I am pleased to announce that Victor Alatorre has accepted the position of Director of IT Infrastructure. As I reviewed the IT organization at UW Oshkosh, I realized that infrastructure responsibilities within central IT were divided across two units (Information Technology and Administrative Computing) and resources were spread very thin. This posed an unacceptable degree of risk for the institution—if the network and servers aren’t functioning, the University isn’t functioning. I therefore requested an emergency hire; Victor formally assumed his central IT role on Monday, June 15 with an undetermined transition time to support Residence Life. Victor brings a wealth of experience and talent to his role and will be working to address our critical resource shortages. I am looking forward to his impressive accomplishments at ResLife being expanded to support the entire University.

Mark Clements is now our Director of Information Services overseeing enterprise information systems and integrated applications. His primary focus for the year will be planning a business intelligence platform and increasing our capacity to efficiently and securely provide reliable information for data-driven decision-making.

Laura Knaapen is now our Director of User Services, overseeing constituent-facing support services in the classroom, from the helpdesk and for departments across campus. Her focus this year will be to increase satisfaction with IT support on campus, starting with expanding student access to IT assistance and education as well as improving faculty and staff support.

As part of the central organizational review, I proposed to Provost Earns that our two instructional designers, available to assist faculty in developing course materials and incorporating technology into their curriculum, could better help faculty if they were part of the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning rather than in IT. Jennifer Hendryx and Sarah Bradway will officially join CETL effective July 1 and will continue to work very closely with our IT teams who provide learning technologies, media and classroom support.

All of these changes are in keeping with current recommended practice in enterprise IT architecture and are designed to increase our capacity to enable institutional effectiveness using available resources. To view an updated org chart please visit uwosh.edu/it/central-it-organization.

How our constituents interact with IT does not change—for assistance, continue to contact the helpdesk or individuals you customarily work with. As more service improvements and changes unfold I will continue to share those with our University community and encourage you to contact me to discuss anything at anytime.