Have you met Shane, Help Desk Administrator for Technology & Learning Services? Spend the next few minutes getting to know him a little better.
I really like being in CCIS. It's a very nice place to sit around, have a Starbucks, and get some work done.
Predominantly tablet, although paper has its uses for quick note-taking.
My Mr. Rogers bobblehead. When the documentary Won't You Be My Neighbor? came out last year, I loved it. I cried like everyone else who watched it. And I was later given the gift of the Mr. Rogers bobblehead which sits in front of my computer monitor.
Coffee. Coffee starts my day, and I have 2-3 cups per day. I'm a coffee enthusiast - I grind my own beans and bring them in for my department.
Australia, simply because I've never been. I know people there and it's the sort of thing I would have trouble making time for myself to do properly. If I went, I would want to go for a while.
Anthony Bourdain. He was a chef, food writer, and host of various food and travel programs. He's someone who started off approaching the world cynically and grew into someone who became much more curious about the world as he got older. It was a wonderful example of seeing someone who never stopped growing as they moved forward.
I'd be interested in switching jobs with the people I support, particularly when I was working for the VPIT - just to get a sense of the different perspectives that the people I've supported bring to their jobs.
It means having the widest possible reach - not just for our students, staff, and faculty, but for the community as a whole. To me, it means we are not focusing on a single type of student or researcher or discipline or single way of getting things done.
Communication. To me, communication always happens in three stages: what you mean to say, what you actually say, and what someone else hears. Being able to solve the problem of having these three distinct stages and turning them into one - to increase the understanding between what I say and what you hear - I think is central to solving a lot of problems.
Inclusive, Growth, and Contributing.
To me, working here has been an opportunity where I can actually assert myself in a way that I can see the effects that I have. I think we as an institution can take for granted that we have really good jobs, and this is a really good place to work. It's really easy to just focus on the twenty feet in front of you. But pulling back and looking at things in the macro sense, this is a place that really cares about the inclusiveness of the people who work, research, and study here.
Shane Day was hired as the Augustana Campus Help Desk Administrator in 2009, where he supervises a client support team that assists students, staff, and faculty with their technology needs. Additionally, he was seconded by IST as a research analyst within the Solutions & Standards team to lead the Student Lifecycle strategic initiative during 2017-18. When not working, he enjoys marathon running, movies, technology, and craft beer with his wife Sandy and their pug, Bogart.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.