Bridging the Campus with Data at a Small Liberal Arts College

Oregon Convention Center 

The Data Science & Society (DSS) initiative at Vassar College officially launched in 2022-23, in response to years of growing campus-wide interest in "data." A group of faculty representing 8 different departments and programs, including one DSS post-doctoral fellow, has led the initiative to cast a vision for DSS at Vassar. In its early stages, we have hosted focus groups on campus, visited peer institutions with data science programs, organized a colloquium series, offered technical workshops, and established a faculty-student small grant program. We are also developing courses and a curricular program that will meet the demand for education in DSS at Vassar, while maintaining the College's liberal arts mission. In this talk, we share more about each of these efforts. We also reflect on support received from our campus community, as well as challenges faced and lessons learned in this on-going and exciting work-in-progress.