- Department:
- UITS Student Information Systems
- Campus:
- IU Bloomington
Meet Lora Fox, an IU staff member who has learned to balance managing administrative systems, pursuing her master's degree, and making it to marching band events.
Can you describe your Career Journey?
I spent the first 10 years of my career in a variety of positions such as in administration for a bank, a civil service employee, and in the Dept. of Psychology at Southern Illinois University. Eventually in 1979, I was in the Bloomington campus Registrar’s Office. In 1982, I completed an MPA in Public Finance and got a job with the Faculty Records Office. I moved with my family to South Bend in 1985 and worked in the Registrar’s Office at Notre Dame. We really missed Bloomington, though, and came back in 1986 where I started work at UITS as an Office Systems Trainer. In the late 80’s, I moved to the Student Records systems development team as a programmer. In the early 90’s, I became the manager of the team and have been in this position since then.
What do you like about your job?
I love the job I have because it is always changing. There is always something to learn. Analysis and problem-solving are two of my strengths, and because I have been here so long I have a very good understanding of the student information systems as a whole and all the pieces that go along with it.
How has your experience in tech been as a woman?
I’ve been lucky and haven’t really experienced much bias relating to my gender in the workplace. In our current organizational structure for my area, we have 6 product owners who set the priorities for what we work on – all but one of these people are women. We have 4 managers of which 2 are women, and our AVP is a woman.
What has been your favorite project or technology that you have worked with/on?
I do not really have a favorite – the team I am on works on projects that deal with Admissions, Financial Aid, Bursar, and Student Records functionality. We support a large, enterprise application, PeopleSoft, and integrations it has with other vendors and enterprise systems– each project has its own interesting pieces.
What are your passions outside of the workplace?
I have a lot! Playing golf, reading, yard work, anything outside, any sport, softball, politics, the environment, recycling, volunteering, I’m generally open to anything.