IT Services, as a division, serves a key purpose at the university. We help support the backbone of many services Miami students, faculty, and staff have come to expect in our increasingly technology-enabled world - things like Wi-Fi, business software, and AI compute power are all things we know about so that the rest of the university can benefit from our knowledge.

As professionals, it’s important to stay up to date on our technical skills and stay abreast of the latest developments in the IT world. It’s also important to share that wealth of knowledge with colleagues.

Higher education IT professionals in Ohio can choose to attend the Ohio Higher Education Computing Council (OHECC) conference, which has been going since 1974! This year, OHECC was hosted by the University of Toledo, so one sunny week in May, several folks from Miami’s IT Services division headed up Interstate 75 to spend a few days in the Glass City and learn (and share!).

AI everywhere, all of the time

The theme of this year’s OHECC was “Ubiquitous AI,” and it was certainly an apt moniker, because it seemed that generative artificial intelligence was on everyone’s mind. Many sessions focused on how university IT departments are using AI to strengthen strategies, enhance learning, and increase efficiency – especially in times like these when university budgets are stretched thin. Sessions peppered the schedule about mapping out AI maturity, student learning in the era of AI, intentional AI narration in the classroom, and transforming information security.

“I loved meeting so many of our Ohio colleagues, and hearing all about their exciting successes, including their self-driven agentic AI initiatives,” said John Virden, Miami’s chief information security officer.

Other sessions touted organizations' solutions to common problems, like cloud computing, disaster recovery, and campus modernization. One presenter talked about creating redundant data center infrastructure in preparation for a planned campus power outage.

“OHECC provides a great forum to meet other professionals in higher ed who are experiencing the same issues we do,” said senior network engineer Mark Chouteau. “We are able to share setbacks and advances as a larger group and learn from everyone’s experiences.”

Miami leads the way

In addition to the helpful insights from the many conference sessions, Miami folks came to share their wisdom. From presentations about harrowing cybersecurity ordeals to panels about the strength and resilience of our network infrastructure, Miami teams showed time and again that they were thought leaders and subject matter experts in their respective fields.

A quick overview of the presentations given by Miami IT people:

• Developers Amy Johnson and Alex Kauchak spoke about the Extend tool within Workday, which is a low-code solution to app integrations that allows developers to pass data to and from Workday.
• Information security analysts Tony Kinne, Jake Harrison, and Patrick Hawk spoke about a specific cybersecurity incident that took up much of their time in 2025. It was a stressful circumstance, as the threat actor kept changing their tactics and attempting to gain access from multiple sources, but the team took away some positives from the experience, including a renewed sense of teamwork and new software that helps them combat these things.
• Several of our esteemed leaders and assistant vice presidents (AVPs) showed up on panels, including CIO David Seidl on ERP transitions, AVP and chief information security officer John Virden on the important topics for modern-day CISOs, and AVP Troy Travis on cloud strategies and data center connectivity.
• The AccessMU team really showed up for the event, with three presentations given by Laura Fathauer and Sean Poley about how Miami’s strategy centers around making in-person and online learning more accessible for students of all abilities by using software like Grackle and staying up to date with government regulations like Title II.

“The Miami folks are so affirming,” said one attendee after spending time with our IT folks over the course of the three-day event.

And it’s true – one of the things that makes Miami IT people stand out is our desire to bring people into the fold and make friends all across our great state!!

“As a first-timer at OHECC, my favorite part of the trip was meeting both new and familiar faces in person!” said support analyst Lucy Anderson. “Since my team is not based in Hoyt, I rarely get to see fellow IT Services colleagues, especially those who work remotely. It was also a pleasure connecting with peers from other universities working across many different areas of IT.”

Not the end of this story…

OHECC is a longstanding tradition within the IT departments of higher education institutions in Ohio, and the story continues next year at Miami!

It’s our turn to host this prestigious event in May 2027, and we will be happy to welcome leaders and thinkers from around the state. Miami last hosted OHECC in 2015, and there have certainly been a lot of changes since then!

“I have been a part of OHECC for over 20 years, and in 2027 it will be the third time that Miami has hosted,” said Randy Hollowell, manager of IT communications and a member of the OHECC Steering Committee. We are extremely excited to be able to once again showcase our campus to the technology community across the state of Ohio.”

We’re ready to see what next year brings!