IT Newsletter: Spring 2024

Table of Contents

Infographic: Self-Service Password Resets

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There were 517 self-service password resets for the week of April 24 - May 1. During that time 286 of those resets were done via the email reset option and 231 were completed using the SMS option.

In comparison during Admitted Otter Days alone, there were 98 resets on April 6 (first year) and 81 on April 27 (transfer). In comparison, the number of calls combined with the number of visits to our table during Admitted Otter Days were low. Altogether this shows that most of our prospective Otters were changing their own passwords when needed. 

Here’s how you can reset your password whenever you need.

Get To Know: Tara Hughes

Graphic reads Welcome to the raft above a headshot of Tara Hughes. Below the headshot: Associate Vice President and Chief Information Officer

In February of this Spring semester we welcomed Tara Hughes to our Division as our new Associate Vice President and Chief Information Officer. Previously, she was the CIO at California State University Maritime Academy. Before Cal Maritime, Tara spent a decade working at various Cal State campuses. She is also a graduate of Cal State San Bernardino, holding a master’s degree in Public Administration with a concentration in Leadership.

Tara is also a CSU mom! Her oldest daughter is about to graduate from Northridge and middle daughter is also finishing up her first year at Northridge. Her youngest daughter will be graduating high school in June and heading to Northridge in the fall.

Tara serves on the Board of Directors at EDUCAUSE. She’s a graduate from their EDUCAUSE Management Institute in 2018 and has served as faculty for their New Management Institute in 2020-2021.⁠

Tara chose CSUMB because she missed the traditional campus atmosphere; she was excited to have the opportunity to engage in the wide variety of campus activities at a campus that was still small enough to know everyone.  Her family loves the Monterey area as well and is looking forward to exploring the many activities our area has to offer. 

A passionate sports fan, Tara is thrilled to support Otter Athletics! She especially loves watching basketball and says she could talk for “a very long time” about Steph Curry or Geno Auriemma. Playing both beach and indoor volleyball is a hobby she and her husband enjoy, and they look forward to finding ways to play here in Monterey. 

Tara loves to read, especially on vacation when she can truly get lost in a good book. Her superpower is being able to tune everything out when she’s immersed in a book, which she says is not always a good thing. Her guilty pleasure is reading the Harry Potter series, which she has listened to on many road trips with her family. She likes reading young adult books at the same time as her daughters, especially “Somewhere Only We Know” by Maureen Goo. Her favorite personal development books include “The Last Lecture” by Randy Pausch, “Atomic Habits” by James Clear and “Braving the Wilderness” by Brene Brown.

Tara and her family share a love of food and often tailor their travels around places they want to eat. She’s obsessed with making her favorite main dish: Beef bulgogi rice bowls with kimchi, pickled cucumbers, carrots, sautéed veggies and lots of fresh ginger. For dessert she adjusts Ina Garten’s Lemon Loaf to make Cranberry Orange Loaf! Sounds delicious to us!

Reducing Technical Debt: Account Management System change

Over Spring Break (March 25-29) IT began a week-long transition of its account management system. This was a required update to modernize our system and reduce our technical debt.

We used Spring Break for this update so IT staff could make sure the new process ran as expected with minimal impact to our campus community in the case of an unexpected failure. Because of our preparation and testing, we did not experience any major issues during this changeover.

As of Saturday, April 6th, the replacement for the account management system finished running its initial backlog of 69,927 accounts. Our Data Integration Services team, led by Jill Ostrie, continues to monitor the system as it runs regularly scheduled processes that provision and deprovision accounts.

Otter Esports Lounge

Tara Hughes, IT’s Associate Vice President and CIO, attends the #CSUMB ribbon cutting ceremony alongside the CSUMB President Vanya Quiñonez and other campus dignitaries for the opening of the OSU Otter Esports Lounge opening on April 5, 2024.

IT partnered in the creation of Cal State Monterey Bay’s new Otter Esports Lounge located in the Otter Student Union (OSU). 

