Bulger Appoints Vice President and Chief Information Officer Sarah R. Buchholz CHRONICLE STAFF August 11, 2000 An information technology official from the Pennsylvania higher education system has been appointed to the newly created post of vice president and chief information officer by President William M. Bulger. David J. Gray, vice chancellor for information technology in the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education, will join the President's Office Sept. 18. Gray has been a vice chancellor since 1995. He served Pennsylvania's system as assistant vice chancellor for Financial Management from 1990-95 and was its director of financial management from 1985-90. He also brings state government experience with him. In the early '80s, he was a legislative research analyst specializing in higher education on the Republican research staff of Pennsylvania's House Education Committee, and he served as a program analyst in the governor's office of budget and management in the New Jersey Department of the Treasury. In his current position, Gray has been instrumental in the development of Pennsylvania's Center for Distance Education, which works with the system's 14 universities in creating policies and procedures for developing and marketing distance learning, as well as providing training, development support, and incentives to faculty. The center offers at least 64 different distance-learning courses. He has co-chaired the system's distance education advisory committee for four years and has been on the board of directors of the Pennsylvania Distance Learning Association since 1997. At the request of Microsoft Corporation, he sat on its higher education licensing advisory council. He also has overseen the development of the Keystone Library Network, a virtual service that connects the 14 system libraries with the state library, and the adaption of the system's wide-area network to one that supports video, advanced data, and voice applications. A voting member of the network's council since 1997, he also served on the board of directors of the Pennsylvania Academic Library Consortium, Inc. for two years. He holds an undergraduate degree in political science and a master's of public administration from Pennsylvania State University, and he attended Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government program for senior executives in state and local government. Active in his alumni association, he also was a delegate to the College Board's college scholarship service assembly and the state grant advisory committee of the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency.