TROY UNIVERSITY The lessons from those early days inform how TROY approaches the adoption of tech today. The process is deliberate and collaborative. Greg’ s IT department works closely with the university’ s academic, administrative and research units, drawing on input from external employers and advisory groups as well as internal stakeholders.
One guiding principle is to resist what he calls“ shiny object syndrome”.
“ When something new and vibrant appears on the scene, it’ s easy to become overwhelmed and perhaps excited about it,” he says.“ We try to address shiny object syndrome and be more pragmatic and practical about how we adopt technologies.”
The cybersecurity-first mindset Greg’ s background is in cybersecurity, and it influences a great many decisions he makes at TROY. He describes the university as a“ security-first and security-forward institution”, meaning that no new technology or activity is considered without first weighing its security and privacy implications.“ I have always professionally possessed a substantial degree of paranoia,” he says.“ And a professional desire to do the right thing from a governance and a privacy perspective with the information that we manage.”
Cybersecurity has been embedded in TROY’ s operations since Greg arrived. He notes that the university deployed its first AI tools as far back as 1998, initially for analysing large data sets. The proliferation of consumerfacing AI tools in recent years has, however, introduced a new raft of challenges. troy. edu 13