Staff Recognition and Achievement

Staff Recognition and Achievement

OIT Division Award for Excellence

The 2016 OIT Division Award for Excellence winners were Leo Howell, Kim McAllister and Chris Webster. TJ Buffaloe and Greg Sparks were also nominated for this award.

Pride of the WolfPack Award

2015-2016 Pride of the WolfPack Award winners were Brian DeConinck, Tom Holden, Laverne Petitfrere, Jill Phipps, and Chris Webster.

T.O.A.S.T. Award

2015-2016 T.O.A.S.T. Award recipients included: Everette Allen, Kevin Augustus, Amy Barr, Rhonda Batts, Brandon Beasley, Mardecia Bell, Dave Blake, Jeff Boone (2), Deborah Booth, Barry Bright, William Brockelsby, Kay Cahoon, Sandy Carstens, Matthew Castle (3), Rabab Chahrour (2), Bill Coker, Carol Cook, Caffie Darden, Nik Davlantis, Brian DeConinck, Kerry Digou, Renee Dowell, Thi Duong (3), Darren Fallis, Louise Flinn (5), Brian Fontaine, Pat Gaddy, Alvin Gilmore, Chuck Givens (2), James Glover, Mike Gonzalez, Febbie Gordon, Rhonda Greene (2), Gail Gregory, Mark Harben (3), Woody Hardison, Matthew Hawkins, Jessie Henninger, Benjamin Horne, Leo Howell, Jamie Hufnagel, Derek Jordan, Blake Kannar (2), Tom Karches, Caitlin Kim, Kevin Kostello, Andrew Kotynski, David Ladrie, Verna Little, Tim Lowman, Taylor Lundy, Kathy Mauney, Neal McCorkle, Kevin McDonald, Katie McInerney (2), Jessie Moore, Sallie Newton, Colton Overson, Needham Parks, Balaji Parthasarathy, Jill Phipps, Lee Pipkin, Pierre Quentin, Susie Rambeaut, Maris Ridenour, Gabrielle Roseboro, Gaia Sardagna, Logan Sims, Daniel Sink, Timothy Sonneberg, Matthew Sonnenberg, Lavanya Sridharan (2), Will Steinbrecher, Nicole Stone, Allison Symes (2), Lucy Tiefenthaler (3), Charles Walker, Dan Waller, Don Waterman, Anne White, Ryan Williams, Will Yoder (3), Early Yu, and Zach Zientek (2).

Major Appointments

  • Jack Foster was promoted to director of Business Intelligence, ePayment, Java, and Non-Credit Systems in Enterprise Application Services.
  • Andrew Kotynski was hired as the assistant director for Information Security Services in Security and Compliance.
  • Abraham Jacob was hired as the director of Middleware Services in Shared Services.

