Last week, I picked up (for the third time) one of my favorite books: South!: The Story of Shackleton’s Last Expedition 1914-1917. One particular passage piqued my interest: “We had eighteen fur bags, and it was necessary, therefore, to issue ten of the Jaeger woollen bags in order to provide for the twenty-eight men of…
When Nick McLarty resigned as TTI CISO in December, it was a significant blow to NIS because Nick was (and is) a valued and highly skilled team member. While I’m proud that Nick went on to become an Assistant Information Security Officer (ISO) for the TAMU System, I’m now tasked with providing a quality level…
EDUCAUSE, the mothership for higher education IT, has published their top 10 issues for 2020. Interestingly, the top three issues are Information Security, Privacy, and IT Funding. Another interesting issue is #10 – “The Integrative CIO: Repositioning or reinforcing the role of IT leadership as an integral strategic partner of institutional leadership in supporting institutional…
Out of the 23 copiers across the agency, 21 of them have contracts expiring in December. As a result, NIS has requested proposals from all of the current TAMUS vendors who provide multi-function printer (MFP) services. Our intention is to refresh the majority of agency’s MFPs in the fall. What does that mean for you?…
Today is the anniversary of the death of Winston Spencer Churchill, the architect of the Grand Alliance between Britain, America, and Russia during World War II. It’s fitting that we hosted the Tri-Agency Retreat for TTI, TEES, and TEEX today. The purpose of the retreat was to get the leadership of the three agencies together…
I recently ran across an old PBS News Hour video on digital badging that was a great summary of the business case for using digital badges in higher education. Basically, the reason we should move towards digital badges is to help our students differentiate their skills from other graduates with the same degree. The video…
Hitchens’s razor is an epistemological razor asserting that the burden of proof regarding the truthfulness of a claim lies with the one who makes the claim, and if this burden is not met, the claim is unfounded, and its opponents need not argue further in order to dismiss it.
Recently, I read a report from the Association of American Colleges & Universities on the future of work and higher education’s place in it. The report titled Fulfilling the American Dream: Liberal Education and the Future of Work “summarizes selected findings from two parallel national surveys—one of 501 business executives at private sector and nonprofit organizations and another…
I was reading an article (THECB, 2018) the other day on the 60x30TX Initiative. This initiative, by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, seeks to bring the percentage of adults with some form of higher education (defined as an associates degree or above) up to 60% by the year 2030. What caught my eye was…