People & Processes
People
The Division of IT employs approximately 400 administrative faculty, staff, and non-student wage employees. In addition, most units employ one or more undergraduate student employees or graduate assistants.
Our people are our most valuable assets in the Division of IT, and we are committed to investing in both the professional and technical development and the wellness of our team members. Below are some highlights of our people in fiscal year 2023.
A group accepts the Enabling the Future award in June 2023
Employee Awards & Recognition recipients, Dec. 2022
Minh-An Pence becomes IT human resources director
In December of 2022, we welcomed Minh-An Pence as our new human resources director. Pence started her role under the university’s new division director model, in which each operational division and college have a human resource director who reports to both the Division of Human Resources (HR) and to their unit leadership or college dean.
Employee awards and recognition program celebrates its seventh year
The Division of IT employee awards and recognition program was started in 2017 as a way to provide incentives and recognition for individual and group achievements among Division of IT employees. Recipients are nominated by their peers, and awards are presented in the fall and spring of each year.
Fall 2022
SPOT Awards
- IT Human Resources team: Brittany Bane, John Carpenter, India Eanes, Christina Mathai, Amber Pifer
- ITEE Communication & Outreach team: Veronica Youngman, Kabir Uddin, Benjamin Alden, Adam Lane, Jennifer Reed, Amanda Cooper, Joshua Causin, Anne Sheppard, Dave Pair
- Cindy Moore and Greg Whisenhunt
- Kristin Copenhaver
Living Core Values Award
Pris Sears
Achievement Award
- Teresa Campbell
- Lee Doughty
Degrees and Certifications
- Pranav Biatule - Juniper Enterprise Routing and Switching (JNCIS-ENT) Specialist
- Trish Mills - Fiscal Support Certificate
- Matthew Strickler - Master of Information Technology, Virginia Tech
Spring 2023
SPOT Award
- LaTawnya Burleson
- Roger Gupta
- Joy Huntley
- Petie Martin
- Mark McClafferty
- Priya Moda and Daniel Fisher
- Sara Morris
- Nancy Parks-Brisendine
- Elizabeth Schlieper
Living Core Values Award
- Angel Carter
- Sabrina Conner
- Joe Kelley and Elizabeth Schlieper
- Veronica Youngman
Achievement Award
- Jeff Crowder
- DiAnn Glenn
- Kit Hayes
- David Raymond
Enabling the Future Award
- Joe Hutson, Jeff Lang, Randy Marchany, Zach Mitcham, Brad Tilley
- Randy Marchany, Ryan Orren, Luke Watson
- Angela Correa, Marc DeBonis, Paige Ghra, Kit Hayes, Justin Hendrix, Greg Kroll, Zeynep Ondin, Chris Shively
Degrees and Certifications
- Kelly Adams - Associate degree in Accounting, New River Community College
- Angela Correa - Prosci Certified Change Management Practitioner
- Craig Hopkins - Prosci Train the Trainer Program Level 1
- Amber Pifer - Virginia Tech Financial Management Fiscal Leadership, Society of Human Resource Management - Certified Professional
- Paul Taylor - Master of Business Administration, Virginia Tech
- AJ Yost - Master of Information Technology with IT Management Certificate, Virginia Tech
Building community
The Division of IT Summer Picnic, 2023
Colleagues at the Feb. 2023 potluck at University Mall
IT employee Sam Parikh helps a kid program a robot at Kids Tech University, March 2023
- The Division of IT reinstated quarterly potluck lunch socials, including a friends and family potluck in the summer.
- Our summer picnic in June 2023 took place at the Marching Virginians pavilion, providing new scenery along with great food, great music, and great company.
- Division of IT employees volunteered their time and enthusiasm for technology at STEM outreach events including the An Achievable Dream summer camp in July 2022 and a robotics workshop at Kid’s Tech University in March 2023.
Milestones celebrated
- In late 2022, the Division of IT published its IT History website. This collection of interviews, photos, memories, and news stories originated as a project for the Virginia Tech sesquicentennial to celebrate the people and events that have contributed to the university’s information technology enterprise.
- 2023 Virginia Tech marked the 25th year that Virginia Tech supported IPv6 — making the university one of the first in the world to put the protocol into production.
The IT History website launched in Nov. 2022
Members of the IPv6 implementation team met in Feb. 2023 to celebrate the 25-year milestone of their work. They are (front row, from left) Phil Benchoff, Judy Lilly, Earving Blythe, Eric Brown, Mark Gardner, (back row, from left) Eric Landgraf, Jeff Crowder, Carl Harris, Clark Gaylord, Brian Jones. Photo by Angela Correa for Virginia Tech.
Processes
We strive to deliver services that are responsive to the university’s needs. The integration of technology with processes that are efficient, effective and continuously improved allows us to work in a way that best supports the needs of the university community, creates value for the university, and enables the university to become a more data-informed institution.
Activities during fiscal year 2023 featured in this annual report that reflect our commitment to continuous improvement in processes include:
- Virginia Tech partners with OmniSOC to provide 24x7 security monitoring
- Leveraging User Experience data to enhance 4Help user support services during fall rush
- IT Service Management Core Data & the Configuration Management Database: Laying the Foundation
- Leveraging knowledge management to improve IT Service Management processes and benefit the user experience
- Streamlining Single Sign-On through self-service SAML integration
- Grouping in Grouper
- Login load testing saves time and money
- Improved endpoint protection enables quick response to cyberattacks