In the Division of Information Technology, we pride ourselves on doing everything we can to meet the needs of students, faculty, and staff. As it says in our mission statement, our goal is to provide “the Texas State University community with effective, reliable, and secure technology and library services, backed by excellent customer service, to support the university’s academic, research, and administrative goals.”
Our commitment has been more obvious in 2020 than ever before.
The COVID-19 pandemic changed the Texas State work and learning environments. The changes we encountered were made successful because of technology, and we were prepared due to the hands-on work of the amazing employees we have in the IT Division. Fueled by the need to work, teach, research, and study remotely, technology utilization took a giant step forward.
I cannot say enough about the things our staff accomplished. Among many other things, we:
- Helped faculty move to TXST Canvas, our Learning Management System, for easier online educating.
- Trained hundreds of people to get the most out of Microsoft tools such as Teams, Outlook, and OneDrive, and held classes and virtual meetings in Teams and Zoom.
- Provided easy access to library data and information despite limiting access to our facilities.
The university’s Faculty Senate recognized our work in a resolution they passed commending the division.
I will not try to detail every triumph in this welcome message, but please read on – this Almanac contains details of how the work our staff did helped Texas State through the technological revolution needed to deal with the coronavirus response. I hope you enjoy the stories.
If you have stories you would like to share with me about your interactions with the IT Division, and our libraries and technologies, please feel reach out to me through email at vpit@txstate.edu.
Thanks,
Kenneth R. Pierce
Vice President for Information Technology and CIO
