Ellen J. Waite-Franzen, currently vice president for computing and information services at Brown University, has been named vice president for information technology at Dartmouth.
As the College's senior officer for information technology, Waite-Franzen will oversee Computing Services, one of the College's largest administrative departments, which encompasses all computing infrastructure and architecture, applications development and instructional and research support. She will begin her work at Dartmouth on Oct. 15.
Waite-Franzen will replace Rita Murdoch, director of Computing Support and Fiscal Services who has acted as interim vice president since former IT head Larry Levine departed last year. She will work with the rest of the CIS department to define an agenda for the College's IT investments.
Waite-Franzen brings over 10 years of experience in information technology, which she will rely upon in dealing with recent problems that Computing Services has faced, such as computer viruses, campus wide power outages, security breaches and illegal online file sharing.
The first Ivy League institution to have a 100 percent wireless campus, Dartmouth remains at the forefront of IT use in higher education, maintaining one of the nation's leading campus network infrastructures. More recently, students have experienced a totally "converged" campus environment that enjoys Internet (both wired and wireless), cable television and free telephone service all courtesy of the Dartmouth Computing network.
Waite-Franzen said she looks forward to working with senior administrators to improve network security and reliability. She also hopes to work with the greater technology community to determine Dartmouth's future -- especially with regard to further integration in the teaching and research environments.
"This is an exciting time for IT professionals as this realm enjoys tremendous advances," Waite-Franzen said.
While Brown and Dartmouth share similar goals in the field of information technology, Waite-Franzen believes that the emphasis is different at Dartmouth.
"I found that Dartmouth has greater engagement by the senior administration in thinking about how technology should affect the life of faculty and students," she said.
"Dartmouth is in a different place with how they think about technology and how it should be used on campus. At Brown, IT takes more of a backseat, while at Dartmouth, the College continues to assume a leadership role at the forefront of the industry."
Waite-Franzen believes that her greatest challenge will be getting to know the Dartmouth campus.
"Brown has a different feel than Dartmouth, and [it is] always hard to get to know the other senior administrators, staff, faculty and students on campus," she said.
At Brown, Waite-Franzen implemented key reforms to the campus network and e-mail system, and established a security infrastructure. Before joining the administration at Brown, she was the vice president for information services at the University of Richmond in Richmond, Va. and the vice president for academic services at Loyola University in Chicago. She has also served as associate director of libraries and university librarian at Loyola.
"Ellen's ability to see the big picture and understand how information technology can be used to enable all aspects of the College's mission is very impressive," said Martin Wybourne, the vice provost for research who chaired the search committee for her position. "With her leadership and national stature, I look forward to Dartmouth remaining at the forefront of IT use in higher education."
