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Jeff Rubin on AI, Data Strategy, and Digital Transformation at Syracuse University
28 Plays11 days ago
Syracuse University’s first Senior Vice President for Digital Transformation and Chief Digital Officer, Jeff Rubin, joins host Jeff Hemsley to discuss the university’s digital strategy. From AI-powered teaching and learning to data integration and next-generation connectivity, Rubin shares how Syracuse is reimagining the campus experience—and what it takes to lead digital transformation in higher education.
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Transcript
Introduction of Jeff Rubin's New Role
00:00:09
Speaker
Welcome to Infoversity, the official podcast of Syracuse University School of Information Studies. I'm your host, Jeff Hensley. Today I'm joined with Jeff Rubin. He's the university's first Senior Vice President for Digital Transformation and Chief Digital Officer.
00:00:26
Speaker
He's also somebody I've known as a co-faculty member at the School of Information Studies for more than a decade since 2014.
Founding and Growth of Sidearm Sports
00:00:35
Speaker
We'll talk about his vision for Syracuse's digital future and how AI and data fit into that strategy and the lessons he's carried from his time as founder of side allen Sidearm Sports, leading innovation at the university.
00:00:53
Speaker
First, can you give our listeners just a very brief picture? what was Sidearm Sports? And how did that kind of create a playing board for you to end up where you are now?
00:01:04
Speaker
Yeah, so so Siren was a company that I founded back in in the year 2000. So it's it's been ah in a while. And it came out of ah a company that I started a few years before that, where it was more work for hires.
00:01:17
Speaker
And then when the dot-com bubble burst in 2000, 2001 timeframe, consulting was hard, right? Work for hire was hard. And so decided to get into more of a niche industry with licensed product.
00:01:31
Speaker
And that point, Syracuse Athletics came to me. I did not know anybody there. and they were in need of a website, a college athletic website, because the vendor they were with was was a victim of the dot-com era, going out of business.
00:01:44
Speaker
So we built it built a SaaS platform, i licensed it to Syracuse. And then went after the market and it took took many years, but I grew that um quite a bit. In 2014, I sold the company to Learfield, as a big multimedia rights company based out in in Plano, Texas.
00:02:06
Speaker
Remained on as as president and executive vice president of digital for Learfield. And, you know, really reached the pinnacle of the market. We had 1,700 universities we worked with that licensed the product. it We had 95-plus percent of all V1 schools were on the CIDARM platform. We had a ah team of well over 120 folks that worked here for CIDARM, most of whom were here in Syracuse.
00:02:32
Speaker
And everything was great and and really thought that I'd retire doing that until this opportunity came along.
Educational Background and Interests
00:02:38
Speaker
Yeah. And you're actually an iSchool alumni. I am. So so i came through the iSchool, did my undergrad here, graduated in 95. at that time, the web was just commercializing.
00:02:52
Speaker
And i was fascinated with the web and and maybe even broader telecom. and felt that yeah I finally knew what I wanted to do, but I needed more information. So i went straight to my master's degree here in the iSchool and got a degree that's no longer here, but telecommunications and network management.
00:03:12
Speaker
Yeah, i have a heard a lot of alumni tell me that one thing they got from the iSchool was the ability to transition with technology, not to be afraid of technology change, but to move forward with it.
00:03:25
Speaker
So you have kind of deep background in technology. And I have a ah question for you that, you know, we talk a lot about digital transformation. yeah What does that mean for the university from your perspective? And what are your first year goals?
00:03:40
Speaker
yeah Yeah, so so when i when I look back and think back to to those mid-90s, it was really about digitization. It was really at that point of of moving from an analog world into a digital world.
00:03:55
Speaker
And so taking things that might have been paper press releases that were faxed around to various media outlets and in digitizing them, and then kind of moved into a digitalization phase, which was more around building processes ah around this data, making business decisions. So it wasn't just about digitizing, but actually using that data for purpose.
00:04:17
Speaker
and And so these were all the right steps, which lead us up to this this digital transformation. When I think about this, I think now it's it's we have so much data that we're collecting here at the university, so many silos of data.
00:04:32
Speaker
And by the way, none of that was wrong. Every silo of data came with the right intentions and the right purpose. The problem is that that we never really thought of until it was was later of of connecting these data sources and and how much more we can learn when we bring them together. And and so digital transformation to me is is really re-imagining how we think about and we engage with our constituents around all aspects of the university.
