CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Sally Jackson, the chief information officer at the University of Arizona and an alumna of the University of Illinois, has been named the new chief information officer of the Urbana campus. Jackson, who will hold a joint appointment as a professor of speech communication in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, is expected to begin work at Illinois on May 21, pending approval of the U. of I. Board of Trustees at its meeting May 17 in Chicago.
At Arizona, Jackson served as vice president for learning and information technologies and chief information officer (2002-2006) and was a professor in the department of communication in the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences (1991-2007).
Jackson's responsibilities and accomplishments included developing various distance education projects, a universitywide network master plan and a technology refresh bank. She also was a founding partner in the Kuali Community Source Consortium, an initiative involving Arizona, Indiana University, Michigan State, Cornell University and other institutions, aimed at creating open source financial software and research administration software for higher education. She also established the Office of Student Computing Research and held a National Science Foundation grant for "institutional transformation" aimed at improving conditions for women in science and technology fields.
Prior to joining the faculty at Arizona, Jackson held faculty appointments at the University of Oklahoma (1985-1990), Michigan State University (1982-1985) and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (1979-1982).
"Sally Jackson is an extremely intelligent individual with strong leadership qualities," said Linda Katehi, provost at Urbana.
"She is focused on all aspects of technology, and is particularly passionate about how technology relates to issues of gender and the under-represented," Katehi said. "She will be an important member of the campus leadership team at a critical time in the history of our campus as we embark on the implementation of our strategic plan."
Jackson earned bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees in speech communication at Illinois in 1974, 1976 and 1980, respectively.
