Higher Education User Group gains new director from ISU

Image Provided by Todd Smoak

NORMAL, Ill. – Illinois State’s Office of Technology Solutions Executive Director Todd Smoak was recently named to the Higher Education User Group Board of Directors. 

HEUG works with institutions to manage their administrative technologies. Smoak listed the opportunities this new position in the group will create for the university. 

He said, “This Higher Education User Group is a conglomeration of all these institutions coming together saying ‘Hey, there’s a need for us to work together and learn how to do and be optimized,’ kind of in what we refer to often as, like, the back office or the administrative side of the house.”

In his new position, Smoak will be exposed to where technology is going in this enterprise and gain direct access to people he may not have had without HEUG. This can help strengthen relationships in tech with other universities.

 “Now, they are proactively reaching back out to and saying ‘Hey, we’re similar. What do you guys do?’ and that’s a great way to collaborate and learn from each other and improve our overall, you know, technology support services,” Smoak said. “It demonstrates our commitment to the collaborative growth of universities in this space.”

The systems and applications essential to ISU’s functionality, like Redbird Card and Canvas, are supported by HEUG. 

“We got a lot of help from this group and now there’s a way for us to, also, give back to that group too, so there’s some great things happening there,” Smoak said.