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Your Career
How to Be a Super Tech Leader
7/1/2008
These eight 'gender-blind' secrets of career success have helped one woman become a campus tech leader. They'll work for you, too!
MARY JO GORNEY-MORENO DIDN'T START OUT in IT. She joined San Jose State University (CA) in 1981 as an assistant professor in the school of nursing. But somewhere along the way, she realized her energy was focused on academic technology, and how it could help a variety of learners gain knowledge.
Now associate VP of academic technology for San Jose State, Gorney-Moreno led the effort to design and implement the university's Academic Success Center, a 10,000-square-foot incubator learning space, which she now directs. She's also the director of faculty development for the university. How did her ascension in the tech arena come about? During her 27 years at San Jose, says the VP, she was fortunate to discover eight secrets of career success that continually propelled her forward.
Secret #1: Broaden Your Horizons
In other words, says Gorney-Moreno, get involved in the broader operations of your campus. In her own case, that "broadening" came through terms she served in the academic senate where faculty and administrators were responsible for decisions that affected the entire university. "I've always been excited by processes and how organizations operate," she says. Her time in the senate, which included stints as senate chair, taught her how a university is administered, how funds are procured for different projects, and how decisions are made. She viewed her time there as an opportunity to improve faculty lives-- and, indirectly, the students' lives, too. "If the faculty are happier and more satisfied with their role, then it affects the students as well."
Secret #2: Communicate!
Are you communicating your projects to the university community? Gorney-Moreno, for instance, learned to communicate about research she conducted regarding the use of technology for nursing education. That research included video-based delivery of curricula as well as a project that explored the use of PDAs to connect homecare nursing students with instructors, and instructors with physicians. As she brought these technology-based projects to the campus, she kept the president and the provost apprised of progress; she also informed them of project awards, new funding resources, and the application of those funds. At a project's close, she made sure to invite the university's senior administrators to the celebration, so that they could speak with the students involved in the initiatives, and view the technology in action.
"I believed it was my job to let the campus administration know what we were doing," she maintains, but adds that her actions had another effect: They made the administration aware that she was one of the faculty on campus who was on the forefront of technology-based research. When the post of associate VP/academic technology opened up, the president and provost asked if she'd be willing to take the job on an interim basis.
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