W&M IT welcomes a new Deputy CIO
William & Mary Information Technology is thrilled to welcome Andrew Crawford as the university’s new Deputy Chief Information Officer. Crawford joins W&M from Christopher Newport University, where he has served as CIO since 2016.
In his new role, Crawford will ensure IT is providing the best customer support to faculty, staff, and students, will facilitate the advancement of research tools on campus, and help the university to procure technology. The Deputy CIO oversees client services, academic technology, communications, business services, and research computing.
Having nearly 20 years of experience in public and private higher education, Crawford is excited to have found a new home at W&M. Since the start of his career, he has had a passion for technology and a drive to educate others. While receiving his undergraduate degree, he taught high school English, where he found his students to be more engaged when he incorporated technology into his lesson plans. After receiving his master’s degree, Crawford continued to work in education, improving technology at the K-12 level. Eventually, this experience led to several roles in customer service, network infrastructure, and system operations at Christopher Newport University.
A native of Maine, family brought Crawford back up north to Boston, where he took a role as the Director of Systems Architecture and Management at Berklee College of Music. After years of modernizing Berklee's IT infrastructure, he saw an opportunity to return to CNU, only this time as CIO. During his second stint at CNU, Crawford rebuilt relationships between the campus community and the IT department. As part of his work as CIO, Crawford built a strong team and crafted strategies around the core concepts of simple, scalable, and sustainable solutions.
W&M Chief Information Officer Edward Aractingi said "Andrew's focus at CNU has been on improving operations, driving innovation and developing relationships with campus stakeholders to achieve operational and strategic goals. We are excited for him to bring these talents to team IT."
Enticed by W&M's prioritization of technology, Crawford decided the university would be the perfect place for him to continue his career. Promoting information literacy and technological services to the campus community is important to him, and those values align with W&M’s.
“When I realized the university’s focus on information and data fluency, that really resonated with me,” Crawford said. “In addition, this role allows me to gain experience in areas that I was only starting to build at CNU, like research computing. I am kind of a nerd, so it’s all fascinating to me, and it’s been great seeing the enthusiasm of the team. It’s contagious.”
In his first few weeks on the job, Crawford has been getting accustomed to W&M's complex technical systems and getting used to doing things in “Microsoft world.” As he continues to learn about the data and resources available, he looks forward to the challenges and opportunities this position will bring forth.
Crawford considers himself a lifelong learner and educator, and is grateful to have the opportunity to continue to learn here at W&M. He says he is looking forward to expanding his knowledge of research computing at such a well-regarded liberal arts and research institution. Armed with his experiences from previous positions, Crawford is prepared to tackle new challenges that may arise and bring his expertise to team IT.
Outside of work, Crawford loves spending time with his family and chasing his two dogs around. He’s also a member of his local Toastmaster’s club, collects vintage video games and hopes to pick back up his project of restoring a 1983 Ms. Pac-man cabinet and turn it into a working arcade machine.
W&M IT looks forward to the fantastic work you will do, Andrew!
