“When given the opportunity to work with expensive hardware, I’m going to do it,” says School of Information Studies freshman Elias Dahar. Dahar and fellow iSchooler Caleb Sedore recently got some hands-on learning experience as they built GPU nodes for the Syracuse University research computing environment.
Enterprise Process Support Team Builds Beds for Children in Need
The saying goes, “you made your bed, now you have to sleep in it.” Earlier this month, though, the Information Technology Services (ITS) Enterprise Process Support team built 12 beds so children in need could sleep in them. Some of the beds were delivered the very next day to local families.
It was a restorative change of pace for the Enterprise Process Support (EPS) team. As part of the ITS mission to provide an outstanding technology environment for the University, EPS provides consultation and facilitation services to improve business processes across campus. During the team’s annual retreat, EPS got a head start on the Syracuse University 150 Days of Service by volunteering with Sleep in Heavenly Peace.
Sleep in Heavenly Peace is an organization that builds and delivers beds to children who do not have one of their own. According to numbers collected by the group, roughly 3% of American children are without beds.
The Syracuse chapter of Sleep in Heavenly Peace was founded in 2018 and has delivered 565 beds to date. EPS team member Cindy Hoalcraft had previously volunteered with Sleep in Heavenly Peace and suggested it as both a team-building activity and as an opportunity to serve those in need.
ITS support analyst Jon Wright is co-president of the Syracuse chapter of Sleep in Heavenly Peace and helped coordinate the day’s activities.
“My personal faith puts an emphasis on serving others,” Wright said. “The result of trying to help kids get their own beds is that I have found a simple, long-lasting joy doing so.”
EPS director Kathy Kinney said her team felt a similar sense of meaning in the day’s work.
“I think some were quite surprised at the need,” Kinney said. “We all felt good about contributing bedding and building beds for families in our community.”
Information Technology Services Takes Center Stage at NetApp Insight Conference
Thousands of information technology professionals gathered at the NetApp Insight Conference in Las Vegas to hear experts from such leading organizations as Centura Health, SAP, DreamWorks—and Syracuse University.
Eric Sedore, associate chief information officer with Information Technology Services (ITS), took part in the conference keynote presentation. He discussed how Syracuse University approaches the challenges and opportunities of supporting the data needs of a global research university.
“In the last seven years, we’ve seen explosive research data growth,” Sedore said. “We’re a research university, it’s what we do. Research requires data—and a lot of it. Whether it’s genomic data, gravitational wave data, or soft matter data in the STEM areas, or 3D rendering in our render farms for our College of Visual and Performing Arts, we’re producing the lifeblood of the institution in this data.” Continue Reading
Tackling IT: An Interview with Orange Defensive Lineman Kingsley Jonathan, ’21
By Gillian Follett, ’22
When he’s not on the football field as part of the Syracuse Orange defensive line, Kingsley Jonathan is driven by his passion for technology.
“I’ve always had a thing for IT,” Jonathan said in an interview with Information Technology Services (ITS).
A junior information management and technology major, Jonathan spent his summer as an intern in the ITS Service Center, where he worked alongside other interns to help students, faculty and staff resolve issues with their electronic devices.
Throughout the summer, Jonathan dealt with a wide range of technology-related problems. When a woman brought in a computer that inexplicably would not turn on, he teamed up with the other Service Center employees to compare the computer’s hardware components to a similar computer in the center to determine the cause of the issue. Some issues that Jonathan encountered were simpler. Continue Reading
Fall 2019 Research Computing Colloquies
Do you need more computing power to move your research and creativity forward? At the Fall 2019 Computing Colloquies, Daniele Profeta (Assistant Professor of Architecture) and Britton Plourde (Professor of Physics) will discuss how they leverage Syracuse University’s advanced computing resources to strengthen their work.