HOUSTON (Dec 4, 2012) – Lone Star College System Office of Technology Services (OTS) has recently been named with four prestigious honors, including the 2012 Computer Laureate award from ComputerWorld magazine.
Under the leadership of Link Alander, vice chancellor, technology services/CIO, LSCS OTS was also named 2012 Digital Community Colleges Survey winner by eRepublic in the large college category for the use of “innovation in technology with a limited budget.”
Other recent recognition includes: LSCS recognition by Campus Technology magazine as a model of technology innovation and received the IT Infrastructure Award for its private cloud. And LSCS was named Best in Texas by eRepublic‘s Center for Digital Government.
“I am proud to lead the office of technology for the Lone Star College System,” said Alander. “We strive to improve information security by raising user awareness, maturing security-related business processes and setting up a continuous improvement process for information security.”
Colleges from 26 states participated in the 2012 Digital Community Colleges Survey by eRepublic. LSCS, as the category winner, was one of only two colleges from Texas in the list. Houston Community College ranked fifth.
“This survey gives great insight into the nation’s community colleges’ efforts to advance services to students through new technologies,” says Cathilea Robinett, executive vice president of eRepublic. “The winners in these categories have increased the number of computers and kiosks, automated labor-intensive processes, improved student portals and increased student online services and more. “
The Computer Laureate 2012 award from Computerworld was part of the Computerworld Honors Program that brings together the men, women, organizations and institutions around the world whose visionary applications of information technology promote positive social, economic and educational change. A medallion inscribed with the program’s mission, “A Search for New Heroes” was presented to Alander at an awards gala earlier this year.
LSCS was ranked in the top 10 institutions in the nation by Campus Technology magazine as a model of technology innovation and received the IT Infrastructure Award for its private cloud.
Finally, LSCS was named Best in Texas by eRepublic ‘s Center for Digital Government. The award is given to public leaders and agencies for their dedication and contribution to IT in Texas. Winners were selected based on a number of criteria, including collaboration among agencies, innovative use of technology, economic benefits and bettering services, and business processes.
In addition to these accolades, LSCS OTS has also made huge strides in reducing the college’s carbon footprint over the past year, which saves energy, money and the planet. It began with design and construction of high-density, green, state-of-the-art, data center to support 99.999 percent availability at the enterprise level.
The “green” data center allows the college to leverage private and hybrid cloud computing models, improving service delivery while reducing operational costs – resulting in $625,000 in cost savings from server virtualization and more than $3 million in construction cost savings.
With 78,000 students in credit classes, and a total enrollment of more than 90,000, Lone Star College System is the largest institution of higher education in the Houston area and the fastest-growing community college system in the nation. Dr. Richard Carpenter is the chancellor of LSCS, which consists of six colleges including LSC-CyFair, LSC-Kingwood, LSC-Montgomery, LSC-North Harris, LSC-Tomball and LSC-University Park, five centers, LSC-University Center at Montgomery, LSC-University Center at University Park, Lone Star Corporate College, and LSC-Online. To learn more visit LoneStar.edu.
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