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Welcome to Breaking Down the Buzz, the podcast where we explore the thrilling world of tech
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industry leaders. From AI to the latest trends, we cut through the noise and decode the tech buzz
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and share our collective insights and insider knowledge.
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Hey everyone and welcome to today's podcast. Today I'm excited to chat with a special guest,
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Paul Brooks. Paul is currently the department chair for the Information Systems Program at VCU.
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I've had the opportunity to work closely with Paul as the board chair of the advisory committee for
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the VCUIS program and I can tell you he's a remarkable leader in our field. Besides shaping
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the minds of future IT pros, Paul loves to unwind hitting the streets of Richmond for a run or a
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bike ride and today we'll get to know more about Paul's journey in the ever-evolving world of
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Information Systems as well as his plans for the IS program. You'll also hear details about the planned
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center for analytics and emerging technologies. So grab your favorite drink and let's get started
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with Paul Brooks. All right Paul, well thank you for joining us. We're super excited to have you here.
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Thanks for having me. Yeah, so wanted to chat with you about a lot of things but first tell us
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about how you got into IS and how on earth did you become a professor? How did I get here? It's
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been a long journey. I started at VCU in the statistics and operations research department.
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Operations research is my background and about 10 years ago Steve Custer made this move, this kind of
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school ride move to create a new analytics program and had this amazing vision that he brought to
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reality back in about 2015. So we just started our 10th class and with that I started teaching in
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the school business and I really liked working with external partners and it made more sense to
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the school business than it did to my previous school. And then I got to know a lot of the IS
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faculty through the analytics program and the opportunity came a couple years ago to become
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chair of the department and that's when I stepped up into it. And that's when we met. That's when we
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met. Yes, yes, it's been a fun ride. Absolutely. So this is a very important question and I am
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going old school with paper. How does the VCU program rank in terms of research? We talk about
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this all the time. We are top 50 this year. So two years ago we were number 66, we went up to 56
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and now we're 46 this year and I anticipate we will go even higher next year. I have no doubt.
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This is based on publication in top tier information systems journals. So it's based on
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the quality of the research that our faculty are producing and that's been one of the most fun things
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about this job is just being able to brag about the faculty. I mean there's so much great things
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going on. They just need a little bit of organization and a cheerleader I guess. Yeah, yeah. So it's
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not that VCU is just saying they're top 50. There's empirical evidence that you are absolutely top
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50 and I will say that at every board meeting head gets noted. Top 50, here we are. So tell us a
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little bit about the information systems degrees that are available at VCU. Sure, so we have degree
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programs at every level. We have a BS in information systems. We have a master's in IS. We have a PhD
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in business with a concentration in IS. We also have a post baccalaureate certificate in information
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systems which is for people who have a master's degree in another discipline and want to maybe
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change careers and do kind of a bridge to the master's degree. So we've got all levels. We've got
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over 300 undergraduate majors. Our master's program is at about 70 students. We have about a
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dozen PhD students. Those are all pretty big in terms of based on school business programs. Yeah,
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I guess I even as involved as I am with VCU didn't realize there were that many students in those
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programs. I don't know how I miss that. And growing. That's great. That's absolutely, that's great.
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So there are a lot of trends in information systems. There's digital transformation. There's
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AI. How do you see the IS program adapting to all of these changes? Sure, so we are continually
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updating our curriculum. We just had a went through a pretty rigorous review of our undergraduate
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curriculum. In the past couple of years, we updated our infrastructure course to focus more on
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cloud infrastructure. Students, we actually we pay for students to take an AWS cloud practitioner
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certification at the end. So we do this kind of review periodically top to bottom.
