UK’s own Chief Information Officer Vince Keller was named a ‘Transformational CIO’ by Dell, the computer and information technology company. According to a press release, only four people were awarded the honor.
Keller received the award Feb. 9 in Las Vegas during the Dell’s Field Readiness Seminar. During his time there, he met with senior Dell executives and information technology professionals about the IT issues of higher education today.
“Universities run on information,” Kellen said in a UK PR press release. “Information technology is central to each of our core missions: teaching and academics, research, and service.
“Yet there has been, historically, a tendency to segregate IT as its own entity, concerned largely with administrative computing issues. Today, the issues facing higher education are integrated and technology has to address the full mission.”
Since Keller has taken control of the University of Kentucky Information Technology (UKIT), he has made it his mission to integrate the IT department into the rest of the university.
Keller has also brought the university into using innovative video learning technology, which is named “clickblue” that will be launched this spring.
He is also collaboratively working with other research universities to build a shared “cloud storage repository”. The repository will be placed somewhere off campus that will hold redundant information in case a natural disaster destroys or disturbs UK’s own servers.
Keller has been employed at UK since 1998, teaching undergraduate and graduate classes on information technology. He has written four books on the subject and published more than 200 articles and presentations on IT and business practice tips.