DeBrief - March 23, 2022

The Office

Carol Smith ’85, chief information officer

What's in your office?

1. A snapshot of my husband and me at an after-work gathering at the Fluttering Duck. For several years, a group of us from the Library and Information Services met regularly for drinks on the first Friday each month for what we called “Duck Night.”

2. A variety of small toys, knickknacks and doodads on my bookshelf. There’s no overall theme, per se, but most have a back-story. For example, the Hoberman sphere reminds me of the importance of partnerships, that everything we do is interconnected with others. A set of juggling balls was a gift from colleagues when I completed a term on a volunteer board, as a metaphor for the way we juggled projects. A business card from my first job after college.

3. A room sign labeled “Word Processing Lab” that was mounted outside a room in Roy O. West when I was a DePauw student during the, um, 1980’s. I was a computer science student then, learning to write computer code in the Julian building. But it was writing literature class essays on those DEC Rainbow word processors in the Library where I discovered how computers could be useful for everyday productivity beyond science or engineering, and that realization ultimately shaped the direction of my career in technology.

4. A hook full of conference lanyards and name tags that I’ve collected over the years. It reminds me of many, many partnerships and friendships with colleagues in the higher education community who have taught me so much. Collaboration is key to success in higher ed IT.

5. A bulletin board in the hallway beside my office door with various newspaper clippings, quotes, and other items generally related to education, leadership or technology. I always have a department team photo there, too, usually one from a department retreat or our annual summer picnic. The current photo is a screenshot of our 2020 summer retreat on Zoom. It’s a subtle, but powerful reminder to me every day of the great work that my Information Services team colleagues do for DePauw.

Campus Events

DePauw University Choirs

April 6, 7:30 p.m., Green Center for the Performing Arts, Kresge Auditorium.

The Timothy and Sharon Ubben Lecture: “Embracing Civility: Finding Common Ground in Uncommonly Fractured Times” with Dr. Cornel West and Robert George

April 7, 7:30 p.m., Green Center for the Performing Arts, Kresge Auditorium. Learn more.

For a complete listing of events, visit Campus Labs.

Faculty and Staff News Roundup

President Lori S. White discussed the strategic plan and the new School of Business and Leadership in an interview with Inside Indiana Business that was aired several times last weekend.

Philips Akinwole, assistant professor of biology, is a co-author of the cover story in last week’s issue of Science, a leading publication about scientific discovery. The DePauw Libraries have a subscription to Science, where “Global urban environmental change drives adaptation in white clover” appears in the March 18 issue. Read more.

Nicole Lobdell, assistant professor of English, gave an invited talk titled “Culture of the Invisible: X-rays in the Popular Imagination Feb. 23 at Colgate University. Her talk was from her upcoming book “X-RAY.”

Carol Smith, chief information officer, talked about her “people-first approach” in an interview with Dialpad.

Did You Know?

Tom Emery, professor emeritus of English, is the author of “Phil Levine in Fresno,” an essay in the book “Naming the Lost: The Fresno Poets/Interviews and Essays.” Emery, who worked at DePauw 1967-2000, took a night course in poetry writing from Levine in 1961. Levine taught one-week master poet sessions at DePauw in 1992 and 1993, when one of his students was English professor Greg Schwipps, associate chair of the English Department.

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