Pete Siegel, the vice provost for Information and Educational Technology , recently sat down with IET's senior writer Bill Buchanan for a question-and-answer session.

If technology sounds dull, think of it as something you use to achieve something you really want. Pete Siegel would be happy for you to view his line of work that way. Siegel is the new vice provost for Information and Educational Technology and chief information officer for the university, a job he has held since coming here from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in mid-August. He succeeds interim Vice Provost Peter Yellowlees, a psychiatry professor and director of academic information systems for the UC Davis Health System.

Siegel oversees an operation of 267 career employees with a $32.4 million annual budget. IET's services range from classroom technology and data systems to phones and podcasts — areas that touch nearly every corner of UC Davis.

His job, Siegel said, includes figuring out what the campus wants to achieve, and then applying technology to meet those goals.

What is the proper role of technology in university education in 2006?

Technology is enormously important, but should not be a driver for its own sake. It's a tool that enables people to do the other things they would like to do, and do them better.

Everyone believes technology is important. It is easy for people to focus on the idea that "this is just so cool, we've just got to have it." We have to look at it the other way, and say, "This is an exciting capability, how can it help our faculty and our students do their work better?"

How do you keep the right perspective? How do you keep technology from taking over the task you're trying to accomplish?

Part of it, for us technologists, is to be mindful of our job in terms of working with the community. A big part of our vision is understanding what people are trying to do and converting it into technological terms.

We must also take the technology developments we know are coming and translate them into the terms that are really relevant. "Here is something that will help you in teaching," not "here is a great new learning management system."

You have to get feedback from your community. You have to see whether they achieve the results. And you must have measures for whether you are successful.

One element is figuring out the right investment. You can't just spend enormous amounts of money and get a good result.

What are your first goals for UC Davis?

The most important one is interpersonal. The way for us collectively to be most successful is to take a very strong partnership view — of really working with the major stakeholders on campus — and making sure we know where we want to go together, and that we're really clear on the role technology can play.

The second goal is maybe more programmatic or financial: making sure that IET as an organization, but technology in general on this campus, is an open book. That we're as transparent as we can be on our investments, on the value to the community.

Those are a couple of the areas.

Would you eventually like to see the whole campus covered with wireless access?

The significant collaboration spaces need to be covered well. I would probably rather see those areas rock solid with the highest performance that fits the campus need, in terms of multimedia and other things, than to have every office, which also has a wire jack, get covered with wireless technology.

And then it's really a dialogue with the campus on the investment for the rest of the spaces.

Not everything needs to be the highest cost service. But for everything we do, we need to establish a sense of excellence, and make sure we're doing that.

Have you had a chance to talk to people around campus? Have you heard anything that surprises you?

I've just started having the conversations. I'm really eager to have more of an opportunity to talk with the students. They tell you what they really do, what they really depend on.

There's nothing yet that surprises me. People seem quite pleased with the technology they have, but want more. So it clearly identifies a challenge, which is identifying which aspects of the "more" — the investment — are going to provide the greatest value.

There is a strong sense of collegiality, that there isn't enough money for us all to wander off in different directions. So there's a pent-up demand from the community to sit together with a variety of individuals. I think I can play a role as an honest, neutral broker in making sure that people sit together and come up with priorities and help move the investments forward.

In terms of learning, research and collaboration, there is a strong sense that people want ubiquitous access to all of their services wherever they go.

And there's a very strong awareness that issues like security are really everybody's job.

Siegel has a lot more to say, on teaching millennial students and other topics. You can read more from this interview in the latest IT Times, the campus tech news quarterly. Check your mailbox or go to ittimes.ucdavis.edu.