00:04:58
Speaker
and And so I think about from i how students do campus sports to financial aid, to how they register for classes, to campus safety, ah toward that and AI strategy,
Digital Transformation at Syracuse University
00:05:11
Speaker
right? So this university and and our chancellor we've we've invested a lot in physical transformation This campus is absolutely gorgeous. And as I took my older son out along for campus tours a few years ago, and went to a lot campuses in the country. It makes you appreciate and that much more how beautiful Syracuse University campus is.
00:05:31
Speaker
um So physically, we are fantastic. Digitally, ah we have a chance to be a leader in this space. And and in some areas, I think we are leading. And in some areas, we have some catch up to do.
00:05:42
Speaker
Yeah, and I know we're one of the most wired campuses. Yes. And I think you had some stuff to do with that, too. Yes, yeah. So I like to say Syracuse University is the nation's most connected campus. And and what do i mean by that?
00:05:56
Speaker
um Look, other universities could argue that they have more Wi-Fi access points. We have almost 5,000 access points on campus. our wi-fi is actually really really good both indoors and and outdoors ah but it is wi-fi and and so it has limitations of of what a wi-fi uh can do and the number of devices that can can be connected uh but you know as as you know jeff our our sports facility is the JMA Wireless Dome, right? Previously the the Carrier Dome.
00:06:24
Speaker
And JMA Wireless is a company that's just a stone's throw away from campus. And we had an opportunity not just to do a naming rights agreement, but to be on really the leading edge, perhaps even the leading edge of connectivity. And JMA specializes in a couple things.
00:06:42
Speaker
One is connected stadiums, which is called the DAS, Distributed Antenna System. And In our stadium, the JMA Wireless Dome competes with, and it's actually more connected than most NFL stadiums,
00:06:53
Speaker
in terms of the number of sectors that it has. and We have AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon all connected into that stadium.
AI Strategies and Classroom Integration
00:07:00
Speaker
But then beyond that, JMA specializes in private wireless, which is called CBRS. and it's a a spectrum, a frequency spectrum that is unlicensed, um that allows really anybody in the United States to take advantage of the spectrum for cellular connectivity, not Wi-Fi.
00:07:19
Speaker
and And so we went all in on this. And so every residence hall, academic building and outdoors on North Campus is part of this this private wireless network.
00:07:31
Speaker
Now, what you can do on it because it's so new, right, because a lot of vendors haven't ah created products that support CBRS yet. <unk> It's a little limited. And so the the first thing that we did was was really by happenstance, which was T-Mobile came in and said, hey, you've got this incredible indoor network. And and and by the way, um you know the the major carriers, they all work on the macro network, the outdoor network. right So they have antennas on certain buildings.
00:07:58
Speaker
But indoors is really where where a cellular network struggles, especially as you get into you know basements and sub-basements and buildings that are hard to penetrate through walls.
00:08:10
Speaker
And so they said, man, you built this massive network. Can we just piggyback on it? And we thought, well, yeah, we could. And there's actually a term for it called a MOKIN, a multi-operator carrier network.
00:08:21
Speaker
And so T-Mobile was the first. They piggybacked their signal on on top of our antennas or the JMA wireless antennas. And what that happened, what happened overnight was anyone who's had a T-Mobile service, which is in third place out of all the carriers in Syracuse, but if they had T-Mobile service, all of a sudden they had LTE connectivity in all the buildings.
00:08:43
Speaker
And we're like, this is really, and it's nice. So then AT&T came and said, can we do that? And we said, sure. And so AT&T came on this past summer and and I'm an AT&T user. And so wherever I am on campus, I don't really even recognize it, but my phone is connected.
00:09:03
Speaker
um Verizon was the holdout. Verizon, was you know they've spent a lot of money on their spectrum, and they didn't want to piggyback on other equipment because you know they're servicing their customers. They don't want somebody else servicing their customers, and I understand that.
00:09:16
Speaker
But um let's just say we are in deep conversation with Verizon right now about them joining the Malkin, which would be absolutely tremendous, and we would be the first in the country for Verizon.
00:09:27
Speaker
to to do that. And so, you know, that that's a really big deal. Aside from from that connectivity, you know, we're we're looking at a lot of our our kind of more operational equipment, our back office, so our cameras, our HVAC sensors, ah things that we can put on the mock and makes perfect sense to be on private wireless and not on a Wi-Fi connectivity.
