I hope that your Fall semester is winding down to a good end and that it was a productive one. Here at CIS we have had our heads down, working hard on a lot of different things, so I thought it was time to give you a Fall update.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The best and most important thing about Harvey Mudd College is the people. We have new people to introduce to you, all of whom we are delighted to welcome to the College. Click on their names for more details.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Additionally, Brad McCauley joined us six days ago. Brad will be in the role of SIS specialist and his position is funded by the Workday Student Initiative, providing \u201cback fill\u201d for two years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With these new arrivals, I am delighted to note that the CIS staff roster is now 47% women<\/strong>!<\/p>\n\n\n\n I would also like to give a shout out to all the interns that worked for us this summer: Shruthi Sukir, Marie Tano, Adam Grobman, Huize Huang, Peter Johnson, Kyle Grace, Huey Fields, Stephanie Hernandez. They helped us move forward on many projects and were a delight to work with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Our survey responses (you\u2019ll find one in your email every time we \u201cclose a ticket\u201d) and anecdotal evidence strongly suggest that our current user support team is doing a phenomenal job. I\u2019ve had a number of people walk up to me and say things like \u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter who is at the desk, I get consistent service\u2026\u201d. This kind of feedback is music to our ears, but we love all sorts of feedback so that we can continue to improve. You can respond to surveys, talk to any member of the computing committee<\/a> or just come by.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It was particularly gratifying to see CIS listed as \u201ca great resource\u201d in Talithia Williams and Susan Martonosi\u2019s presentation on \u201c5 things you should know when you revamp a course<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the summer, Jeho Park left HMC to become Director of the Murty Sunak Quantitative and Computing Lab at Claremont McKenna College. Shortly thereafter the search for his successor yielded Dr. Aashita Kesarwani, whom you might have met on campus during the summer when she taught a class for Girls Who Code. Aashita brings knowledge and experience in data science and she quickly became an XSEDE (High Performance Computing) campus champion. So there are now three campus champions in Claremont: Aashita, Jeho and Asya Shklyar at Pomona. Their skill sets complement one another and they will be collaborating to support faculty and students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At a recent Bite of Learning, Aashita provided an overview of high performance computing resources at the Claremont Colleges. You can view it online here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the summer, we hired Molly Reeves to help with the Math CIS service initiative, which is focused on streamlining IT services for the math department. It builds on the assumption that we can partner with the department so that CIS supports its basic operational needs and Molly can provide support in areas that are unique or special to the Math department. You can read more about this initiative on the special website<\/a> we have set up to map progress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Every summer all of the HMC Cabinet members discuss progress on their goals for the past year and draft goals for the coming year. Last Fall we shared our 2017-2018<\/a> CIS goals. This past summer I did an oral presentation to Cabinet on CIS progress, but I am planning to write something up that I can share. We did very well on almost all of our 2017-2018 goals. In July I presented the new goals for 2018-2019<\/a>. If you have time, I would love to receive your comments and feedback on that document. We now have three lenses through which we view our initiatives:<\/p>\n\n\n\n You may recall that the Workday Student project started in June. On a roughly two year timeline, the Claremont Colleges will replace Jenzabar CX (perhaps known to you as \u201cthe portal\u201d) with a new system that is part of the Workday suite. The Colleges already use Workday Human Resources and Finance. Many people at HMC are heavily involved in this project already. Here\u2019s a list, with the \u201cfunctional implementation groups\u201d (FIGs) that they are serving on:<\/p>\n\n\n<\/p>\n\n\nCIS Service<\/h2><\/p>\n\n\n\n
High Performance Computing<\/h2><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Math CIS service initiative<\/h2><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Goals for 2018-2019<\/h2><\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Workday Student<\/h2><\/p>\n\n\n\n