Scituate, Massachusetts, United States
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About

With over a decade of C-suite IT executive experience in higher education, Cole W…

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Experience & Education

  • The University of Texas at Austin

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Licenses & Certifications

Volunteer Experience

  • Publisher

    The Bloomsburg Daily

    - Present 14 years 9 months

    Civil Rights and Social Action

    Publisher

Publications

  • Disrupting the Classroom

    PDK EDge

    Disrupting the Classroom was written based on our experiences in co-teaching our Disruptive Technologies for Teaching and Learning course in the spring of 2008. While some of this seems obvious at this point, some of it still seems in the distance as it relates to the current state of teaching with technology. In the paper we attempt to outline trends that point to emergent themes in supporting new forms of teaching practice.

    Other authors
    See publication

Projects

  • UChicago IT

    - Present

    Campus wide IT assessment program to bring distributed IT closer to the center and change the overall IT culture at the University.

    Other creators
    See project
  • SUNY 2020 Round IV

    Lead the development of a 22 million dollar program to bring a model for seamless transfer via online education and the construction of a Digital Transformation Center to support STEM education at Stony Brook University.

  • Chair Project 50 Forward

  • Unified Communications Implementation

  • ITSM Implementation

  • SBU IT Governance

  • Coursera at Penn State

    Lead the movement for Penn State to join MOOC provider, Coursera.

    See project
  • Global Digital Platform

    -

    Envisioned and implemented a new model for digital engagement between and amongst the primary audiences of the university community. This platform is a “Platform of platform” strategy that integrates and streamlines access to dozens of existing systems of record to provide a more frictionless way to connect and engage with university digital services built on a robust API-driven event architecture. Both the Student Hub and the Employee Hubs are used thousands of times a day across Northeastern…

    Envisioned and implemented a new model for digital engagement between and amongst the primary audiences of the university community. This platform is a “Platform of platform” strategy that integrates and streamlines access to dozens of existing systems of record to provide a more frictionless way to connect and engage with university digital services built on a robust API-driven event architecture. Both the Student Hub and the Employee Hubs are used thousands of times a day across Northeastern to help students, faculty, and staff to engage in the various tasks related to being a member of our community from a single web and mobile view. The Student Hub includes seamless access to cloud capabilities, learning activities, registration, bill paying, clubs, groups, digital communities, and more. The Employee Hub supports the work of our faculty and staff by offering a single location to access critical work assignments, support tickets, HR information, personalized systems of record, as well as AI-powered training and learning recommendations. The newly released, Parent Hub will bring a one-of-a-kind digital experience to parents designed to alleviate the stress and overhead associated with managing interactions with their student’s university life. This platform will also make intelligent recommendations to bring university events and activities to their fingertips daily. Finally, the Alumni Hub, slated for development in 2025, will integrate across our enterprise giving platforms, provide access to various campaigns, deliver customized news feeds, and make intelligent recommendations to enhance alumni engagement.

  • Classroom Technology Modernization

    -

    In 2018, less than 20% of our 300+ classrooms had modern AV functions to support teaching and learning. Today all but a very small number have been upgraded to support lecture recording, hybrid learning, and digital tools to engage in-class and remote learning. As part of the classroom modernization roadmap, established the Global Classroom standard that provides one-touch AV activation, cable-free teaching from any device, multi-site simultaneous section participation, and personalized…

    In 2018, less than 20% of our 300+ classrooms had modern AV functions to support teaching and learning. Today all but a very small number have been upgraded to support lecture recording, hybrid learning, and digital tools to engage in-class and remote learning. As part of the classroom modernization roadmap, established the Global Classroom standard that provides one-touch AV activation, cable-free teaching from any device, multi-site simultaneous section participation, and personalized dashboards for faculty to proactively understand the overall health of their assigned classrooms before arriving to teach. Recently introduced a managed AV service provider model to further reduce costs, enhance support, and to vastly reduce downtime for faculty.

  • Global IT Leadership

    -

    Northeastern is a global university with campuses in London, Toronto, Vancouver, Charlotte, Silicon Valley, Oakland, Washington D.C., Miami, Seattle, Burlington, Nahant, and Portland. In addition to managing the IT infrastructure for these campuses, I played a critical partnership role in campuses’ ongoing and unique IT interests. This included models to support campus-specific teaching and research agendas, as well as external partners co-occupying campus spaces. In addition, I led the…

    Northeastern is a global university with campuses in London, Toronto, Vancouver, Charlotte, Silicon Valley, Oakland, Washington D.C., Miami, Seattle, Burlington, Nahant, and Portland. In addition to managing the IT infrastructure for these campuses, I played a critical partnership role in campuses’ ongoing and unique IT interests. This included models to support campus-specific teaching and research agendas, as well as external partners co-occupying campus spaces. In addition, I led the successful launch of multiple campuses to ensure robust communication, networks, and AV. I led all IT aspects of the merger of Mills College into Northeastern to be our first undergraduate campus outside of Boston. I led a similar integration with Northeastern London to be complete for Fall 2024. This includes transitioning all students, faculty and staff, leading the consolidation of enterprise systems, vastly improved connectivity, and the introduction of digital workflow.

