Member Stories

Published: April 2025

I’ve been trying to figure out why CITM became such a successful organization. An organization that I think is more active, and more inclusive, than many of the other affiliate groups under the AJCU umbrella.

There’s no question that CITM’s creation is deeply intertwined with Bernie Gleason and Joe Catrambone, who both had been board members of CAUSE, understood the value of a group of people with shared interests working together, and thought that the IT organizations of all the US Jesuit universities could benefit from such an experience. They felt so strongly about it that they unilaterally scheduled the first two meetings: the first to be hosted by Bernie and Boston College in the fall of 1986, and the second to be hosted by Joe and Loyola University Chicago in the fall of 1987.

But I think it’s also, at least in part, because of the timing of the first call, the state of information technology at higher education institutions at that point in time, and what developed as we continued to get together and began to appreciate all the benefits we were getting through this activity.

If I remember correctly, in the spring of 1986 Bernie and Joe sent a letter inviting senior IT executives to the first meeting and, a year later, to the second meeting, to all the Presidents of the AJCU schools, asking that it be forwarded to the person responsible for IT at their campus. At Santa Clara, the President passed it to the Academic Vice President, to whom I reported, who sent it to me. When I got the copy of the letter that Bernie and Joe had written I was absolutely ecstatic. I immediately called the AVP and asked him if it would be OK if I offered to host a third meeting at Santa Clara in 1988. He enthusiastically supported that idea and so began a pattern of rotating through meetings in the eastern part of the US, then the central part, then the western part, in successive years

I had become Director of Information Systems at Santa Clara in Fall 1984, on leave from my tenured faculty position, so I’d been in that role for less than two years when the invitation went out. It was a time of tremendous change for information technology on university campuses everywhere. Most of us were either in the early stages of running our own phone systems, having installed a PBX, or were trying to figure out how we could afford to do that, because of the greater flexibility and control it offered us over our telephone services. But we were also universally struggling with the phenomenon of the personal computer – something that was new, was not understood, and was extremely expensive (a green and white screen, dual floppy IBM PC cost about $3,500, equivalent to about $10,000 now). We were starting to put some in computer labs, we were trying to figure out how to make them available to faculty and staff, how to make them more available to students. We were also dealing with computer networking, because most of the PC labs used local area networks like Ethernet to connect to shared devices like printers, and national organizations like NSF were encouraging networked services like email.

Those of us in IT management could sense that this was just the beginning of something that was going to affect all of our campuses in profound ways. In fact, it felt like this eventually was

going to impact all parts of our campuses. It wasn’t something that we could keep isolated. But few of us had any real experience with the new technologies. Sharing experience and ideas with counterparts at other AJCU schools seemed like a fabulous idea!

Also, as anyone then working in higher ed IT management was painfully aware, is that no single person could know stuff about all the different aspects of information technology that universities were going to have to grapple with, that no individual could truly go to a meeting like this and pick up all the information we would want to get. I remember vividly that, although the invitation had been aimed at the senior IT management person at each institution, the participants in the first meeting weren’t limited to them. Many of us brought somebody, or in a few cases, several somebodies, with us to allow more people to understand what was going on, to bring expertise from our own campuses to share with others, because none of us in senior management really knew the nitty-gritty about what was going on. That’s why the first meeting had representatives from 15 schools but 33 attendees.

That first meeting was a FANTASTIC success! And as meetings continued, they kept getting larger, because more staff needed the benefits of attending. I believe that’s fairly unique for Jesuit affiliate groups. My sense is that many of them are fairly small, perhaps only the senior person at each school. But to CITM, the AJCU schools brought as many staff as they could afford to bring. And it wasn’t just the topic sessions at each meeting that made it so valuable. It was getting to meet multiple people from other campuses, sparking ideas off one another, identifying experts at other campuses that would be available for advice year-round. So from that first meeting things just exploded!

And it’s continued to be that kind of activity. An event at which people develop friendships. A meeting where people from different universities, of different sizes but all with similar missions, exchange ideas about how they might most effectively use information technology to enhance education, and research, and operations at their universities. And as the effects of information technology have become more pervasive and more profound, CITM evolved from an annual meeting: adding a meeting and dinner at EDUCAUSE, then adding a set of special interest groups with email lists that allowed someone on any of our campuses to call upon the combined experience of their counterparts, then adding development activities like the mentoring program, and collaborating with colleagues at Jesuit universities in Central and South America.

Today, CITM is a rich ecosystem that has significantly enhanced information technology-related services at all of the AJCU institutions. That’s why the slightly revised name of the group, the COLLABORATIVE for Information Technology Management, is so appropriate.

