“Looking at what the school has accomplished so far, it’s not hard to see our enormous potential for the future,” Thomas said. “Our school already has been recognized for innovation by the Smithsonian Institution and our programs of education, outreach and research are having an impact across our Commonwealth and beyond.”

As of May 2001, IST had 72 faculty members at 19 Penn State campuses teaching a total of 2,572 Penn State students, more than half of whom were seeking IST bachelor’s or associate degrees. In addition to these individuals were 400 “virtual students” enrolled in IST’s on-line certificate programs, the most popular of which prepares students to become Webmasters through the World Campus.

Thomas said that for early 2002, IST’s goal is to offer programs at 21 Penn State campuses for at least 3,500 undergraduates. Another goal is to open IST’s first professional master’s degree and master’s of science degree in the fall 2002 semester. The statewide faculty is anticipated to number more than 90.

Thomas added that research by IST’s faculty is breaking ground on a number of fronts including digital libraries, Web analysis and search engines, database/image search and retrieval, multilingual e-commerce, human-computer interaction and more.

The dean also noted that the groundbreaking for the first IST building at University Park campus is anticipated this fall, with work on it continuing into 2003. Meanwhile, members of the first incoming class of Ph.D. students for IST, also slated to begin this fall, are being selected now as the school continues and expands its outreach efforts.

“Our 2000 Faculty Academy program on how to put electronic learning into effect in higher education was attended by more than 200 people from 51 institutions in the Commonwealth,” Thomas said. “We are repeating the program this June with the new twist of including teachers ranging from the kindergarten to graduate school levels.

“We are also continuing to build educational collaboration with other Pennsylvania institutions like Juniata College, Cheyney University, Neumann College, Lock Haven University, Holy Family College, Northampton Community College and others.”

Another IST outreach initiative is the Pennsylvania Governor’s School for Information Technology (PGSIT). Now in its third year, PGSIT is jointly sponsored by Penn State and Drexel University and targets advanced and talented Pennsylvania high school students who are interested in cutting-edge cyber topics.

**gwc**

Contact: Gary W. Cramer, Penn State Department of Public Information, at (814) 865-7517 or gwc104@psu.edu