UCIT Committee

Clemons Library, Room 322B
September 22, 2006

Kirk welcomed the members to the first UCIT meeting of the 2006-07 academic year, and the members introduced themselves. The first item on the agenda was to become better acquainted with UVa's new VP & CIO, James Hilton, and with the new Associate VP & Deputy CIO, Mike McPherson.

James Hilton described his career in higher education before coming to UVa in July, 2006: after receiving a Ph.D. in social psychology at Princeton University in 1985, he joined the faculty at the University of Michigan in the Institute for Social Research and in the Psychology Department. Working on a special project, intellectual property policy, for the Provost in 1999 led to becoming the Associate Provost for Academic, Information, and Instructional Technology Affairs in 2001. In considering a move to another university, James was particularly interested in finding an institution that could really engage in IT and see that as a strategic asset (versus a "utility" or a "black hole") - and he believes that UVa is up for it.

James and Mike McPherson collaborated on various aspects of IT and academic computing at the University of Michigan. They share the same views about the possibilities and potential for IT - but have arrived at their views from different paths -- with Mike coming from a more technical and operational background as the head of academic computing units.

John Hawley gave an update on the UVa Task Force report concerning an Initiative in Computational Science and Engineering (CSE). His update included some background about previous reports and their recommendations and results. The 2006 Task Force recommends:

• A structure for leadership, including a Director for CSE and a faculty advisory committee.
• Advanced support for sponsored research, including a grants development officer, seed and development funds, and an environment that encourages and facilitates collaboration and partnerships.
• Expert support for CSE (i.e. people with expertise in algorithms and programming, in scientific software and discipline specific applications, in data repositories/security/analysis, in display and advanced visualization, etc.).
• Education, training, and community development, including a formal curriculum in CSE (undergrad and grad), and training for students, postdoctoral fellows and faculty.

The expected outcomes of the initiative are: develop a culture of CSE at UVa, promote inter- disciplinary research, increase sponsored research, and improve science and engineering at UVa.

John concluded his update with an outline of the steps and ongoing actions that follow up on these recommendations - these include a new CSE advisory committee, re-deploying existing resources and leveraging the NSF CI-TEAM award, participation in an NSF petascale proposal, and briefings with UVa administration. The Provost's 10-year Strategic Plan includes a proposal for ubiquitous access to IT resources, the CSE initiative, and a similar effort to support Humanities IT.

An update on the status of the capital campaign and IT was given by Bill Sublette. The case statement, which has been extensively reviewed and revised, does include a paragraph concerning information technology. The campaign website is organized around three major themes: the student experience, research and discovery, and serving the common good. Language concerning information technology is in the section devoted to research and discovery. The campaign is launching on September 30 with a goal of raising $3 billion. James has heard President Casteen repeatedly stress that the capital campaign needs to focus on opportunities and vision.

Having spent much of the past 3 months getting better acquainted with UVa - its leadership, goals, major issues, etc. - James summed up the opportunities and challenges of providing leadership for information technology at UVa as: how to consistently help UVa think strategically (not reactively) about information technology. He has been surprised by the lack of demand for IT access/bandwidth/tools/etc. at UVa. James sees four areas that offer important opportunities and challenges:

• Fostering collaboration, including the technologies that can facilitate collaboration.
• Alignment with the academic mission, with technology trends, and with market forces.
• Access to information and tools.
• Security and identity management.

He is deeply skeptical of the "build it and they will come" model for IT services, and instead is looking for opportunities to invest in "game changers" (e.g. installing projectors in every classroom).

Kirk suggested that the agenda for the next meeting include a report from the sub-committee from last year that was focusing on Humanities and the Social Sciences, and start having some faculty give examples/ideas for "game changers" that could change the faculty culture in their fields. There was some discussion about how students perceive collaboration and what tools and technologies they would like faculty to use. Chris Belyea, chair of the student IT advisory committee (SITAC), suggested that students need to better understand the IT resources that are available to them - as well as for us to better understand what they need. John Hawley reminded the group that we had discussed working with the Development office on a list of faculty who could do "road shows" as an aid to development efforts - and that this remains unfinished business. Kirk will follow up with our Development office contacts/liaisons.