The first of four candidates for assistant vice president for academic affairs for technology spoke of focusing students in developing technology at Eastern when he interviewed with members of university councils and senates Monday in Booth Library.

Michael Hoadley, director of the Center for Interactive Technologies in Education and Corporations, talked about some of his accomplishments at USD and what he thought he could do at Eastern if given the new position.

“I believe everything we do at the university has to go back to the students,” Hoadley, who is also professor and division chair in the Division of Technology for Training and Development at the University of South Dakota School of Education, said.

“You have to build a technology infrastructure that’s going to be beneficial to your clients, which are the students.”

Hoadley also spoke about the importance of coordination and communication between departments at the university and the importance of a having a coordinated web page.

“I’m really surprised that a campus of this size does not have a full-time Web master,” Hoadley said, referring to the fact that this a new postion at Eastern. “You need one person who is in charge of the university Web page.”

Hoadley also said he would like to see more coordination between the Center for Academic Technology Support and Information Technology Services.

“I sense that (ITS) doesn’t really understand the academic side and the academic people don’t really understand what ITS does,” Hoadley said.

If hired, Hoadley said he would try to develop clearer definitions of the roles of ITS and CATS.

When asked how he thought he might be able to secure funding for technology programs, Hoadley said, “There are plenty of external funds out there.” Hoadley siad that at the University of South Dakota he was very successful in getting external funding and setting up business partnerships.

Hoadley described the Palm Project at the University of South Dakota, in which every freshman entering in fall of 2001 was able to get a Palm Pilot for about a third of the cost. Hoadley, who assisted in first-year implementation of the program, described a number of problems it faced. Those included getting faculty trained in the use of the devices and finding ways to integrate their use into the curriculum.

Hoadley said many of the problems have been eliminated and the program is working much better now. He said he expects the program to be extremely succesful by next fall.

“When it comes to technology, people have to be ready to move forward.

“There has to be a real purpose in any kind of technology integration,” Hoadley said.

“You have to do the best at what you can realistically do before you look at how to move on,”

Other candidates interviewing for the position are David Wang, associate vice president for information technology at Emporia State University, Roy Roper, associate director of the Office of Information Technologies and director of Academic Computing at Montclair State University and Frank Moore, executive director of Information and Instructional technology at Longwood College.