The lounge includes ten Alienware gaming PCs with 24 inch monitors with full HD and NVIDIA GeForce 3080 10 GB graphics cards. The Lounge itself has a dedicated 10gb network with each PC getting 1 GB of network connection. In comparison, the average lab computer has to share a 10 GB connection with its entire building and a laptop on WiFi has an average 350 Mbps* connection. 

IT not only helped configure the computers for the lounge but also worked on rewiring the room to handle the networking infrastructure needed in the former conference room. Justin Clausen, our Lead Network Pathways Analyst who worked upgrading the network for the Otter Esports lounge believes it brings a lot of potential to CSUMB.

The gaming lounge is more than just playing games, as Technology Support Services Director Henry Simpson found out during the project.  “When we started this project a year and a half ago, I thought Esports was about playing games. Since then I’ve learned it’s about so much more. It’s about engagement and socializing and most especially building community.”

*This is approximate because WiFi speeds can vary dramatically based on your distance to a base station, congestion on the network, the performance of your system and other factors.

Cybersecurity Spring 2024!

IT created a Cybersecurity Spring series of events that culminated on Thursday, April 25. It included a digital sign contest for displays in the Otter Student Union and other digital signs around campus. We held a “spin-and-win” tabling event at Otter Thursday. And we finished with a panel discussion in the Otter Student Union to discuss whether passwords still work in 2024. Spoiler: They don’t!

WATCH: Do passwords still work in 2024? (44 min)

Awards & Kudos

  • Francine Lontoc won an Otter Strength Award for her work with the Title IX office regarding their website.
  • Nico Hartojo is a student assistant at the Technology Help Desk in the Library. He’s also one of the best baseball players on our nationally-ranked CSUMB team. Back in March, he was the player of the week in the western United States. Most recently our Otter baseball team are back-to-back CCAA Champs with Nico named MVP of the tournament. 
  • Several of our students at the Technology Help Desk in the Library were featured by Career Development in a promotional video for National Student Employment Week (April 9-15). Credit for the video goes to student videographer Lee Strobel.
  • Flavia Calusdian is the Monterey County Peace Officer Association "Support Person of the Year" for her work with the University Police Department! UPD Police Commander Yvonne Gordon said of her: 

"Flavia's efforts to ensure that our department runs with minimal interruption 24 hours a day, 7 days a week is impressive to say the least. Not only does she keep us up to date with the best equipment, upgrades, syncing, and managing our hardware, software, and technology. She helps those of us who are technologically challenged to navigate and be efficient with the use of a variety of systems. She is extremely responsive night and day, being proactive in ensuring the success of our department!"See description below image.

(l-r) MCPOA Support Person of the year Flavia Calusdian, CSUMB Interim Police Chief John Short, and MCPOA Officer of the Year CSUMB Police Sergeant Daniel Andrada at the Monterey County Peace Officers Association awards ceremony. Photo Credit: Victor Lurz.

Graduating

A huge congratulations to all of our Information Technology student assistants on your graduation! Congratulations to: 

  • Amanda Auld- Engagement and Enterprise Student Assistant 
  • Nico Hartojo- Technology Help Desk Student Assistant
  • Megan Kinsey-Center for Academic Technologies Student Assistant
  • Sophia Little- Center for Academic Technologies Student Assistant
  • Ivan Martinez- Network Engineering Student Assistant
  • Jacob Whiteaker- Technology Help Desk Student assistant
  • Elijah Withrow- Technology Help Desk Student Assistant

We are proud of the work you have done both for Information Technology and getting to graduation! Celebrate your achievements!

Learn more about IT


Associate Vice President and Chief Information Officer
Tara Hughes

Publisher
Greg Pool
Director of Digital Transformation

Editor
Amy Marbach
Help Desk Communications Specialist

Writers
Amy Marbach
Greg Pool

Graphic Designer
Teresita Hernandez

 

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Article ID: 162075
Created
Mon 5/13/24 10:32 AM
Modified
Tue 6/4/24 2:38 PM