00:09:48
Speaker
Yeah, so I know that I have group service wherever I am on campus. So it's a fantastic. So let's talk about AI. You've heard about the AI, right? A little bit, a little bit in those two letters. Yeah. i a punch And what's the university doing um in terms of AI? What are your strategies around that?
00:10:07
Speaker
Boy, Jeff, that's a loaded question
AI's Role in Teaching and Operations
00:10:08
Speaker
because because there's a lot, and and I'll try to keep this within ah a decent, shorter answer. But um lord artificial intelligence only works as well as the data that people And oftentimes the data that feeds it is limited by connectivity. I like to think of this this triangle of connectivity, data and AI, right? and And we're the most connected campus.
00:10:34
Speaker
We have a lot of data. ah We might be a little behind some of our peers and in data strategy, patching up quick. um and And then the question is then what is that AI layer? What does it mean? What do we do?
00:10:49
Speaker
and There's a lot of ways to look at this question. um One is from a ah kind of higher ed in general and all the headwinds that that are getting higher education. What does that mean for AI? and I'll get to that in a second.
00:11:05
Speaker
The second way to look at it is what does it mean from from pedagogical standpoint? How do we think about the future of teaching and learning? and And so if I start there, I really believe that artificial intelligence has the ability to be the technology that can finally change after centuries ah the way we teach and learn, right? I mean, for for well over century, it's professors go up and they teach and students take notes and then they're assessed usually through exams or papers or projects and so forth.
00:11:38
Speaker
um And that's fine. and And we've come up with some fancy terms over the years, hybrid learning, active learning. um but But at the end of the day, pedagogy is really a flipped classroom. By and large, pedagogies remain fairly consistent, the the way we teach, the way we learn.
00:11:56
Speaker
But I teach a large class. I teach IST 195. It's a large class this semester with over 200 students. And I know there are students in there who are really grasping the material and and then students who are struggling with the material.
00:12:11
Speaker
um That is all, and that's probably true in any class. And by the way, a student who's struggling with career material in my class might excel in your class and the student that's excelling in mine could be struggling in yours, right? if It's going to be class class.
00:12:25
Speaker
So what what if we could rethink the way I teach? What if I could lecture for a bit, but then we go into a simulation mode where everyone gets up their laptops, they're all connected, high speed connectivity, either cellular or wifi.
00:12:39
Speaker
And we go into a simulation mode where they are now applying what they have learned in lecture to an actual scenario. Right. So so the way I think about college a lot is we lecture, we teach students for four years, most times, and then they go out and they apply it in the real world.
00:12:58
Speaker
And then through those applications, or as they're applying it, right, those scenarios become more advanced as they move up the ladder and and corporations more complicated. Why can't we start applying that first semester freshman year?
00:13:12
Speaker
And the answer is is because yeah the the resources to do that at people at different levels um is hard. But AI can do that, right? AI can do that where we can give a simulation and and based on that first question, it can detect how sophisticated you are aren't with material, how comfortable you are aren't with material, and then take you down, kind of choose your own adventure, if you will, um to get you to the same outcomes, which is learning this material and in applying it in in various scenarios. So, you know, I think that is one strategy we have is is how do we adopt AI in the classroom for both faculty and students and rethink pedagogy. Now, to do that,
00:13:57
Speaker
we needed to bring in AI tools. and And so ah yeah the last year we spent talking with OpenAI and Google and Anthropik and ultimately did a deal with Anthropik for a variety of reasons, one of which they really were looking for partners in higher ed, not just customers in higher ed. And so this partnership allowed us to give Claude to every faculty, staff, and student on campus.
00:14:22
Speaker
That's exciting in itself. I think for a couple of reasons. One, it shows the world that we're we're taking AI seriously, that that we're investing in this. We may not have all the answers, but we are investing in this, giving this all the equitable access for all students, ah and faculty and staff can begin to to integrate this and into the classroom.
00:14:41
Speaker
That's important. So that's a pedagogy standpoint. but But then if you go back to those headwinds of higher ed for a second, right? And in the headwinds are numerous. We have an enrollment cliff that we know has been coming for a long time and we're here.
00:14:55
Speaker
We have even for the the the students that are eligible to come to to college, we have parents and families questioning the value of higher ed. We have policy in Washington, which is affecting our international ah population and in students that come primarily at the master degrees.
