Elise Budnick
Elise is a Learning Commons Coordinator at Western Connecticut State University for the Ancell School of Business. She believes that cross-collaboration is essential to student success, especially in a small school where budget is an issue. She has worked on multiple cross-collaborative projects including expanding her small alumni mentor program to serve students throughout the university, teaming with Career Development to guide students to the career success center earlier, engaging several stand-alone learning centers in an effort to increase collaboration and reduce duplication of programming, as well as increase student awareness and traffic to the centers, and increasing faculty knowledge, use, and comfort level with campus technology. She graduated with the Class of 2017 from Leadership Danbury, a networking group educating participants to solve the problems of a small city.  She will talk about some of the challenges she has faced and some of the factors that have influenced these and other projects even while the words “You can’t do that here” continue to ring in her head.

Christina DiCarro
Christina is Digital Services Librarian at Western Connecticut State University where she, in addition to the more traditional academic librarian duties, maintains the library website, electronic resources, and integrated library system.  Prior joining the faculty at WCSU, she was Systems Librarian at Manhattanville College where she honed her superpowers in easing technophobia and translating “Librarian-ese” into “IT-ese.” She believes in UX, instructional design, and the future of libraries but is best known for her uncanny ability to work the topics of professional wrestling, cats, or food into any conversation.

Leslie Lindenhauer
Leslie is a Professor in the Department of History and Non-Western Cultures at Western Connecticut State University, where she also teaches courses in museum studies, public history, American studies, and women’s studies. She directs WCSU’s Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching. In that capacity she organizes workshops, roundtables, podcast discussions, and other programs about issues in teaching and learning for the University community. She a faculty representative on the University’s technology working group (TIDDL) and the Committee on Distance Education. Her book I Could Not Call Her Mother: The Stepmother in American Popular Culture, 1750-1960 was published by Lexington Books in 2014. 

Aura Lippencott
Aura is Instructional Designer at Western Connecticut State University where she collaborates with faculty, technical staff, and librarians to develop engaging and effective learning experiences for students. Prior to this, Aura was Instructional Designer at Post University and Director of Instructional Technology Solutions at UCLA Anderson School of Management. Aura has led and participated in cross functional, cross department, and cross campus teams throughout her career.  She has come to learn from these experiences that collaborative culture can be built, must be nourished, and is a critical ingredient of successful innovation small or large. 

Randall Rode
Randall is a member of Yale University’s Information Technology Services team, charged with assisting faculty, staff and student leaders across Yale departments, schools and centers with emerging technology needs and projects.  Recent projects include working with the VP for Student Affairs to implement a campus-wide student life platform for undergraduate, graduate and professional school students;  Initiating and leading a partnership with HP to fund a multi-year applied research project on educational uses of 3D fabrication, virtual reality and immersive computing technologies (http://blendedreality.yale.edu);  And building a campus partnership during spring 2018 to sponsor Yale’s first hackathon utilizing mixed reality technologies with a theme of global climate change.  

Scott Volpe
Scott is a Dad, Chef, Dog-walker and “private Uber driver”. On the side, he is the Associate Director of Media Services at Western Connecticut State University, where he has been employed for most of the 21st Century. They pay him to assist faculty with using the newest of technologies in their classes…oh and soccer…he coaches youth soccer too..