More than 130 staff and faculty members attended a March 18 “town hall” meeting to discuss the latest moves toward completing an Information Technology Master Plan for UNC Charlotte. The event was the second town hall meeting in what has been a 14-month process for developing a master plan that would serve the University through 2019; the first town hall was held in January 2013.
“These last 14 months have been a really amazing process. The level of engagement from faculty and staff is remarkable,” said Vice Chancellor for Business Affairs Beth Hardin. She and Joan Lorden, provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs, are executive sponsors of the project.
At the March 18 meeting, consultants from BerryDunn briefed the audience on a draft plan that included 16 IT initiatives to pursue over a five-year period; those initiatives were culled by a campus-wide committee from approximately 620 suggestions provided from staff and faculty, said David Houle of BerryDunn.
Key elements of the planning document include strengthening the delivery of IT service, improving the University’s IT security, establishing enhanced technical standards, supporting IT resources through ongoing planning and building a sense of IT community campus-wide.
“The University’s research portfolio and academic computing needs are growing, and (UNC Charlotte) needs to have a plan to support that,” said Houle. He added the eventual master plan would likely call for a balance of centralized and distributed IT management.
The current draft is “a plan to plan, not a plan to act,” Hardin said, explaining that the University and the consultants will develop an action plan that will grow out of the current draft.
Hardin said that 300 staff and faculty members were interviewed to develop the current draft and that more than 100 people participated in focus groups related to the project.
A draft of the Master Plan is accessible online. Faculty and staff members are encouraged to review the plan and submit comments or questions by Monday, March 31. Instructions on how to submit comments are on the IT Master Plan website.
Chancellor Philip L. Dubois described the goals for an IT master plan in a letter to the campus community on Jan. 8, 2013
Image: BerryDunn senior consultant Vienna Morrill discusses elements of the IT Master Plan at the town hall meeting.