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About EDUCAUSE
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EDUCAUSE Honors Outstanding Leaders and Innovative Achievements in Higher Education Information Technology
The EDUCAUSE annual awards recognize exemplary achievement in six areas of higher education information technology: leadership, professional writing, administrative information systems, information technology solutions, networking, and teaching and learning. Winners of the 2005 awards will be honored before more than 6,000 of their higher education colleagues at the association’s annual conference this October in Orlando. For more information on the EDUCAUSE awards program, see www.educause.edu/awards/. To identify sessions at the annual conference in which the award winners will highlight their achievements, see www.educause.edu/awardsatE05. The EDUCAUSE Leadership AwardsOne of the most important priorities of EDUCAUSE awards is to encourage and reward individual growth within the profession of higher education information technology management. This program honors prominent leaders for significant achievement and broad influence. The program is sponsored by SunGard SCT, An EDUCAUSE Platinum Partner. Excellence in Leadership—for extraordinary effectiveness, statesmanship, and influence, on both individual campuses and the wider higher education community
Bleed’s distinguished career has provided leadership and service to a variety of constituencies for over 39 years. At the Maricopa Community Colleges, through his executive role as vice chancellor, he raised the bar for technology implementation and utilization to the point that Maricopa is nationally recognized as a leader in this arena and an exemplar among community colleges. He was a founder of the League for Innovation’s computer conference, which became one of the largest-attended in the field. He has served his profession as chair of the EDUCAUSE Board of Directors for two terms, board chair of CAUSE and vice-chair of Educom, and as an important facilitator of the merger of those two organizations. Bleed has brought vision and expertise to the international consulting community, including serving as a visiting scholar for the Salzburg Seminar, and to many corporate advisory councils including those of Microsoft, Apple, HP, and Oracle. His interests in the teaching and learning space extend to original research on large-enrollment courses as the focus for strategies for instructional innovation, serving on the advisory board of MERLOT—the Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching, supporting library transformations, and introducing new ideas into building architectures. His writings and presentations are many and varied. His leadership is marked by a focus on individuals, especially students, as evidenced in his challenge to “build into our systems and our personal and professional behavior the mentoring capability that supports the making of meaning by the students of this new era.” In announcing the Excellence in Leadership Award, EDUCAUSE President Brian L. Hawkins said, “Ron Bleed is one of those rare leaders who blends imaginative foresight with informed hindsight, determination with warmth, and organizational acumen with a valuing of the individual. He has impressively led his home system, countless emerging leaders, and the information technology profession through four decades of advancement.” EDUCAUSE is making a $5,000 contribution in Ron Bleed’s name to the Maricopa Colleges Foundation for tuition scholarships for students enrolled in digital storytelling courses. Leadership in the Profession—for exceptionally effective leadership in campus information technology use and management, and the mentoring of other professionals
Stunden has demonstrated strong and groundbreaking leadership in the information technology business since her first IT management position 37 years ago. For the past 15 years, she has been providing that leadership to higher education IT organizations, serving at the University of Rochester, Northwestern University, and Cornell University before taking on her current role at Wisconsin in 2000. A cofounder and executive director of the Northern Tier Network Consortium, she has also been instrumental in making UW–Madison expertise and resources available to other system campuses through supporting the creation of shared facilities such as Learn@UW, a UW system-wide utility providing course management software for 26 campuses, and IAA, a central identification, authentication, and authorization service for all UW institutions. Stunden has contributed volunteer leadership to such organizations as CREN and CAUSE (serving on the boards of both), the SIGUCCS Management Institute, the Seminars on Academic Computing, the CIC-CIO group, NYSERNet, and the Internet2 Network Planning and Policy Advisory Council, as well as to numerous advisory committees of vendors serving higher education. She has been a popular faculty member of the CAUSE and EDUCAUSE Institutes, and her many presentations receive high marks for her perceptive, colorful, and articulate insights into issues of institutional, organizational, and national importance. Throughout her career, according to the award selection committee, “Stunden has aimed to strike the right balance between organizational goals and individual concerns, innovative technologies and ease of use, with a focus on the community and how best to serve the client.” A role model and mentor for many who have emerged as leaders in our profession, she has dedicated her higher education career to fostering collaborations among colleagues and leading efforts to provide the best IT environment possible in support of teaching, research, and service. She attributes much of her success as a leader to her candor and commitment to truth telling. EDUCAUSE is making a $2,000 contribution in Annie Stunden’s name to the Information Technology Academy (ITA) sponsored by the University of Wisconsin–Madison Division of Information Technology. ITA is a four-year precollege technology access and training program for talented students of color and economically disadvantaged students attending Madison public schools. Leadership in Public Policy and Practice— for prominence in the arena of national and international technology agendas, and the linking of higher education to those agendas