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And obviously, there's been a great disruption with generative AI. And it's an exciting time to be in an
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IS department. I think it impacts us as much as impacts everyone across campus. But really, it's an
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exciting thing for IS. I think of us as the we're developing the bridge builders between functional
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business areas and IT, right? And in that sense, generative AI provides opportunities for
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for more people to be involved with AI and understand what it is. I think it'll be synonymous with what
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AI is going forward because it's so accessible now. Yeah, I agree. Yeah, I was just watching an
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interview with Professor at Wharton, who was saying that, and you may be experiencing this also,
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that they know their students are using tools like chat GPT and Grammarly. And there's no real
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way to stop that. So what they have decided to do, and I'm paraphrasing a little bit, is to say,
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we know you're using it. And therefore, we're going to change the classes a little bit to recognize
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that you're using it, and and maybe make them not harder, but more in depth. Are you seeing that?
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Not only that, we're requiring students to use it. I mean, we don't want students to be to go out
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and interview for a job and not know how to use generative AI to to do their jobs better. So we're
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requiring it. It has totally disrupted the classroom experience. We're running up and down the halls,
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exchanging ideas with faculty, reading articles, trying to figure out what's the new product,
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what product does this, what product does that. And in we've come to the realization,
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students need help knowing how to use it as well. I mean, we, you know, we say, we've been teaching
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students how to Google for the past 10 years. Well, now we need to teach students how to use AI
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and where the where those resources are, basically get on that first rung of technology, because
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it's going to continue to change. But get on that first rung and get in that mindset of continuous
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learning and continuous curiosity about how these things work. Yeah. And as an employer, I would say
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that if I'm hiring someone out of the university, which we do all the time, if they don't come to
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us with those skills at this point, I would be disappointed for sure. You know, I, I say to my
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staff all the time, you know, go use chat GPT, it's okay, you know, it's absolutely okay. If it allows
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you to do not better quality work, but maybe speed up your productivity, why wouldn't we do that?
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So I think, yeah, there's two things. I mean, it's, it's coming into every classroom. I mean, it
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affects everything that we already teach, right? Right. Not just us, it's across campus. But also,
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I think in IS, there's a particular niche that we need to pursue, and we will be. And that is this
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notion of, of taking AI products and connecting them together, building APIs. Yeah. And that's,
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that's I think a particular niche for information systems to fill, right, to build new products by
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creatively putting AI products together. Right, right. It would be interesting to,
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to try and be working through that because those AI products are changing so quickly. Number one,
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what they can do every week, we hear about some new amazing thing. But there's new ones popping up
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every week also. And I feel like that's, that's the role of our discipline is to kind of manage
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that change, right? Right. Specify these requirements and be this continuing monitoring and evaluation
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of these systems and keep them updated. Yeah. We tell our employees, a really good employee here is
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someone that doesn't necessarily know everything because you can't, but is willing to take a problem,
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and in our case, it's a business problem, look at what technology is available to them and figure
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out how to use that technology. And they may never have touched it before. So, you know, what, what
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you're doing is great because that's what we need in the IS field. That's certainly what we need.
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So, great. Good to hear that. So, tell me about the Center for Analytics and Emerging Technologies.
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This is something super exciting. It's, it's brand new this fall. It's coming with our new,
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our school business, new strategic plan. The Center for Analytics and Emerging Technologies is,
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it's got a foundation in analytics as the name implies, but also recognize the importance of
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emerging technologies like AI, cybersecurity and blockchain. It's a school-wide center.
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We have a number of activities planned for the center. It is, it is focused on providing a way
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for external partners to engage with us on this, in this space of emerging technologies.
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So, internally, that looks like providing experiential learning opportunities for students to interact
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with external partners and also producing impactful research. So, as an external partner,
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how would one get involved? Like, where, where would we start? Well, we're going to develop a menu
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of ways to engage. So, it's up to the external partner. So, there could be,
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we're developing an internship program where we are bringing together different resources,
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like a mentoring, our career services, and the internship classes all in one program. So, that's
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one thing, one way for an external partner to be involved. We're ramping up a program where students
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can work on projects in an extracurricular fashion so that they can get paid.
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Outside the confines of a semester or a class, right, so it could be a short-term project or a
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super long-term project that doesn't necessarily need to fit into a semester class. We have other
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opportunities for, like I said, we hope to have a menu. We're going to have a menu of, you know,
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here's opportunities for class projects, capstone projects, practical projects, that sort of thing.
