Presented by Dr. Patrick Burns • Vice President for IT and Dean of Libraries, Colorado State University
The presentation will begin by asking what constitutes success for a CIO in a modern higher educational setting. What modern trends in higher education will be covered by asking, "Is this time different?" How higher ed's funding model has changed recently along with the public's perception that higher education has gotten too expensive will be shown to be misunderstood. We will ask, "How much are students learning?" and conclude from data, distressingly, "not much." We will explore the student behaviors that influence their learning as well as their success – retention, persistence, and graduation.
These modern trends constitute a crisis in higher education, which has caused many CIOs to shift their focus recently to be much more involved in higher-level academic functions and student learning. Strategies to help students learn faster, better and more will be presented, followed by trade-offs that must be addressed in today's IT environment in higher ed: focusing attention on higher-level learning yet ensuring that the "IT plumbing" must still work to near perfection. Also, why achieving this trade-off effectively is so deucedly difficult in today's environment will be addressed. Come listen to Dr. Patrick J. Burns as he addresses the question: "Are CIOs being successful in IT in higher ed today?"
Presented by: Dr. Patrick Burns / VP of IT for Colorado State University
Dr. Burns received his PhD in Mechanical Engineering in 1978 from the University of California at Berkeley in the area of heat transfer and energy systems. He joined the Mechanical Engineering department at Colorado State University in August of 1978 and performed research and teaching in that department for 20 years, receiving four teaching awards, and rising to the rank of full professor. In January 1998, he became Director of Academic Computing and Networking Services at Colorado State University, and eventually became the Vice President for Information Technology. In July 2008, he was given the joint appointment as interim Dean of CSU Libraries and became Dean of CSU Libraries in 2010. He has taught undergraduate and graduate students in STEM disciplines for over forty years. He is intimately involved in transforming the higher education pedagogical environment as CSU's primary representative to the Unizin next generation learning consortium, co-PI on CSU's Integrated Planning and Advising for Student Success grant from EDUCAUSE, and CSU's Adaptive Analytics Platform grant from the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities.
