By Angelina Stambouli, Staff Writer
On March 23, Vice President of Information Technology and Professor of Computer Science Rod Tosten sent out a campus-wide email detailing an in-progress business and technology project. The project would upgrade and review the college’s technology systems to support students’ chosen names.
The project is in collaboration with a group of students who have been receiving feedback from the campus community. Updates will be provided as the project progresses.
President Bob Iuliano requested Tosten’s involvement for technology purposes. Tosten described the process of forming the student-group.
“Back in 2014 and 2015 we had a student-group advise us then too, so this is something that we’ve done in the past and it’s always worked well for us,” said Tosten. “We’ve used student groups in I.T. for feedback on several different projects, so it just made sense to do it again.”
Tosten said the name project is inclusive and open to any student who wishes to help.
An I.T. project’s timeline is dependent on the needs of the project and the staff’s availability, but according to Tosten, projects come and go all year. He shared that major changes to the college’s software systems may disrupt the academic year, and therefore, there are specific times that are best to begin projects.
“This is a good project for us to do toward the end of the academic year, and through the summer and then into the fall,” said Tosten. “We can start to say to everybody, ‘Hey, we’ve done this work, what do you think?’”
Once the name project’s required policy is approved, I.T. will visit every administrative department to ensure they are compliant with the Name Policy and will change incorrect names.
I.T. is also working to ensure that the automatic emails through the Peoplesoft system reflect the name policy.
“We have, on an order of magnitude, about 120 or 110 email templates that we have to go through to make sure that they are reflecting what the policy says that we’re going to do,” said Tosten.
Tosten stated that the I.T. Department does not want students to think that this issue is being ignored; work is in progress. There are several hundred computer screens that I.T. reviews and several thousand pieces of code that pull data from the system to be used in business processes.
“When a building is being built on campus, you can walk by it and say, ‘The foundation is in and all the walls are up,’ but when we do technology work, we’re in the West Building, and it’s hard for people to visually see the progress being made,” Tosten said. “That’s another reason for the student group. We want to show people that we’re making progress.”
According to Tosten, this project is one of many high-priority projects for I.T. A feedback form will be placed in the policy so that I.T. can be made aware of an incorrect correspondence. Tosten said that it is important for the campus community to be made aware of the feedback form so that quick adjustments can be made in the future.
Tosten said he wants to ensure that the college’s systems are telling students that they belong here.
“I really felt at home here at Gettysburg College, and I want every student to feel like this is their home,” Tosten said. “I want every student to feel like they belong.”
Prior to COVID-19, an I.T. liaison played an active role in a Student Senate council formerly known as the Student Technology Advisory Council. Tosten said he wishes for this role to be reinstated in the Senate to help I.T. to receive direct feedback from students.
On April 11, Associate Dean for Inclusion and Belonging Cristina Garcia sent out a campus-wide email regarding a new form available to report incorrect name usage, or “dead-naming.”
“Due to the large number of technological platforms utilized by various departments across campus identifying all of the potential instances that an incorrect name may be used is taking much more time than we would like or anticipated,” said Garcia.
The form provides support and resources to students until the systems are officially changed. It also provides campus-community members with the necessary information to correct an issue when it is first noticed.
