This summer is turning out to be far better than last. This time last year, several of us at the College were working overtime – starting with decision making on how the Fall semester will shape up, working on modifying systems for changes (summer needed to be rerun from on campus to remote classes, Fall needed to be reconfigured for Term systems), and gearing up for COVID testing starting in August. Each of this was a monumental effort involving so many faculty and staff and looking back, it was amazing how much we were able to accomplish together! This year, it is understandably different for the better.

When we developed our strategy document in the 2012 time frame, the focus was on these – Expanding Access, Strengthening Partnerships, Providing a Scalable, Sustainable & Agile Infrastructure & Mitigating Risks. We have done extremely well in following up on all these goals. A new strategic plan that we hope to begin working on shortly will retain most of these overarching goals, but what is underneath will change. We are waiting for the College’s Strategic Plan to move to the next step of implementation  so that we can line up ours with that. Accomplishing the stated goals in an environment that is fast paced requires prioritization and willingness to change and let go of some of the things that are close to our hearts. And this is where the Low code/No code strategy is extremely important.

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Our drive from Google Map. We drove through the southern path and returned through the Northern one.

One of the days during the 2nd week in April, I happened to walk into a conversation between our elder son and my wife. Our son was going to get his second dose of vaccination and was planning on a  long road trip to visit some national parks. At the end of it all, the trip turned into one that my wife and I would also accompany him. Our younger one had work to do so he couldn’t. All three were fully vaccinated by then and we were excited. Our son had it all planned and it was supposed to be for a couple of weeks, so there was not much for me to do.

We love such road trips and visits to the parks. We have done them a few times. In 1983 my wife and I (poor grad students) drove from NY City down to Florida and back, stopping on the way at all sorts of interesting places and staying with friends or Motel 6! Similarly, we did a trip in 1984 going from NY City to California and back over 5 weeks. We saw a few events at the LA Olympics that year. Subsequently, we had flown to Denver with the kids and drove around some of the parks in Colorado, Wyoming, South Dakota etc. and a few times to California and drove around in CA, AZ, NV etc. They are just a lot of fun.

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On that fateful day, Wed Mar 17th, I was so tired of telling my Mac “Try the OS update tomorrow”, I gave in and pressed the button to run the update! I have so much respect for and trust in Apple in terms of user experience that I expected such a major upgrade to proceed smoothly. It turned out to be a mini disaster.

It took forever to download, because it is a pretty large one. Then it began installing and long story short, after an hour and a half, nothing was happening. No error messages. I was using my phone to attend to emails in the meantime and looking up the various fora for Big Sur upgrades. So many complaints, I wish I had checked them before I began…

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We all were following the story of the new virus creating havoc in China in the news and social media early last year, but, it didn’t hit us as something that will turn our own personal and professional lives upside down until late February and early March. At the College, President Johnson convened a group of us to think through various likely scenarios and how best to respond to each. As a physician and public health expert, she was able to provide authoritative information based on her understanding of the seriousness of the issue and in consultation with some of the world’s experts in this area. It became clear quickly that we had to make some tough choices for the sake of the health and safety of the community.

Despite the various scenario planning, by the 11th of March, it was quickly becoming clear that we were trending on closing the College and going remote. The final decision was made on the 12th, a year ago today, and the president sent the painful message to the College Community where she said:

Up until this morning, we had planned to continue classes through next week and begin spring break on time. However, in light of the newest information about the escalation in the number of cases and increased risk to our students, we have decided to accelerate our timeline.

• Spring break will begin on Monday, March 16, and remote instruction will begin on March 30. Remote instruction will continue for the rest of the semester.

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Dear Google (I know it is stupid to address this way!)

We, along with thousands of other Higher Eds and K-12s have enjoyed the benefits of the tools that you have made available for free. Of course, it vastly simplified and streamlined the administrivia associated with maintaining Email, Calendar and File systems, but the educational benefits of such tools have been significant. Most notably, the ease of collaboration in Docs and Sheets is simply remarkable. And we, Wellesley College, have been the beneficiaries of this for the past 10 years.

So, when we all received an email about some changes that Google is about to make, at first glance, it all looked harmless and step in the right direction. Except, when I read that you will impose a pooled storage of 100 TB per institution. This shocked many of us whose institutions have a lot more. How much more depends on how long you have been using Google Apps. You said you will begin enforcing this in July 2022, thank you for giving us some extra time, but it ain’t fair! When we all signed up, you told us that the service was free and we had unlimited storage. And now you want to change this, and we all understand that you wouldn’t do it without a careful legal review of the contracts, so it must be within your rights to do this!

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To be honest, we in Higher Ed administration talk about collaboration a lot more than actually collaborate. It happens a lot more successfully on the academic side where faculty collaborate on research projects with their colleagues globally. On the administration side we “consult” a lot and learn a lot from each other, but, at least to me, collaboration means something very different. When you do a Google search for collaboration you get two results:

1. the action of working with someone to produce or create something.
2. traitorous cooperation with an enemy

Of course, I mean the first. The first definition does not include talking and consulting with others!

