Features Education

Talk to straight A students and they’ll tell you that acing last semester’s report card won’t mean much if their next is marked with C’s.  The same principle applies with Scott Morrow’s new oversight of the infotech infrastructure at the York Catholic District School Board in central Ontario. Morrow having sustained some of his predecessor’s […]

When asked about his successes at Nashville State Community College, Rob Tudor points to the young and middle-aged adults who’ve started or restarted their careers.   There’s the former hairdresser whose income had maxed while her family responsibilities grew. She’d been working at least six days a week and owned her own salon, but capable as […]

Pens, sheaves of papers, the squeak of chalk across a green board that’s never quite clear of dust—all these are relics of the classroom even before the COVID-19 pandemic led to remote learning. Yet Dr. Robert W. Smiley remembers a time when not a single classroom had internet. In fact, as the technology coordinator for […]

Now the president and CEO of T. Johnson & Associates Consulting Group, Travis Johnson says his experience in technology has led him to this moment—and the many challenges and opportunities to come. “I’ve been leading technology in higher ed since 2005, and I’ve worked my way up,” Johnson says. “My IT vision for higher ed […]

Often when school bus drivers communicate with each other, they speak in code in case their radio channels are intercepted. Doing so helps protect information about students, such as their names and addresses, from being exploited by people who shouldn’t be listening in. Last year, Drew Taylor began exploring a more secure option. After gathering […]

Jack Kufahl hadn’t been chief information security officer for Michigan Medicine for very long when he was confronted with a computer problem in a radiology imaging lab. The lab staff knew its computer was aging. Its software had been patched and pieced together over the years. It was past upgrading and because of the cost, […]

According to the K12 Security Information eXchange, student data is one of the top commodities on the dark web. That’s because it’s not monitored as closely as data generated by adults, giving criminals more time to exploit information including social security numbers and medical histories.  “Students don’t have established credit, so we need to do […]

While Kenneth Ray Jr. may be more at home with a fishing rod or hunting rifle in hand, he’s pretty handy with technology too.  “I’m kind of a different IT person. I’m a rodeo country boy,” he says. “I got into tech for the people. I like to interact with people, and the collaborative nature […]

When leaders at the University of Tennessee System decided the organization needed a digital transformation, they knew they needed to hire someone with more than just strong IT skills. They needed someone who could help manage large-scale change. Checking both these boxes was Ramon Padilla, Jr., who was hired as chief information officer in November […]

While normalcy returns to campuses everywhere, COVID-19’s effects remain and not just for public health. With remote study options existing since the spring of 2020, opportunity has abounded for hackers. More recently, federal authorities have warned how the Russian-Ukrainian conflict unleashed a new wave of cyberattacks on Western energy, finance, communications and, yes, higher-education infrastructure. […]