One unique offering of the MSL program is “Power Weeks.”  Held four times each year, Power Weeks offer MSL students the opportunity to take a variety of courses that are compressed in terms of time and content – Power Week courses are a quick, robust, and fully-immersive exploration of a topic of interest to MSL students.

This MSL Course Highlight focuses on one of the classes offered in the recent Fall 1 Power Week: Data in Society.

Data in Society is taught by Hudson Hollister, an attorney, adjunct Professor, and the founder and CEO of HData, a technology company whose goal is to help organizations navigate regulatory schemes more effectively. Professor Hollister has been a trailblazer in advocating for data transparency; he helped to craft key data reforms, including the DATA Act of 2014.

Data in Society explores the impact of technological advances on the way organizations generate and use data. The increasing ease with which data flows through the system creates opportunities for public and private organizations to run more efficiently, but that ease also gives rise to new potential issues related to privacy, security breaches, and market power (among many others). Data in Society looks at the implications of the current data revolution through the lenses of management, government, daily life, and the law. The course also considers how society will change as it begins to deal with data and information in new ways.

The class consisted of asynchronous content – readings and video interviews – as well as lively class sessions that included guest experts from a variety of technology, legal, and enterprise management settings. The course culminated in individual presentations, during which each student applied a class topic to an industry or field of their interest.

Data in Society offers MSL students the opportunity to study a topic that is becoming increasingly relevant in our daily lives – data and its use. This is a quintessential MSL subject because it sits squarely at intersection of technology, business, law, and regulation. Insight gained from this class will allow MSL students to understand and prepare for the increasing importance of information in the current business and legal environments. And to the extent this class piqued students’ interest – and we know it did! – there will be a number of other data-related courses in the MSL curriculum for students to explore; some of those classes will be the topic of future MSL Course Highlights. Stay tuned!