Meet More Finalists for Vice President of IRT
By Frank Otto
The Drexel community can continue to participate in the search for the new vice president of Information Resources and Technology by attending Q&A sessions with two more finalists.
Tuesday will be the day the second finalist, Russ Kaurloto, meets with the Drexel community and the third finalist, Tom DeChiaro, will have his session Thursday.
Each event will be held in the Behrakis Grand Hall North at the Creese Student Center. Kaurloto’s session will run from 3–4 p.m.; DeChiaro’s will be between 3:30–4:30 p.m.
After meeting the candidates, faculty, staff and students can fill out an online survey that will be used to evaluate the finalists.
Each finalist — including Jim Bradley, the first to visit Drexel — has been chosen by the vice president of IRT search committee, which is made up of Drexel faculty and campus administrators and chaired by Susan Aldridge, PhD, senior vice president of online learning at Drexel.
Tuesday’s finalist, Kaurloto, currently serves as the executive director and chief operations and technology officer at the University of Southern California, where he leads 255 full-time employees providing support for classroom technologies, research infrastructure, communication technologies, information security and administrative information systems. Kaurloto has served in leadership positions at USC for 15 years, overseeing major projects that include two significant upgrades of the wired network designed to support advanced research and a campus-wide wireless initiative — earning USC the distinction as one of the top 10 most wireless campuses in the nation.
A thought leader in the higher education technology sphere, Kaurloto is a member of the board of Corporation for Educational Networking Initiatives in California (CENIC) and is active in Internet 2 and EDUCAUSE.
DeChiaro will be the third finalist to visit Drexel. Armed with diverse experience as an IT professional, DeChiaro has held leadership positions in both higher education and the corporate sector. As the current CIO at Western Connecticut State University, he has spearheaded significant projects designed to upgrade IT processes and management practices. Additionally, he implemented a customer relationship management (CRM) initiative to improve recruiting and retention and led a project to identify process improvements to enhance the student experience. Previously, Tom held senior-level positions with D&SCI and IBM, where he led numerous application development projects and oversaw large technology infrastructures. In addition to serving on the Technology Advisory Committee of the Board of Regents for Higher Education in Connecticut, Tom has presented at higher education and corporate conferences. His experience includes teaching at the Catholic University of America, where he served as an adjunct faculty member.
If you have any questions or need more information, contact the office of Susan Aldridge at 215.895.0528.