Peter B. DeBlois G'71, Ph.D.'79, will leave his position as Syracuse University registrar on July 3 to become director of communications for EDUCAUSE, a nonprofit association for information technology in higher education.
"After four years as a graduate student and 27 years as an employee at Syracuse University, I do not make this choice lightly," DeBlois says. "I have the deepest gratitude for the opportunity that SU has afforded me to grow professionally and to make a contribution to its students, faculty, and staff. EDUCAUSE's mission resonates closely with an important dimension of SU's commitment to being the leading student-centered research university and with the evolving Academic Plan. I wish the very best for the University as it moves to the next tier of excellence, and I hope to have continued ties with the dedicated colleagues and friends who have made my run over the years so fulfilling."
"We are losing a giant in the world of registrars," says Vice Chancellor and Provost Deborah A. Freund. "He is admired around our country and was an integral part of the smoothest conversion to the PeopleSoft system of any university in the United States. I thank him in the sincerest way for his service and will miss him a great deal."
"Peter DeBlois has been a long-time distinguished colleague of Undergraduate Studies and Syracuse University, having taught in the Writing Program and served as registrar with distinction," says Ronald R. Cavanagh, vice president for undergraduate studies. "He will be sorely missed as a colleague of substance."
Prior to assuming his current position in 1985, DeBlois was director of registration and records in the Registrar's Office from 1982 to 1985, assistant director of freshman English from 1974 to 1982, faculty visitor for Project Advance from 1975 to 1982, and development editor at the Center for Instructional Development from 1973 to 1974.
He has taught composition and literature courses for the English department and the freshman honors seminar for the Honors Program. In addition, he was an assistant professor of English at Illinois State University and an adjunct instructor at Onondaga Community College. He earned master's and doctoral degrees in English and rhetoric/composition theory, respectively, at SU.
DeBlois is a charter member of the Association of American Universities Registrars, currently serving on its board of directors, and a founding faculty member of the Registrars' Summer Institute at Aspen, where he has offered sessions on the evolution and context of information technology services in higher education, on selection of enterprise resource planning systems and on speculation about IT futures, and worked on a progressive case study on outsourcing information services.
He has presented at professional meetings of the Conference on College Composition and Communication, the National Council of Teachers of English, the Conference on the Freshman Year Experience, the College and University Machine Records Conference, and the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers.
The mission of EDUCAUSE is "to help shape and enable transformational change in higher education through the introduction, use and management of information resources and technologies in teaching, learning, scholarship, research and institutional management." With offices in Boulder, Colo., and Washington, D.C., the association is active on numerous national fronts, including federal investment in information technology, advancing the evolution of a global networking environment, and the National Learning Infrastructure.
As EDUCAUSE's director of communications, DeBlois will work with the association's communications, information services, and Internet strategies and publications teams to advance the association's image and professional development opportunities for its membership, highlight individual and institutional members' accomplishments,
and develop new opportunities for interaction among focused practitioner communities, media and corporate relations, portal directions and Web-based knowledge resources.
