Faculty and Staff

2013 IT Impact Award winners named

During this month’s IT Matters speaker series, Penn State recognized the outstanding efforts of information technology professionals who have taken leadership roles in creating a thriving environment for IT collaboration, creativity and innovation. Credit: Penn StateCreative Commons

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- During this month’s IT Matters speaker series, Penn State recognized the outstanding efforts of information technology professionals who have taken leadership roles in creating a thriving environment for IT collaboration, creativity and innovation. Thanks to the dedication of these individuals, Penn State community members are able to connect to a wide range of  technologies and services essential in higher education today.

Kevin Morooney, vice provost for Information Technology, presented the annual IT Impact Awards in collaboration with guest speaker, Penn State President Rodney Erickson, in the following categories:

Out-of-the-Box Innovation

This award recognizes an individual or group at Penn State that has developed or instituted innovative approaches to solving IT issues.There were two recipients of the Out-of-the-Box Innovation award this year:

-- Kem Hartley: network systems specialist, Computer Science and Engineering, College of Engineering

-- ITS at Penn State Harrisburg: The individuals listed below are members of the Information Technology Services group at Penn State Harrisburg, a team tasked with the transformation of campus areas into new state-of-the-art collaborative learning spaces for students. (Campus Technology magazine highlighted the learning spaces initiative in their April issue at http://campustechnology.com/Home.aspx.)-- John Baskwill, systems analyst/administrator-- Martin Caha, IT support specialist-- Toni Chainey, IT operations specialist-- John Hoh, campus technology officer-- Michael Lackey, systems design specialist-- Gregory Madden, associate director-- Justin Piro, systems administrator-- David Schwenk, IT support specialist-- Douglas Shreffler, multimedia specialist-- James Smith, systems administratorResource Responsibility

This award recognizes individuals who make a significant contribution in reducing or consolidating the IT resources used in delivering IT services to Penn State. The resources involved can be financial, staff time or renewable energy (green initiatives).-- Joanne Peca, chief information officer, Office of Information Technology at Penn State AltoonaIT Collaboration

This award recognizes groups of individuals leading cross-administrative area initiatives that benefit the University as a whole, or positively impact the lives of Penn State’s customers. Two "special mentions" were  were highlighted in this category this year:

-- The IT Strategic Planning group: a team of over 125 faculty and staff from throughout Penn State, who were critical in creating Penn State's first, University-wide IT strategic plan.

-- The Penn State Polaris team: a group of 90 individuals, who came together from all parts of the University to collaborate on revitalizing Penn State’s Web presence.

For more information about the Vice Provost for Information Technology Impact awards, go to http://it.psu.edu/connects/recognizes/.

Last Updated January 9, 2015

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