2024 - Renee Petrina

"Renee recently created a new service with eLearning Design and Services, the Instructional Design Clinic for online learning. She hired a team of remote instructional designers from across the country, and thanks to her leadership the team has established a wonderful rapport with each other, as well as exceptional service to clients. As co-chair of IU Women in IT (IUWIT), she worked tirelessly to find sponsorship. Thanks to her efforts, IUWIT now offers professional development grants in addition to networking opportunities, a book discussion group, mentoring, and other events. Renee is a constant fixture at ITLC tabling events and her friendly nature - along with a gift for remembering people and connecting them to others - expands professional development and personal connections among everyone she meets. Renee has also expanded our participation with the Big Ten Academic Alliance Women+ in Technology peer group, including leading a session on the IU career development system. "

2023 - Madeleine Gonin

"Madeleine Gonin is a true champion of leadership development. She has served as a role model for the leadership community, selflessly dedicating countless hours to the ITLC through volunteer work as Chair of the ITLC Board, and in collaboration with other ITLC groups. Madeleine is also exceptionally gifted at empowering others to lead from where they are, driving engagement, and making everyone feel welcomed and included. Through these talents and the demonstration of leadership, she brought into focus the Board’s role in nurturing IT leadership at IU, transforming the Board into a cohesive team of passionate leaders. Madeleine is truly a leader of leaders, and as the Chair of the ITLC she has not only met every criterion for this award, but has also brought people together, truly putting the “community,” in the IT Leadership Community. There is no one more deserving of being crowned this year’s Champion of Leadership than Madeleine Gonin."

2024 - Learning Spaces and Technology Services

"(The Classroom Technology Services team's) unparalleled dedication and innovative solutions have transformed classroom technology at the Kelley School of Business, meeting the challenges of high utilization rates and rigorous technology standards. The CTS team's collaborative efforts and effective resource management exemplify exceptional teamwork and have set a benchmark for excellence across Indiana University."

2023 - The Center of Excellence for Women & Technology

"The Center of Excellence for Women & Technology prepares women to be future IT and technology professionals and leaders, including our own IU students, staff, faculty, and women nationally, internationally, and historically through our marketing, our awards, our speakers, our programming, and our storytelling."

2022 - IT Leadership Boot Camp Planning Action Team

2020 Co-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."

2004 Co-Winner - IU CRM Initiative

The CRM team is transforming the way that the university interacts with all of its constituents. Every IU campus is using Salesforce and Marketing to reach, cultivate, and maintain relationships with constituents of the university. Admissions offices on every campus are collaborating with the CRM Initiative to recruit prospective students. Human Resources partners with the CRM Initiative to care for and support employees. On a smaller scale units from around the university utilize the platform and partner with the team to maintain the relationships to their individual constituents.

2018 - Learning Technologies IT Training

Over the past year and a half the winners of this year's team collaboration award, the IU Learning and Technologies IT Training team, have embraced radical changes in team structure, focus, and mission. Yet throughout all of this change, the team has set an example for how to effectively embrace a new situation as an opportunity to realign themselves, their team, and their mission into one that benefits all of us. Inspired by a situation that would stifle the productivity of many teams, they have had some significant accomplishments over the past year. They were a leading collaborative part of the "Think before you Click!" phishing awareness campaign and have been a valuable resource when it comes to education on this vital mindset change. This collaborative team helped implement the new "Certificate Series" that provides online courses at no extra cost to IU faculty, staff, and students that are aimed at improving office productivity, web creation, and media design. It's fair to say that without a strong personal commitment to collaborating as a team, these and many of their other significant contributions would not have been possible.

2024 - Randy Newbrough

"(Randy) single handedly manages IT consultants across 9 campuses and I know from discussions with him how thoughtful he is ensuring each person is given the best opportunity to grow into their fullest potential while contributing to their center. He also encourages people to apply for senior positions as a true leader and developer should. He is invited to serve on search committees in appreciation of his leadership experience and his breadth of knowledge of UITS and IU's mission and vision."

2023 - Jesse Oakes

"Jesse Oakes’ leadership style is focused entirely on empowering other people. He serves as a role model for ethical behavior, clarity in communication, equity, and inclusion. This is true both for his direct reports, the IT Community at IU, and his colleagues in the IT Leadership Community. Jesse truly embodies the Spirt of Leadership and is an inspiration to us all. "

2022 - Michele Kelmer

Director, Faculty Engagement and Outreach

2020 - 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.

