CIO Don Harris (left) and Dr. Lawrence Loh, Secretary General of the Association of Pacific Rim Universities

CIO Represents UO at APRU Meetings

Don Harris
VP for Information Services and CIO
cio@uoregon.edu

Some day, in my golden retirement years, I plan to write a book about my experiences in higher education. When I get around to doing that, one of the chapters will be on lessons learned in forming good working relationships with one's colleagues. Lesson #1 will be that one of the best ways to do this is to spend time together far way from your own campus. I learned this lesson before coming to the University of Oregon when I was part of a team that installed a computer lab in a high school in a remote part of Kenya. I learned that lesson again this past month while attending a conference in Beijing.

The occasion was the Senior Staff meeting of the Association of Pacific Rim Universities (APRU). Attending this conference is not a typical assignment for a CIO, but I was asked to attend as a UO representative because it was not known at the time whether our new Vice Provost for International Affairs, Chunsheng Zhang, would be able to make the meeting. As it turned out, Dr. Zhang was not only able to attend, he also joined me for a meeting with Dr. William Chang, who had just opened a new office of the National Science Foundation (NSF) in Beijing. Dr. Zhang was well prepared to talk about the ways he saw IT being used to support international initiatives, and over the next few days we enjoyed a lively ongoing conversation on how we could work together as we traveled in cabs, on subways, walked the streets of Beijing, and shared several meals together.

The importance of developing good relationships was also stressed by Dr. Chang on our visit to his new office, one of only three such offices outside the U.S. to be opened by the NSF and a testament to how important it considers China and East Asia to be to U.S. research interests. Although we talked about several ongoing projects, much of our time was spent discussing future opportunities in the Chinese market. We were encouraged as a university to explore working relationships with universities outside of Beijing, including new and emerging institutions in China and other Asian countries. This theme was repeated during the APRU Higher Education Forum, which included a talk by Madam Wu Qidi, Vice Minister of Education for the People's Republic of China.

The APRU Senior Staff meeting itself consisted of reports on ongoing activities and a discussion of new initiatives ( http://www.apru.org/activities/ ). Some new initiatives were of particular interest, including a program for undergraduates sponsored by Fudan University titled "Introduction to Modern China" that will offer an exciting two-week program on the politics, culture, and society of China. Other conferences on earthquakes and tsunamis, mind and brain research, the doctoral students conference, and IT and distance learning continue to bring together faculty, students, and staff from the 36 institutions within APRU.

During the discussion of new initiatives, I introduced a proposal to create a new conference for APRU CIOs and their IT professional staffs. APRU's current IT conference is primarily for faculty who teach distance learning courses, so I proposed trying to develop community among IT professionals at APRU schools, with the hope that this would allow us to further explore how best to support the academic programs being developed by our presidents and academic leaders. I am pleased to report that my proposal was well received, and APRU staff is organizing such an event for 2007.

I did not leave Beijing before spending some quality time on a Chinese university campus. APRU meetings were held at Peking University, but on the last afternoon of the conference we were all paired with another Beijing university for a more informal time. I spent my time at Beijing Normal University, where I was joined by colleagues from the University of the Philippines and Osaka University. We met with the Director of International Exchange and his staff, and our open conversation about higher education in China and the Pacific Rim was one of the highlights of my trip.

I appreciated the opportunity to represent the UO at the APRU meetings, and I look forward to being involved--and to involving the UO IT community--with our colleagues at universities within the Pacific Rim as well as throughout the world. Building good working relationships with members of our own campus, as well as with colleagues at other universities, is indeed critical for our success in the years to come.