Michael Walter, from the Atlanta LIG, described the Atlanta LIG's efforts to reach out to academia.  They contacted Emory University, Georgia State University, the University of Georgia, and Georgia Tech.  The things that worked were

• Connected to IT practitioners at the schools (i.e. the IT departments)
• Gave a senior seminar lecture at Georgia State
• Created an Academic panel discussion

However, they did not reach faculty the way they were hoping--they had turnout almost exclusively from the IT practitioners.

Development of a Graduate Program in IT Service Management

Bill Hefley, now out of the University of Pittsburgh, gave this talk.  Bill described the rise and fall of the MSIT-ITSM degree at Carnegie Mellon University.  The MSIT-ITSM degree was going to be based out of the School of Computer Science.  There was a lot of politicking required to create the degree program.  However, the core faculty for the fledgling program were not tenure-tracked and during budget cuts they were let go, meaning that the program could not take off the ground.

This morning Suzanne Van Hove from SED-IT presented a case study called "MobileMusic."  Suzanne worked with others to create this case study, which was intended to help professors introduce service management concepts.  For example, students can review the case study, which says that "MobileMusic" has multiple Service Desks, and then they can think through what some opportunities for change might be (e.g. consolidating the service desks or outsourcing them).

Today after the keynote address, we heard two presentations about Service Management approaches in the classroom.  Both presentations lamented the current course material options available for introductory classes; one audience participant recommended the book "Adventures of an IT Leader."

The second event at today's itSMF-USA Academic Forum was a keynote address by Johnnie Foster, the Director of the Center for the Application of Information Technology (CAIT).  CAIT is part of the Engineering School at Washington University at St. Louis.
CAIT is a bridge between academics and practitioners.  CAIT engages community partners, such as Mastercard and Boeing, in practical IT-related training and support.  Specifically, CAIT provides

I am attending the 2009 itSMF-USA Academic Forum.  This morning, our main activity was a simulation conducted by G2G3.  In the simulation, we were two different companies that had recently merged, and we had to respond to incidents as they arrived.  Depending on when the incidents were resolved, the business would make or lose money.  For both of our two simulation rounds, I was on the Service Desk.

For my first several weeks as Information Systems Fellow I was charged with the task of gathering and reporting on data regarding the current student perspective of Information Systems at Wake Forest University. Last Friday, September 11th I presented my report and findings to the board of directors within I.S. If you have interest in my report please contact me directly, however I will use this as an opportunity to highlight the main discoveries I compiled and reported on.

If you are affiliated with a University or other higher education institution, as a full-time student, faculty, or staff, then you are eligible for our discounted ITIL v3 Foundations class, next taking place at Wake Forest University October 27-29, 2009.  This training includes training, plus the foundations exam on the final day of class.  This training from a commercial provider would be $2195; we offer the class at an academic discount: $600.
Please sign up here, and we will follow up with you!  Also, check out our ITIL v3 foundations page for more information!

One of the most exciting aspects of the Wake Forest Fellow’s program thus far has been the opportunity to meet with various leaders of the Wake Forest Community as a part of a series of “Leadership Luncheons”. This week the fellows met with the newly appointed Vice President of Career Development, Andy Chan.  During our luncheon Chan shared with the fellows his opinions on the topic of leadership as well as ways to improve our own leading capabilities. Chan broke his advice down into four main points, the first being you must follow the leader to become a leader.

The itSMF Higher Education SIG has a LinkedIn group that's open to anyone!  The LinkedIn group gives University practitioners a place to discuss IT Service Management--and we'll then summarize the discussions here on the University ITSM web site.
Please check out the group.  Thelma Simons from the University of Kansas just started a discussion about service catalogs!