Published: August 2025

Spring 2013 saw the genesis of a simple idea amongst CIOs at Jesuit colleges and universities. Susan Malisch, along with other members of the AJCU-CITM group, recognized the irreplaceable value of institutional memory, particularly Jack Corliss’s, and the risk of its loss. What if we made our shared history official? What about digitally archiving our shared story for posterity?

We introduced the AJCU-CITM History project at the 2013 CITM conference at Loyola University Chicago. It was there that we first presented a vision to create a digital archive of the group’s milestones, conferences, collaborations, and initiatives since the group’s founding at Boston College in 1986. As part of that early effort, we invited volunteers to share audio recordings of their memories, hoping to seed the project with firsthand recollections.

By the time we reconvened at Gonzaga University in 2014, we had made real headway. We updated the group and formally established the AJCU-CITM History Project. A timeline was developing, showing events, conference photos, and key initiatives including JesuNet, the mentoring program, and our work with AUSJAL colleagues throughout Latin America.

I was part of the small team that worked behind the scenes to bring this project online. Jack Corliss served as our project historian, drawing from his extensive knowledge and decades-long involvement. Jack sought the expertise of Terry Fife, a history professor at Loyola University Chicago. Terry owned a business named History Works, and she generously donated her expertise and those of her protégé, Elizabeth Trantowski. Elizabeth, “Liz”, brought her professional historical perspective and digital storytelling experience to the group.

I contributed on the technology and organization side, helping to shape the structure and functionality of the site, while Mark Castner offered essential archival support. Mark and Jack’s massive collection of emails, documents, photos, and conference handouts greatly aided the project. We decided early on that the site would do more than just list dates. It would reflect the spirit of collaboration and service that defined our group. We organized it around themes, milestones, annual meetings, people and places, and outreach. Our aim was not just to record, but to interpret and celebrate.

Creating the site came with its challenges. We had to sift through years of conference materials; programs, agendas, photos, and memorabilia to decide what best told our story. We tracked down audio and video reminiscences, some of which came from informal interviews or impromptu recordings. The technical side presented hurdles, too: integrating media, designing an intuitive navigation system, and managing digital formats from decades past. Without the help of Loyola University Chicago graduate students who volunteered time, we could not have organized and scanned the hundreds of documents and pictures that were available.

One of my favorite aspects of the project was collecting and organizing the visual elements, like the photos from the 1995 Mexico City meeting with AUSJAL, Jack’s personal favorite since he spent years advocating for the meeting. Or the artifacts from Loyola Marymount’s Barbara Horgan Professional Development Fund, or the William O’Hearn Service award. Each image, we reviewed, told its own story. I gained a new appreciation for the unique contributions of members from each school.

In building the timeline, we drew from Jack’s original historian notes, which included not only dates and places but commentary on events such as the shift from October to spring meetings, the early days of JesuNet, and negotiations with educational software vendors. Even the soaps and shampoos from the host hotels, quirky conference mementos, found their place in the archive. Jack’s “schools roundup” sessions highlighted the unique aspects of every conference. While often mentioned casually, these moments deserved to be more permanently recorded.

We launched the first version of the website on Loyola’s blog platform, WordPress, in 2014. Seeing it live, stories, photos, and all, was deeply gratifying. At the 2015 30th Anniversary Meeting, we saw attendees revisit their own contributions, adding comments and offering new materials for the archive. What had started as a seedling idea had become a growing digital repository of our shared journey.

The project reached a turning point in 2019 after the passing of Jack Corliss. We needed a new historian. At the 2019 conference at Regis University, John Bansavich from USF and Nathan Blume from Detroit Mercy graciously volunteered to carry the project forward, John as historian and Nathan in my role as technical lead. Though I had planned to retire in 2020, I looked forward to continuing with the project in a supporting role. Additionally, Mark Castner, Canisius College, and Ron Danielson, Santa Clara University, both who had retired from their schools, agreed to stay with the project and bring it into the future. Jim Burke, John Carroll University, agreed to be the liaison between the group and the AJCU-CITM’s CIOs.Reflecting now, I realize this project wasn't just about the past. It was about stewardship and continuity. The AJCU-CITM History Project gave us a chance to preserve the intangible; relationships, reflections, and the sense of mission-driven innovation that defined our work.

Looking ahead, I hope others will contribute to and expand the project, whether through new media or fresh storytelling. There are still stories to be told, voices to be heard, and milestones to be marked.

For those who visit the history site today, I hope they find not only information but inspiration. And I hope they understand that behind every page was a team of people who believed our history was worth preserving and who built this digital archive with care, one story at a time.

Bruce Montes
Loyola University Chicago, 1976-2025