From the Daily Tar Heel (full article):
UNC schools of data science and information science to merge, forming unnamed ‘School of AI’
The UNC School of Data Science and Society and the School of Information and Library Science will be consolidating into a new school focused on artificial intelligence.
SILS and SDSS faculty were informed of the decision on Wednesday at two independent school meetings before it was announced publicly at 1:04 p.m. Thursday, via an email from Chancellor Lee Roberts and Interim Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Jim Dean to the UNC community.
According to a Q and A webpage launched by the Office of the Provost, a formal timeline for the consolidation is still to be determined, but the administration does not expect any changes before the end of the 2025-26 academic year.
"Both SILS and SDSS bring distinct strengths and areas of excellence to Carolina — technical expertise, humanistic inquiry and a deep understanding of the societal implications of emerging technologies," Roberts and Dean wrote. "The new school will grow and amplify the impact of research and scholarship, foster interdisciplinary collaboration and expand opportunities to respond to the challenges of our time."
New leadership structure
Stanley Ahalt, the current dean of SDSS, will serve as the inaugural dean of the new school. Jeffrey Bardzell, the current dean of SILS, "has accepted a secondary appointment as Chief Artificial Intelligence Officer and Vice Provost for AI," according to the campus-wide email.
At the time of publication, Bardzell and Ahalt did not respond to The Daily Tar Heel's requests for comment.
SILS opened in 1931 as the UNC School of Library Science before being renamed in 1987. The School offers an undergraduate major in Information Science, a minor in Information Systems, multiple dual bachelor's-graduate degree programs and six graduate programs in both information and library sciences.
According to the major's webpage on the UNC course catalog, students who graduate from the program pursue careers in "information architecture, database design and implementation, Web design and implementation, business systems analyst, and information consulting." Students pursuing a master's degree in library science may work as library directors, archive managers or database administrators.
SDSS launched in 2022. It currently offers a B.S. in data science and a minor in risk management. A B.A. in data science is also offered via the UNC College of Arts and Sciences' Department of Statistics and Operations Research.
The B.S. in data science comprises six competencies: responsible data science, communication, computational thinking, mathematical and statistical foundations, optimization and AI. The School's vision statement outlines a goal to shape the data science field with a "human-centric approach to the entire data life cycle."
Roberts and Dean wrote in the email that the offered programs will continue.
"Both schools have robust and thriving academic programs, and we hope the new school will support academic program growth, both in terms of enrollment and impact," they wrote.
An untenured SILS faculty member, who requested to remain anonymous due to fears of reprisal from UNC administration, wrote in a statement that the administrative structure of the new school will mirror that of SDSS.
“Those deans, associate deans and staff members who currently work at SILS, a nearly 100-year old institution, with multiple nationally ranked programs, will suddenly be relegated to secondary roles,” they wrote. “We were told that there’s a chancethat all of the administrative positions will be reopened and open to applications, but those in the meeting felt that a competitive hiring process is unlikely.”
Announcement and impacts
Roberts and Dean wrote in the campus-wide email that a task force, advisory committee and multiple working groups will be formed to address the school's creation. Faculty, staff and students will have opportunities to be involved in its implementation.
In an Canvas announcement obtained by The DTH quoting a message from Bardzell, the SILS meeting where the merger was announced — held in Wilson Library — was referenced as an “all-school meeting.”
Some students, like second-year Masters in Library Science student Paxton Martin, saw the message and decided to attend the meeting.
“I asked my professor in that class, and they said that they didn't know if students weren't allowed to attend. So we went to another, more senior professor, who said that students should be allowed within that meeting,” Martin said.
Second-year Master's in Library Science student Abigail Allred, who serves as the President of UNC’s Information and Library Science Student Association, said that in the past, “all-school” meetings usually only referred to faculty, administration and support staff.
Martin said Bardzell saw her at the meeting when it began and did not request for her to leave. She said Bardzell began the meeting with a few announcements before explaining the consolidation plan.
Martin also said Bardzell emphasized that the SILS masters program in library science will not change, that the school will still be accredited and that no one will lose their jobs.
However, Martin said faculty and staff present were extremely concerned about a “hostile takeover” due to the disparity of resources between SDSS and SILS.
“The fact that they are being told this information and the only reassurance that they get is that, ‘Oh, you're not being fired, but you know, the title of your position may change, and you may be forced to be teaching different content,’ I think that’s extremely disrespectful,” she said.
Student and faculty concerns
After Bardzell announced the merger, SILS students at the meeting began messaging about it in a school-wide GroupMe chat.
Summer Stevens, a second-year Master's in Library Science student who serves as the treasurer and secretary for UNC's Society of American Archivists (SCOSAA), was at Wilson Library with other SCOSAA members. After they heard about the merger via the group chat, Stevens said she and about 15 to 20 SCOSAA members tried to enter the meeting room.
As they entered, Stevens said Bardzell asked the newcomers to respectfully leave, with him saying he would be happy to discuss it with them at a later time.
“I think that was really concerning the way that it was handled, and that students were literally kicked out of the meeting,” Stevens said.
Stevens said she felt angry about the decision, not just on behalf of the uninformed students but also for faculty members, who also only found out about the merger at the meeting.
Allred, who discovered the news about the consolidation through the group chat, said she had a one-on-one meeting with Bardzell in September, where he framed himself as wanting to engage with the student body. She voiced similar frustrations about how students and faculty were not given any notice or input in the decision.
The anonymous SILS faculty member wrote in a statement that they were told the new school will be “operational” by July 1, 2026. The University has not released a formal timeline.
The faculty member wrote that Roberts pushed for the new school despite lacking a “cogent idea” as to what the “School of AI” will entail, teach and stand for. They compared the creation of the new school and lack transparency to the
inception of UNC’s School of Civic Life and Leadership.
“The disastrous football coach isn't enough,” they wrote. “The careers of faculty, staff and students at both of these schools are being sacrificed to Roberts’ ego.”
The DTH reached out to Roberts via UNC Media Relations but was redirected to the campus email and did not receive a comment from Roberts at the time of publication.
“The students who have entered the program with the expectation that they are getting a degree from a highly ranked one-hundred year old institution, and are now told that they’re going to be getting a degree from a department in an ill-conceived "School of AI" are feeling, rightfully, betrayed,” the faculty member wrote. “They have been misled, and they are spending considerable money to get this now-tarnished and politically co-opted degree.”
At 11:48 a.m., before the public announcement, SILS Director of Student Services Lori Haight announced via a Microsoft Teams message that students can meet with Bardzell at 4 p.m. Thursday in the SILS library in Manning Hall to voice questions and concerns "about the creation of a new school here at UNC Chapel Hill." The message was promptly deleted and resent via Teams and email after the announcement at 1:06 p.m.
Allred said ILSSA plans to hold its own an emergency general student body meeting on Friday to discuss the merger.
“I want to graduate with a Master's in Library Science from UNC Chapel Hill's School of Information and Library Science, and I know that if it does roll out officially in 2026, then I would be unlikely to be impacted as a second-year,” she said. “But I have already had discussions with first-year [master's students] about whether they should consider transferring out of the program.”
