Joel L. Hartman ’02EdD, vice president for Information Technologies and Resources and chief information officer, has announced that he will retire on July 1.
Hartman joined UCF in 1995, and has played a vital role in shaping the university’s technological, academic and information infrastructure and landscapes, overseeing information security, computing, the library, telecommunications and space administration.
“Joel has spent the past 25 years building UCF’s digital and online teaching and learning platforms into one of the most innovative in the nation,” says Interim President Thad Seymour. “I want to thank Joel for his remarkable leadership and service to UCF and his willingness to stay in the role through the opening of UCF Downtown and the 21st Century Library project.”
The developments made during Hartman’s tenure are vast, spanning connectivity, security and learning. He not only led the effort to connect members of the UCF community across locations and campuses through the campus network but collaborated with State University System institutions to create Florida LambdaRail, which provides reliable, high-capacity connections to the Internet and Internet2. He laid the technological framework for both Medical City and UCF Downtown and developed effective partnerships with major technology companies such as Microsoft. And he also increased information security measures across the board to respond to the ever-evolving cyber landscape.
Under his vision, academic endeavors entered the 21st century through the development of UCF’s highly successful online learning initiative, the equipping of all classrooms with modern multimedia technology, the expansion of library resources and the launch of the 21st Century Library project.
Long seen as an expert in his field, Hartman is the only person to have received top leadership recognition awards from both EDUCAUSE and the Online Learning Consortium. He has served as an information technology consultant to both the public and the private sectors, has published numerous articles, delivered many conference presentations, and has been active in the development of statewide education and research networks in Illinois and Florida. He has served and held offices on numerous state, regional and national IT organizations in the fields of public broadcasting, distributed learning as well as research and education networking.
Hartman graduated from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, with both bachelor’s and master’s degrees in journalism and communications and earned his doctorate in curriculum and instruction from UCF.
