Informatics dean to retire

Surrounded by newly vacant bookshelves, a grandfather-like figure sits in front of a large, flashy sign with red lights counting down from eight days, 13 hours, 33 minutes and 8.7 seconds. The 66-year-old man smiles at the makeshift calendar keeping track of the number of days until July 1 – the day he will leave his position as dean of the IU School of Informatics.\nAlthough Dean J. Michael Dunn holds a Ph.D. in philosophy and is a former computer science professor at IU, his work shines in informatics. Perhaps that’s because he’s the one credited with bringing informatics to IU, as well as being the man who convinced the trustees and the University that creating a school of informatics would be worth their time – and the multi-million dollar price tag.\n“It’s really easy to sit down with paper and pencil and design a school,” said former computer science department chairman Dennis Gannon, who worked with Dunn during IU’s establishment of the informatics program. “It is really hard to create it, to convince people that this is the right idea. And so Mike took our pencil and paper design, and he made it real.” \nCreating the school allowed students to combine information technology with an outside interest so they could solve real-life problems in those outside fields, Dunn said. Though he won’t say he penned the idea, Dunn led the committee that shaped the idea and put together the actual proposal for the trustees. \n“I was nervous,” he said. “I think it’s kind of well-known that academic institutions are slow to change.” \nWhat awaited him after the proposal acceptance by the trustees was the opportunity for IU to be nationally-recognized in information technology. Dunn was immediately appointed interim dean by then-IU president Myles Brand, who is now president of the NCAA. But the “interim” part of Dunn’s title was soon dismissed, as Brand “decided to skip that step,” Dunn said. \n“I was so engaged I don’t think I was conscious of the risk,” Dunn said. “Now that I look back, I see I was taking a huge risk.” \nBy fall 2000, IU had a major like none offered by any other university in the country. In one school year alone – from 2003 to 2004 – Dunn had hired 18 new faculty members from around the world. \n“The concept has become nationally much more clear than it was in pioneering times when Mike had to try and find faculty members and develop those courses,” said computer science department chairman Andrew Hanson. \nNow, with 400 informatics students at IU-Bloomington, the program focuses on applying computer science to a separate cognate area of the student’s choice, Dunn said, which can include anything from fine arts to chemistry. \n“A lot of students come with an interest in something else and they realize information technology is central to everything else,” Dunn said. \nDepending on their respective cognate areas, students learn to solve different real world problems using the technology learned in informatics because “informatics can be applied to anything,” Dunn said. Last year’s informatics students created iCycle, a program that tracks Little 500 riders during the race. \nThough Dunn has been the dean for six years at IU, he has been teaching here for 38. His retirement comes due to a University policy that deans must retire by age 65. Dunn was actually given an extra year to better establish the school before passing the torch to his successor, Robert B. Schnabel, vice provost for information technology at the University of Colorado-Boulder. \n“I also think it’s time for somebody new to come in,” Dunn said of his successor, Schnabel. “I’ve sort of taken things to a certain level and somebody else can do the next part.” \nDespite offers to be the dean of similar departments at other universities, Dunn said he isn’t willing to compete with himself. He does not plan to be far from the School of Informatics anytime soon and promises to stay active wherever he can – which he expects to include attending a distinguished faculty summit for Microsoft and researching his self-described “recent passion” of quantum computation. \nRecently, Dunn received the provost medal from Interim Provost and incoming President Michael McRobbie and the Sagamore of the Wabash, which he said is the highest honor Gov. Mitch Daniels bestows.\nMoreso than that, Bloomington is a place Dunn said he isn’t ready to leave quite yet. After all, he originally only planned to be here a few years. \n“You can often tell a job candidate: If you want thousands of times more to do than you can do, go to New York City,” he said. “If you’re content with hundreds of times, come to Bloomington.”