Information Technology Services (ITS) and The Ames Library have been partners for many years on strategic initiatives designed to promote the innovative use of technology in teaching, learning, and scholarship at Illinois Wesleyan University. In addition to working together on the provision of library technology in Ames, digital scholarship, online learning, and publishing programs across the curriculum, we have collaborated on support for classroom technology, community spaces such as the Beckman Auditorium, technology lending, and innovation spaces such as The One-Button Studio and the upcoming Light Board Studio and Sound Stage. In 2019-20, we will have new opportunities to build on this foundation of service-centered partnership as part of campus-wide initiatives around strategic planning and IT planning.

With the retirement this week of Assistant Provost and Chief Technology Officer Trey Short, Scott Walter will take on interim responsibility for the ITS Teaching, Learning, and Technology Services (TLTS) program, including the IT Help Desk and instructional design support programs currently housed in The Ames Library’s Thorpe Center.

As Co-Interim Chief Technology Officer, Dr. Walter will work with colleagues in ITS and the Library to promote greater use of technology in teaching, learning, and scholarship, and to ensure a coordinated approach to strategic planning activities in Academic Affairs and Student Affairs that depend on technology, student mastery of information technology and information literacy skills, and engagement with staff training and faculty development initiatives.

Both ITS and The Ames Library maintain robust liaison services programs designed to promote awareness and use of information and technology resources across the university, as well as the ITS Help Desk and Library Services Desk to meet immediate service needs. We look forward to bringing these teams together over the coming year while the university completes its review of our IT organization and establishes a long-term strategy for IT services that will ensure the greatest benefit to our students, staff, and faculty, and the most powerful impact in initiatives currently being pursued as part of the university strategic plan.