UUP Spotlight: Linda Smith, Academic Computing & Teaching and Learning Center
First published in October 2012 edition of The Bullhorn. The original publication can be found here.

Between her various array of work at the Teaching and Learning Center one Friday afternoon and the chaos of a tree falling on her car after the September 18th storm, our Vice President for Professionals made room for an interview on her passion for assisting others in any way she can, through technology, her profession, and her involvement in the UUP:
Jaime Burns: How did you arrive at New Paltz?
Linda Smith: It’s a long story, going way back to the mid 1960s when I got my undergraduate degree in English, Math, and Education. After doing a lot of things – raised two daughters, moved to New York – I went back to school for computer science and went, “Oo, ick!” Who wants to sit in front of a computer and write code all day long? So I took my computer science, education, and math stuff, rolled them all together and worked at Marist College to train IBMers how to use personal computers. I developed a whole series of courses for IBM, how to use a personal computer, a lot of different things. Once that program disappeared, I went into environmental science for a while, and another position opened up at this college and I said, “Ooh, that looks very interesting.” So I’ve been here for about 18 years, doing a variety of things. I started the Student Help Desk, fought for the space, then the position for managing online learning came along, and I said, “This sounds like me.” Then the Provost at the time said, “Let’s start a Teaching Learning Center,” so Richard Kelder and I started it, and here we are.
JB: Even though you initially said, “Ew, who wants to do that?” you got yourself really involved in computers and technology.
LS: But I get to work with people, whereas if I had gotten into programming, which is why I went back to school, I would not get to interface with students, or faculty and staff, so I get to work with everything.
JB: What first got you into the idea of programming or anything to do with computers? It was probably such a foreign subject.
LS: It was. I first thought I was going to be teaching, but at the time I was looking to get into teaching there were really no positions available. And I lived in an area where the federal government had a facility in the middle of the Mississippi River called the Rock Island Arsenal, Army Weapons Command, and they were hiring programmer trainees during the Vietnam War. So that’s how I got started. I said, “Well, I can do that!”
JB: What encompasses your normal workday?
LS: One never knows! We do training on a variety of technologies. Right now, I have been concentrating on running Blackboard workshops on Tuesdays and Thursdays, especially because we got a lot of new faculty. I will do similar workshops in October, but merge in some Web 2.0 tools to use in their online environment. We’re probably going to be taking a look at electronic portfolios, we’ve looked at them before, but we’ve never really started to use them. I update the server mornings and afternoons. I do a lot of upkeep on Blackboard, I do a lot of student and faculty support throughout the day, I do a lot of hands-on, I do a lot of I don’t know what. Everything that people seem to need as far as online environment for their academic, Blackboard, whatever turns out to be, I try to make it happen.
JB: How much diversity is in your work?
LS: There are web 2.0 tools we’ve been using; I have a whole list I tend to introduce, sneak them in through the backdoor so it doesn’t feel overwhelming. It’s not so much Blackboard’s focus as it is an online teaching focus. This morning I was working in a teaching center in Washingtonville, where we do web conferencing. There are a few online professors and a couple of adjuncts teaching graduate classes using it to teach students in New Paltz, Washingtonville and White Plains, all online at the same time using Blackboard Collaborate, Illuminate, and our web processing tools.
JB: What you and your colleagues do is really the backbone of education and the modern classroom.
LS: It is. My home department is academic computing, so we’re responsible for all the classrooms, computers, computer labs, the hardware and software, not the projection systems or the sound systems. I’ve done that throughout my career here, but now I mainly focus on the online stuff. Online faculty also need to run their course proposal and syllabi and rubric past me if they’re going to propose a new online class, and they have to get it approved through Faculty Governance: their department, their school and the central Curriculum Committee. But generally speaking it comes to me, I make suggestions about where faculty need to tweak things, and we go from there.
JB: Professionals are seen as disconnected because they are not directly in front of students in the classroom. Yet, it’s almost as if you are faculty in the sense of being there for students; do you believe the professional staff shares your same motivation to be so dedicated for students?
LS: If you think about the different professionals on campus, and all the different departments, you’re talking about the Career Resource Center, Academic Advising, etc. We all interact with students on a different level, but we all try to make students a focus of what we do. I deal mostly with students and faculty, rather than professional staff, but if a professional staff member asks me, “Can you create a community site on Blackboard,” well sure, no problem. I focus on everyone actually, but definitely students and definitely faculty: it’s why we’re here. I used to have a lot of face-to-face workshops, but now my workshops and tutorials are pretty much on video. That removes me a little bit from interacting in a personal fashion, but it allows me to reach more students, and faculty, and everyone. But I know what you mean as far as a disconnect. There are some departments that work very hard to make sure everything runs smoothly with students, but don’t necessarily have as much interaction, as much as Academic Advising surely does. There are different levels of interaction.
