2009 Penny Crane Award Recipient – Robert Paterson

Dr. Robert Paterson is currently Vice President for Information Technology, Planning and Research at Molloy College on New York’s Long Island. He manages all phases of the College’s information technology support. He is also responsible for the college-wide planning efforts and institutional research.
Dr. Paterson has been in the Information Technology field since 1985. He began as a user support specialist then served as Director of Academic Computing and finally Dean for Computing and Telecommunications at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, WA. He has been Executive Director of Information Technology at the University of San Francisco and Capital University in Columbus OH. He has also served as Chief Information Officer at Salem State College, in Salem, MA.

Dr. Paterson has served on boards of numerous professional organizations including on the Cause Current Issues committee, the Seminar for Academic Computing board and numerous positions culminating as Chair of ACM SIGUCCS (Special Interest Group for University and College Computing Services.) He has presented and published a variety of papers on IT management in academic environments. He is an Avian Ecologist by training and also published on bird habitat selection and taught a wide range of Biology courses for 10 years before becoming involved in Information Technology.

I first attended a SIGUCCS conference in the spring of 1988. At that conference I met Penny Crane, John Bucher, Jerry Smith, Jerry Niebaum and many others. The foundations of shared expertise and collegial support from the members of the SIGUCCS organization, that are clearly evident at the SIGUCCS sponsored conferences, have stayed with me to this day. Those values, of sharing and support, were the essence of what made Penny Crane unique. I am deeply honored to have been selected to receive the Penny Crane Award. I have always felt, and continue to feel, that I have gotten much more from the organization that I have given to it.