AVP & CTO Update October 22, 2018

Good Monday Morning!

It is municipal election day for many of us – I hope we all find time to VOTE today. Without much effort I found the 2018 Ontario Municipal Elections results website so you can keep it handy for the aftermath of your own voting efforts.

What I learned last week:

• At last! I am sending in the final versions of the UTS budget for 2019-2020 along with our new IT Asset Management Inventory and Budget and a summary document of the initiatives and projected funds required to undertake the McMaster IT Strategic Plan in 2019 (initiatives overlap to some degree with the UTS Budget). We are working on a budget update presentation for UTS for later this semester which will shed some light on all of the above. I for one will be happy to take a budget break/brake until early November when I go to Budget Committee to support our submission.
• I attended the ORION (The Ontario Research and Innovation Optical Network) Board Meeting and AGM on Monday in Toronto. I was officially appointed to the ORION Board of Directors for a three year term at that meeting.
• I attended my first IT Student Advisory Committee meeting on Tuesday afternoon. A very engaged and lively group of students from across campus, undergraduate and graduate, are participating on the committee and it was a pleasure to speak to them about the McMaster IT Strategic Plan. Mike Diggins also presented on our wireless enhancement projects, and Eduroam, and Tanya shared an update on the change to the MS Office 365 login that people will use to sign in. We will be making the change from @ads.mcmaster.ca to @mcmaster.ca. This will be taking place in the next few weeks and communications will be forthcoming very soon! Thanks to Marzena Kielar for getting this committee off the ground and being the first Chair, and for Michelle Zheng from the Registrar’s office for being Vice Chair. If you are curious about this committee, think about attending the next one to see it in action!
• President Patrick Deane was at the Provost Council meeting on Wednesday AM with Rina Fraticelli, the Director of the Socrates Project, to facilitate a discussion on how to continue to support and enhance the project. I shared some information about Socrates Project events last week – and there is a lot more to come! Rina is also being honoured with a Governor General’s award for her active involvement in gender inequity issues. What a lovely story.
• The new CIO from Dalhousie, Josh Leon, was in town and we had a chance to meet for a few hours on Wednesday to exchange stories. Josh is a past Dean and faculty member at Dal and other institutions, and has connections across many Canadian campuses. He and Ishwar exchanged greetings when they bumped into each other at the University Club, as an example. Josh is a new CIO so he had some good questions and some interesting insights of his own.

The books I finished last week:

It was a productive audio book week with 3 books completed. I don’t quite know when I fit all that listening in…

• Silent Child – Sarah A. Denzil – this seemed like a cross between The Girl on the Train and Room. It was interesting enough and at the same time became a bit formulaic and hard to believe. Read it if you like thrillers that aren’t too real.
• Medicine Walk by Richard Wagamese – You may recall that I read one of Wagamese’s books earlier this year: Indian Horse. I really enjoyed it so when I came across this title, it seemed like a good bet. And…I absolutely LOVED it. It is such a compelling story – and it is a story within a story. It is beautifully written, with amazing descriptions and details, and the characters stay with you. I can’t say enough about it. I was saddened to realize that Richard Wagamese passed away last year – which I had missed learning about when I read his other book. Apparently he had almost finished a sequel to Medicine Walk and it sounds like it may be released. I found a great article from the Globe and Mail on Wagamese that may pique your interest.
• I am Half-Sick of Shadows by Alan Bradley. What can I say…more Flavia de Luce. I found out that Alan Bradley is Canadian! I assumed British due to the setting and the characters. This makes it an even better guilty pleasure. 5/10 down – so just 5 to go!

What I am up to this week:

• Monday – I am voting!
• Throughout the week I have the usual array of meetings with colleagues from across campus
• I am chairing the IISC meeting on Tuesday – a sign that the next round of second tier IT Governance committee meetings is under way
• The Teaching and Learning Technology meeting is on Thursday, in fact.
• On Friday I am attending two convocations – both are for Cam, my stepson, who is receiving two degrees – a Business degree from Wilfred Laurier and then a Math degree from Waterloo. We will attend one convocation in the AM and the other in the PM. It will be a busy day! Still, only one celebratory dinner. 🙂

Have a great week everyone.

Please take time to vote!

Regards

Gayleen