News from PRINCETON UNIVERSITY
Office of Communications
Stanhope Hall
Princeton, New Jersey 08544-5264
Telephone 609-258-3601; Fax 609-258-1301For Immediate Release:
March 16, 2001
Contact: Steven Schultz, (609) 258-5729 sschultz@princeton.edu
Princeton names Betty Leydon vice president for information technology
Princeton, N.J. -- Betty Leydon, the top-ranking information technology administrator at Duke University, will become vice president for information technology and chief information officer at Princeton in June.
She will replace Ira Fuchs, who is now the vice president for research and information technology at the Andrew Mellon Foundation.
Leydon is the vice provost for information technology and chief information officer at Duke. She leads the Office of Information Technology, which she helped establish when she arrived at the university in 1994. Her duties have been similar to those she will assume at Princeton, focusing on planning for the computing, networking and telecommunications needs of academic and administrative offices.
"We are delighted to have Betty Leydon joining us as CIO. She is nationally recognized by her peers as a strong and able leader in information technology," said Princeton Provost Jeremiah Ostriker, to whom she will report. "And on her own campus, she has been highly praised as an effective and collaborative administrator, who has been very successful in understanding and meeting the needs of many different campus constituencies."
Leydon built her achievements in the field of information technology on a foundation of varied experiences, ranging from the development and marketing of commercial computing solutions to the academic study and teaching of English language and literature.
A 1967 graduate of Bucknell University, Leydon worked as a computer programmer and systems engineer before becoming a marketing representative for the IBM Corp. She lived in France for seven years, teaching English and earning two post-graduate degrees from the l'Université de Nantes. She returned to the United States in 1981 and earned a master's degree in English language and linguistics from the University of New Hampshire.
After working for a short time on the development of educational software, Leydon returned to the University of New Hampshire in 1986 to oversee initiatives in computer-aided instruction. She stayed with the university for eight years, ultimately becoming executive director for computing and information services.
"I am looking forward to working with the faculty, the staff and everyone in the Princeton community to find the best strategic direction for information technology," said Leydon. "One of the biggest challenges is making sure that the technology does not become an end in itself. Having done graduate work and teaching, it helps me to see what the end user of technology needs.
"It is a very exciting time for universities like Princeton," she added, noting that more powerful computing and faster networking have opened the door for "ubiquitous" computing. "With technology today, everything you do affects so many people. My goal is to set up a process so that everyone can participate in finding solutions that work."
She is a member of the board of trustees of the Corporation for Research and Educational Networking and a member of the Common Solutions Group, a select group of universities seeking common solutions to information technology challenges in higher education. She also is a charter member of Internet2, a consortium of more than 180 universities working in partnership with industry and government to accelerate the creation of tomorrow's Internet.
Note to editors: A high-resolution picture of Leydon is available on the web at http://www.princeton.edu/pr/pictures/l-r/leydon/.
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