Professional Activities

  • BJ Attarian, Chuck Givens and Hal Meeks completed Adobe Audition training.
  • Mardecia Bell, Stan North Martin, Sallie Newton, Daniel Sink, and Chris Webster earned the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) Foundation v3 certification.
  • A number of OIT staff earned Level II certifications in ITIL over the past year.
    • Service Strategy: Susan West, Chris King and David Ladrie
    • Service Design: Jessie Henninger, David Ladrie, Ron Bradley, Chadwick Seagraves, Chris King, and Susan West
    • Continual Service Improvement: Jessie Henninger, Robert Spencer and Susan West
  • Mardecia Bell and Leo Howell participated in the EDUCAUSE National Cybersecurity Tabletop Exercise.
  • Rick Brown serves on the board of directors for the Association of Higher Education Campus Television Administrators (AHECTA).
  • Ralph Cabrera completed his CompTIA  A+, Security+ and Network+ certifications.
  • Cheryl Cleveland, Yessy Mendoza-Tate and Barbara Runyan presented at the Oracle/PeopleSoft Alliance Conference.
  • Bill Coker served as chair of the Software Working Group, which is part of the Client, Application and Support Subcommittee of the Information Technology Strategic Advisory Committee (ITSAC).
  • Kerry Digou was re-certified as an internal security assessor for the Payment Card Industry – Data Security Standard. Kerry also presented at the 2015 UNC CAUSE Conference.
  • Pat Gaddy was elevated from an alternate to a full Staff Senator for District 17.
  • Rhonda Greene serves as a member-at-large of the Public Relations Society of America Technology Section Executive Committee and chairs the Sponsorship and Fundraising Committee.
  • Gwen Hazlehurst served as the chair of the UNC-GA Shared Enterprise Application Services Committee and as a member of the Oracle/PeopleSoft Southeast Area Regional Users Group Conference Committee.
  • Leo Howell served as a member of the EDUCAUSE Higher Education Information Security Council (HEISC), Governance Risk and Compliance Committee and the Southeastern Universities Research Association (SURA) IT committee. He also served as chair of the Security and Compliance Governance Subcommittee under the Campus IT Directors (CITD).
  • Chris King participated in a panel discussion on IT Service Management in Higher Education at the 2015 Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), Special Interest Group on University and College Computing Services (SIGUCCS) Conference in St. Petersburg, FL.
  • Bruce Kluckman and Yessy Mendoza-Tate presented at the Oracle/PeopleSoft Southeast Area Regional Users Group Conference.
  • David Ladrie completed the EDUCAUSE Management Institute in July 2015.
  • Kevin McDonald was certified as a ServiceNow Certified System Administrator.
  • Yessy Mendoza-Tate and Tom Reynolds served on Oracle’s PeopleSoft Financials Customer Advisory Board.
  • Stan North Martin serves on the cabinet of the EDUCAUSE IT Communications Constituent Group. He also chaired the Campus IT Directors committee during 2015-16.
  • Jennifer McFarland is the UNC CAUSE 2016 co-chair. She also helped to coordinate WordCamp RDU and presented at WordCamp RDU and the HighEdWeb 2015 Conference.
  • Sallie Newton served as OIT’s representative on the University Diversity Advisory Committee.
  • Sarah Noell is president-elect of the UNC CAUSE organization and Louise Flinn is marketing and publications chair.
  • Jill Phipps served as District 17 Staff Senator.
  • Serena Reavis presented “Streamlining Learning: Best Practices for Structuring Your Online Course” at the Lilly Conference: Evidence-Based Teaching and Learning in Austin, Texas. She also presented both “Creating an Inclusive Learning Environment: Closed Captioning with My Mediasite” and “Let’s Talk: How Do We Support Captions in My Mediasite?” at UNLEASH 2016 in Madison, WI.
  • Greg Sparks serves on the legislative/regulatory affairs committee for the Association for College and University Technology Advancement (ACUTA) and is on Cisco’s Public Sector Technology Exchange.

Improving Staff Working Conditions

All work and no play — not in OIT. The Staff Relations Team began the the fiscal year with a Cool Hot Summer Social at Pullen Park and ended it with a Summer Jam Picnic at the Avent Ferry Housing Complex Courtyard. OIT staff enjoyed summer eats, cool beverages and a variety of outdoor games.

In between time, however, the Team provided engaging opportunities to enable employees to learn more about their work environment and the people in it.

Roundtables

The team sponsored Generations at Work, an employee roundtable to explore the five generations that make up today’s typical workforce and examine how their unique sets of values, preferences and views impact organizations.

The team also sponsored two Project SAFE Ally workshops to help employees understand and address the needs of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (GLBT) students and employees.

Community Service

During Operation Shoe Box, employees collected food, clothing and games over the Christmas holidays and donated them to Fort Bragg soldiers and their families.

The SRT also continued to sponsor Division award programs, including the OIT Awards for Excellence, the Pride of the WolfPack Award, and the Totally Outstanding Attitude and Service and Talent (T.O.A.S.T.) Award.

Staff Diversity: Changing the face of IT

A diverse workforce in Higher Education IT should represent the diversity found in the overall labor force, according to EDUCAUSE’s Current Faces of the Higher Ed IT Workforce. At many educational institutions, this is not the case.

In OIT, we know that it takes different cultures and experiences as well as inclusion of everyone’s thoughts to create IT innovations that enable the campus community to accomplish great things. And, we strive to recruit members of underrepresented populations to enrich and diversify our work environment.

As of May 2016, our workforce included 287 staff members, comprising 203 men and 84 women, who are:

IT Staff FY 2015-16 FY 2014-15
African American 37 34
Native American 3 3
Asian 22 14
Hawaiian 0 1
Hispanic/Latino 7 6
White 218 217
Total 287 275

Lead Photo Caption:

A Striking Pose! From right, Joe Wells, Payman Damghani, Eric Silberberg, Todd Kerstetter, Sallie Newton, and Rosanne Taft posed for a photo during the Cool Hot Summer Social at Pullen Park.