After 14 years at Boston University, Tracy Schroeder is departing for the University of California, Berkeley. Photo by Dan Aguirre

University News

Tracy Schroeder, Transformational Leader of BU IS&T, Departing for West Coast Position

During a 14-year tenure, she oversaw revolutionary changes in how technology is used, accessed, and improved for the University community

Whenever you log in to the BUWorks or MyBUStudent portal, connect to Boston University’s Wi-Fi in your dorm room, sign up for a vaccine with Student Health Services, Zoom with a colleague while working from home, or update your BU Directory profile with your pronouns and gender identity, it all may seem like routine to you. But none of it happens without the efforts of BU Information Services & Technology, which has undergone enormous growth during the last 14 years—all of it under Tracy Schroeder.

BU’s vice president of IS&T and chief data officer, Schroeder is leaving the University to become associate vice chancellor for information technology and chief information officer at the University of California, Berkeley. It marks a return to the West Coast for Schroeder, who worked at the University of San Francisco prior to joining BU in 2009. She is a graduate of both USF and Stanford University (and she is working on a master’s in business administration at the Questrom School of Business and will finish the academic year at BU before joining Berkeley in June).

Her tenure at BU coincided with an explosion of revolutionary change in the universe of information technology, internet speed, and data systems. Need proof? The amount of time we spend on our mobile devices daily increased from 32 minutes to 132 minutes in the last decade. In 2010, more than 90 percent of data was being kept in local servers, and by 2020 public cloud storage had claimed roughly 30 percent of that. And with the evolution from 3G to 5G networks, download speeds took off, to a point where the download time for an 800-megabyte movie plunged from five hours all the way down to 43 seconds. Those types of dramatic changes all must be managed by an organization’s information technology department to keep employees current with the latest available innovations and technological advancements.

“During Tracy’s 14 years leading IS&T at BU she has overseen a remarkable transformation, establishing BU as an innovative thought leader,” says Kenneth Freeman, University president ad interim. “From establishing an effective IT governance structure to implementing a comprehensive roadmap of IT infrastructure and applications improvements, Tracy’s legacy at BU is leaving behind a high-performing team that delivers solutions for the entire BU community.”

In addition to her work at BU, Schroeder became a thought leader in her industry, starting with her volunteer work in national higher education IT leadership through EDUCAUSE. She has also focused on growing opportunities for women in the IT field, as well as for those from underrepresented communities. And she helped lead a collaboration with Harvard, UMass, Northeastern, and MIT on the creation of the Massachusetts Green High Performance Computing Center.

But it’s Schroeder’s work at BU that will be felt for generations. Some of her biggest achievements across the University’s campuses: deploying wireless coverage to BU residence halls and deploying technology into general purpose classrooms; implementing numerous institution-wide information systems, such as BUworks, MyCV, and, currently, MyBU Student; creating BU’s Business Warehouse and Academic Data Warehouse for data analytics; making Google and Microsoft cloud-based email and collaboration platforms available to BU students, faculty, and staff; and making it easier for BU community members to change their display name and include their gender identity and pronouns in the BU Directory.

Few people within BU understand the challenges of the work IS&T does, and Schroeder’s role, as well as Michael Krugman, who retired in 2017 after 40 years working in IS&T. Prior to Schroeder’s arrival, he served under Robert A. Brown, then University president, as the department’s interim vice president.

“Given the complexity of her responsibilities and her persistent modesty, I suspect there are far too few people among us who appreciate how fortunate we are to have had the benefit of her incomparable leadership,” Krugman says. “Technology grew to touch everyone and everything at BU and beyond in the 21st century, spanning research, education, and administration, as well as students, faculty, staff, and alumni. Tracy helped ensure IT service and support at BU was reliable, scalable, flexible, sustainable, efficient, and cost-effective, all against a backdrop of constantly accelerating change in both the available options and our evolving requirements.”

He will always have “the greatest respect, admiration and gratitude” for her contributions to BU, he says: “In summary, she’s amazing.”

Christine McGuire, vice president and associate provost for enrollment and student administration, says Schroeder has always been driven to make sure BU’s tech infrastructure was worthy of a leading research institution. And McGuire specifically credits her with the launching of BU’s Student Information System. “She has been dedicated, over the many years of this effort, to ensure the success of the program. She has consistently led the program with a vision that meeting the needs of students should remain at the core of our work in replacing the Student Information System,” she says.

In announcing Schroeder’s hiring, Ben Hermalin, Berkeley’s executive vice chancellor and provost, touted all the reasons she was their ideal candidate, a list that highlights much of the work she accomplished at BU.

He wrote: “Tracy’s candidacy made an immediate and lasting impression on the Search Committee for her long and impressive career in higher education IT, her commitment to innovation, and her passion for diversity, equity, and inclusion in service of the public good.”