When Betty Leydon came to Duke in 1995 as vice provost and chief information officer, she was charged with revamping long-outdated campus technology. But as the University searches for her successor, the mission for the Office of Information Technology has changed.
After what many consider to be a successful term, during which OIT met challenges in all facets of campus technology, ranging from inadequate information systems for administrators to a lack of hardware in computer clusters, Leydon left this month to take a similar position at Princeton University.
Now, a newly formed search committee, which met for the first time this week, must evaluate how campus technology should develop under the next information officer.
The new search committee, chaired by Professor of Sociology Philip Morgan, will look for someone to focus on smaller-scale projects for classrooms and professors, and to better educate the faculty on technology.
"The focus will be more on academic computing matters and less on administrative computing matters," said Robert Wolpert, a statistics professor who is a member of the current search committee. "Faculty don't all have a clear idea of how to use technology in the classroom, to enhance the classroom experience but also the experience outside the classroom itself."
In particular, the search committee hopes to improve library equipment, enhance websites and classroom equipment and increase wireless use.
"We want people to be able to take a laptop anywhere on campus," said Wolpert, who also served as chair of the search committee that hired Leydon and founded OIT.
Executive Vice President Tallman Trask, who met with the committee Monday, noted that the University's technological needs have changed. "These things tend to go in cycles, in terms of what needs to happen in the next five years," he said. "We're in a very different situation from five years ago, when we needed to strengthen the administration. Now it's mostly our faculty-student and academic systems."
Although administrative technology use is much less of a concern than before Leydon arrived, the new vice provost will be asked to further integrate different administrative departments. Wolpert noted existing "working relationships" between OIT and departments like the registrar's office, the DukeCard office and the campus computer store, but he said there is more to be done. Even on smaller projects, such as making class lists with photographs so professors can learn students' names more easily, better coordination would help, he said.
Trask added he is concerned about finding minority candidates, in order to increase diversity within the administration's upper ranks.
"I expect it's going to be difficult. Historically this pool has not been as diverse as we'd like it," he said.
The search committee is able to see Duke's technology management moving to a higher level, partly because of Leydon's effective reorganization of OIT.
Prior to Leydon's arrival, campus computing had been under the purview of six separate administrative departments, leading to differing priorities and poor planning, Wolpert said.
"At the time, the people who did software and the people who did hardware were different people, so when there was a problem they would say, OIt's their problem,'" Wolpert said. "It was hard to convince candidates that Duke is serious about this, that we're willing to make the investments and administrative changes to improve. But somehow we did, and miracles happened."
With an administrative foundation set, Leydon upgraded campus systems and computing power, culminating in a 1998 national award for "excellence in campus networking."
In Leydon's stead, several associate provosts are currently serving on an interim team.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.