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- Most people know that I started out my career
in German literature,
and that's my bachelor's degree,
and my PhD, and a master's degree.
And at the same time that I was getting my PhD,
I got a graduate certificate in women's studies,
and a master's degree in higher education administration.
I've known since I was probably four years old
that I wanted to go to college.
And I've known since in undergraduate
that I wanted to work in higher education.
So it's just been one of those things
where I just kept going down that path.
What was interesting is that starting as an undergraduate,
I was a power user of technology.
So I like to joke
that without even knowing what I was doing,
I was in chat rooms before there were even chat rooms.
And I always tried to use whatever technology was available.
I had one of the first Macs ever as an undergraduate,
and just loved it.
I didn't get too deep into it.
I wasn't a technologist per se,
but I was definitely a user,
I really wanted to pursue using technology,
and applied technology for my studies,
and then of course, just for playing around.
When I went to graduate school and I was a TA,
I was a TA for German languages and literatures,
then again, I was always pushing the edge of technology use.
So I was working with the center,
CRLT the Center for Research on Teaching and Learning
at the University of Michigan,
and testing out the tools that they were bringing on.
So asynchronous group writing tools for instance,
first-generation, it didn't go well,
but it was fun to really push the technology to its limits
in intro and intermediate language and culture classes.
Now when I moved from Michigan to Colorado,
I started to work for the first CIO
at the University of Colorado Boulder.
And Y2K was my first project.
And if there is any,
I think it was the best way in the world
to get a crash course
in the technical infrastructure of a university
that keeps the administrative trains running,
the educational trains running,
and the research trains running.
So I learned a whole lot real quickly
about the structure of the university,
and about the infrastructure, the technology infrastructure,
that was in place.
And from that we learned a lot.
We learned how to reach out in a very decentralized campus,
and start to bring people in,
at least in communities of practice,
or having people embedded in departments.
And we found models that really worked,
and started to investigate models
for technology refreshes for instance, around the campus.
But then again,
this was way back in the day.
After that I was working for the Atlas Institute,
which is the Alliance for Technology Learning And Society.
Did a lot of ed. tech research,
use of technology by faculty,
some obstacles to technology use by faculty and students,
and ran a student computer lending program,
also way back in the day.
And I think one of the biggest lessons I learned,
and it was, I actually repeated the same lesson
out loud in a meeting yesterday,
is it's not the technology, it's the practice.
And I think if there's been one thing
it's to look at the learner needs,
the pedagogical needs and then to appropriately match that,
those needs, whether they're assessment,
whether they're classroom teaching styles,
whether they're fully online,
but match those appropriately to the tools that we have.
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One of the best things
about being at the University of Utah right now
is that there is broad and deep support
for diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts,
practices, and mindsets.
This has been making it very easy for me
as a new person coming in,
to be able to give authority to staff
who really want to pursue this as part of their jobs.
So what I have been doing personally
is making sure that there's a committee looking at this,
and giving the perspective from the staff level
what's needed.
Because if I just come in and say, "This is what we need."
I could be way off, because it could just be what I need.
I need to hear from the broader community,
from our staff especially, to say,
"This is what's missing. This is what we need to do."
And to give them the authority
to come up with strategy and tactics
for moving us all
toward being a more inclusive organization.
I'm also closely aligned with campus leadership
to see, what do you need?
What are the other efforts happening on campus,
and how can I help?
And even if I can't help it with a particular project,
how can I make sure that my unit
is aligned with the campus vision and the campus practices?
So those are just two ways,
really authorizing, giving authority,
giving agency to as many people as possible
to develop and disseminate effective DEI practices.
And then also aligning with what the campus is doing,
because sometimes other people on campus
feel that they're working in isolation
and don't realize that they have a whole unit
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that can be seen as an ally to their efforts as well.
- What I've seen time and time again
is the organizations that do the best job
of using technology to help them teach,
and learn, and do research,
are the ones where there's some strong IT leadership
in the organization on campus.
And that's organization that is not just focused just on
keeping the bits flowing,
but understanding how we can help the school
leverage things.
This award ceremony opened up to us,
oh maybe, I don't know, eight, nine years ago or so,
and we grabbed it right away,
because I'm a big fan of role models.
And have people kind of say,
"Well how did they get the award?"
And take a look.
And it gets them to have the conversation,
to think through who's getting the award and why.
And there's always a great story
behind many of these recipients.
I just think it's critically important
to reach out and help organizations like this,
help the industry,
and this is organization,
we can work here and have the biggest impact
on the industry anywhere,
we're on board, we're supporting.
Why?
'Cause it's getting the award winners out there,
getting that to happen.
And you know, I've been around a long time,
not sure I'll be around 30 years from now,
but I'll stick around a few more years,
but I'm more worried about the longer term picture,
is the industry healthy?
So things that promote that are always good.
For the industry,
if they're good for the industry
as a small boutique firm like ours?
They're good for us too.
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