00:15:15
Speaker
um We have the cost of higher ed at an all-time high. um And we have this thing called intercollegiate athletics, which you know right now, that if you want to compete at the top level is an additional $20.5 million dollars that and we have an expense for that we have no new revenue streams coming into offset. And so you take all these headwinds and you say, gosh, you know how how do we get through this? and I think ai has the ability for us to look at new revenue streams and also to look at operational efficiencies. And I know people look at operational efficiencies and they say, oh, you're you're firing people.
00:15:54
Speaker
No, I don't think that's it at all. i think I think every job in society will be affected by AI. And i do think we can look at the number of positions we have at a university and say, do we need that many?
00:16:10
Speaker
And that doesn't mean you're firing anyone. It means when when people leave the university, we should question, do we need to fill said position? and And I think there's going to be some cases we say, and I'll give an example of a help desk.
00:16:22
Speaker
Do we need as many humans staffing a help desk? Help desks have high turnovers, right? Not a lot of people say, I want to work in a help desk um for a career. it's It's usually an entry point. And so therefore, you take a lot of energy to train people on a help desk and be trained on the information that they are helping with the resources they have.
00:16:40
Speaker
Yeah, he's really, really good at that. He is really, really good at that. And so I'm going say, you know, eat my own dog food, right? My team, we oversee a help desk and we are actively looking at that, say, how potentially maybe reduce the number of staff that we need working to help us. so when you look at scenarios like that we begin to see how we can find ways cut budget or cut expense.
00:17:06
Speaker
And I actually think, yeah, I can help help on the opposite side of of increasing revenues when we look at how we're interacting with donors, for example. You know, my own sense is is that here at the AI school, we're training the information professionals of tomorrow, and those information information professionals need to be competitive. And so they need to know how to use AI. So my own sense is is that instead of restricting students from using AI in all cases, we should be looking at ways that we can get them to understand how to use AI best, what its limitations are, and all the things they need to be thinking about around that.
00:17:43
Speaker
he 100%, right? I fully agree with what you're saying. And ah look I was talking to somebody earlier that said, would Syracuse ever mandate an AI force? You know, everyone has to graduate with an AI now. It's an interesting thing to think about. That's right. We have for a long time had had requirements around math and writing.
00:18:09
Speaker
Well... The world's different. The world is different, right? And, and you know, and maybe if we AI, I don't want to say it's it's too specific, but but look at technology, right? Information technology.
00:18:22
Speaker
There is not a person in this world who will go into a job or a career that won't be surrounded by information technology, both in their career and in their life,
00:18:32
Speaker
So it really becomes a life skill. And the much like language was and math was and writing was or is. ah and And so the the question is, you are we doing our students justice with them graduating in 25, 26, 27, 28 and saying that a student graduate without taking the technology class, without taking the understanding
New AI Degrees and Responsible Usage
00:18:55
Speaker
of AI? Look, I believe we should be doing it. And and I believe it should be threaded through through a number of courses that we teach here, a number of disciplines.
00:19:02
Speaker
Yeah, it's interesting. I had a plumber at my house the other day and you know he did the work and they pulled out this tablet to to create an invoice and and challenge and charge me.
00:19:13
Speaker
Technology is even in those kinds of jobs. It is everywhere. It is in our daily life. You are right. It's a life skill. Now, here at the iSchool, we have a master's degree in AI.
00:19:26
Speaker
And when I talk to the iSchool board folks, those folks are running companies that um that need to know about how to use tools like that.
00:19:36
Speaker
Hey, Anya, our life's just gone off. I don't know if that matters. I'm going to back up for sure. Here at the iSchool, we have a master's degree in AI. And when I talk to our board members, one of the things they tell me is more and more companies these days know they need to use AI, but they don't know how they need to use AI. They don't have people that think strategically about the ways to implement it in art in their companies. this right And that's certainly one of the things that we're teaching our master's students.
00:20:07
Speaker
We've also had an AI minor for a while here at the iSchool. Now, the university has been thinking about a bachelor's degree in AI. Can you talk a little bit about what's envisioned for that? Yeah, yeah. So absolutely. and And I agree with you. i think every organization around the globe profit, nonprofit, government sector, military, ah needs people who can apply AI, needs people who can undergo into an organization and say, how is this organization either going to leverage their data through the use of AI or implement AI strategies to better enhance their services, their products, their interactions with customers.
