Over 150 team members from central IT services at Stony Brook University, Stony Brook Medicine, and IT Partners who are embedded directly within various departments, gathered today for the first IT Townhall under the leadership of Dr. Simeon Ananou, VP for Information Technology and CIO.
The meeting began by celebrating DoIT employees with 25 years of service: John Leone, Customer Engagement and Support; Nancy Klevanosky, Business Office; Diana Voss, Customer Engagement and Support, 30 years of service: Andrew Kirsch, Enterprise Applications and Integrations, 35 years of service: Jim Hart, Infrastructure and 40 years of service: Terry O'Connell, Customer Engagement and Support.
Simeon gave the group a brief presentation in which he discussed his vision for the role of CIO as being in the intersection of Global Trends in Higher Education, Sociotechnical Trends, and Stony Brook University's priorities. He then went on to discuss five trends we need to be aware of in 2024, which included: Student wellbeing, maximizing the campus experience, AI integration in learning and teaching, preparing students for the workforce, and micro-credentialing and its ties to lifelong learning. He concluded the presentation with an overview of the listening tour he has embarked on over the last four months in which he has met with over 300 IT team members, department chairs, various levels of leadership, faculty and researchers from across campus and how those conversations helped bring forward several common themes which helped create the newly announced IT Strategic Framework, which at its core is focused on providing Digital Equity to our students, faculty and researcher populations and is supported by three pillars: "Enabling Innovation & Transformation", "Partnering to Modernize & Protect" and "Fostering Inclusivity & Professional Growth".
Following the presentation, the groups at each table were given some time to participate in a thought exercise based on one of the pillars and then invited to share the results of that exercise back to the larger group. The session ended with a Q&A session where attendees could ask leadership to expand upon any topics they were curious about.
Celebrating Years of Service
Dr. Simeon Ananou
Teamwork and Q&A