TechTalks Event
Recruiting and Retaining Information Technology Personnel�
with guest experts Linda Cabot of the Georgia Institute of Technology and John Bucher of Oberlin College�
November 16, 2000
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Even more than the purely commercial, for-profit world, higher education institutions struggle with finding and retaining qualified IT staff. It's a top ten issue for higher ed IT departments. Join us in this session as two experts share what they've learned about how to ensure your best people stay with you.
Many listeners sent in their questions to expert@cren.net and joined Technology Anchor Howard Straus and Co-Host Judith Boettcher on Thursday, November 16 at 4:00 pm Eastern time as they quizzed guest experts Linda Cabot and John Bucher about effective HR practices for higher education IT staff.
Guest Experts
Linda Cabot is the Director of Customer Support for
Georgia Institute of Technology. During her 13 years with Georgia
Tech, she has held a variety of positions from marketing to multiple
user advocate/support positions. Cabot currently teaches Psychology
1000 for first semester freshmen students and has taught in the
Institute's Freshman Experience program for the past six years.
Cabot held previous positions in the educational arena as a Career
Planning Specialist with American College Testing, Director of Career
Planning and Placement with the University of Albuquerque, Career
Specialist for San Juan College, and was certified as a National
Certified Career Counselor for a number of years. She is active
in the IT community, holding the position of Treasurer on the CREN
Board of Trustees. She has been on the CREN board for the past four
years. Cabot received a Master of Science Degree in Counseling Psychology
from George Williams College and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology
from Quincy University.
John Bucher is Director
of Information Technology at Oberlin
College in Oberlin, Ohio. Prior to coming to Oberlin he was
the Director of Computing Services at the University of South Dakota
from 1987 to 1993, and the Director of Computing and Network Services
at Kansas State University. He has been involved in higher education
computing since the mid-'70s and is very active in professional
organizations, including ACM SIGUCCS (board member and chair, 1991
- 1999), Educom (Institutional Trustee, 1997-1998), and Educause
(Recognition Committee, 1998 - present). Bucher currently serves
on CREN's Board of
Trustees.
Co-Hosts
Howard Strauss, Manager of Academic Applications at Princeton
University, is TechTalk's Technology Anchor.
Co-Host Judith Boettcher is CREN's Executive Director.
Together, Howard and Judith will ask the really tough questions—and
relay the questions you email to them at expert@cren.net.
Background & Resources
Both of our guest experts this week highly recommend Recruiting and Retaining Information Technology Staff in Higher Education (pdf) from Volume 23, Number 3 of EDUCAUSE Quarterly as, among other things, containing a thorough description of "broad banding." It's an EDUCAUSE Executive Briefing developed in cooperation with CUPA-HR and NACUBO. If you're inclined, in that same issue you can learn about the impact of distance learning on faculty salaries Your reputation (as employer or employee) affects this issue, in a recent issue of EDUCAUSE Review, you can learn about Building a Reputation through Accomplishment
Linda shares some additional resources:
- Here's a slightly older article from CAUSE/EFFECT entitled Retaining IT Staff through Effective Institutional Planning and Management by Michael Eleey and Lynn Oppenheim
- From CIO More than Money by Mark Rittenberg. Also from CIO here is a list of best practice suggestions and a link to an audio interview on the topic.
From the British Computer Society comes this advocacy for, among other things, "golden hellos/handcuffs."
Here's a really good meta-site called The Information Professional's Career Page.
In the most recent issue of The Technology Source Creating a Cost Framework for Instructional Technology is a Viewpoint by Alton L. Taylor and Frank A. Schmidtlein that addresses higher education IT staff retention and costs.
