Note: The accomplishments listed on this page are current as of Fall 2010.

Ann Amsler

Ann Amsler, is a senior technical writerin Information Technologies at the University of Delaware, where she has worked for over 27 years.

Service to higher education and the computing profession:
Ann has been dedicated to getting the right information to University clients for over 27 years–from the days of filing cabinets filled with handouts to the present day with web sites, forums, and multimedia. She has been responsible for handbooks on all the major university computing systems, for the computing unit’s newsletter, and numerous software documents. Ann has created web sites for major university initiatives such as an online student policy handbook and use of the university’s content management system.

Ann has been an active member of the Society for Technical Communication at the national and local levels She has bee a judge for the International Communications Competition, a peer reviewer of STC’s Technical Communication Journal, and a workshop organizer.

Service to SIGUCCS:
Ann has been active in SIGUCCS since the late 1980s. She provided outstanding service as SIGUCCS Newsletter editor from 1987-1993. During this time she sought out topics of broad interest to the SIGUCCS community and wrote or edited the articles.

Ann has been an enthusiastic volunteer in SIGUCCS conferences as a presenter, conference program committee member, paper reviewer; communication awards judge, and session chair.

Ann authored or co-authored four papers for the User Services Fall conference (1986, 1997, 2003, 2008). She has been a member of award-winning teams from the University of Delaware for the Communications Awards (2006, 2008, 2009).

A colleague commented: “Ann takes after Penny Crane in reaching out to new attendees to make sure that they feel welcome and comfortable. She exemplifies what a volunteer should be and is a model for others who attend the conferences to emulate.”

Ann’s Comments:
I attended my first SICUCCS Conference in Reno in 1984. While I wasn’t impressed by all the neon lights and noise, I fell in love with SIGUCCS. Over the years, attendance at 18 fall conferences and 5 spring conferences has provided me with many ideas for improving my work in IT. But more than that are the wonderful friendships I have formed with SIGUCCS colleagues from throughout the country. I’ve enjoyed working with these people immensely, particularly on conference committees-what a lot of work and a lot of fun. SIGUCCS offers its members so many opportunities for rich experiences-both professionally and personally. I am grateful for all it has given me.

Jennifer “Jen” Whiting

Jennifer “Jen” Whiting is Manager of Business Integration and Services, (Facilities, Finance and Administrative Services) at Princeton University

Service to higher education and the computing profession:
Jen’s career in information technology support began in the mid-1990s. She started at the Help Desk where she quickly mastered the technical side and then moved on to the challenges of transforming the Help Desk into a critical single point of contact for all IT support activity at Princeton.

Jen became the manager of the Help Desk and then Senior Manager of Customer Service with oversight of communication and documentation, expansion of IT support to 24×5 service hours, and mentoring of managers in her unit.

After ten years of IT customer service work, Jen made a transition to Princeton’s Facilities department. She once described the job as basically the same job as before in IT but with fewer computers and more plumbing.

Service to SIGUCCS:
Jen participated in her first conferences in 2000 and 2001, presenting two papers each year and serving on the program committee. Seeing her potential, the SIGUCCS board of directors recruited her for conference chair of the 2004 Baltimore fall conference. Jen also served on the SIGUCCS Board as secretary from 2005 to 2008. A colleague wrote, “Jen brought boundless energy and enthusiasm to every task and project. She devoted herself to serving and improving SIGUCCS. I only regret that her career change took her out of IT and SIGUCCS. Had it not, I know she would have continued to be a leader and would have only made us a better organization.”

Another colleague said, “I was particularly impressed at the 2004 fall conference by the way that Jen re-examined each aspect of the event and looked for any opportunities for improvement. That same thoughtfulness was evident in Jen’s service on the SIGUCCS Board. During her term, she tackled a perennially vexing issue for SIGUCCS, namely, the role of vendors at our conferences. Through her work, we understood the cost of vendor participation in terms of volunteer time and effort.”

Jen’s comments:
SIGUCCS is a powerful thing. As an organization, it brings together the people who are the backbone of technology actually helping folks do their work. But more than that, SIGUCCS is the people themselves. If you are reading this, you are a change agent. And if you are a change agent, you know what it takes to move ideas along, to produce innovative approaches to the work we do, to make things better, more streamlined, more effective. In short, you make SIGUCCS the powerful stage it is – a stage on which the new and progressive elements of our industry are hatched, crafted and carried out. You make things happen. I am honored to be a part of this group. Thank you for inclusion in the organization, especially now that the technology systems I steward are focused on toilets and back-flow devices. SIGUCCS was the stage that allowed me to develop professionally, and, who knows, those toilets may be on the network some day! We are all more connected than we think…