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We also intend to have more events, so educating the community and learning from the community,
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so creating that two-way communication so we can stay up to date on what our students need to
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know and what we don't know. Like I said, we're scrambling to keep up right now.
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Right, right, right. So, would that be a facility for, you know, take a
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organization like ours where we're technologists and technology is changing really quickly and we
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might want to bring, not necessarily an executive, but an individual up to speed on a specific
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technology. Is that something that we could engage with the center on? Would you be offering
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like certificate programs or anything like that? Sure. So, initially we're planning,
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for example, one-day events on specific topics. So, we'll kind of get the idea of what is it that,
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say, alumni want to polish up on and then bring your friend or we'll also, you know,
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ask our external partners if they want to send people to one-day brush up on a particular topic,
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that sort of thing. We're also planning to launch an executive literacy program. So, this is more
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what we have in mind, but we're also planning to launch an executive literacy program. So, this is more
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what we have in mind is more bespoke coaching and training for executives, not necessarily
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technology companies, but companies that aren't technology companies but need to know what the
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new technology does. They need help explaining to their board what their plans are with this
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new technology. Right, right. That happens all the time where I'll be with peers that maybe aren't
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in technology roles or don't run technology companies and they'll ask me to, you know,
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this is my favorite, tell me what AI is. Where do you want to start? So, I think a facility for
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doing something like that would be absolutely amazing and certainly I think would help elevate
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VCU in the community, you know, to be more involved. So, a few more questions around that.
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There are some research areas that the center is going to focus on. Can you tell me a little bit
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about that? Sure. So, we're in the center. We're going to launch an AI lab which is going to be
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focused on faculty and PhD student research working on the cutting edge of AI and information
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systems research. So, in terms of PhD level research that really focuses on the
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socio-technical aspects, like how do people relate to the AI and how does it affect
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how does it affect behavior around, well, in different aspects. How does technology affect
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behavior in business? There's also a portion of IS research called design science which is developing
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solutions to business problems within context. That can also be generalized to solve other
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problems. So, that's the AI lab. So, it's a place for faculty and PhD students to interact
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and work more as teams perhaps than they have in the past. We also have the Isosceles lab that's
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led by Dr. Elizabeth Baker. They do undergraduate research in developing
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mobile applications for healthcare. Oh, okay. So, things like managing, helping people manage
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chronic diseases for themselves or their children. So, managing appointments and that sort of thing.
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Wow. And so, she's done a great job over the years of engaging undergraduates in
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participating in that research. I bet. Yeah. Does that partner at all with the VCU health
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systems or I have no idea. Yes, she's got connections over there and she's done quite
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a bit of research in nursing informatics as well. Oh, really? Yeah. There's a lot going on over
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there. Not just at VCU but also across to other universities as well. Wow. I have no idea.
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I'm learning a lot here and I spent a lot of time with you. I'm learning a lot.
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So, what do you perceive as the biggest challenges in establishing this center?
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I think the challenges are the same as the opportunities. We applied for a grant proposal
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this fall where we were promoting an idea to scale up our internship program and I found it to be,
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it was a great opportunity and excuse to just meet with external partners and, hey,
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you want to grab a cup of coffee? I'd love to tell you about this program we're going to do.
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Can we get a letter of support? So, the challenge is going to be getting the community,
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to getting the word out there, right? Right. We're not doing things this way anymore. We've
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got a new way of doing things. We've got a new organization. So, it's really, the challenge is
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going to be communicating to our partners. These are the new ways to engage with us. But at the
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same time, it's a great opportunity. It's a great excuse to be able to send somebody an email or
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call them, drop them a line and say, hey, let's get together. Guess what's going on? Let me tell
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you all about the new things you've got going on. Sure. So, will it change how as a business owner,
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I would engage with VCU to get an IS intern? It could. We hope to make the process easier.
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Okay. Really. So, the internship program right now, the way that it works is students have to,
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they get their internship on their own. They can leverage resources from career services.