  • Enterprise Resource Planning

    -

    Developed and executed on a strategic roadmap to transform every aspect of our ERP environment based on the results of an enterprise review of systems of records that are internal to central computing, academic units, and distributed business units. This roadmap includes the completion of the implementations of the Canvas learning management system, Slate enrollment management platform, and Workday Human Capital Management. I oversaw the initial readiness work and business case development to…

    Developed and executed on a strategic roadmap to transform every aspect of our ERP environment based on the results of an enterprise review of systems of records that are internal to central computing, academic units, and distributed business units. This roadmap includes the completion of the implementations of the Canvas learning management system, Slate enrollment management platform, and Workday Human Capital Management. I oversaw the initial readiness work and business case development to lead a move from Banner Finance to Workday Finance as well as the implementation of an entirely new, Salesforce advancement platform to support our capital campaign. My roadmap also included the transformation of our student information system, scheduled to begin in 2026 or 2026.

  • Mills College Merger and Acquisition

    -

    I lead all IT aspects of the merger between Northeastern University and Mills College. This included all enterprise platforms, teaching platforms, networks, collaboration, service management, classroom technology, and more. During this program we created pathways to allow students to seamlessly transition from Mills to become Northeastern students. It also included onboarding all Mills faculty and staff as they became employees of Northeastern.

  • Information Security

    -

    Introduced Northeastern’s first information security roadmap, based on the outcomes of an enterprise security review conducted in 2019. This includes the adoption of an industry-standard security framework, new tools, and outsourced managed security operations center. During my tenure, we doubled the size of the information security team so that we can spend more time working directly with end-users to prevent human triggered incidents. We have also established a CMMC practice to secure CUI to…

    Introduced Northeastern’s first information security roadmap, based on the outcomes of an enterprise security review conducted in 2019. This includes the adoption of an industry-standard security framework, new tools, and outsourced managed security operations center. During my tenure, we doubled the size of the information security team so that we can spend more time working directly with end-users to prevent human triggered incidents. We have also established a CMMC practice to secure CUI to maintain our ability to conduct research with defense and government entities. Finally, we established an incident response playbook that provides guidance for responding to security incidents that integrates university police, the office of general council, and our central marketing and communications organizations.

  • COVID-19 Response

    -

    To meet the institutional desire to remain open for the residential population during a period where most universities moved to fully online delivery, I led a series of digital transformations to support that goal. We created dozens of specific, custom applications that allowed students to continue to attend in-class lectures via a dynamic scheduling tool that allowed them to request a seat in de-densified spaces, a COVID-19 test scheduler that allowed us to perform daily health checks and…

    To meet the institutional desire to remain open for the residential population during a period where most universities moved to fully online delivery, I led a series of digital transformations to support that goal. We created dozens of specific, custom applications that allowed students to continue to attend in-class lectures via a dynamic scheduling tool that allowed them to request a seat in de-densified spaces, a COVID-19 test scheduler that allowed us to perform daily health checks and schedule and test each student every three days and faculty and staff every five days, the complete testing center workflow including mobile check-in, lab system integrations, and the secure delivery of results.

  • Workday HCM Implementation

    -

    Lead the the implementation of Workday Human Capital Management platform. In addition to the movement from Banner HR to Workday, completed an holistic digital business transformation effort, including the implementation of ServiceNow and a new operating model for HR.

  • Customer Service Excellence

    -

    In my first year at Northeastern, I completed a successful overhaul of our customer experience function with a focus on rapid and accurate closure of tickets across all service areas. I led the introduction of an entirely new service catalog, an evergreen collection of self-service knowledge base articles, walk up support modeled from first-hand learnings from Apple, digital locker lending of equipment, and AI-powered chat bots. Recently introduced a managed service desk model to further reduce…

    In my first year at Northeastern, I completed a successful overhaul of our customer experience function with a focus on rapid and accurate closure of tickets across all service areas. I led the introduction of an entirely new service catalog, an evergreen collection of self-service knowledge base articles, walk up support modeled from first-hand learnings from Apple, digital locker lending of equipment, and AI-powered chat bots. Recently introduced a managed service desk model to further reduce costs and enhance support.

  • Unified Communications

    -

    Completed an enterprise telephony transformation program that modernized unified communications at Northeastern. Replaced thousands of legacy copper-wire phones with Microsoft Teams. Went from 1000s or plain old telephones to a near zero footprint of phone devices, moving the entire global network to Tems for calling, collaboration, video conferencing, and classroom instruction.

  • Canvas Implementation

    -

    Moved the University of Chicago from Blackboard to the Canvas learning management system.

    Other creators
  • Office 365 Implementation

    -

    Moved from on-premise Microsoft Exchange to SAS Office 365 implementation.

  • Student Information System Implementation

    -

    Highly complex implementation and process engineering effort to replace outmoded and poorly utilized SIS at the University of Chicago.UChicago has a very unique set of requirements across the student digital journey. To meet these needs I lead a balanced approach to the implementation of PeopleSoft Student that allowed us to modernize our business practices and delight the student population

Honors & Awards

  • Outstanding Service Award

    President Joseph Auon

    Northeastern gave the Outstanding Service Award to eight people charged with ensuring compliance with state and federal COVID-19 standards, implementing NUflex across classrooms and working with faculty and staff colleagues to enable seamless and synchronous learning for students, and making sure students and parents were well-informed about every development impacting the university community.

  • Apple Distinguished Educator

    Apple

    Recognized for innovative use of technology to support teaching, learning, and administrative activities.

  • College of Information Sciences and Technology Innovators Award

    Penn State University

    Given by the students in the College of Information Sciences and Technology to recognize sustained innovation at the University.

Languages

  • English

    Native or bilingual proficiency

  • Spanish

    Limited working proficiency

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