ABSTRACT
This chapter traces the historical development of the position, provides two institutional examples and three sample position descriptions, and discusses future trends and challenges. It discusses two examples of the technology officer position, the first at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, and the second at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, North Carolina. Separately, the distance education coordinator position was established in 2000; while that position required an understanding of technology, technology leadership was not its primary responsibility. In the course of networking with peers, the authors have encountered three variations of the technology officer position, each of which correlates with the degree to which the student affairs organization relies on the institution's central IT resources. Student affairs areas that currently have staff to maintain their desktop computer and server resources may find they are being asked to fold those resources and responsibilities into the central IT operation to provide more cost-effective service in that area.