JB: Despite the fact that you have a crazy schedule, where you don’t know what goes on one day to the next, you are quite involved with the UUP. You’re still on the Executive Committee and attending meetings even if a tree falls on your car. What got you into it?
LS: I’ve been part of UUP for a while now. Way back then, Glenn McNitt asked me if I would serve on the Health and Safety Committee, which is a joint labor-management committee, and I’ve been hooked ever since. I was Vice President for Professionals two years under Richard Kelder, and one year and some under Peter Brown.
JB: What gets you so interested and committed despite your busy schedule?
LS: Everyone has a busy schedule. Really and truly, everyone is super busy, not just me, everybody on this campus. But I have always believed it is important to provide support and service to the people you work with and for. So that’s me.
JB: That definitely seems like your motto for everything.
LS: I try, I try.
JB: In the same regard of helping and assisting, what would you say to someone who is unsure about getting involved in UUP?
LS: Generally, I would recommend that they volunteer for a committee. Some meet all the time, some, like Health and Safety Committee, meet infrequently but it’s an important committee. The other thing I would recommend is that they attend a Delegate Assembly as a guest. They’ll hear the speeches, they’ll see what goes on, and they’ll get a little bit more information than they would if they were to go to a chapter meeting on campus. You’ll get people from Buffalo down to Stony Brook, and everybody in between and off to the sides.
JB: Back to your work, how much do you teach people Microsoft Office?
LS: I used to do that an awful lot. I was making programs for IBM while working for Marist: word processing, spreadsheets, project management, PowerPoint-like applications, etc. I developed all of those courses, teaching IBMers to use what was in vogue. When I came here, I did training for students and faculty and staff in word processing, spreadsheeting, PowerPoint, I think we even did video editing workshops over the years. As online learning became more the focus of what I did, and as people – students, faculty, staff – already knew pretty much how to use the basic tools, and as there are so many websites now with “How do I do a footer?” or you can just go to YouTube, I don’t do that sort of training anymore. I am more than willing to accommodate for some people. Even the stragglers, those who claim they’re Luddites, they come to me and say, “Okay, you convinced me, I’m teaching online this summer.” My response is always, “I will adopt you over the summer” and get it done. It’s one of the reasons I got an award from the Chancellor.
JB: How would you rate your 18 years of experiences here?
LS: It depends on the day of the week, and that’s an honest answer. But overall, it’s a very positive experience. I think the campus has received a benefit from having me here and having me provide this service to the New Paltz community. I don’t know how to separate out what I have learned from New Paltz and what New Paltz might have learned from me. It has been a win-win for both the campus and me.
Jaime Burns: How did you arrive at New Paltz?
Linda Smith: It’s a long story, going way back to the mid 1960s when I got my undergraduate degree in English, Math, and Education. After doing a lot of things – raised two daughters, moved to New York – I went back to school for computer science and went, “Oo, ick!” Who wants to sit in front of a computer and write code all day long? So I took my computer science, education, and math stuff, rolled them all together and worked at Marist College to train IBMers how to use personal computers. I developed a whole series of courses for IBM, how to use a personal computer, a lot of different things. Once that program disappeared, I went into environmental science for a while, and another position opened up at this college and I said, “Ooh, that looks very interesting.” So I’ve been here for about 18 years, doing a variety of things. I started the Student Help Desk, fought for the space, then the position for managing online learning came along, and I said, “This sounds like me.” Then the Provost at the time said, “Let’s start a Teaching Learning Center,” so Richard Kelder and I started it, and here we are.
JB: Even though you initially said, “Ew, who wants to do that?” you got yourself really involved in computers and technology.
LS: But I get to work with people, whereas if I had gotten into programming, which is why I went back to school, I would not get to interface with students, or faculty and staff, so I get to work with everything.
JB: What first got you into the idea of programming or anything to do with computers? It was probably such a foreign subject.
LS: It was. I first thought I was going to be teaching, but at the time I was looking to get into teaching there were really no positions available. And I lived in an area where the federal government had a facility in the middle of the Mississippi River called the Rock Island Arsenal, Army Weapons Command, and they were hiring programmer trainees during the Vietnam War. So that’s how I got started. I said, “Well, I can do that!”
JB: What encompasses your normal workday?
LS: One never knows! We do training on a variety of technologies. Right now, I have been concentrating on running Blackboard workshops on Tuesdays and Thursdays, especially because we got a lot of new faculty. I will do similar workshops in October, but merge in some Web 2.0 tools to use in their online environment. We’re probably going to be taking a look at electronic portfolios, we’ve looked at them before, but we’ve never really started to use them. I update the server mornings and afternoons. I do a lot of upkeep on Blackboard, I do a lot of student and faculty support throughout the day, I do a lot of hands-on, I do a lot of I don’t know what. Everything that people seem to need as far as online environment for their academic, Blackboard, whatever turns out to be, I try to make it happen.
