Note: The accomplishments listed on this page are current as of Fall 2014.
Bob Haring-Smith
Service to higher education and the computing profession: Bob Haring-Smith is currently Business Relationship Manager for Faculty in IT Services at West Virginia University. Before coming to WVU in 2005, Bob held computer support positions at Brown University, Harvard Law School, and Willamette University; and taught mathematics and computer science at Holy Cross College and the American University in Cairo. During a three-year stint in Cairo, he also served as the Ford Foundation’s Regional Technology Advisor for Africa, providing project management, computer support, and consulting services to the foundation’s field offices in Africa. Bob earned a Ph.D. in mathematics at the University of Illinois at Urbana and a Sc.M. in computer science at Brown University.
Service to SIGUCCS: Bob has been active in SIGUCCS for many years; his warmth, wisdom, and sense of humor are staples at SIGUCCS conferences. For the past nine years, he has served on the SIGUCCS Board; first as treasurer, then as chair, and finally as past chair. He was on the conference committee for four fall conferences; as email room coordinator in 2001 and 2002 (remember email rooms?), and as treasurer in 2005 and 2006. Bob has served as a reader on a number of program committees and was twice a presenter at the Management Symposium.
Karen McRitchie
Service to higher education and the computing profession:Karen McRitchie is an Assistive Technology Professional in an independent practice, serving people with disabilities. She has spent well over 20 years in the computing field; for fourteen of those years she was Academic Support Manager at Grinnell College which she managed the support team and developed and managed the Technology Consultant program, which employed her unit’s student staff.
Service to SIGUCCS: Karen McRitchie has been involved with SIGUCCS for well over 10 years and presented her first paper at the 2001 SIGUCCS conference. Karen was appointed as the Tutorial Chair in 2007, and her enthusiasm and creativity quickly showed in the management of the preconference tutorial program, which ran successfully for several years until the economic downturn affected registrations for tutorials and the conferences in general. She also encouraged the Board to move to the use of GoToMeeting for its monthly conference calls, and then to adopt this platform for offering online tutorials and webinars for the SIGUCCS membership. Karen served as the Tutorials Chair during the Board’s 2008-2011 term, and as the SIGUCCS Secretary during the 2011-2014 term. Karen is among the most prolific authors in SIGUCCS, as indicated by the bibliometrics available in ACM’s Digital Library. She is ranked second in SIGUCCS, with at least 20 publications (some with co-authors), including papers presented at nearly every fall conference since 2001. In addition to being a consistent conference author and presenter, Karen has been a tireless conference volunteer. Most recently, she has been instrumental in reviving the SIGUCCS Newsletter, now published online and called “Plugged In.” Thanks largely to Karen’s leadership of this newsletter committee, “Plugged In” is a well designed, interesting and informative publication that highlights the many activities going on in SIGUCCS. Karen was also an enthusiastic volunteer for the SIGUCCS 50th Anniversary committee and contributed many ideas and significant time to several commemorative events.
Parrish Nnambi
Service to higher education and the computing profession:Parrish is Manager of Network and Business Systems Customer Support Services at the University of California, San Diego. He began his leadership career at UCSD as the Help Desk Supervisor/Manager in 2000. In 2008, he was also given the task of overseeing the Directory Services Team; in 2012, management of department Desktop Support team was added to his responsibilities; and in 2013, he was also given responsibility for Telecom Customer Service and Hostmaster management. Parrish is highly regarded by his colleagues.
Service to SIGUCCS: Parrish has served SIGUCCS actively for over 10 years. For the past three years, he has been a member of the SIGUCCS board; serving as conference liaison, which involves working with each conference committee as it is formed, plans its conference, carries it out, and finally reports on the outcome. Parrish served in this capacity during the first three years of the combined conference format inaugurated at SIGUCCS 2011, which has also included the 50th anniversary celebration at SIGUCCS 2013. He also served as track chair for the 2005 User Services Fall Conference, Conference Co-Chair of the 2008 Fall User Service Conference in Portland, and as Program Co-Chair for the Service & Support Conference at SIGUCCS 2011. In addition, he has been a session chair, photographer, photography chair, and registration chair at SIGUCCS conferences.
Elizabeth Wagnon
Service to higher education and the computing profession:Elizabeth Wagnon is Training Project Leader at Texas A&M University Computing Information Services in College Station, Texas. In addition to her work at Texas A&M, she was a leader in the formation of HEART (Higher Education And Resource Technologies), a regional conference group formed to collaborate and network with other higher education technology professionals throughout Texas.
Service to SIGUCCS: Elizabeth has been active in SIGUCCS for about the past ten years, serving as program chair for the 2008 fall conference; and as conference chair for the 2011 combined conference, the first one in the combined format. She has participated in many panels and discussions over the years and has presented papers at SIGUCCS conferences.