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Waite-Franzen Appointed Vice President for Information Technology

Ellen J. Waite-Franzen, the vice president for computing and information services at Brown University, has been named vice president for information technology at Dartmouth. Waite-Franzen will bring more than 10 years of information and technology services experience to her new post, which she will assume on October 15.

Ellen Waite-Franzen

Waite-Franzen will lead Dartmouth's computing services, which encompasses all computing infrastructure and architecture, applications development, and instructional and research support.

"Dartmouth's heritage and ambition is to take a leadership role in developing and providing technology that advances the work of our students, faculty, and staff," says President James Wright. "I look forward to working with Ellen Waite-Franzen to maintain this ambitious and energetic pace."

As the vice president for Brown's computing and information services, Waite-Franzen was responsible for the university's technology environment, including academic and scholarly technology services and support, network services, telecommunications, administrative systems, and technology training and support. She implemented a major upgrade of Brown's campus network and e-mail system, and established a security infrastructure. Before joining the administration at Brown, she was the vice president for information services at the University of Richmond, Va., and the vice president for academic services at Loyola University in Chicago.

She also served as associate director of libraries and university librarian at Loyola. Waite-Franzen is a member of the Educause board of directors and is currently the treasurer. She has served as a consultant to numerous higher education advisory committees concerning information technology (IT) and library operations. She holds a B.A. from the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh and an M.A. in library and information science from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

"This is an exciting time for IT professionals as this realm enjoys tremendous advances," says Waite-Franzen. "I'm eager to begin working with the professionals at Dartmouth to take advantage of the latest technology in the spirit of Dartmouth's mission: delivering a top notch education to all students enrolled."

Dartmouth Provost Barry Scherr says, "Ellen has exceptional experience in higher education computing that will certainly benefit Dartmouth. We look forward to her leadership in meeting the challenges that face this complex and ever-evolving area and in assuring that Dartmouth's technology environment is among the very best of any educational institution."

"Ellen's ability to see the big picture and understand how information technology can be used to enable all aspects of the College's mission is very impressive," says Martin Wybourne, vice provost for research and chair of the search committee for the vice president for information technology. "With her leadership and national stature, I look forward to Dartmouth remaining at the forefront of IT use in higher education."

Dartmouth's legacy of leadership in computing began in the late 1940s, when the College demonstrated the first remote access to a digital computer. In 1955, mathematician John McCarthy, then at Dartmouth, coined the term "artificial intelligence" and hosted a two-month summer conference on the subject in 1956. In 1964, mathematicians John Kemeny and Thomas Kurtz developed the time-sharing prototype and the popular and widely used computer language, BASIC.

More recently, the College has deployed one of the nation's leading campus network infrastructures. In 2001, Dartmouth was the first Ivy League institution to have a fully wireless campus, and Dartmouth's Class of 2009 was the first generation of Dartmouth students to experience a totally "converged" campus environment that supplies Internet (both wired and wireless), cable television (DarTV), and phone service (VoIP) through the Dartmouth computer network.

By SUSAN KNAPP

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