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And then they enroll in a class. They can enroll in a class and they'll get a little bit of mentoring
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in that class from the instructor. So, it's, as many as 20 students in this class with one
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instructor, very capable instructor. But what we hope to do is to connect more of these resources.
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So, have a list of priority partners that have internship opportunities. So, we have a program
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that students can apply for, then they get exposure to these. Hey, these are the opportunities you
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should check out. We're also going to implement a new AI class next spring, which would be like a
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training class before the internship. So, they'll have a more specific training before they go into
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an internship. Not necessarily that the internship has to be around AI, but they will have a common
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training before they go in. And then thirdly, to partner the existing mentorship program with our
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internship class. So, then they can get more one-on-one instead of one-on-twenty. They'll get
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one-on-one mentoring experience while they're in the internship and get, you know, the ideas to
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enhance their experience where they can talk to their mentor, they can talk to each other,
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learn about what other opportunities are out there, learn about how do I interact with my
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supervisor, how do I interact with the organizational chart, basically. Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's,
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we're a smaller company, but that's one of the challenges in bringing in interns is
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you really have to have a defined program and someone who can manage them as an intern. And a
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lot of companies don't necessarily have that. And I think that you could probably place more
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interns if they come in with those skills where you don't, you know, looking at a kid saying,
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okay, I have to tell this kid, you know, what do you wear to work? What time do you show up? Don't
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check your phone in meetings, you know, kind of all of the basics that you and I would know.
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So if someone is interested in working with VCU to get an IS intern now, how would they do it?
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They can contact me or our business career services. My email is JP Brooks at vcu.edu.
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Beautiful. Yeah, and I'll be happy to get you in touch with the right people. And I can help
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advertise to our students. And what types of work can interns do?
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Well, right now, we require, we require four 300 level IS courses before they can take the
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internship class. Okay. And so that typically means they have a database class, some programming,
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some systems analysis and design, and a data communications class. Okay. So they have a foundation
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in those things. And they're in it's before they're typically going into the deeper dive of the
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senior level electives, some of them even taking graduate classes for their undergraduates. So the
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so the idea is they've got a baseline of IS knowledge, and they're capable of some things.
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Right. Right. Right. And certainly we've, we've had interns on our help desk. That's a great
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place for interns. We don't put interns on necessarily billable projects, but we can have
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them work on internal projects where they're doing maybe some data analytics or building
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small mobile applications and things like that. And I find that that's a really great way for us.
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It's a great way to figure out is this person, this individual going to be a fit and when they
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graduate in one or two years, you know, because we like to have our interns for a couple years,
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are we going to hire them? I believe I would need to confirm this, but I believe we have hired 100
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percent of the VCU interns that we've had. That's great. So, so we love it. And it's convenient for
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us because we're right down the street. So it's certainly, you know, one of the great things
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about VCU students, I believe is that in a lot of cases, they're working students, you know, a lot of
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them can be first time college students in their families. And we find that that actually makes
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for a really great employee because they're super driven. Yes. And we need that. Yeah, they're very
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responsible. Yes. Yes. And that's been a real joy as a teacher, too. Yes. They put forth effort,
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and then they also recognize that they should get rewarded based on what they put in. Yeah.
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My experience is that when they come as interns, they're really hoping to land a job later on.
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It's not just a check the box. I need an internship. It's okay. Let me figure out, is this a place that
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I want to land? And it's worked out really, really well for us. So, super, super pleased.
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Well, that's the questions I have for you. If there are anything else you want to share about
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the program? Well, I just want to put it in a plug that we're leveraging your excellent leadership
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as chair of the IS advisor board this past year. And it was based on that successful year that
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we're able to launch into this, these new big dreams with the, with the center and everything.
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And so, we're really excited to continue working with you and leveraging your expertise. Yeah.
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I absolutely love participating in the board. You know that. I have fun. I love technology.
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So, yeah. Well, thank you. Thanks for coming in. Appreciate it. Thank you. Alrighty.
