Hogue earned bachelor's and master's degrees from USC in 1977 and 1981, and a doctorate from Harvard University.

Q. You're the University's first chief information officer, responsible for an array of information technology (IT) issues. How do you get your arms around all of that?

A. When I came here, I gave myself 100 days to understand what's in place, to get a feel for what needs and opportunities are here. I spent a lot of the first semester making day-to-day decisions and talking to as many faculty, deans, students, and staff as possible to determine their hopes and desires for information technology at USC. I'm now drawing up a strategic plan based, in part, on those conversations. Only about 10 percent of my job has to do with technology itself. Ninety percent has to do with helping the University drive toward its mission, to support the various efforts that will get us there. The technology that enables that to happen is often quite obvious; identifying ways to build consensus to support effective institutional change is often less obvious.

Q. What sorts of things did you talk about?

A. I tried to pose three main questions to everyone: What do you identify as the most compelling IT issues in your area? What are the most compelling IT issues for the University? And, finally, what University issues that don't relate to IT keep you awake at night? That last question is important because IT professionals tend to view all issues through the lens of technology, and there's a whole world of other issues that are as important or more important than information technology.

Q. What are your impressions of the current state of USC's information technology?

A. Ensuring the integrity of the network is ou> Transfer interrupted! tivity is poor or our capacity is inadequate, nothing else we do will be of much consequence to our customers, so establishing a network operations center is at the top of the list. Finally, we want IT to be a catalyst for closer relationships with the two-year and four-year campuses. If it works, we can get closer to being a truly seamless university.

Q. What technology changes will we see in the next few years?

A. Since the mid-1990s, I've been saying that personal digital devices are the way of the future. These boxes (pointing to a computer on his desk) aren't going away, but we will do more and more work on portable devices. The whole wireless phenomenon is coming of ageÑwe have plans to establish a wireless "cloud" in the Horseshoe area, and the School of Medicine, College of Nursing, College of Engineering and Information Technology, and Thomas Cooper Library already have wireless technology in place. We also see it as a vehicle to help connect our campuses to remote or non-contiguous sites not easily served by traditional networking technology.

Q. How might the looming funding shortfall for higher education affect your plans?

A. This budget situation will encourage us to address some long-standing issues. USC, like many institutions, suffers from incompatible systems and redundant services. For example, we have at least 10 e-mail systems in use, and that's not acceptable to anyone. We have some 34 computer labs on the main campus, but most of them are restricted to students in specific academic disciplines. Since around three-quarters of our Columbia students now own their own computers, it is time to reexamine the rationale for each University-owned lab on a case-by-case basis. Over time I suspect that we will have fewer University-owned labs and those that continue will be focused on complex computation, with optimized hardware and software that would be cost-prohibitive for students to own. Most of the common applications such as word processing and e-mail could be run on students' personal computers. Some general facilities for students who do not own a computer would remain, of course, but, at several thousand dollars a seat for purchase and operating expense over the life of a system, refocusing lab operations has the potential to save significant money.

Q. Any other ways to save money in IT?

A. According to our analysis, the University spends in excess of $5 million per year with microcomputer vendors. Through the cooperation of purchasing, computer services, and individual departments, we need to ensure that USC uses its collective purchasing power to drive unit costs lower. Even a 5 percent reduction in cost per unit would yield savings of $250,000 per year.