As I promised last month I wanted to take a few moments to give you an update on the work of the Board of Director's during the July meeting in Redwood Shores. The board flew in on July 9 and met full days on July 10 and 11. We met near Oracle headquarters at the Sofitel Hotel. Our July board meeting is now scheduled at Oracle each year to make it convenient for the Oracle Executives we would like to engage with, and to ensure we have their full attention when meeting.
Business started on July 10 with a review of the agenda. We quickly moved into a brief dialogue regarding the process for Presidential elections each year. In an effort to allow adequate time for the board members to review presidential nominees HEUG Standing Orders were amended to allow the Executive Director to solicit nominations from interested board members in November rather than December.
We also spent time receiving an update and review on recent international and regional events that were held in May and June, as well as an update on the various upcoming events throughout the year. October and November will be heavily scheduled with regional and international conferences. The SCHRUG held another successful, highly attended conference in Dallas last month, and the inaugural NewHEUG event will be held in next month in Massachusetts.
Most of the remainder of the day were dedicated to our meetings with Oracle executives. Mark Armstrong, Paco Arbrejuan, Rondy Ng and Keith Rajecki were on hand offering updates and soliciting feedback from the HEUG Board. Topics included:
- Updates on the Student Cloud Project
- Discussion regarding delivery models
- Review of continuous support of on premise Campus Solutions
- Market updates on Global expansion
- Discussion on options for the HEUG to develop communites in the globally expanded areas
- Technology discussions
- Continued a review of and discussion of the HEUG Executive Engagement options.
At the end of the meeting it was once again felt that Oracle Executives were passionate about coming to the table to meet with the HEUG Board members. The Oracle commitment to higher education is still firm and their desire to engage with the HEUG is as strong as ever.
To finish the day the Board met at Amici's East Coast Pizza for our traditional Hugh Barne's pizza party!
A busy Friday focused primarily on the work being done this year with the HEUG.
Each of the Vice Presidents had opportunities to update the full board on work that had been done and work still to be done in the coming year. The discussion included (but was not limited to):
- A review of the various HEUG Upgrade Work Groups
- A full review of the work of the PAG/TAG elections work group
- A Technology update including a review of the work of the Technical Advisory Group
- Discussion regarding this year's process for Strategic Planning
- Organization of a committee to implement the Socious Assessment
- Continued discussion on the emerging global communities
- Full review and approval of the Fiscal 2014/15 HEUG Budget
- A review of the work of the various Product Groups including the PAGs, and the Product Council
- Young Professional Group progress and plans for the next year.
Friday ended with travel plans for several of the board members but also with one final dinner for the remaining members at a local HEUG favortie Mistrals.
Once again, this was a very productive hard working two days of meetings. The HEUG continues to be well directed by these passionate and dedicated volunteers.