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Welcome to Breaking Down the Buzz, the podcast where we explore the thrilling world of tech
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industry leaders. From AI to the latest trends, we cut through the noise and decode the tech buzz
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and share our collective insights and insider knowledge.
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Hey everyone and welcome to today's podcast. Today I'm excited to chat with a special guest,
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Paul Brooks. Paul is currently the department chair for the Information Systems Program at VCU.
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I've had the opportunity to work closely with Paul as the board chair of the advisory committee for
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the VCUIS program and I can tell you he's a remarkable leader in our field. Besides shaping
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the minds of future IT pros, Paul loves to unwind hitting the streets of Richmond for a run or a
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bike ride and today we'll get to know more about Paul's journey in the ever-evolving world of
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Information Systems as well as his plans for the IS program. You'll also hear details about the planned
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center for analytics and emerging technologies. So grab your favorite drink and let's get started
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with Paul Brooks. All right Paul, well thank you for joining us. We're super excited to have you here.
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Thanks for having me. Yeah, so wanted to chat with you about a lot of things but first tell us
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about how you got into IS and how on earth did you become a professor? How did I get here? It's
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been a long journey. I started at VCU in the statistics and operations research department.
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Operations research is my background and about 10 years ago Steve Custer made this move, this kind of
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school ride move to create a new analytics program and had this amazing vision that he brought to
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reality back in about 2015. So we just started our 10th class and with that I started teaching in
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the school business and I really liked working with external partners and it made more sense to
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the school business than it did to my previous school. And then I got to know a lot of the IS
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faculty through the analytics program and the opportunity came a couple years ago to become
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chair of the department and that's when I stepped up into it. And that's when we met. That's when we
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met. Yes, yes, it's been a fun ride. Absolutely. So this is a very important question and I am
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going old school with paper. How does the VCU program rank in terms of research? We talk about
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this all the time. We are top 50 this year. So two years ago we were number 66, we went up to 56
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and now we're 46 this year and I anticipate we will go even higher next year. I have no doubt.
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This is based on publication in top tier information systems journals. So it's based on
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the quality of the research that our faculty are producing and that's been one of the most fun things
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about this job is just being able to brag about the faculty. I mean there's so much great things
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going on. They just need a little bit of organization and a cheerleader I guess. Yeah, yeah. So it's
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not that VCU is just saying they're top 50. There's empirical evidence that you are absolutely top
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50 and I will say that at every board meeting head gets noted. Top 50, here we are. So tell us a
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little bit about the information systems degrees that are available at VCU. Sure, so we have degree
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programs at every level. We have a BS in information systems. We have a master's in IS. We have a PhD
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in business with a concentration in IS. We also have a post baccalaureate certificate in information
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systems which is for people who have a master's degree in another discipline and want to maybe
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change careers and do kind of a bridge to the master's degree. So we've got all levels. We've got
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over 300 undergraduate majors. Our master's program is at about 70 students. We have about a
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dozen PhD students. Those are all pretty big in terms of based on school business programs. Yeah,
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I guess I even as involved as I am with VCU didn't realize there were that many students in those
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programs. I don't know how I miss that. And growing. That's great. That's absolutely, that's great.
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So there are a lot of trends in information systems. There's digital transformation. There's
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AI. How do you see the IS program adapting to all of these changes? Sure, so we are continually
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updating our curriculum. We just had a went through a pretty rigorous review of our undergraduate
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curriculum. In the past couple of years, we updated our infrastructure course to focus more on
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cloud infrastructure. Students, we actually we pay for students to take an AWS cloud practitioner
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certification at the end. So we do this kind of review periodically top to bottom.
