The ITS:Division met on Thursday, December 11, and discussed the following (please let me know if you have any corrections):
Individual kudos were shared.
Brian provided updates:
1) The direction of the soup kitchen will be changing, with the the new focus, including new location (no longer in Shove Chapel), in place by the end of block eight. $20,000 has been set aside to help the new program develop.
2) $75,000 in funds will be available for The Big Idea competition in the spring. This program is part of the Innovation Institute.
3) The 2015-2016 budget process is up and running. If the college were to fund all of the requests that were submitted from across campus, a 14.8% increase in tuition would be required, so the budget committee is evaluating all requests closely in order to determine what will be put before the trustees in February. A few other things to note:
a) 5 net new positions in ITS: are part of the college-wide budget requests and include an Office 365 administrator, an applications integrator, an instructional technologist, and two paraprofessional positions in Innovative Technology.
b) The college is aware that ITS: has been under-funded over the last several years.
c) The process for purchasing software and computer hardware continues to be reviewed.
Vish introduced Keith Conger, systems administrator, and Jim Grey, applications programmer/analyst, to the group. Although Keith has worked for the college for almost 4 months, he just moved to Colorado Springs with his family in early November. Welcome Keith and Jim…we are glad to have you both on the team!
Vish also congratulated David Ziemba on his promotion to Senior Network Engineer. Way to go, David!
Open positions update:
1) Information Security Officer – 11 candidates have applied; phone interviews will be done soon.
2) Instructional Technologist – 5 phone interviews were done this week; 3 candidates will come to campus in January.
3) GIS Administrator – 20 candidates have applied; phone interviews will be done soon.
David Ziemba provided an update on the network upgrade, stating that the fine details on the designs are being discussed. Pre-work on the bore to connect to Internet 2 is in progress. Prep work for the network upgrade in Loomis Hall, the first building on campus that will receive new equipment, has been done. The building will be ready for new equipment during half block. The final decision about which vendors will be used for both the wired and wireless upgrades should be complete by the holiday break.
A Braintrust will be formed to address the new Bradford product. Chad will be putting this group together following the holiday break. Please contact Chad if you are interested in participating.
A request was made of the division for each person to bring 2 non-perishable food items to the meeting to donate to Care and Share. While the initial response was slow, the division kicked into high gear and ultimately brought a total of one moving box full of food to be donated! Great job, everyone! We’ll be doing this again next year, so plan ahead!
And per our usual standards, we had some lovely treats during this meeting (thank you Bon Appetit!):
Holiday cupcakes!
ITS:Always fun, never boring
Respectfully submitted,
Linda Petro
