The Office of Information Technologies (OIT) has hired Elliot Haugen to serve as Interim Director, following last semester’s reassignment of Terris Wolff to the Teaching and Learning Center as a technical advisor to the faculty. Haugen will guide OIT until a new Director can be located; a search is scheduled to commence in the next few weeks.

Josef Tamas OIT has hired Elliot Haugen to temporarily fill Terris Wolff's old position.

Haugen was hired by the college in mid-December. He is Vice President for the Information Management and Technology Practice of the Washington, DC-based Klaudis Consulting Group, a firm that specializes in advising institutions of higher education. Haugen will split his time between the firm’s offices and Pomona, which he does not expect to cause problems. He believes the primary job of a Director is to formulate policies, not to "walk around with a walkie-talkie" and fix problems.

As Interim Director, Haugen will be responsible for evaluating OIT’s responsibilities, strengths, and weaknesses in order to assist the college in locating a new permanent director.

"The goal is to have a new director on board by summer," explained Vice President of Planning Richard Fass. "Mr. Haugen…will be giving us suggestions about the job description." Additionally, Haugen will be responsible for defining the role that OIT should play in the college community.

Haugen’s first priority will be to gather student, staff, and faculty input on what OIT’s role should be. "My job is to…listen to as many people as possible…we want to plan this and set a direction for service," he explained. He held a meeting with the faculty on Tuesday, and he plans to hold a student forum in the near future.

Haugen’s overall goal is to make OIT a proactive organization. "What I’d like to do is move from the level of troubleshooting to supporting the teaching and learning environment," he said. "He sees lab maintenance and other technical support duties as consuming too much of OIT’s time; he aims to be able to handle 90 percent of troubleshooting with ten percent of OIT’s resources, thus allowing OIT to train users and work with faculty.

Haugen also wants to increase communication between OIT and the college community. "My goal this spring will be to lay out what we’ll be doing this summer so that the students will know what to expect when they come back," he said. Additionally, he sees a need to make students fully aware of all of the resources, such as free licenses for Microsoft Office 2000, that OIT currently provides.

As for concrete plans, Haugen hopes to upgrade selected equipment by as early as the end of spring break, although widespread upgrades will have to wait because of budgetary constraints. Additionally, he was cautious about trying to accomplish too much before the summer.

"We need to not cause problems during the end of the semester…OIT and others have learned lessons," he said, alluding to the widespread complaints that arose when a new e-mail system was introduced late in the spring 2000 semester.

Over the summer, Haugen plans to bring ATM high-speed networking to as many buildings as possible. Additionally, the Hahn lab will be upgraded, and OIT staff will receive training in new technologies such as Windows 2000. "Windows 2000 is coming on new computers, so we need to be prepared to support it," Haugen explained. He also aims to have OIT be more involved in helping students set up their computers in the fall.

Haugen has his work cut out for him; there is a sense among some students and faculty that OIT does not communicate or respond to their needs effectively. Professor of French Monique Saigal bemoaned the state of the facilities in Mason Hall. "I’ve been asking [for a new computer] for three years; we have a computer that’s older than I am!" Additionally, she described a desperate need for video conferencing capabilities on campus; currently, she has to take her class to Claremont Graduate University.

Sheila Vasantharam ’03 complained of a slow response to a bad Ethernet jack in her room. "Every time I called them, they had misplaced the information from the last call. No matter how many times I called, they wouldn’t send anyone out to fix it. It took them a month to get it working."

Readers with suggestions as to how to improve OIT can reach Haugen via e-mail at Elliott_Haugen@pomona.edu.