2008 Woodie Awards
Vice chancellor wants to bring district technology systems up to date
Old operations require a district IT 2.0.
By Regis L. Roberts
Issue date: 6/30/08 Section: News
Originally published: 8/12/08 at 4:57 PM CSTLast update: 9/4/08 at 2:01 PM CST
Reluctance to change has made many district operations antiquated, to the detriment of students, faculty and staff, Dr. Thomas Cleary, vice chancellor for planning, performance and information systems, told about 40 faculty and staff of this college Thursday,
He took questions on the timeline for the implementation of Banner, plans to change outmoded instructional technology, known as IT, and his direction for the district's technology needs.
"It's hard for me to talk to groups about how things are going to get better when my own house is in disarray," Cleary said.
For instance, he said when a problem occurs with PALS or the district's Web site, the district help desk is, for all intents and purposes, IT for people who have problems.
"The help desk is the front door to IT," he said. "Sixty-thousand call a year to the district IT help desk; I'm not IT. I have a nice cute title, but I'm not IT. To those 60,000 people, the help desk is IT."
So, when a problem arises and the help desk becomes "flooded with calls," a breakdown in communication makes it so the help desk is not able to answer those questions, he said.
This happens, he said, "because our folks (district IT) won't walk down 22 steps" to brief the help desk on what the problem is and what measures are being taken to resolve it.
Cleary said he has instructed IT staff to treat every problem as if they were the help desk and to communicate all problems and remedies to the help desk so this information can be used to help students, faculty and staff.
Many of the problems Cleary addressed were full admissions on his part of problems at district, while many others came from questions submitted beforehand and asked on the fly from faculty and staff.
Dr. Jessica Howard, interim executive vice president, said she asked representatives from this college's Faculty Senate, Academic Council, Council of Chairs and other bodies to submit questions to Cleary.
The college, Howard said, plans to have more of these chancellor meetings with faculty and staff.
He took questions on the timeline for the implementation of Banner, plans to change outmoded instructional technology, known as IT, and his direction for the district's technology needs.
"It's hard for me to talk to groups about how things are going to get better when my own house is in disarray," Cleary said.
For instance, he said when a problem occurs with PALS or the district's Web site, the district help desk is, for all intents and purposes, IT for people who have problems.
"The help desk is the front door to IT," he said. "Sixty-thousand call a year to the district IT help desk; I'm not IT. I have a nice cute title, but I'm not IT. To those 60,000 people, the help desk is IT."
So, when a problem arises and the help desk becomes "flooded with calls," a breakdown in communication makes it so the help desk is not able to answer those questions, he said.
This happens, he said, "because our folks (district IT) won't walk down 22 steps" to brief the help desk on what the problem is and what measures are being taken to resolve it.
Cleary said he has instructed IT staff to treat every problem as if they were the help desk and to communicate all problems and remedies to the help desk so this information can be used to help students, faculty and staff.
Many of the problems Cleary addressed were full admissions on his part of problems at district, while many others came from questions submitted beforehand and asked on the fly from faculty and staff.
Dr. Jessica Howard, interim executive vice president, said she asked representatives from this college's Faculty Senate, Academic Council, Council of Chairs and other bodies to submit questions to Cleary.
The college, Howard said, plans to have more of these chancellor meetings with faculty and staff.
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