Award Winners

Promise of the Future Award

Co-Winners Carl James and Beth Moellers

Carl James
Manager Tier1 Operations
College of Arts and Sciences
IU Bloomington

Nominated by Zeke Henline

Working with The College IT Office Zone Four (CITO) as Manager of Tier1 Operations for a little over one year, Carl has improved upon or created new internal processes to expedite workflows. Carl always demonstrates an excellent work ethic, dynamic leadership skills, clear and concise communications as well as superb customer service while maintaining a high degree of professionalism and decorum. Carl routinely performs above and beyond the call of duty to ensure our client’s IT support needs are met by listening intently for clues to customer frustrations with technology and devising creative solutions to uncommon problems. As IU shifted most operations to off-campus, Carl was instrumental in coordinating work needed on-campus while managing a team of remote tech support personnel. We are most thankful for Carl’s pleasant demeanor, superb leadership ability and attention to detail. Carl conducts team meetings with authority, compassion and understanding, helping to build and maintain a cohesive team.

Beth Moellers
Senior Project Manager
UITS IT Communications
IU Bloomington

Nominated by Adam Sweeny 

Beth has served as a tireless champion of proper communication, detail-oriented mailings, info shares, and migration coffee hours throughout the very complex and ever-changing Box Migration this past year. Her attention to detail, clever turns of phrase, and new ideas to broaden outreach have made this process much smoother than it ever could have possibly been otherwise.

Working as senior project manager, Beth excels within all categories of the award: Professional Accomplishments, Community Involvement, Leadership, Professional Growth and Innovation. Beth is an outstanding employee, colleague and project manager. 

Spirit of Leadership Award

Winner James Bennett

James Bennett
Manager
UITS Enterprise Systems Integration
IU Bloomington

Nominated by Jim Thomas

James began his career over 10 years ago as a Software Engineer developing enterprise middleware solutions for the ESI Team. James consistently demonstrates that his technical abilities and aptitude are truly exceptional. He is the “go to” person with any tech issues that is impossible to solve. What makes James an exceptional leader is his ability to work collaboratively with his peers while eagerly teaching others what he knows. Always willing to lend a hand when needed despite his own busy workload. Receptive to feedback to make his ideas even better and never takes differences of opinion personally, but instead enjoys discussion toward the best solution to solve a problem. James is a leader who makes everyone around him better which is exactly what exceptional leaders do. He takes time to explain complex technical topics in clear, easy-to-understand terms. He ensures that he and his team document their processes and procedures thoroughly and concisely. James’ team is among the most, if not the most productive teams ever witnessed in 30+ years of IT at IU.

IT Leadership Team Collaboration Award

Winner - UITS Learning Technologies Division

Nominated by Julie Johnston 

When the call for this award was received, the Learning Technologies leadership team debated on a specific departmental team to nominate and it became clear the nomination should be the entire Division as a team. We have made targeted strategic efforts during 2020 to blur the lines between departments and work more collaboratively, leveraging the wide variety of academic and technical talents of the entire team. This was crucial to our success in one of the most challenging years of our professional careers. In the spirit of collaboration, Acting AVPs, Directors, and Managers across the organization worked together to write the nomination.

The entire UITS Learning Technologies team was nominated for their heroic efforts during the pandemic to support teaching and learning across the entire IU network of students, faculty and staff. They demonstrated flawless attention to detail and creative problem solving. This team deserves this recognition for the monumental pivot to online early in 2020 as well as the pivot back to hybrid classrooms. The magnitude of the impact to higher ed has been astounding as well as the positive outcomes for new serves that will continue to evolve. The UITS Learning Technologies Team has optimized their efforts though the power of cross-collaboration across the Learning Technologies division, UITS Organization and other campus stakeholders.