I am sure I have written about this before, so forgive me for the repetition. I landed in this country in September 1978 to do my PhD. Unlike others, I knew exactly what I wanted to work on for my thesis, so I wrote to Prof. David Beveridge at Hunter College, CUNY and he enthusiastically accepted me into his group. So, the day I arrived at Hunter, I had a desk in his lab! I was terribly homesick, hated all the smell and the strange food and despite my fellow Indian grad students trying to cheer me up with things like “How many from India get to walk on the streets on NY and look at the beautiful Empire State Building everyday?”, all I wanted to do was to finish my PhD as fast as I could and get back home.
Then, we were invited to join Prof Beveridge and family for Thanksgiving in their home in Westport, CT. I had no clue about what this was for, but the car ride was an interesting one. It was cold and all the food and drinks looked so alien to me that I hardly touched anything. I remember eating an apple and that’s about it. Regardless, I have a lot to thank for. First and foremost, I want to thank Prof Beveridge, whose support and generosity over the years is clearly a major reason for my professional success. (more…)
I, like many around the country, have been in sheer shock and confusion about the results of the election and pretty depressed about the various things happening around the country in its aftermath. It is pretty scary that things can change so drastically, bringing some of the hidden ugliness out of the woodwork just in matter of a few days. But, this is not what I want to write about!
Whenever new technologies come out, no matter how carefully thought out, they have unanticipated and unintended consequences. There is a long list of these. (more…)
Last week I attended the annual conference of EDUCAUSE, the organization of Higher Ed technology organizations. It was attended by some 8000 professionals and vendors. The meeting was held in Anaheim, CA. I am happy to say that I was pleased with the meeting this year. You can see my tweets during the conference here.
I joined a few colleagues for a dinner to celebrate the retirement of a long term CIO from a small liberal arts college. This colleague is a terrific individual and though I have seen him in the liberal arts college gatherings and EDUCAUSE over the years, I have gotten to know him only in the past 6 years or so. He is a true leader who is a champion for collaboration and has taught us many things about how to be successful in collaborations. We will miss him very much. The dinner conversation was terrific and many attendees reminisced about the good old times (as in the ’80s and ’90s). (more…)