00:20:49
Speaker
Every organization needs that. And our students are well poised to be able to deliver on that. So I've been part of ah a working group, a working group that at the provost put together at this university to look at the question you asked, which is a bachelor's degree in AI.
00:21:07
Speaker
And there were a number of us from a lot of different schools from across campus that participated in this. And and it was a thoughtful several month working group. And where we landed ah is, and I will preface this by saying you know pending curriculum approvals both at a school level, at a university senate level, at the New York State Department of Education level, is we have approved i or we have submitted for approval two degree, two majors that could be available as as early as of 2026.
00:21:46
Speaker
One is is what I call more of your traditional AI degree that you're seeing at a lot of universities. And that's more within an engineering computer science degree. And it's it's your you know people who are building the models, building the algorithms, machine learning, coding.
00:22:01
Speaker
a But that doesn't play to the core strengths of Syracuse University, right? We we have strengths of our professional schools, our iSchool, our School of Communication, our business schools.
00:22:13
Speaker
um And so what does that look like? And that's what this working group spent a lot of time on. it So, yes, one will be more the traditional degree, but the second is a degree that has, that the the provost has said pending approval will live here the iSchool.
00:22:29
Speaker
And that is applied a I think we're going to call it integrative AI because we come with fancy terms and in in higher ed. But it makes sense, right? We're integrating AI. it's It's what I just went back to is we need people who can implement or integrate AI strategy across a variety of disciplines globally.
00:22:48
Speaker
That is really exciting. That is really exciting is is I think we are the information school, yeah right? And Well, we got our roots in library science because that libraries, right? who They they we theyor pay were the information source, right? and And then, you know, that led into kind of the the internet age with with email and go for sites and FTP sites. And then that went into the worldwide web and a and obviously blossomed with with Google and and search strategies changed and and Wikipedia.
00:23:25
Speaker
And nothing screens information like artificial intelligence. yeah right And nothing has been trained on more data than artificial intelligence. and And so we have all this data now. It is technology.
00:23:40
Speaker
it squid sits squarely in where our strengths are within the the School of Information Studies. And it's something that um I think not only will our students students benefit from, but I really believe the campus is going to benefit from as well.
00:23:55
Speaker
Yeah, we are totally on the same page here. When I look back at high schools historically, they've always been on the cutting edge of technology because technology is so intertwined with information. right We talk a lot about information technology. Well, there's a reason for that. And um Yeah, we're like right at the edge of that. And because we're going to have three degrees in AI, you know, I don't know, people are joking about us being called the AI school or something that. Yeah, I like it. And man, tell us what you want is as long as you come and get educated with us. Yeah.
Future Connectivity and Security Initiatives
00:24:35
Speaker
So I'm gonna go back to data, because we were talking a lot about that and how AI is really only as good as the data. So can you talk a little bit about data governance and balancing innovation with privacy, ethics, and security?
00:24:49
Speaker
Yeah, it's it's a real challenge and and maybe take security separately because cyber kind of the the cyber risk of of what we're doing and in AI and just where we are as society is, I don't want to say scary, it's evolving.
00:25:02
Speaker
right it But but take I'm going to take the first part, which is looking at kind of the governance, what i'm going to call responsible AI is a term that the the field has been using, transparency, privacy.
00:25:16
Speaker
um and I think Syracuse or the the team that I oversee, which is information technology services team at Syracuse, um they they they do a lot of things on campus from from our research computing, our academic computing, um to cyber and what we do there, ah to our data and AI strategy, to our enterprise applications, right? So we oversee a gamut.
00:25:42
Speaker
But we've never really had governance. ah and and we don't have governance as it relates to data and AI. That is changing as we speak. And so we actually hired recently someone, she came from the Department of Commerce.
00:25:56
Speaker
She oversaw governance and enterprise applications for Secretary Lutnick at the Department of Commerce. She is now here at Syracuse, one of our new ADPs. And we are implementing data in AI governance. We actually, we call communities of practice.
00:26:11
Speaker
And so we're starting with two this year. One is on data and AI. We're combining those. And a second on accessibility. ah Both which squarely fit within and this this what the iSchool talks about and and cares about.
00:26:25
Speaker
ah But this can't be ITS just saying this is policy, right? The the the way we say it communities of practice is we are gathering faculty and staff ah from around the university, including folks from general counsel, including including folks um from from different schools and colleges to help us think about data strategy.
