APPENDIX: THE LAST CAUSE CONFERENCE: A DISCUSSION WITH JULIE RUDY OF EDUCAUSE

Citation

McCord, A. (1999), "APPENDIX: THE LAST CAUSE CONFERENCE: A DISCUSSION WITH JULIE RUDY OF EDUCAUSE", Library Hi Tech News, Vol. 16 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/lhtn.1999.23916dac.002

APPENDIX: THE LAST CAUSE CONFERENCE: A DISCUSSION WITH JULIE RUDY OF EDUCAUSE

APPENDIX: THE LAST CAUSE CONFERENCE:A DISCUSSION WITH JULIE RUDY OF EDUCAUSE

Since first attending the annual CAUSE conference in Orlando in 1984, I have watched the annual CAUSE conference increase from several hundred to 4,000 participants. With the recent merger of CAUSE and EDUCOM, the first EDUCAUSE conference will bring together an even larger group of information resources and technology professionals to Long Beach in October 1999. For more information on the 1999 EDUCAUSE conference, see http://www.educause.edu

Julie A. Rudy, Director of Research and Development for the new EDUCAUSE organization, has watched CAUSE grow from the inside as a CAUSE staff member for many years. I spoke with Julie after the CAUSE98 conference in Seattle, to get her insight on the "last CAUSE conference" and prospects for the "first EDUCAUSE conference" next fall.

Al: Julie, from your perspective as a CAUSE staff member who has helped produce many CAUSE conferences, what were your feelings about attending the last CAUSE conference?

Julie: By the time CAUSE98 took place, I had been an EDUCAUSE staff member for more than five months. The new association very quickly felt so "right" to me, and the transition was so straightforward, that I have to say that CAUSE98 felt as much like an EDUCAUSE conference to me as a CAUSE conference. I find that I am so looking forward to the future that I did not spend much time thinking about CAUSE98 as the "last" of anything. I did enjoy it ­ it was a very successful conference, and it seemed full of excitement and optimism for the future, with so many campuses enthusiastically embracing information technology.

Al: How have you seen the CAUSE conference grow and change its focus over the past few years?

Julie: I think the changes and growth occurred more dramatically for CAUSE conferences in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when we experienced over 30 percent increases in attendance. Since then, we have seen very steady growth, with CAUSE98 being the largest CAUSE conference ever with nearly 4,000 participants. The content focus changed gradually, as well, with a shift to issues related to managing and using institution-wide information resources, which CAUSE defined as encompassing information, technology, and services. Patricia Battin, who was a CAUSE Board member at the time and is currently serving on the EDUCAUSE Board, championed this shift.

With that broader view, we were able to encompass a greater variety of topics, including administrative computing, teaching and learning with technology, library technology, telecommunications, and networking. The underlying perspective in recent years was how these various technologies support institutional mission and administration. I believe that is why our members welcomed the consolidation of EDUCOM and CAUSE as "the right thing to do."

Al: As an EDUCAUSE staff member, what do you see as the primary opportunities for enriching attendees' experiences at the first consolidated EDUCAUSE conference in Long Beach?

Julie: EDUCAUSE has an opportunity to foster cohesion by providing an event where people from many different segments of the information resources and technology community can come together and share their expertise and be enriched by new ideas and perspectives. Our corporate members will also come together in greater numbers than ever before, offering conferees an opportunity to learn more about the continually emerging new products and services for higher education.

Al: Over the past few years, we saw CAUSE become more deeply involved with library and information resources issues. What changes in higher education do you see as being responsible for driving this change?

Julie: One of the reasons CAUSE became involved in these issues is that many of our traditional members were information systems professionals who dealt with data management issues. While the type of information they managed was different, many of the constructs they dealt with were similar. Information was as important as technology to many CAUSE members. With the emergence of campus networks, and the new issues that arose in the networked information environment, we saw increasing synergy between the information technology and library communities. CAUSE, along with EDUCOM and the Association of Research Libraries, enjoyed addressing many of these issues through the Coalition for Networked Information, where computing and library professionals came together to tackle common challenges of both a technical and management nature.

More recently, the use of technology in teaching and learning brought multimedia specialists supporting instructional technology into closer working relationships with librarians, to support the use of technology and electronic resources in teaching and learning. I think campus library and computing professionals have realized that they must work together to achieve their institutions' technology goals. CAUSE has attempted to offer a venue at the national level for sharing common concerns.

Al: In what ways do you think that the new EDUCAUSE organization will be better able to support its members on the institutional level, as well as advocate for their needs on the national level?

Julie: EDUCAUSE will be able to provide the support our members need at the institutional level through a strong member services orientation. EDUCAUSE will focus on improving the way we capture, add value to, and make information available to its members in the form that they need it, when they need it. We are already working to improve our electronic information resources through restructuring our World Wide Web site, and to improve our information collection and survey activities. EDUCAUSE will have a broader publications program, and will offer a wider variety of professional development opportunities for its members.

Clearly a single organization representing a major segment of the higher education community can advocate more effectively on the national level, and partner more readily with other higher education associations to ensure that higher education's interests are well served. We are seeing this already with the strengthening of our policy program, and with the work of the National Learning Infrastructure Initiative and Instructional Management System project.

McCord is Director of Operations Management, Information Technology Division, The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. amccord@umich.edu