JB: How much diversity is in your work?
LS: There are web 2.0 tools we’ve been using; I have a whole list I tend to introduce, sneak them in through the backdoor so it doesn’t feel overwhelming. It’s not so much Blackboard’s focus as it is an online teaching focus. This morning I was working in a teaching center in Washingtonville, where we do web conferencing. There are a few online professors and a couple of adjuncts teaching graduate classes using it to teach students in New Paltz, Washingtonville and White Plains, all online at the same time using Blackboard Collaborate, Illuminate, and our web processing tools.
JB: What you and your colleagues do is really the backbone of education and the modern classroom.
LS: It is. My home department is academic computing, so we’re responsible for all the classrooms, computers, computer labs, the hardware and software, not the projection systems or the sound systems. I’ve done that throughout my career here, but now I mainly focus on the online stuff. Online faculty also need to run their course proposal and syllabi and rubric past me if they’re going to propose a new online class, and they have to get it approved through Faculty Governance: their department, their school and the central Curriculum Committee. But generally speaking it comes to me, I make suggestions about where faculty need to tweak things, and we go from there.
JB: Professionals are seen as disconnected because they are not directly in front of students in the classroom. Yet, it’s almost as if you are faculty in the sense of being there for students; do you believe the professional staff shares your same motivation to be so dedicated for students?
LS: If you think about the different professionals on campus, and all the different departments, you’re talking about the Career Resource Center, Academic Advising, etc. We all interact with students on a different level, but we all try to make students a focus of what we do. I deal mostly with students and faculty, rather than professional staff, but if a professional staff member asks me, “Can you create a community site on Blackboard,” well sure, no problem. I focus on everyone actually, but definitely students and definitely faculty: it’s why we’re here. I used to have a lot of face-to-face workshops, but now my workshops and tutorials are pretty much on video. That removes me a little bit from interacting in a personal fashion, but it allows me to reach more students, and faculty, and everyone. But I know what you mean as far as a disconnect. There are some departments that work very hard to make sure everything runs smoothly with students, but don’t necessarily have as much interaction, as much as Academic Advising surely does. There are different levels of interaction.
JB: Despite the fact that you have a crazy schedule, where you don’t know what goes on one day to the next, you are quite involved with the UUP. You’re still on the Executive Committee and attending meetings even if a tree falls on your car. What got you into it?
LS: I’ve been part of UUP for a while now. Way back then, Glenn McNitt asked me if I would serve on the Health and Safety Committee, which is a joint labor-management committee, and I’ve been hooked ever since. I was Vice President for Professionals two years under Richard Kelder, and one year and some under Peter Brown.
JB: What gets you so interested and committed despite your busy schedule?
LS: Everyone has a busy schedule. Really and truly, everyone is super busy, not just me, everybody on this campus. But I have always believed it is important to provide support and service to the people you work with and for. So that’s me.
JB: That definitely seems like your motto for everything.
LS: I try, I try.
JB: In the same regard of helping and assisting, what would you say to someone who is unsure about getting involved in UUP?
LS: Generally, I would recommend that they volunteer for a committee. Some meet all the time, some, like Health and Safety Committee, meet infrequently but it’s an important committee. The other thing I would recommend is that they attend a Delegate Assembly as a guest. They’ll hear the speeches, they’ll see what goes on, and they’ll get a little bit more information than they would if they were to go to a chapter meeting on campus. You’ll get people from Buffalo down to Stony Brook, and everybody in between and off to the sides.
JB: Back to your work, how much do you teach people Microsoft Office?
LS: I used to do that an awful lot. I was making programs for IBM while working for Marist: word processing, spreadsheets, project management, PowerPoint-like applications, etc. I developed all of those courses, teaching IBMers to use what was in vogue. When I came here, I did training for students and faculty and staff in word processing, spreadsheeting, PowerPoint, I think we even did video editing workshops over the years. As online learning became more the focus of what I did, and as people – students, faculty, staff – already knew pretty much how to use the basic tools, and as there are so many websites now with “How do I do a footer?” or you can just go to YouTube, I don’t do that sort of training anymore. I am more than willing to accommodate for some people. Even the stragglers, those who claim they’re Luddites, they come to me and say, “Okay, you convinced me, I’m teaching online this summer.” My response is always, “I will adopt you over the summer” and get it done. It’s one of the reasons I got an award from the Chancellor.
JB: How would you rate your 18 years of experiences here?
LS: It depends on the day of the week, and that’s an honest answer. But overall, it’s a very positive experience. I think the campus has received a benefit from having me here and having me provide this service to the New Paltz community. I don’t know how to separate out what I have learned from New Paltz and what New Paltz might have learned from me. It has been a win-win for both the campus and me.