EDUCAUSE Honors Outstanding Higher Education Information Technology Achievements

At its annual conference this October in Atlanta, EDUCAUSE will recognize outstanding contributions in the use of information technology to support and advance higher education. As one of the preeminent associations addressing these complex challenges, EDUCAUSE supports eight award programs to identify exemplary achievement in key areas of activity. The awards and honorees in 2002 are:

The EDUCAUSE Leadership Awards

One of the most important priorities of EDUCAUSE is to encourage and reward individual growth within the profession of higher education information technology management. This program honors prominent leaders within that field for significant achievement and broad influence. The program is sponsored by SCT, An EDUCAUSE Platinum Partner.

Excellence in Leadership

— for extraordinary effectiveness, influence, statesmanship, and lifetime achievement, on both individual campuses and the wider higher education community

Douglas Van Houweling
President and Chief Executive Officer
Internet2

Across nearly three decades, the career of Dr. Douglas Van Houweling has been characterized by two essential traits: he has been able to identify fundamental shifts in information technologies long before most of his colleagues, and he has then shaped and influenced the evolution and impact of these technologies through his leadership, initiative, and statesmanship.

In the late 1970s, Van Houweling recognized the role of microcomputers as a catalyst for decentralizing management and administrative structures. As director of academic computing and associate director of computer services at Cornell University, he took the lead in convincing the faculty and administration to create a new division, Decentralized Academic Computing Services—revolutionary at a time when minicomputers were still something of a novelty.

In the early 1980s, while many of his colleagues were beginning to accept the personal computer and accompanying decentralized structures, Van Houweling saw the need to protect the information exchange allowed by mainframe time-sharing. As CIO at Carnegie Mellon University he initiated one of the seminal projects in linking personal computers in a networked environment. Several years later, as vice provost for information technology at the University of Michigan, his leadership was critical in bringing together the various constituencies of academic, administrative, research computing, and networking to create one of the strongest central technology organizations in higher education. During his tenure as CIO at Michigan and chairman of MERIT, he created a partnership that included IBM, MCI, and the State of Michigan to respond to an NSF solicitation to upgrade and manage the NSFNET. By the end of the decade, that partnership expanded to include Advanced Network and Services, the nonprofit organization which operated the world's first large-scale Internet backbone; Van Houweling chaired the ANS Board.

The Internet2 project started in 1996 when the NSFNET project was completed. Led by higher education, this consortium was based on partnerships with industry and government. Van Houweling was a member of the planning group and has been the president and CEO of the University Consortium for Advanced Internet Development (UCAID), formed to house the Internet2 project, since its inception. The strength of Internet2 is not just leading-edge technology, but partnerships and collaborations, which have been guided by Van Houweling's vision and extraordinary leadership.

Van Houweling's service to his professional community has included participation on the boards of Educom, CREN, and MERIT, and leadership of the Common Solutions Group. He is a notable speaker, author, and consultant, with a sophisticated knowledge of current and emerging technologies and their importance to higher education.

A graduate of Iowa State University, Dr. Van Houweling received a Ph.D. in government from Indiana Unive

About EDUCAUSE

EDUCAUSE is a nonprofit association whose mission is to advance higher education by promoting the intelligent use of information technology. The current membership comprises more than 2,200 colleges, universities, and educational organizations, including 250 corporations, with 17,000 active members. Learn more about EDUCAUSE at www.educause.edu.