As everyone says “I don’t know where the summer went”. Right, it came and went before we knew it. In LTS, as always, summer was very productive. Our staff worked on several exciting projects, notably, a large contingent of both LTS staff and those from Human Resources and Finance were working extremely hard on Workday related activities as well as others working to make sure that the classroom technologies were in good shape for the start of the semester. Based on the feedback we have received so far, classroom problem calls are down to a handful, which is great news.

We also have had a few glitches that we will be attending to aggressively to sort out. Most notably, our course browser and waitlist system were way too slow for a period of time and we have already provisioned additional hardware with more memory and CPUs which hopefully will help address these issues.

We rolled out an initial version of dashboards for alumnae data using Microsoft SQL server, which I think will vastly simplify the way many offices access this data. The modern and easy to use PowerBI interface from Microsoft drives all of this and our technologists have done a terrific job of packaging the data and creating easy to use interfaces to slice and dice the data.

two brawny Fine Arts Express movers helping move the Durant Gradual.

Our Curator of Special Collections, Ruth Rogers, wrote to us in August “Wellesley’s most famous Durant Gradual takes a trip to the Gardner museum today! Requiring two brawny Fine Arts Express movers to crate and carry it— this early 15th century liturgical manuscript will be a centerpiece at the Gardner Museum in the forthcoming Boston area exhibition Beyond Words. Wellesley is loaning 7 manuscripts for the show, which is a first-of-its-kind exhibition of illuminated manuscripts from the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Read more about it here: http://beyondwords2016.org/

**Fun fact: With over 300 full page vellum leaves, at least 150 animals were needed to make it. That’s a lot of beef stew.”

Our staff also helped organize a Book Studies symposium titled “Graphic Design in the Digital Future: Lessons from the Renaissance Book” which will be held on Saturday, September 10th.

We almost doubled the number of wireless access points on campus this summer and hopefully this is addressing some of the wireless access issues in the residence halls. This is an attempt not to do some of these critical services piecemeal, instead, do a complete refresh of the hardware with a plan to refresh them in another 4-5 years. This required collaboration from our finance office to move to a leasing model for the hardware.

We are thrilled to offer Duo two factor authentication to our users to improve security for Google Apps and other applications as we move forward. As with many technologies, it will be a while before this takes on, but we are optimistic.

These are just a few of the many things on which everyone worked. One of the best things about working in a small institution is that you get to see first hand the kind of impact that your work is having on faculty, staff and students and how appreciative they are.

The President’s Office organized a faculty staff picnic yesterday where I got to hear from many faculty and staff who expressed their appreciation of all of what the LTS staff members do. Way to go LTS!

The arrival of our new president, Dr. Paula Johnson, has brought a renewed sense of optimism and enthusiasm all around the campus and we can’t wait to support the goals that she will set for the College as well as any new initiatives that she plans to announce. Welcome Paula!