor official!

UMass Amherst Recognized Nationally for its IT Minor

The "phenomenal" IT minor played an important role in naming UMass Amherst Microsoft's first IT Showcase School in the nation, according to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. The IT-across-the-curriculum approach of the IT minor allows students to incorporate IT into any major and gain the skills necessary to succeed in a variety of careers. More...

Interdisciplinary IT Capstone in Holyoke

Ten women and six men from departments ranging from Computer Science to English are enrolled in this first year of our IT Capstone. They have organized into four teams and are now working on how best to apply IT to further the good work of community partners in Holyoke and Athol. More...

Learning Commons Is Here!

An October 21st dedication ceremony officially launched the new Learning
Commons (LC) after a two-year campus-wide planning effort. The LC brings together library, technology, and many other campus services in an environment that fosters informal, collaborative work and social interaction. For the IT Program, the LC is an infrastructure to support
our work in Information Technology education across the curriculum. More...

Application for new IT Capstone.

The new interdisciplinary IT Capstone Course, to be offered for the first time this coming fall, is now accepting applications. This course will be an opportunity for students to work in diverse teams to meet community needs through information technology.

IT Program invited to symposium.

The IT program was invited to join four other institutions-- Claremont- McKenna, George Mason, DePauw, and North Carolina State--at a symposium in May to develop a set of best practices for systemic IT across the curriculum (ITAC) programs. Each of these institutions has a successful ITAC program, although the approaches differ from ours substantially.

IT Capstone wins funding.

CITI, the Commonwealth Information Technology Initiative, awarded the IT Program $23,000 through a competitive RFP process. Funds will be used to hire faculty to develop course materials for an exciting new team capstone course that will be offered this fall, and to perform a formal assessment of the course experience. Faculty will be hired with expertise in needs assessment, design, project management, writing and presentation, team building, legal and ethical issues, and community service learning.

IT Program in new collaboration.

UMass Amherst will partner with Worcester State College, Salem State College, and Bristol Community College to strengthen IT across the Curriculum (ITAC) programs across the state. The partnership will 1) develop internship and recruitment relationships with Massachusetts industry for IT Minor students; 2) develop IT Minor recruiting materials based on employee profiles and employment opportunities that rely upon the integration of IT and another field; 3) and develop a proposal to share selected online ITAC courses across institutions statewide. This project will be funded by CITI.

IT Minor Enrollment Growing.

Enrollment in the IT Minor during the Fall 2004 semester was up 86% over the previous fall. Approximately 200 students have enrolled in the IT Minor in the two plus years since its start. An demographic assessment this enrollment is underway