As a lead-up to this year’s EDUCAUSE conference, we’re interviewing some of the speakers who will be sharing their knowledge and experience at the conference. It’s our hope that these interviews will spark conversation and give conference attendees a better sense of this year’s speakers.

Link Alander is the Associate Vice Chancellor of the Lone Star College System. He is giving a presentation at this year’s conference entitled “The Lean and Green by Design.” Link was kind enough to answer a few questions about the most rewarding aspects of his job, the importance of green design, and more.

For more EDUCAUSE-related posts, click here.

1. As Associate Vice Chancellor of such a broad school network, what are the most rewarding aspects of what you do?

The most rewarding events of course is the fall opening and graduation. From a technology standpoint the most rewarding aspects are when faculty use the technology foundation to teach in innovative ways. Using technology to engage students and challenge them is impressive. The faculty know how to reach students using technology we, Office of Technology Services, have to be able to support and sustain these initiatives.

2. Why have you chosen to make green design a priority at Lone Star College?

The best answer to this is on our green IT initiative’s charter:

As the trends of the Technology Industry move toward a more energy conscience, sustainable model; the LSCS Office of Technology Services has committed to being a leader in this arena by engaging in more Eco friendly practices.

There are two major factors that lead to this shift in focus.

As an institution of Higher Education, we have the social responsibility to address this issue and be a leader in the community.
As stewards of tax payers’ dollars, we have a fiscal responsibility to manage costs and improve efficiencies.

3. What are some of the biggest lessons you have learned from your use of virtualization? Are there any particular companies or consultants you would recommend to a colleague who is attempting to follow in the footsteps of Lone Star College?

We have learned a lot from our use of virtualization and the cloud. Our key objective to start was to replace aging hardware and improve service availability. The end results support our 5-nines up-time initiative and have significantly improve our ability to meet our institution’s needs – enterprise agility. It doesn’t take months to bring new services on-line anymore.

We focused on key strategic partnerships with industry leaders. When moving to a highly virtualized environment, currently 93% to include our ERP, you must have the best in class solutions. We partnered with HP, VMware, EMC and Cisco on the hardware/software solutions. We also partnered with SHI on the conversion of the campus servers from physical to virtual.

4. What do you feel are the most significant issues/challenges institutions face in developing sustainable, cost-efficient IT management models?

Once the direction is set it is not a problem. The biggest issue is that this is an on-going “best practice” not a onetime project. To be successful green needs to be part of every IT decision.

5. Where do you see the future of lean and green IT headed?

This is a hard question because there are so many directions to go in. From a pure IT standpoint for us it is to reduce the power cost even further on the endpoint (computing) devices. The other item that has to expand is the institutions involvement – expand to reach all areas of the campus, especially students. Another direction that we have also been perusing is a regional green consortium that consists of K12, CC and universities. This has been making headway as a sharing group for successes and failures.

6. Are there any other sessions or events you’re looking forward to attending at this year’s EDUCAUSE Conference?

I always enjoy the EDUCAUSE sections and typically go to many sessions that are not directly related to what I do. The reason for this is to see other perspectives. Since I mainly support infrastructure and operations I like to attend technology in the classroom sessions. Often I get the opportunity to bring back ideas to discuss with faculty members. So far I have not had a chance to plan my schedule but I’ll let you know if something jumps out.

As a lead-up to this year’s EDUCAUSE conference, we’re interviewing some of the speakers who will be sharing their knowledge and experience at the conference. It’s our hope that these interviews will spark conversation and give conference attendees a better sense of this year’s speakers.

Carlyn Chatfield is the Manager of IT Technical Communications at Rice University. She and four other IT leaders are conducing a session at EDUCAUSE 2011 entitled “Effective Project Deployment: Six Steps to Keep Them Coming Back.” Carlyn was kind enough to answer a few questions via email about her role at Rice, EDUCAUSE and more.

For more EDUCAUSE-related posts, click here.

1.What do your day-to-day responsibilities entail?

Managing IT communications for Rice is both interesting and rewarding. Today, I distributed a message about a service that was temporarily off-line, continued refining plans for an undergraduate study break to raise awareness about IT services and support for students, designed a student newspaper ad about the new mobile app for our course management tool, and helped create a web site for information about a security initiative.  I love being the connection between our technology gurus and our customers!

2. What was the inspiration for your presentation on Effective Project Deployment? Without giving too much away, why do you think IT leaders and project managers should concern themselves with the “business value” of their projects?

Many of us in the EDUCAUSE IT Communications constituency group work in positions that were created in the last 5-7 years.  Because our role is a relatively new one, we are always interested in helping administrators learn how they can leverage our experience.

As far as inspiration, Dana Hoover at Pepperdine said it is “everyone’s job in IT (not just the CIO or VP) to communicate the value of IT to University administration and to the end user community.”   We can easily communicate IT value through the projects we facilitate for the university, so this is a logical starting point to successfully influence our peers’ and leaders’ perceptions about IT. In today’s environment, IT projects must be both efficient and effective. I believe that good communication is at the root of both values.

3. What are some of the biggest challenges you’ve encountered in the process of implementing IT changes at Rice?

All of us are resistant to change to some degree. For example, I still struggle with our growing adoption of ITIL best practices; I thought “my way” was working and wondered why I have to learn something new and different.  More recently, I realized I am good at my job because of my attention to detail, but I don’t see the big picture.  Two of our directors looked at the big picture and saw how implementing ITIL could provide a cohesive platform for growth – something that was missing when each individual was singing “My Way.”  Communications play a strong role in ITIL, so as the communications manager I need to get with the program!

4. Since you’ve presented at Educause before, do you have any recommendations for first-timers (presenters and/or attendees)?

Join an Educause Constituency Group (CG) and find out when they meet! Connecting with colleagues who face similar challenges and opportunities is one of the most important aspects of the conference.  In addition to our CG meeting during the event, a lot of the IT Communicators try to meet casually at meals during the conference.

5. What’s your favorite part about EDUCAUSE?

In the past, it was our IT Communicators Supper Club, but I’ve heard EDUCAUSE has added a “lounge for CGs” this year. That sounds ideal for those of us who want a quiet place to chat about specific issues but can’t make meal meetings due to conflicts with other EDUCAUSE groups or teams.