Michael Sherer
Director of Information Technology
Goshen College, Goshen, IN

I'm now in my third decade of work with technology, having spent the last decade+ as IT Director at Goshen College . I love the IT field and higher ed IT in particular, because progress is palpable. Day by day, we are transforming the educational enterprise, and it's getting better. My greatest satisfaction comes from hearing from faculty, staff and students that something ITS has done, has made their jobs easier, saved them time, or improved their educational experience at GC.

My path to becoming Goshen College's IT Director was far from typical. I'm a 1982 GC graduate with BA's in English and Music. My last course at GC was a PASCAL programming course taught by Ed Epp, which among other things introduced me to word processing on the VAX. I was hooked. Along the way, I helped found Community Mennonite Church of Lancaster in 1985, serving as its first paid administrator. While there, I put out what I believe was the first desktop published, laser printed church newsletter in history.  I also taught at Locust Grove Mennonite School in Smoketown, PA.  I directed the orchestra there, had a studio of 35 violin, viola and cello students, directed the gifted program and the started the computer workshop program. I count it as a point of pride that Locust Grove was one of the first Mennonite elementary/secondary schools with its own internet domain. From there I entered seminary at Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary and spent 2+ years working toward my MDiv degree.

In 1998, I helped found Mennonite.net, an organization that helps Mennonite churches and organizations build an effective web presence. While the end of the dot.com bubble did in many church-related web projects, Mennonite.net continues on and gets progressively more interesting. In 2002, we began the Caravel Project which now powers both Mennonite.net and Goshen College for custom applications. Caravel evolved into a rapid application development environment, capable of handling most of what Goshen College and other small organizations want to accomplish on the web--e-commerce, event sign-ups, electronic forms, simple workflow applications, etc. In summer 2011, we're moving into mobile application development.

I still enjoy playing the violin and viola, and I still enjoy writing.  Most of my writing lately has a decided technology bent, but it's still fun. Among the things I've written while at GC: A convo talk entitled "Equipping Ourselves to Thrive in the Information Era",  "How to Avoid Embarrassing Yourself on the Internet" and my blog on the main page of the ITS Website. Also, in a fit of publishing zeal, I've made available over twenty sermons written over the past three decades, given in churches I've attended in a lay capacity.