Notre Dame’s Information Technology department celebrated its inaugural IT Retreat June 12-14. These three days were designed to bring together all Notre Dame IT staff from campus, the US, and the globe to partake in a shared opportunity to connect and learn. The first large event of its kind since the pandemic, the retreat brought together colleagues new and old to catch up or even meet for the first time outside of Zoom. This three-day event was crafted to be a time of learning, networking, and fun for all of IT@ND.
Day 1
The first day was dedicated to reconnecting and brainstorming with department teams. The OIT continually sees the success it does because of the hard work teams put in each and every day. Knowing this, it was important that an entire day be dedicated to individual teams before bringing everyone together for the rest of the retreat. OKRs were the focus of many mornings as the OIT collectively worked together to craft the organization’s goals for the upcoming year. However, these days were not strictly business, fun was left to be had. Division lunches were held across campus and South Bend, followed by fun afternoons that consisted of team games, ax-throwing, and a few happy hours.
Day 2
The second day kicked off with a conference opener presented by CIO Jane Livingston. Although her speech painted a picture of where the organization is currently at, a large focus of the speech was on where the OIT is going. This presentation was followed by a fireside chat with Jane, John O'Brien, President of EDUCAUSE, and Maria Thompson, Lead Security Advisor for AWS, who gave insightful strategies to address the forthcoming challenges in higher education tech.
After a quick schedule modification, it was time for a mini-conference located throughout the Mendoza College of Business. Within a two-hour time period, 31 presentations were given by IT colleagues from various roles and departments across campus. Sessions explored past and future projects, general interest topics, tutorials, and more; all given by subject-matter experts. We appreciate the time and effort of all the presenters to share their work and create such a large learning event. The morning concluded with a keynote from Juliana Vida, VP and Chief Strategy Advisor of Splunk. Her story of hard work, risk-taking, and perseverance captivated the audience and ended the morning on a high note as everyone made their way over to South Dining Hall for lunch.
Day two concluded with an evening of great food, conversation, and talent! The retreat Coffeehouse was the largest to date, with over 300 attendees, 40+ performers, and a few dozen impromptu dancers. With a night full of singing, stand-up, and dancing, an amazing show was put on for all in attendance.
Day 3
With so much excitement packed into the first two days, Wednesday allowed IT@ND the choice of how they wanted to spend their final day. The morning kicked off with our signature Coffee, Tea, & Meet and poster session showcasing the various IT departments. The event had over 30 posters on display, each designed in a way to best represent the work of each department. The rest of the day consisted of different sessions and opportunities for individuals to pursue based on their interests. Whether you wanted to create a new piece for your office during Canvas with Casey, learn more about the holiday Juneteenth with Eric Love, or take a tour to become more familiar with Notre Dame’s main campus, participants were able to create their own day with events that interested them. A diabolical scavenger hunt stumped a great many of our colleagues as they tried to decipher and find various landmarks across campus! There were also several vendor sessions to explore the offerings and innovations of AWS, Splunk, Tanium, and Gartner that were well-attended throughout the day. Although this marked the end of our retreat, we hope the conversations and ideas generated from coming together stuck with our colleagues long after leaving campus.
We would like to thank everyone who attended for making this vision come to life. It was a fantastic inaugural retreat and we are glad to hear so many people enjoyed reconnecting with colleagues and learning from one another. Our post-retreat survey is now live, we would greatly appreciate it if you could take a few moments to let us know what worked and what can be improved upon the next time around. Overall, we would like to thank all of IT@ND for making the event what it was and we look forward to hearing your feedback.
