McMaster IT 2020 Year in Review

2020. Wow! It has been an extraordinary year! Twenty-twenty is also synonymous with hindsight. And as we close out this unpredictable year, I felt it important to reflect on all that has happened to and within the McMaster IT community.  

2020 brought (dare I say it) unprecedented change for the world and McMaster. Our McMaster IT community came together to adapt and enable a new reality in teaching, learning and working. It was a privilege to witness and be a part of the significant cross–campus collaboration that occurred over the year.  

The collective commitment to ensuring the campus community could thrive in our remote environments is something we will learn and benefit from for years to come. This past year changed the way we came together. It inspired new levels of connection, cooperation and communication.  

We built new relationships, strengthened existing ones and found new leadership opportunities. Individuals stepped into their strengths and interests to uncover new ways of delivering IT to McMaster. And it wasn’t just IT personnel. I am delighted at the number of IT champions who emerged from across the campus community to support teaching and learning. Everyone became an extended member of McMaster IT! 

I recently asked my team to reach out to ask our McMaster IT community to share accomplishments and lessons from the year — to provide us all with concrete examples of our many successes so we can end this year on a note of celebration. A heartfelt thank you to those of you who already took time from busy schedules to share your accomplishments.  

Indeed, many of you are still in the throes of ensuring our staff, faculty and students are duly supported as we complete a semester for the history books and prepare for a second remote term. With this in mind, we are adapting our approach and will focus our sights on early 2021 to share stories and lessons. We want to do justice to the effort that went into supporting our institution to ensure teaching, learning and working could continue. We want to provide you with a chance to share your success stories when you have had time to catch your breath.   

I encourage you to share your area’s work, if you haven’t yet done so, by reaching out to Tanya Reid at tanya.reid@mcmaster.ca. We aim to highlight your amazing efforts to connect, transform and provide seamless foundations for the university as we lead up to the annual Connectivity: McMaster IT Forum in February 2021.  

Having had a sneak peek at the many highlights already submitted, I can tell you that we could fill a book with your shared initiatives and outcomes from this year. It will be amazing to share these in early 2021!  The delight is in the detail, and I look forward to exploring all that McMaster IT teams have been delivering in the past twelve months, including the continued effort to move the McMaster IT Strategic Plan forward, bringing us even closer to our McMaster IT strategic vision. Thank you! 

I hope our friends from the McMaster University Library won’t mind me borrowing from their conclusion that “success during this period rested in four key factors:  

• A complement of staff who are committed to serving their users to the best extent possible; 
• Staff who are willing to engage with new technologies and explore their potential in creative, often playful ways; 
• A strong culture of idea-sharing, teamwork, and collaboration; 
• Highly competent and capable technical staff, who can adeptly integrate new solutions into an integrated whole to provide a seamless experience for the user”. 

Our McMaster IT community checks all those boxes, and importantly, so does the McMaster Connected Community. How fortunate we all are to work in such a dedicated and committed institution.  

Allow me to express my deep gratitude for your collective efforts. From me and my team in the AVP and CTO office, please accept sincere wishes for you and your families to enjoy a safe and happy holiday season. Please do take seriously the value of a well-deserved break!