Posted by Susan Shen, UCB Student Intern, UCOP. “‘IT initiatives’ is a bit nebulous,” Kevin Chou says about his department’s name. “It was created out of the initiative to unify administrative IT units at UCSD. We’re creating a portfolio of services that will articulate our organization’s strategic value, become part of our core decision-making framework, and provide a uniform customer interface.” As director, Chou is responsible for the operational leadership of five administrative IT units of around 50 IT professionals. His department delivers information services in support of housing and dining, human resources, business and financial services, key administrative offices and university advancement. To create a robust service delivery model, the team must define discrete services, and work to integrate them into the framework. In this process of standardizing, capturing and merging each service, Chou and his team must also maintain transparency and structure, so their customers – members of the UCSD community – can interact smoothly with these otherwise complex IT functions.
A San Diego native, Chou attended UCSD and received a computer science degree from the Jacobs School of Engineering. After graduation, he continued working for UCSD, and also pursued a law degree from the University of San Diego. Over the span of eight years, Chou took on various roles in the IT department, moving from support, to engineering, to information systems management, and finally to his current role.
Chou says the most rewarding aspect of his job is the people: “When things are working, we are so often overlooked, but IT Services really requires people to make it work.” He applauds the IT professionals for being dedicated to their work, and for their dedication to the university mission during a time of change. By working to shape this new service delivery model, Chou is continuing to transform the role of IT at UCSD.