Contact: Monty Jones, (512) 499-4363

Date: July 21, 2000

UT System News Release

U.T. System Reorganizes Management of Distance Education and Information Technology

AUSTIN - A reorganization of the management of distance education and information technology programs of the University of Texas System was announced Friday (July 21) by R. D. Burck, interim chancellor of the system.

The UT TeleCampus, the centralized support center for all distance education and online degree programs within the U.T. System, will continue to be directed by Darcy Hardy. The TeleCampus will report to Edwin R. Sharpe, executive vice chancellor for academic affairs.

A variety of other information technology initiatives will be managed through a separate office that will report to Kerry L. Kennedy, interim executive vice chancellor for business affairs. Those initiatives include the system-wide telecommunications infrastructure, digital library services, a "common data warehouse," and a "smartcard."

The distance education and information technology initiatives had been administered since 1996 by a single office under the direction of Mario J. Gonzalez, who was a vice chancellor. Gonzalez left his System position last spring to return to his faculty position in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at U.T. Austin.

"Mario Gonzalez did an outstanding job of establishing and organizing these initiatives, and the U.T. System will miss his extraordinary abilities in these areas," Burck said.

"It is largely because of the success of these initiatives under Dr. Gonzalez and the excellent team he assembled that we are now able to reorganize the administration of these activities into two offices. At this stage in the development of these critically important functions, we believe that they can be most efficiently and productively managed through this reorganization."