The fabulous and energetic UC Tech Conference of 2024 was held October 28 and 29, 2024 on the beautiful UC Davis and UC Davis Health campuses. The conference provided excellent workshops, panels, fireside chats, and empowering mixers for all who attended. The UC Womxn In Technology (WIT) Group offered several opportunities for learning and connecting at the conference.
Womxn Building Bridges: Collaborative Strategies for Navigating UC Career Tracks
The “Womxn Building Bridges: Collaborative Strategies for Navigating UC Career Tracks” workship with Lisa Laughter, MA, ACC, Senior Career Coach for UC Davis & UC Davis Health at Learning & Development, Human Resources, provided an important opportunity for knowledge-sharing among colleagues.
Christina Harland, SPHR, HR and Operations Director at Information and Educational Technology (IET) and University of California, Davis, met with Lisa Laughter, MA, ACC, Senior Career Coach for UC Davis & UC Davis Health at Learning & Development, Human Resources, and myself several times to plan the Womxn Building Bridges session. I had a vision of what I wanted people to walk away with. I wanted attendees to understand what tools they could use so that when they decided to apply for a position, they could ensure it wasn’t a lateral move but a promotional opportunity.
Lisa also mentioned that this was useful when looking at requesting a reclassification. When you view job standards in Job Builder, you can see what knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs), and key responsibilities distinguish the classification. An example of this is an Analyst 2 from a Level 3, and you can view the KSAs for each side by side. Some people are looking at information about how to promote, so providing them with the right tools to understand how they can prepare is important. This also allows employees to be able to self-advocate, and request a reclassification if they find that they are performing at a higher level.
UC Womxn in Technology Social Summit Birds of a Feather (BoF)
The birds of a feather meetups are opportunities for groups to connect, and WIT offered two of these opportunities, UC Womxn in Technology Social Summit and UC Womxn in Technology Munch and Mingle. Both were very well attended. Immediately following our Munch and Mingle, we took a picture sporting our WIT T-shirts.
UC Womxn in Technology Munch and Mingle
Members of WIT were very happy and excited to see LeShelle May, Computer Engineer at CNN and UC Davis Chancellor Gary S. May’s wife, who attended our Munch and Mingle as guest speaker . Mrs. May shared some remarks, and showed her support for our group. As an IT professional and accomplished computer engineer, she has always been a champion for Womxn in Tech.
The collaboration between the UC WIT members and UC Tech 2024 staff made for successful events. We are very happy with this cohesive effort.
Empowering our Community: A Collaborative Approach to Transforming Identity and Access Management (IAM)
UC WIT Member, Süreyya Tuncel, Manager of Identify and Access Management, UC Riverside, presented “Empowering our Community: A Collaborative Approach to Transforming Identity and Access Management” this year.
Süreyya’s presentation covered UC Riverside’s Identity and Access Management (IAM) transformation initiative, IAMRiverside. It discussed both Identity Governance and Administration (IGA) and Access Management components, and the newly adopted technology stack to enhance security, empower the campus community, and streamline processes. The presentation emphasized collaboration with campus partners and highlighted strategies for partnering with campus stakeholders throughout the transformation. It also included lessons learned and future roadmap plans, with valuable insights for institutions undergoing similar transformations
Author
Identity and Access Management
UC Riverside
UC WIT Chair Message
UC Tech is an amazing opportunity for technologists across the system to get together to learn, celebrate, and network. I encourage everyone including womxn in technology to attend if they are able as it provides time and space for in person fellowship and relationship building. UC Womxn in Technology are an active and vocal part of the conference with many of our members presenting, hosting birds of a feather, and being recognized with awards.
UCWIT also commits to having a presence annually that provides space for womxn to build together . UC Tech is always a highlight on my calendar and I look forward to attending every year. Looking forward to seeing everyone again this year.
Associate Chief Information Security Officer
UC Berkeley
Many thanks to our article contributors:
- Erica Avila, Business Process Team, UC Davis
- Charron Andrus, Associate Chief Information Security Officer, UC Berkeley
- Emily Marwedel, Sr Service Desk Analyst, College of Letters & Science IT Services, UC Davis
- Rita Rosenthal, Director, Communications Strategy & Partnerships, UC Berkeley