Lynch has provided stellar leadership to the Coalition for Networked Information (CNI), an organization dedicated to supporting the transformative promise of networked information technology for the advancement of scholarly communication and the enrichment of intellectual productivity, which is cosponsored by the Association of Research Libraries and EDUCAUSE. Lynch is a leading analyst of technology trends in education, libraries, publishing, and cultural arenas, and an advisor to organizations and leaders involved in those fields. Prior to joining CNI in 1997 he spent 18 years at the University of California Office of the President, the last 10 as director of library automation. For well over 20 years he has been at the leading edge, developing studies, practices, and policies that have helped library and IT professionals understand and employ significant innovations in making networked information available to faculty, students, and the general public, with particular attention to the policy implications of technical issues. A prolific writer and speaker, Lynch has worked with leading boards on digital preservation, national and international networking, and intellectual property issues. He is an adjunct professor at UC Berkeley’s School of Information Management and Systems, a past president of the American Society for Information Science, and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the National Information Standards Organization. He serves on the National Digital Preservation Strategy Advisory Board of the Library of Congress, and has been a member of U.S. National Research Council committees addressing copyright in the digital environment, broadband deployment, and most recently digital archiving at the National Archives and Records Administration. The Vionovich Award for Information Innovation recently recognized him as “an individual who develops and champions solutions to the problem of connecting people and information effectively and efficiently.” EDUCAUSE is making two $1,000 contributions in Clifford Lynch’s name, to the School of Information Management and Systems at the University of California, Berkeley, and to the Paul Evan Peters Fellowship administered by the Coalition for Networked Information. The Peters Fellowship assists students pursuing graduate studies in the information sciences or librarianship who demonstrate intellectual and personal qualities consistent with those of Paul Evan Peters, CNI’s founding executive director. EDUCAUSE Quarterly Contribution of the Year AwardProfessional growth requires a steady flow of reliable, relevant information. One of the fundamental means for transmitting significant experience among colleagues is through publication in peer-reviewed journals. This award program encourages such effort by honoring unusually effective and well-reasoned articulation of professional experience that will be of use to other institutions and individuals. The program is sponsored by SunGard SCT, An EDUCAUSE Platinum Partner. “Whose System Is It, Anyway? Partnering with Faculty in Administrative Systems” Lea Pennock Rick Bunt Drawing on lessons learned in an earlier software implementation, IT staff at the University of Saskatchewan approached the replacement of an aging student information system with careful attention to developing partnerships with campus colleagues. Their project management approach accommodated the unique, collegial business model offered by a university, particularly the “faculty factor.” Along the way, they demonstrated that involving the faculty in planning and implementing an administrative system can foster campus-wide engagement and support. The award selection committee said, “This clearly written and compelling article deals skillfully with the big-picture aspects of a major technology project, explicating the essential lesson that it’s not really the technology that matters but managing the changes that a new technology brings.” The full text of the article is accessible from www.educause.edu/AwardWinners/1374. As part of their award, the two authors will share a $1,000 stipend. Award for Excellence in Administrative Information SystemsThe backbone of the institution is its administrative and business functions, supporting and linking academic and scholarly activities. This award honors innovative and noteworthy applications or practices that use information technologies to improve the administrative processes of the institution with creativity, efficiency, and effectiveness worthy of emulation. The program is sponsored by SunGard SCT, An EDUCAUSE Platinum Partner. The New Jersey Institute of Technology Both the impetus and control of the project depended heavily on user involvement and input. SEMS was developed largely by teams of graduate students, with UIS overseeing and directing the student’s work. The resulting application has improved student employment processing significantly. Among the administrative and support highlights are:
Partially implemented in fall 2002 with full deployment in fall 2004, SEMS has significantly improved satisfaction of students, employers, and administrative offices. The application is highly adaptable for other institutions wanting to centralize student employment processes. It could be deployed at various degrees, from department- to institution-wide. Award for Excellence in Information Technology SolutionsThis program honors original and creative campus projects that apply emerging technologies to improve the scholarship, service, or management practices and policies of the institution or that have the potential for changing the technology infrastructure so that new technology solutions become possible. Virginia Alliance for Secure Computing & Networking (VA SCAN)
Services include educating staff about digital security and ways to minimize threats, providing IT security training and consultation, and maintaining Web-based security-enhancing tools. Alliance members maintain an “ask-the-expert” e-mail service, a moderated mail list for general security discussions, and a specialized mail list providing security alerts. Among the Web-based resources are a self-assessment checklist, materials with which to conduct user and technical training, and links to other resources. All services are offered free or on a cost-recovery basis, and are not limited to members of the alliance. According to the award selection committee, “This alliance offers a model for resource sharing and collaborative problem solving and clearly addresses a critical issue with foresight and pragmatism.” Award for Excellence in Networking: Innovation in Network Technology, Services, and ManagementCrucial to the effective use of information technologies on today’s campuses is a solid, reliable, pervasive network infrastructure. This award honors innovative programs or practices that improve network infrastructure and architecture, integration, and quality of service on campus or within an educational system and that have a positive effect on the campus community or a significant subcommunity. The program is sponsored by Cisco Systems, Inc., An EDUCAUSE Platinum Partner. Coppin State University The comprehensive project included new cable plant infrastructure for academic buildings, library, and student union; VoIP PBX and 600 VoIP phones; remote buildings connected to the main campus via wireless for voice, data, and e-mail; unified messaging services; smart classrooms and instructional technology software; and a sophisticated threat-protection system. Noteworthy features include
The award selection committee said, “Transformation at Coppin State has been informed by clear awareness of the institution’s mission and the unique needs of its urban clientele. In addition to providing a state-of-the-art 24 x 7 IT infrastructure, the university has boosted student enrollment, energized faculty, and enabled expansion of important community activities. It has empowered students and their families by making them active participants in the Net Generation.” Award for Systemic Progress in Teaching and Learning (two winners)This program recognizes transformative improvements in the campus teaching and learning culture. It honors replicable, sustainable, technology-based programs and practices that have helped move institutions or systems toward effective, enterprise-wide, learner-centered instructional systems. The award is designed to encourage development of new collegiate learning environments that harness the power of information technology to improve the quality of teaching and learning, contain or reduce rising costs, and provide greater access to higher education. This program is expected to contribute to the creation of a base of accepted practice and principles for support of learner-centered teaching and learning. This program is sponsored by WebCT, An EDUCAUSE Gold Partner. University of Central Florida
Today, the initiative encompasses 14 online degree programs and hundreds of hybrid and Web-enhanced courses (over 3,200 online courses overall), and cumulatively generates more than 12 percent of the university’s annual student credit hour production. Student registration in online course sections almost always reaches capacity before face-to-face sections, and students rate their online courses as excellent up to 14 percent more often than they do their face-to-face courses. “The success of UCF’s online learning initiative is attributable to close alignment with institutional goals, skillful execution, a faculty-centered approach based on a nationally recognized faculty development process, and continuous, rigorous assessment,” said the award selection committee. Online@UCF is producing strategic benefits for UCF because it “improves teaching, enhances student learning, expands access to high demand programs, and helps the university manage growth,” stated UCF President John Hitt. “The rapid acceptance of online learning and the resulting qualitative outcomes are transforming teaching and learning at the University of Central Florida.” Virginia Tech Today, 85 percent of the university academic departments participate in online distance education. More than 90 percent of the faculty have participated in Faculty Development Institute programs, leading to more than 100 course transformation projects over the past five years through grants totaling more than $3.1 million. The Math Emporium alone serves 6,000 students each semester. Among the many outcomes of Virginia Tech’s efforts are
The award selection committee said, “Overall, this exemplary set of activities at Virginia Tech has expanded the university’s leadership role in the effective integration of instructional technology with pedagogy and enabled the university to serve as a model and a resource for other institutions across the state and the nation.” About EDUCAUSE
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| Unless otherwise noted, EDUCAUSE holds the copyright on all materials published by the association, whether in print or electronic form. In certain cases the work remains the intellectual property of the individual author(s) (see Special Circumstances). Content from conference speeches, presentations, blogs, wikis and feeds reflect the opinions of the author, and not necessarily those of EDUCAUSE or its members. | |||||
Ronald Bleed
Annie Stunden
Clifford A. Lynch
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