CAUSE Professional Paper Series, #16

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Professional Paper, #16

About the Authors

Polley A. McClure ([email protected]) is Vice President, Chief Information Officer, and Professor of Environmental Science at the University of Virginia. Currently she is chairing or serving on six boards and committees that advance the mission of higher education, including the CAUSE Board of Directors. In 1993 she won the CAUSE/EFFECT Contributor of the Year Award for her collaborative paper, "Administrative Workstation Project at Indiana University." She often works in partnership with others as she values the fresh insights and strong professional relationships that collaboration fosters. McClure earned her Ph.D. in zoology at the University of Texas at Austin and in 1983 became a full professor at Indiana University. There she was appointed Dean for Academic Computing in 1987. From this position, she launched one of the earliest mergers of administrative and academic computing centers, creating what is now University Computing Services (UCS). After serving two years as Executive Director of UCS, McClure was appointed Associate Vice President of Information Resources, a position she held until she joined the University of Virginia in 1992.

John W. Smith ([email protected]), Technology Planning Associate at the University of Virginia since 1993, is a true information technology eclectic. Eager to embrace new technologies and study their impact on human culture, Smith writes extensively on technology planning, the ethics of technology, and technology futures (http://poe.acc.virginia.edu/~jws3g). He has served in academic departments and computing support, and managed entrepreneurial start-up projects. Smith's technology career began at Indiana University in the late 1960s, where he helped transition the medical sciences research and instructional environments from kymograph and inductorium to computer-based data acquisition and analysis. He served as the first manager of the Small Computer Support Group and in later positions helped shape the institution's vision of computing as Technical Advisor to the Dean for Academic Computing. He then served as Facilities Director of the computer science department, where he led the department's transition from a time-shared UNIX environment to the far more flexible distributed environment.

Toby D. Sitko ([email protected]) is Director of Information Technology Customer Services at the University of Houston. To manage demand for broader, deeper, and ever more specialized IT services, she and her colleagues are defining a new IT support structure at UH. Major initiatives include developing an integrated IT Support Center to handle centralized computing, telecommunications, and media support services. Projects also include building a full-service Faculty Technologies Lab to support multimedia development and establishing a distributed support program for IT. As the University makes major investments in the network and workstation infrastructure and in "smart" electronic classrooms, the Customer Services staff is quickly adapting to support them. Sitko's work and collaboration with Polley A. McClure and John W. Smith began during her twelve-year tenure at Indiana University in the 1980s and early 1990s. There she served in various leadership roles and helped guide the integration of the academic and administrative computing centers into a single technology unit. In this new environment, User Services aggressively focused its support effort on providing online tools that enable users to be more self-sufficient.

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	Polley A. McClure ([email protected]) is Vice President, Chief Information Officer, and Professor of Environmental Science at the University of Virginia. Currently she is chairing or serving on six boards and committees that advance the mission of higher education, including the CAUSE Board of Directors. In 1993 she won the CAUSE/EFFECT Contributor of the Year Award for her collaborative paper, "Administrative Workstation Project at Indiana University." She often works in partnership with others as she values the fresh insights and strong professional relationships that collaboration fosters. McClure earned her Ph.D. in zoology at the University of Texas at Austin and in 1983 became a full professor at Indiana University. There she was appointed Dean for Academic Computing in 1987. From this position, she launched one of the earliest mergers of administrative and academic computing centers, creating what is now University Computing Services (UCS). After serving two years as Executive Director of UCS, McClure was appointed Associate Vice President of Information Resources, a position she held until she joined the University of Virginia in 1992.
	John W. Smith ([email protected]), Technology Planning Associate at the University of Virginia since 1993, is a true information technology eclectic. Eager to embrace new technologies and study their impact on human culture, Smith writes extensively on technology planning, the ethics of technology, and technology futures (http://poe.acc.virginia.edu/~jws3g). He has served in academic departments and computing support, and managed entrepreneurial start-up projects. Smith's technology career began at Indiana University in the late 1960s, where he helped transition the medical sciences research and instructional environments from kymograph and inductorium to computer-based data acquisition and analysis. He served as the first manager of the Small Computer Support Group and in later positions helped shape the institution's vision of computing as Technical Advisor to the Dean for Academic Computing. He then served as Facilities Director of the computer science department, where he led the department's transition from a time-shared UNIX environment to the far more flexible distributed environment.
	Toby D. Sitko ([email protected]) is Director of Information Technology Customer Services at the University of Houston. To manage demand for broader, deeper, and ever more specialized IT services, she and her colleagues are defining a new IT support structure at UH. Major initiatives include developing an integrated IT Support Center to handle centralized computing, telecommunications, and media support services. Projects also include building a full-service Faculty Technologies Lab to support multimedia development and establishing a distributed support program for IT. As the University makes major investments in the network and workstation infrastructure and in "smart" electronic classrooms, the Customer Services staff is quickly adapting to support them. Sitko's work and collaboration with Polley A. McClure and John W. Smith began during her twelve-year tenure at Indiana University in the 1980s and early 1990s. There she served in various leadership roles and helped guide the integration of the academic and administrative computing centers into a single technology unit. In this new environment, User Services aggressively focused its support effort on providing online tools that enable users to be more self-sufficient.