Remember when I was all happy about good work news? It’s public now.

It gives me great pleasure to announce the appointment of Laura Roth as Assistant Vice President for Information Technology. This is a new position that will integrate all technology resources at the Health Sciences Center into a unified support structure. This includes networks, databases, telecommunications, the help desk, academic technologies, Computer Based Learning Center, classroom support (ETRU), telemedicine (MDTV), and web services for the School of Medicine.

Laura is perfectly suited to this new position. She started as a programmer with the University 23 years ago and has been the director of HSC Information Systems Operations for the last 12 years. Laura has received national recognition for her leadership here and has been a frequent presenter at AAMC meetings regarding technology issues.

I am confident that under Laura’s leadership the WVU Health Sciences Center will continue to create, innovate, and improve our information technology systems to meet the needs of a growing faculty, staff, and students. Please join me in congratulating her on this new position.

Laura is my boss’s boss, but I have had continued direct interaction with her since I started here in 2000. She has always taken the time to listen to our needs, and has done her best to look out for us. That the restructuring is going to be under her command gives me hope that some of the strain will be taken off my department and and our sibling department, the help desk.

But mostly I’m happy to see her get a promotion.