00:26:50
Speaker
ah We are implement implementing a Microsoft Surface, we'm sorry, a Microsoft Fabric data strategy solution. But what that means is now the data doesn't just necessarily reside in in one product, it resides in two, right? um Because it could be pulled into fabric and there's a lot of reasons that you'd you'd want to do that.
00:27:09
Speaker
ah But who has access to that data? How do we think about AI on top of that data? How do we think about accuracy of the data? ah How do we think of the security of the data?
00:27:21
Speaker
All of those are things that we have to think about and and that these governance kind of communities of practice are gonna help us think about. They will come come create some recommendations which will help guide the university as we go forward. So I think we've got the right steps in place.
00:27:38
Speaker
We've got to act upon them. ah Security or cyber risk is is strong, is is hard. And it's something that we think a a lot about because social engineering attacks are at an all time high. yeah And these these social engineering attacks, of but you know phishing or vishing voice attacks, smishing SMS attacks,
00:28:02
Speaker
um they're becoming a lot more sophisticated, right? Where we'll even, I might look at something and say real or fake, right? Whereas before, You know, someone with a good eye would just say, look at the broken English or the the bad imagery. or You'd be able pick this apart.
00:28:17
Speaker
But today with AI, you know, a lot of these these attackers are using services, are using tools that are helping them create perfectly worded emails ah or text messages.
00:28:29
Speaker
And, and i you know, what this scares me is when we get into the vishing, the voice of, you know, when it's When it sounds like Jeff Hemsley it looks like Jeff Hemsley and it's asking me to do something and and is it really you, right? And so how do we combat that is is a real real challenge.
00:28:46
Speaker
You know, one of the the new ones in it with agentic AI becomes scary with with ah prompt injections. You know, the the idea that, you know an agent is going to look at white text on a white background on a page and carry out something with your data that you didn't ask it to do, right? And that's real.
00:29:06
Speaker
that That is kind of like a SQL injection. It's like a SQL injection in 2025, right? um But you've participated in it. right Because you know with the SQL injection, someone just kind of came in, I guess somewhat similar is they came into something you built and then you know used the form field to to enter in some sort of SQL.
00:29:26
Speaker
And here, it's you know you just told your browser, like, hey, can you go do this for me? And and as it's doing it, it's it's been instructed to go do something ah malicious right or or give up data.
00:29:39
Speaker
Those are things that are that are really concerning to to us, you know the the social engineering side. um yeah agentic AI. But at the same time, while there's also concerns, there's also kind of on the offensive side, AI helps us with some of these tooling, right? that meaning The meaning of tooling is becoming more sophisticated,
00:30:02
Speaker
to look at different attack vectors and and help us with with kind of thwarting some of these attacks before they come in. So it's a cat and mouse game, just the that just the the rules are changing.
00:30:17
Speaker
Yeah, I was talking to somebody just a couple weeks ago on this InfoVersity about security, and he was talking about some of the exact same things, and particularly the human element of it.
00:30:29
Speaker
So yeah, we know those are concerns. You have been involved in making us the most connected campus. Can we become more connected? Do you have a vision for that? And once we get some of these initiatives squared away, what's next? What do you see out in the future?
00:30:47
Speaker
Yeah, so can we become more connected? Yes. the The limitation is really, it's not our imagination because we're coming up with ideas every day or or different parts of the organization are coming up with ideas every day.
00:31:03
Speaker
I'll give you an example in a second. and We're really just limited by resources. you know How quickly can we move in? What are the priorities which could be set from a board or from a chancellor's office? But yet every unit should also have their own priorities, right? that that they my My goal is that at some point that people can start carrying out some of these initiatives on their own without net necessarily needing central resources.
00:31:30
Speaker
But, you know, I really, when we go back to one of the questions you asked, you know, what is digital transformation to me and and how does this work? And, you know, I i look around, my my youngest son is actually right now on a tour of Syracuse University. He's on his official tour.
00:31:46
Speaker
And, uh, going on these tours, one thing that's always constant, is they talk about safety and security. Right. And so they'll point out these blue lights on campus. Like if your son or daughter is feeling unsafe, they just have to sprint faster than their attacker. If you look close this blue light, hit a button and wait 10 minutes for for public safety to arrive. Right. I mean, I'm being a little facetious, but the truth is blue lights are a very 1990s technology.
