UA President Proposes New School of Data Science for AI Education

University of Alabama President Peter Mohler has formally proposed creating a new School of Data Science dedicated to artificial intelligence education. The announcement came during a press conference at UA's under-construction High Performance Computing and Data Center in Tuscaloosa on April 29, 2026.

The proposal still requires approval from the University of Alabama System Board of Trustees, scheduled to vote on the matter during their June meeting. If approved, the school would be the first of its kind in Alabama and among the first in the Southeast region.

Mohler, who has served as UA's president for nine months, framed the initiative as a workforce development necessity rather than an academic experiment. "Employers are looking for students that have AI competency," he stated during the announcement. "We see workforce, not in the hundreds that are needed, but in the hundreds of thousands."

The new school will offer certificate programs, bachelor's degrees, master's degrees, and doctoral programs. Faculty specialization areas include quantum computing, cybersecurity, materials science, and national defense. Students will integrate technical experience with ethical, social, and economic considerations.

What makes this proposal notable is its cross-disciplinary scope. The school is designed to partner with all 13 colleges and schools at UA, touching thousands of students across nursing, business, law, engineering, and healthcare. This isn't just for computer science majors anymore (a shift that's been coming for years, frankly).

The physical infrastructure backing this initiative is substantial. The High Performance Computing and Data Center is a 40,000-square-foot, $96 million facility expected to complete in early 2027. The building will include high-capacity GPU clusters, petabyte-scale storage, and high-speed networking designed to support campus researchers and statewide collaborations.

Students walking through that facility will encounter server racks humming with processing power, cooling systems working overtime, and workstations capable of handling datasets that would choke typical consumer hardware. It's the kind of infrastructure that transforms abstract AI concepts into tangible, hands-on experience.

Mohler also announced a complementary "AI Experience" initiative launching this fall. The three-hour course will educate every member of the campus community on using AI tools responsibly, protecting data, and developing effective prompting strategies. This universal training runs parallel to the specialized degree programs.

The financial stakes are significant. Mohler noted that workers with AI skills can earn significantly more, sometimes as much as a 65 percent pay increase. Demand for that talent is already outpacing supply in some cases by as much as three to one.

Dr. Brian Butler, dean of UA's College of Communication and Information Sciences, emphasized the broader implications. "This school is part of a larger effort to ensure that all of our students have the core skills they need, no matter what their career is," Butler said. "Understanding data and AI is quickly becoming a basic skill."

This marks the second new school Mohler has proposed during his first year. In November 2025, he announced plans for a School of Leadership and Public Policy, which will begin enrolling students in 2027. The pattern suggests an aggressive institutional restructuring aimed at positioning UA as a national leader in data-driven research.

Independent reporting from AL.com confirms the timeline and program structure outlined in the announcement.

Local coverage from WBRC provides additional context on the facility specifications and Mohler's workforce development rationale.

Artificial intelligence has drawn criticism for ethical and privacy challenges. Mohler acknowledged this tension, stating students need to understand both the negative and positive implications of AI. "Our students and our workforce need to understand how you use that data to make responsible decisions, whether it's in nursing, whether it's in business, whether it's in law going forward."

The proposal will go before the Board of Trustees in June. If approved, UA will begin searching for the school's first dean this fall. Leaders hope to open the School of Data Science in 2027, coinciding with the completion of the High Performance Computing facility.

Whether this translates into actual student enrollment and industry partnerships remains to be seen. Universities announce ambitious initiatives regularly, but execution is where most stumble. The real test comes when students actually sit in those classrooms and employers actually hire graduates.

Artūras Malašauskas is an AI Systems Integrator with 20+ years of production-grade web engineering experience. He has designed, shipped, and scaled enterprise Python/PHP systems for logistics, SaaS, and public-sector clients. For the past year, he has focused exclusively on AI integrations: deploying open-source LLMs, building generative media pipelines (image, audio, video), and engineering multi-agent workflows for real production environments. His standard: reproducibility, security, cost-efficient inference—no vaporware. He documents and evaluates emerging AI tooling, separating verified capabilities from marketing noise. Technical editor at: muza-ai.eu, ai-verslas.lt, ai-naujinos.lt Connect on LinkedIn