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And obviously, there's been a great disruption with generative AI. And it's an exciting time to be in an
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IS department. I think it impacts us as much as impacts everyone across campus. But really, it's an
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exciting thing for IS. I think of us as the we're developing the bridge builders between functional
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business areas and IT, right? And in that sense, generative AI provides opportunities for
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for more people to be involved with AI and understand what it is. I think it'll be synonymous with what
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AI is going forward because it's so accessible now. Yeah, I agree. Yeah, I was just watching an
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interview with Professor at Wharton, who was saying that, and you may be experiencing this also,
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that they know their students are using tools like chat GPT and Grammarly. And there's no real
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way to stop that. So what they have decided to do, and I'm paraphrasing a little bit, is to say,
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we know you're using it. And therefore, we're going to change the classes a little bit to recognize
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that you're using it, and and maybe make them not harder, but more in depth. Are you seeing that?
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Not only that, we're requiring students to use it. I mean, we don't want students to be to go out
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and interview for a job and not know how to use generative AI to to do their jobs better. So we're
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requiring it. It has totally disrupted the classroom experience. We're running up and down the halls,
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exchanging ideas with faculty, reading articles, trying to figure out what's the new product,
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what product does this, what product does that. And in we've come to the realization,
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students need help knowing how to use it as well. I mean, we, you know, we say, we've been teaching
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students how to Google for the past 10 years. Well, now we need to teach students how to use AI
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and where the where those resources are, basically get on that first rung of technology, because
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it's going to continue to change. But get on that first rung and get in that mindset of continuous
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learning and continuous curiosity about how these things work. Yeah. And as an employer, I would say
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that if I'm hiring someone out of the university, which we do all the time, if they don't come to
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us with those skills at this point, I would be disappointed for sure. You know, I, I say to my
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staff all the time, you know, go use chat GPT, it's okay, you know, it's absolutely okay. If it allows
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you to do not better quality work, but maybe speed up your productivity, why wouldn't we do that?
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So I think, yeah, there's two things. I mean, it's, it's coming into every classroom. I mean, it
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affects everything that we already teach, right? Right. Not just us, it's across campus. But also,
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I think in IS, there's a particular niche that we need to pursue, and we will be. And that is this
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notion of, of taking AI products and connecting them together, building APIs. Yeah. And that's,
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that's I think a particular niche for information systems to fill, right, to build new products by
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creatively putting AI products together. Right, right. It would be interesting to,
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to try and be working through that because those AI products are changing so quickly. Number one,
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what they can do every week, we hear about some new amazing thing. But there's new ones popping up
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every week also. And I feel like that's, that's the role of our discipline is to kind of manage
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that change, right? Right. Specify these requirements and be this continuing monitoring and evaluation
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of these systems and keep them updated. Yeah. We tell our employees, a really good employee here is
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someone that doesn't necessarily know everything because you can't, but is willing to take a problem,
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and in our case, it's a business problem, look at what technology is available to them and figure
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out how to use that technology. And they may never have touched it before. So, you know, what, what
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you're doing is great because that's what we need in the IS field. That's certainly what we need.
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So, great. Good to hear that. So, tell me about the Center for Analytics and Emerging Technologies.
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This is something super exciting. It's, it's brand new this fall. It's coming with our new,
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our school business, new strategic plan. The Center for Analytics and Emerging Technologies is,
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it's got a foundation in analytics as the name implies, but also recognize the importance of
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emerging technologies like AI, cybersecurity and blockchain. It's a school-wide center.
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We have a number of activities planned for the center. It is, it is focused on providing a way
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for external partners to engage with us on this, in this space of emerging technologies.
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So, internally, that looks like providing experiential learning opportunities for students to interact
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with external partners and also producing impactful research. So, as an external partner,
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how would one get involved? Like, where, where would we start? Well, we're going to develop a menu
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of ways to engage. So, it's up to the external partner. So, there could be,
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we're developing an internship program where we are bringing together different resources,
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like a mentoring, our career services, and the internship classes all in one program. So, that's
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one thing, one way for an external partner to be involved. We're ramping up a program where students
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can work on projects in an extracurricular fashion so that they can get paid.
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Outside the confines of a semester or a class, right, so it could be a short-term project or a
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super long-term project that doesn't necessarily need to fit into a semester class. We have other
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opportunities for, like I said, we hope to have a menu. We're going to have a menu of, you know,
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here's opportunities for class projects, capstone projects, practical projects, that sort of thing.
