An Introduction to The Integrative CIO Podcast

Melissa Woo: I don't know when I decided I wanted to be a CIO after I'd made the switch into IT. I think I got frustrated at things that I couldn't change, or I didn't feel I could more directly change.

Keith McIntosh: On my campus, I'm extremely vocal about diversity, equity, inclusion. It's the right and responsibility and privilege of a leader. You are at a level that has a platform where you can and should speak up about such things.

Barron Koralesky: The CIO rung may not be the rung for you. So just find a role, a place, a team that that fits you and enjoy it.

Cynthia Golden: Hi, I'm Cynthia Golden from the University of Pittsburgh.

Jack Seuss: And I'm Jack Seuss from the University of Maryland Baltimore County. This is the Edge of Cause Integrative CIO podcast. This podcast is not about technology. It's about people in technology, and we focus on professional and organizational development, building your personal brand, and diversity, equity, and inclusion. And we think about these topics as we're looking at higher ed information technology.

Cynthia Golden: In this podcast, we'll meet leaders from a variety of institutions, from community colleges, to large research universities, to private industry. We'll hear their stories learn about best practices, they'll share new ideas, and they'll talk about the challenges and opportunities that they face as IT leaders.

You know Jack, it has been really great to team up with you for these conversations with our colleagues as well. And this really helped keep me sane during the pandemic, but it's also been interesting I think to compare notes and to hear different perspectives from a lot of people and different campuses on what we've been going through for the last few years. We've covered a lot of topics, how people work within the institution and our careers and our roles.

Jack Seuss: I am just so impressed with a lot of the leaders that are coming up through organizations, and I really have gained so much listening to how they're approaching, thinking about technology, thinking about their organization, and it's really actually helped me sort of rethink the way that I want to be looking at how we do things and how we move forward as an institution.

And so I think this has been one of those things where it's not really so much us listening and sharing advice, but really trying to be pulling some really great advice and great thinking that's coming out of so many different people. And what I hope is that these different voices help people feel that you can find the right model for you, because there's no one sort of cookie cutter approach that everyone should use. But I think you'll hear a lot of different approaches and hopefully people will find something that fits their persona.