2019 - Julie Johnston

With more than 20+ years in leadership and management deploying large-scale creative technology initiatives and projects, Julie’s career marks a deep commitment to the use of technology to promote excellence in teaching and learning. In five years, her tireless focus on learning spaces at IU has earned her and IU a national recognition for excellence in learning space design. She has co-led the EDUCAUSE Learning Spaces Working Group since 2015 and served on the EDUCAUSE Learning Spaces Rating System (LSRS) team leaders group since 2017.

2018 - Manjit Trehan

Manjit is an example of someone adjusting their view, putting new ideas into practice, and leading the way in improving their department as well as all of IU. In addition to the excellent work he has done with the Web Service Team, he also recently hosted an open Hackathon as a collaborative way to bring together people from a variety of areas in the sprit of learning and networking. Couple all of this with his kind nature and positive attitude and it's no surprise that this year's Spirit of Leadership award goes to Manjit Trehan.

2017 - Tom Visnius

2017's winner, Tom Visnius, has demonstrated leadership skills across the Enterprise Systems organization in UITS, not just within the confines of his home team. He actively participates in and contributes to strategy discussions that will benefit services to employees, and he influences the technical direction in UITS. Within his own team, he is a proven leader with innovative solutions and great training and mentoring skills. His involvement in the ES Technology Advisory Group, and his future involvement in the PeopleSoft/ERP Development COP, has influenced and will continue to influence the direction of Enterprise Systems technology. He develops deep knowledge of other areas through his business relationships and understands how their automation solutions might be applied; by the same token, he sees other areas having issues and recommends solutions to fix them based on his expertise and experience, and he is willing to help those teams find and implement appropriate solutions. Above all, he has tremendous integrity, exhibits almost inhuman positivity, is friendly and straightforward, and behaves like a true professional in every interaction.

2024 - Sarah Herpst

Sarah does an excellent job coaching individuals and empower others to succeed. She can adapt to rapid changes in work environments and thrives in challenging circumstances. She effectively prioritizes tasks, sets clear goals, and maintains focus on achieving them with little need for direction other than the strategic goals for the department. Finally, she is an outstanding collaborator, demonstrated by the establishment of her new community of practice around captioning that spans multiple universities. Time and again, Sarah has demonstrated her growing leadership not only at IU, but in the accessibility community as a whole.

2023 - Leila Randle

"Leila helps us see the big picture. Whenever she sees problems in process or approach, she isn’t afraid to bring them up. And she’s got the skillset to help solve them. She has spearheaded our onboarding processes, which is integral to our team’s success as we grow to meet President Whitten’s IU2030 plan pillars. And when she succeeds, she brings others along with her. She is always ready to succession plan, helping others learn new skills, and she represents our team in presentations to other IU partners. "

2022 - Justin Robinson

2020 Co-Winner - Carl James

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.

2020 Co-Winner - Beth Moellers

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.

2019 - Aaron Brooks

Aaron is hard working and persistent in his approach to helping our clients and his colleagues. Aaron is always willing to give of himself so others can succeed -- a consummate professional and always working to improve. Late last year, Aaron stepped in to lead our CAITS Systems Infrastructure team without hesitation, when the permanent manager of that team departed somewhat unexpectedly. Aaron’s leadership through this period of uncertainty, was invaluable. Aaron kept the team together and kept everyone moving forward, together.

2018 - Gagan Arora

Gagan has shown the professional and personal traits that exemplify a rising leader. He has has taken the lead in learning new and emerging technologies and has shared that knowledge with his HRMS team for their benefit. While he is self motivated to explore new technologies, he has also matured greatly over his four years with the team and has become someone that can be relied upon to seek out sustainable solutions even if it's not the bleeding edge option. Gagan is also just as concerned about the growth of his team as he is about his own professional growth and journey as a leader.

2017 - Emily Hunt

Emily Hunt, has shown the professional and personal traits that exemplify a rising leader. To quote some of her colleagues:

"Emily has exhibited leadership as a consultant inspiring everyone in her area to get involved in improving documentation and procedures. The leadership she exhibited as the Mission Critical and E-Learning Coordinator has cultivated a fresh morale and sense of purpose for Mission Critical. And the leadership she exhibited as the SharePoint Transition project manager brought the many complex parts of the project into focus and enabled them to find adequate and timely replacements for various needs."

"Twice she has been asked to take a leadership role over a team that was recently restructured and taking on more work. In each situation, she has made significant progress in encouraging the teams to collaborate and get out of their comfort zones, while gaining the respect of more senior, established team members."

2024 Winner - Caitlin Malone
"Caitlin's clear and gentle way of inviting curiosity about inclusion and accessibility rather than pressuring people to do more has had a substantial influence on our ability and willingness to actually DO more. She's a role model for how to foster inclusion in the work that we do."