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We also intend to have more events, so educating the community and learning from the community,
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so creating that two-way communication so we can stay up to date on what our students need to
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know and what we don't know. Like I said, we're scrambling to keep up right now.
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Right, right, right. So, would that be a facility for, you know, take a
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organization like ours where we're technologists and technology is changing really quickly and we
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might want to bring, not necessarily an executive, but an individual up to speed on a specific
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technology. Is that something that we could engage with the center on? Would you be offering
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like certificate programs or anything like that? Sure. So, initially we're planning,
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for example, one-day events on specific topics. So, we'll kind of get the idea of what is it that,
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say, alumni want to polish up on and then bring your friend or we'll also, you know,
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ask our external partners if they want to send people to one-day brush up on a particular topic,
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that sort of thing. We're also planning to launch an executive literacy program. So, this is more
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what we have in mind, but we're also planning to launch an executive literacy program. So, this is more
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what we have in mind is more bespoke coaching and training for executives, not necessarily
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technology companies, but companies that aren't technology companies but need to know what the
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new technology does. They need help explaining to their board what their plans are with this
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new technology. Right, right. That happens all the time where I'll be with peers that maybe aren't
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in technology roles or don't run technology companies and they'll ask me to, you know,
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this is my favorite, tell me what AI is. Where do you want to start? So, I think a facility for
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doing something like that would be absolutely amazing and certainly I think would help elevate
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VCU in the community, you know, to be more involved. So, a few more questions around that.
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There are some research areas that the center is going to focus on. Can you tell me a little bit
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about that? Sure. So, we're in the center. We're going to launch an AI lab which is going to be
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focused on faculty and PhD student research working on the cutting edge of AI and information
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systems research. So, in terms of PhD level research that really focuses on the
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socio-technical aspects, like how do people relate to the AI and how does it affect
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how does it affect behavior around, well, in different aspects. How does technology affect
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behavior in business? There's also a portion of IS research called design science which is developing
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solutions to business problems within context. That can also be generalized to solve other
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problems. So, that's the AI lab. So, it's a place for faculty and PhD students to interact
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and work more as teams perhaps than they have in the past. We also have the Isosceles lab that's
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led by Dr. Elizabeth Baker. They do undergraduate research in developing
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mobile applications for healthcare. Oh, okay. So, things like managing, helping people manage
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chronic diseases for themselves or their children. So, managing appointments and that sort of thing.
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Wow. And so, she's done a great job over the years of engaging undergraduates in
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participating in that research. I bet. Yeah. Does that partner at all with the VCU health
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systems or I have no idea. Yes, she's got connections over there and she's done quite
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a bit of research in nursing informatics as well. Oh, really? Yeah. There's a lot going on over
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there. Not just at VCU but also across to other universities as well. Wow. I have no idea.
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I'm learning a lot here and I spent a lot of time with you. I'm learning a lot.
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So, what do you perceive as the biggest challenges in establishing this center?
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I think the challenges are the same as the opportunities. We applied for a grant proposal
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this fall where we were promoting an idea to scale up our internship program and I found it to be,
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it was a great opportunity and excuse to just meet with external partners and, hey,
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you want to grab a cup of coffee? I'd love to tell you about this program we're going to do.
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Can we get a letter of support? So, the challenge is going to be getting the community,
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to getting the word out there, right? Right. We're not doing things this way anymore. We've
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got a new way of doing things. We've got a new organization. So, it's really, the challenge is
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going to be communicating to our partners. These are the new ways to engage with us. But at the
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same time, it's a great opportunity. It's a great excuse to be able to send somebody an email or
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call them, drop them a line and say, hey, let's get together. Guess what's going on? Let me tell
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you all about the new things you've got going on. Sure. So, will it change how as a business owner,
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I would engage with VCU to get an IS intern? It could. We hope to make the process easier.
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Okay. Really. So, the internship program right now, the way that it works is students have to,
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they get their internship on their own. They can leverage resources from career services.