I have been working in Higher Ed administration since 1986 and I feel that in the 80s and 90s we actually did a lot more collaboration in Higher Ed IT. There are several examples of technology collaborations during those times. It is weird that with such a pervasive use of Internet, where we are a lot more connected, we don’t collaborate as much. There are several reasons why, one of the most important one is the fractured nature of technology. Too many products or customizations of the same product in a way it is very hard for institutions to find commonalities and gain advantage from sharing.

This is why I am extremely proud of, a collaboration around COVID testing with Tufts University.

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When I first heard that the Educational Research and Development Committee (ER&D) has decided to award the Apgar teaching award to Library and Technology Committee (LTS) and Strategic Growth Initiative (SGI), I could not contain my excitement. This to me is an unprecedented move, given the description of the award:

Teaching Awards

Apgar Award

Endowed by Anne Nelson Apgar ’70, the prize is meant to recognize a faculty member who motivates students’ interest, curiosity, and love of learning; proposes and applies new teaching concepts and methods; and serves as a mentor to stimulate students’ intellectual development. Based upon proposals for new and experimental courses, Educational Research and Development Committee ER&D selects a winner, who receives a plaque.

When the College decided to go all remote in March 2020, we needed to quickly turn our attention to how best to support the students and faculty. Thankfully, because of the spring break, we had two weeks to do this. What we did during that short period of time and thereafter was simply remarkable. But most importantly, the strong collaboration and coordination between LTS, PLTC (The Pforzheimer Learning and Teaching Center) and SGI was critical. Above all, the willingness on the part of the faculty to participate actively in workshops and other venues in numbers that we just could not believe was also critical.

Our staff conducted record number of information sessions/workshops (attended by over 250 faculty members), held virtual office hours and responding to tickets as quickly as possible. After some initial issues, things began to come together. Did we have continuing issues? Absolutely, but if they are things related to what we can do, we resolved them quick. But there were other complications totally outside our domain resulting from the weight of the crisis that we could not do much about.

We had a bit more time to help the faculty plan for the Fall and it was equally successful. It was so great to hear from the faculty about lessons learned as well as some of the best practices emerging from the presentations. We heard how this medium is turning out to be more inclusive – that the directed chat between the student and instructor is making some students participate more than in a traditional classroom where they may not be participating the same way.

And finally, we decided to receive the award on behalf of the entire organization because every one of the staff member contributed to the success in one way or the other. PLTC leadership deserves a huge praise because we simply could not have reached out to the faculty as effectively as we did without Professor Oscar Fernandez.

This is just an incredible and generous gesture on the part of the faculty. My staff and I are so thankful for this.

On Nov 15th, 2020 I completed 10 years at Wellesley. I have to say that time has flown by fast! I have been very fortunate to have a team of individuals who are hard working and dedicated to the institution, my boss (Provost Shennan)  and the senior leaders who have provided the support needed for us to succeed.

When I interviewed, I was surprised to find out that the previous organization did not have an advisory committee to work with. I was pleased to hear that the College was forming one, because I am a firm believer in that model. Over the years, the Advisory Committee on Library and Technology Policy has been a great partner in developing policies that were non existent or incomplete and have supported so many new initiatives that have benefitted the College community.

We are fortunate to be able to provide services in a way that is trusted by the community and reliable. We also have an agile organization of individuals who are willing to pitch in where we need them to assist us in. This COVID crisis brought the best of LTS staff and what we did to support the students, faculty and staff has been remarkable. Our support extended beyond instructional support including the technologies used for managing the COVID testing.

I always remember a conversation that I had with one of my staff members shortly after my arrival. I had just moved from Pace University where I had a very short tenure (1 year and 3 months or so) and she told me that all the staff will be watching me carefully to see how long I will stay at Wellesley! Well… it has been ten years and I have enjoyed every moment of it and it has been a very satisfying experience. Looking forward to the future.

I saw a post in LinkedIn that referred to a podcast titled “How to Work Smarter”  where my friend Heather Abbot, Deputy Registrar, Yale Law School, discusses what she does to work smarter. I highly recommend this to anyone looking for some pointers.

This led me to think about some of what I do and I thought I would share them here. I should say that what I am describing below is something that has evolved over several years during which I constantly keep tweaking what I do. And I pick up ideas from various sources and if I find them applicable to me I do them. There is no single book or philosophy I can point to… I also realize that the fact that this works for me may not work for others.

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On the one hand, I feel terrible for not having written for so long… On the other, it is the reality of this COVID crisis. I have been working a lot, like everyone else. No need to elaborate. I just need to get going on posting here because I like doing it.

All faculty and staff at the College receive a computer with replacement every four years. This is just a general guideline and several prefer to keep their computers longer. I try to stick to the same 4 year replacement cycle as much as possible. The current one I have is a 15″ MacBook Pro and I believe I have had it for just over a year and a few months. I noticed that some keys on my keyboard were wearing off. It got to a point where A and S were practically unrecognizable and I said “we paid a lot for this and this is not acceptable”.

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