By Sarkis Daglian. In April 2019, UC Irvine Interim Chief Information Officer Kian Colestock and I launched the inaugural Office of Information Technology (OIT) Leadership Academy. The program is a collaboration with UCI’s Paul Merage School of Business.
It is always challenging to maintain a level of management consistency in large organizations, especially with a diverse population of managers who come from different career tracks and backgrounds. We started the leadership program to enhance the capabilities of our leadership team to serve as effective campus partners and collaborators.
The academy is an intensive two-day course covering some of the most essential topics for today’s IT leaders. It allows managers – together as a collective team – to develop new skills and sharpen old ones. The academy’s curriculum focused on important real-world skills and concepts including:
- Critical thinking and decision-making
- Motivating and engaging employees
- Change leadership
- Collaboration
Forty OIT managers attended and found the insights and activities to be useful, relevant, and timely. Heinz Yu, the Manager of OIT’s Windows Services Group said, “The topics were of great relevance and it was a great venue to build stronger relationships among OIT’s leadership team via face-to-face interactions and team collaborations.”
OIT is committed to continuing this program on an annual basis. After all, at UCI our mission is enhancing lives through rigorous academics, cutting-edge research, and dedicated public service. We need to make sure our leadership has the necessary tools to excel and to support this mission.
Sarkis Daglian is director, OIT Client Services at UC Irvine.
Fantastic. I would love to see this IT Leadership brought to UCLA! Perhaps add a section on embracing and cultivating a more diverse workforce.