Features Education

It doesn’t get any better than this on a Saturday night for the students working in the University of Oklahoma’s Security Operations Center in Norman: a bag of Doritos, a can of Red Bull and hours spent monitoring for computer alerts—the first step in stopping the bad guys. Three students are working as Tier 1’s […]

When Adam Gerson graduated from Ithaca College with a background in computer programming, he assumed he’d go to a tech start-up where he’d engineer groundbreaking software, get stock options and play ping-pong on his lunch breaks. It wasn’t an unreasonable expectation. Before he’d finished college, Gerson interned at a booming tech start-up that promised him […]

As the K-12 instructional technology specialist for a district with more than 12,000 students in Ogden, Utah, it’s Adam McMickell’s job to promote learning and engagement through the use of cutting-edge digital education platforms for both students and teachers. A Google Certified Educator, Trainer and Administrator, McMickell oversees all of Ogden City School District’s (OCSD) […]

In 1987, just months after becoming Hidalgo Independent School District’s lone computer coordinator, 22-year-old Adrian Garcia surveyed the IT landscape and did what had always felt like second nature: he dreamed of making things better. At a time when 10-megabyte Compaq Desktops were considered state-of-the-art and the internet was still the niche domain of plugged-in […]

Located in Manassas, Virginia, the Prince William County Public Schools (PWCS) are home to 88,000-plus students and 95 schools, making the district the second largest in Virginia and the 36th largest in the nation. There have been many changes in the district in the last decade or so, including the construction of 22 new schools […]

Albert Stadler remembers the day in 2019 when he got a phone call from nearby Crowder College. It had been hit by a crippling ransomware attack. In no time, Stadler, then the CIO at Missouri Southern State University, was on his way to help assess the damage. Stadler’s reputation as the “go-to guy” in the […]

Every year, the largest horse auction in the world takes place in Lexington, Kentucky, the “Horse Capital of the World” and the epicenter of Kentucky’s estimated $4 billion horse industry. In 2006, the most expensive horse ever auctioned, The Green Monkey, was sold for $16 million at Fasig-Tipton, one of Lexington’s two world-renowned equine auction […]

It’s said that everything is bigger in Texas, and not simply because its 268,500 square miles make it the largest state in the continental U.S. There are big hats, big trucks, big plates of barbecue and big high school football stadiums where almost 20,000 fans can cheer their team on. And there’s a big fiber […]

Walking through the green campus of Muhlenberg College, CIO Allan Chen sees students race across the campus from a contemporary dance class to an introduction to neuroscience class. Since joining the liberal arts institution in 2015, Chen has always appreciated the way the Allentown, Pennsylvania-based college encourages students to dictate their path—a mindset it also […]

Depending on whom you ask, a college degree is either an overpriced piece of paper—a ticket to 20 years of hemorrhaging salary to pay down student loans—or an absolute must, without which professional success is near-unattainable. As the narratives surrounding higher education become ever more muddied, millions of would-be undergrads are left searching for clarity; […]