Campus Briefs
TECHNOLOGY HAPPENINGS IN HIGHER EDUCATION
NEWS
A VIRTUAL LOCKER? Higher ed IT pioneer and
University of Wisconsin-Madison
CIO Annie Stunden is seeing her visions become realities at UW-M: Everyone should
have a Web space for file storage, sharing, and collaboration. This fall, as a
new crop of freshmen enter the university, along with their My UW-Madison Web
portal they'll have better- than-ever access and storage for digital files. My
WebSpace, a system for Web-accessible file storage, retrieval, and sharing, debuted
last year and proved so popular that, this fall, the university plans to ratchet
up service to accommodate 10,000 new users. (Add that to last year’s level of
19,000, with close to a million files and folders.) With more than 40,000 students
attending the university, and over 13,000 faculty, the content management and
file-sharing system is poised for even more expansion. But Madison’s “DoIT” staff
is confident that the Xythos-based system (
www.xythos.com)
will be scalable enough to handle the expected growth. FCC
SEEKS ADVICE
FROM HIGHER ED. Tamara Closs, president of the Association for Communications
Technology Professionals in Higher Education (
www.acuta.org),
and associate director of Enterprise Product and Service Development at
Georgetown
University (DC), has been named to serve on a 55-member Consumer Advisory
Committee that advises the The Federal Communications Commission on the impact
of new and emerging technologies, consumer protection and education, and access
for people with disabilities.
GOOD ENOUGH? IT leaders from more
than 350 colleges and universities contributed their thoughts to a recent Educause
Center for Applied Research (ECAR) study of business-process performance and technology
investment. Educause says the study “corroborate[s] the subjective impressions
that trustees, regulators, and others have that colleges and universities lag
behind the leading sectors of the economy in the performance of business processes.”
But could it be that level of performance is adequate when IT investment must
be considered across a range of institutional priorities? Check out the study,
titled “Good Enough!” (
www.educause.edu/ers0504).
PEOPLE
NEW PRESIDENT, NEW CHANCELLOR. The
University of Redlands
(CA) has identified a new president, Stuart Dorsey, to begin his term this coming
fall. Dorsey will join Redlands after completing his role as vice president for
Academic Affairs at the
University of Evansville (IN). Current
President James R. Appleton becomes Redlands’ chancellor.
NEW PRESIDENT.
Loyola College (MD) trustees have elected Rev. Brian Linnane
as their 24th president. Linnane has left his role as assistant dean and associate
professor at the
College of the Holy Cross (MA), and started
his new post at Loyola this past month.
INTERIM PRESIDENT
. William
H. Harris took the reigns this past month as the
Fort Valley State University
(GA) interim president, and will serve during the Fall 2005 semester. Harris previously
held presidential posts at
Alabama State University,
Texas
Southern University, and
Paine College (GA).
PLANNING
RETIREMENT. James E. Walker has decided he will retire after the 2005-2006
academic year, completing six years as
Southern Illinois University’s
president.
OUT OF RETIREMENT? The
Haywood Community College
(NC) board of trustees has called upon Donald S. Stanton to emerge from retirement
for a six-month stint as the college’s interim president. Stanton retired in 1999
from his post as president of
Oglethorpe University (GA). The
appointment will be contingent upon his acceptance, and the
North Carolina
Community College system’s final approval