Starting out

My career changed directions in November of 2003 when my unit's director reclassified my position to include the responsibilities of an Assistant Director. Up until that point I had been primarily an information technologist, although working for MSU's Virtual University Project had exposed me to a wide variety of issues within the enterprise of higher education. I had been supervising a technical team since 2001 and provided unit-wide technology leadership as the Virtual University's Lead Programmer.

I had a keen interest in how the university worked which derived partially from the need to learn and understand to frame the right solutions and extend MSU into the virtual realm, and partially from my innate thirst for learning and desire to understand. The challenge of being running all of the Virtual University's day-to-day operations, representing the director, and remaining an effective technical leader spurred me to start being more proactive about picking up a broader range of knowledge about the larger organization focusing on decision making, role-players, and different operations within the university.

This eventually led to a search for formal education that would supplement the non-credit opportunities I was already taking advantage of through MSU's Human Resource Development and the Faculty and Organizational Development branch of the Provost's Office. After considering various MBA programs, a Philosophy degree, a Master's in Information Systems, various E-Learning or Distance Learning Degrees I realized there was a great program right at MSU in the College of Education. As I considered entering the HALE Program at MSU I decided to test the decision by enrolling as a Lifelong Learner, which I had done for some other graduate level coursework that I pursued for technical professional reasons in the past.