00:32:15
Speaker
Right. And so when I think of digital transformation, I'm not saying if you get them, remove the blue lights, although they should be probably not top of lines anymore. and And they should be video instead of just a something that's sending a signal to somebody.
00:32:32
Speaker
But every student is walking around with their cell phone. Right. and And they all have the campus app. or We know that 90 X percent of them have the campus app. So they can hit a button if they're they're feeling unsafe. Right.
00:32:45
Speaker
And so again, not saying get rid of the blue lights, hit a blue light, hit the button. I don't care what you hit. Call a number, send a text, whatever it is that you want to do. But the problem is always go to be the last mile, right? And everything. and public safety could be around the corner in there in a matter of seconds, or they could be across campus and it could take minutes.
00:33:09
Speaker
Why don't we use drones? So whether they're tethered or untethered, I'm thinking tethered drones. you have a few drones tethered to various parts of our our campus. And when somebody activates one of these safety alerts, the drone comes up and gets lights and eyes on a situation within seconds.
00:33:27
Speaker
And that live video is being dispatched or transmitted back to dispatch and public safety. So even that public safety officer minutes away knows exactly what he or she is coming into and what the situation is.
00:33:39
Speaker
And hopefully just by getting lights on situation and eyes and the the sound of a drone is going to thwart any type of of situation that was going to happen.
Entrepreneurial Experience and Strategic Leadership
00:33:49
Speaker
That's what I mean by digital transformation. That's what i mean by connectivity and and what we can be doing is we just have to think of every part of this university and rethink it in terms of technology that's available to us through the connectivity that we have.
00:34:05
Speaker
So you're an entrepreneur, like you started in Flight Arms Worth. How are you bringing entrepreneurship to your new role? Yeah, i so I'll answer that two ways.
00:34:17
Speaker
One, originally this role would be thought more of a CIO, you know, chief information officer, CTO, chief technology officer. And this is no knock on those professions. Right. But this is going back to when I sold my company in 2014.
00:34:33
Speaker
um
00:34:36
Speaker
After the first couple of months, the CEO of a larger company came to me and said, do you want to be CEO or COO? And I said, I don't understand. I am CEO. He goes, yes, but you're doing both right now and you can't.
00:34:50
Speaker
Interesting. And so I said, okay, I want to be CEO. And it took me a long time to realize what he meant by that. But the point was operations and strategy. There's not enough cycles in the day to do both.
00:35:05
Speaker
so And so in my mind, um I'm more of a strategist. Right. And the operation, by the way, neither one is more important. Right. They're they're equally important.
00:35:18
Speaker
But when I looked at the core strengths of what this university has, we have incredible operational folks within ITS. They've been here 20, 30 years. They're incredible. What we were lacking was somebody who had the bandwidth to do strategy.
00:35:33
Speaker
and And so that's what, you know, being the entrepreneur, that's what excited me about coming in here is to think about the art of the possible, to think about what we can do. Now, with that said, I also have to change a little bit of culture.
00:35:46
Speaker
So technology or IT is often thought of a support portion of the organization. So like ah HR is support, finance is support, IT is support.
00:35:58
Speaker
There's nothing wrong it with support. But what I'm trying to to get the team to understand is, We need to lead the university into the future through IT. It doesn't mean we're going to stop supporting, but it means we have to partner with every corner of this university. We're not the domain experts in financial aid, and financial aid offices.
00:36:16
Speaker
We're not domain experts in advising. The advisors are, but we are technologists. And so what we can do is help lead the conversations of what these these different units are trying to do.
00:36:30
Speaker
and give them the vision, the path to enable that and partner with them to to get that done. That's what our students do, right? They go into organizations, they learn to apply. Our students are leading organizations in the future, and that's what we need to
Conclusion and Technology's Impact Summary
00:36:43
Speaker
do here. And and that's really what I've done and and think about bringing that entrepreneurial experience into Syracuse University.
00:36:48
Speaker
Yeah, that kind of touches on things we talked about earlier about how technology is everywhere and touching every single job. That's right. And so if there's ways that we can push that forward, that's going to be great for us.
00:37:02
Speaker
I think that's about it. I think we covered pretty much all of these. think we did a good job. Nice talking to you, Jeff. Jeff, thanks for visiting Infoversity. I'm really glad that we had an opportunity to have this chat.
00:37:14
Speaker
Yeah. Thanks for having me. It's great to be great to chat with you about this. All right. Take care. Thank you.