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And then they enroll in a class. They can enroll in a class and they'll get a little bit of mentoring
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in that class from the instructor. So, it's, as many as 20 students in this class with one
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instructor, very capable instructor. But what we hope to do is to connect more of these resources.
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So, have a list of priority partners that have internship opportunities. So, we have a program
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that students can apply for, then they get exposure to these. Hey, these are the opportunities you
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should check out. We're also going to implement a new AI class next spring, which would be like a
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training class before the internship. So, they'll have a more specific training before they go into
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an internship. Not necessarily that the internship has to be around AI, but they will have a common
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training before they go in. And then thirdly, to partner the existing mentorship program with our
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internship class. So, then they can get more one-on-one instead of one-on-twenty. They'll get
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one-on-one mentoring experience while they're in the internship and get, you know, the ideas to
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enhance their experience where they can talk to their mentor, they can talk to each other,
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learn about what other opportunities are out there, learn about how do I interact with my
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supervisor, how do I interact with the organizational chart, basically. Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's,
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we're a smaller company, but that's one of the challenges in bringing in interns is
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you really have to have a defined program and someone who can manage them as an intern. And a
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lot of companies don't necessarily have that. And I think that you could probably place more
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interns if they come in with those skills where you don't, you know, looking at a kid saying,
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okay, I have to tell this kid, you know, what do you wear to work? What time do you show up? Don't
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check your phone in meetings, you know, kind of all of the basics that you and I would know.
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So if someone is interested in working with VCU to get an IS intern now, how would they do it?
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They can contact me or our business career services. My email is JP Brooks at vcu.edu.
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Beautiful. Yeah, and I'll be happy to get you in touch with the right people. And I can help
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advertise to our students. And what types of work can interns do?
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Well, right now, we require, we require four 300 level IS courses before they can take the
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internship class. Okay. And so that typically means they have a database class, some programming,
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some systems analysis and design, and a data communications class. Okay. So they have a foundation
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in those things. And they're in it's before they're typically going into the deeper dive of the
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senior level electives, some of them even taking graduate classes for their undergraduates. So the
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so the idea is they've got a baseline of IS knowledge, and they're capable of some things.
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Right. Right. Right. And certainly we've, we've had interns on our help desk. That's a great
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place for interns. We don't put interns on necessarily billable projects, but we can have
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them work on internal projects where they're doing maybe some data analytics or building
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small mobile applications and things like that. And I find that that's a really great way for us.
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It's a great way to figure out is this person, this individual going to be a fit and when they
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graduate in one or two years, you know, because we like to have our interns for a couple years,
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are we going to hire them? I believe I would need to confirm this, but I believe we have hired 100
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percent of the VCU interns that we've had. That's great. So, so we love it. And it's convenient for
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us because we're right down the street. So it's certainly, you know, one of the great things
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about VCU students, I believe is that in a lot of cases, they're working students, you know, a lot of
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them can be first time college students in their families. And we find that that actually makes
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for a really great employee because they're super driven. Yes. And we need that. Yeah, they're very
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responsible. Yes. Yes. And that's been a real joy as a teacher, too. Yes. They put forth effort,
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and then they also recognize that they should get rewarded based on what they put in. Yeah.
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My experience is that when they come as interns, they're really hoping to land a job later on.
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It's not just a check the box. I need an internship. It's okay. Let me figure out, is this a place that
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I want to land? And it's worked out really, really well for us. So, super, super pleased.
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Well, that's the questions I have for you. If there are anything else you want to share about
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the program? Well, I just want to put it in a plug that we're leveraging your excellent leadership
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as chair of the IS advisor board this past year. And it was based on that successful year that
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we're able to launch into this, these new big dreams with the, with the center and everything.
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And so, we're really excited to continue working with you and leveraging your expertise. Yeah.
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I absolutely love participating in the board. You know that. I have fun. I love technology.
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So, yeah. Well, thank you. Thanks for coming in. Appreciate it. Thank you. Alrighty.
