2017 Community Leadership Award Recipient

Mark Bruhn

Associate Vice President for Public Safety and Institutional Assurance, Indiana University

For meritorious leadership and advocacy in higher education security and policy practices at the campus, state, and national levels; for leading the development of a national center for information sharing and analysis of higher education security issues; for mentorship and community-building within the security sector in service to higher education

This year, EDUCAUSE is granting its Community Leadership Award to Mark Bruhn, associate vice president for public safety and institutional assurance at Indiana University (IU), for his wide-ranging and tireless efforts in leading and advancing the critical work of the higher education security community.

At Indiana University, Mark’s visionary leadership has led to IU’s national prominence in the areas of technology and information security, policy, and privacy. During his three decades at the university, Mark has served in several positions of increasing responsibility to meet the continually shifting and expanding security landscape. Currently, Mark not only continues as the executive responsible for information security, privacy, and policy for IU but also, for the past eight years, has taken the lead in other important areas of safety and security, including emergency management, environmental health and safety, law enforcement, events management, and physical security for more than 130,000-plus faculty, staff, and students on eight campuses across the state of Indiana.

Mark played a leading role in identifying the need for, and then conceptualizing a plan for, a national information-sharing and analysis center to serve the higher education community. In 2002, he co-founded the Research and Educational Networking Information Sharing and Analysis Center (REN-ISAC), based at Indiana University, which provides critical threat information to institutions, along with recommendations on mitigating these risks. As a testament to Mark’s executive oversight and community-driven approach to improving cybersecurity, REN-ISAC has grown substantially—from 60 institutions in 2006 to over 560 institutions in 2017—and has dramatically changed the way the higher education community shares security information across institutions.

Among his many other accomplishments, Mark led a project to develop the Indiana Information Interchange, forerunner of the current Indiana University Information Environment. In a stint as associate vice president for telecommunications, he was the university’s lead executive on the advancement of I-Light, Indiana’s statewide optical network for higher education, a process requiring extensive work with elected state officials, state agencies, and CIOs at colleges and universities throughout the state. He is an adjunct faculty member at Indiana University and was instrumental in the creation of the IU Center for Applied Cybersecurity Research, where he serves as the associate director.

Mark has been active in all aspects of EDUCAUSE involvement: writing, mentoring, presenting, and taking on numerous volunteer roles, including serving as chair of the EDUCAUSE Annual Conference Program Committee in 2010. He has authored or coauthored many publications and has provided peer assessments for other colleges and universities to offer sound advice and best practices for reducing security risks. He was a founding member of the Higher Education Information Security Council (HEISC), originally established (in 2000) by EDUCAUSE and Internet2 as the Security Task Force. Over his long tenure with HEISC, he has been instrumental in advancing the topics of policy, legal, compliance, and security awareness, among many other issues. He was part of a dedicated group that helped launch the EDUCAUSE Security Professionals Conference in 2004, and through his involvement with IU’s Center for Applied Cybersecurity Research (CACR), he established an annual Indiana statewide security conference that has served as a model for other regions.

Over the span of his career, Mark has been a voice of clarity and authority for security issues in higher education and a role model for others in the IT profession. Cited for his generosity of spirit and his ability to foster strong partnerships and bring people together around a common cause, Mark exemplifies the qualities of a true leader in our community.

The EDUCAUSE Community Leadership Award recipient receives a $3,000 contribution to the fund of their choice. The contribution in Mark’s name will be split evenly and go to “The Sgt. Tim Lewis Memorial Fund,” which is used to support students accepted into the Indiana University Police Academy, and the Indian Creek Volunteer Fire Department in Bedford, IN.

This EDUCAUSE Award is sponsored by Moran Technology Consulting, Gold Partner.