William Shepard interview, 22 August 2014

This interview was conducted as part of Cleveland State University's 50th Anniversary Commemoration Effort. William Shepard is a native to the Cleveland area, having been born and raised in the city's eastern suburb of Lorain and is currently the Director of Operations and Technical Support at the university. He initially enrolled as an education and psychology major at CSU back in 1971 but later changed his academic focus to information technology after being exposed to coding by some of his fraternity brothers. As a member of Greek Life, Shepard took part in the various activities associated with those organizations and was central to their many philanthropic fundraising efforts and intramural sports teams. Before graduation Shepard left CSU for work but returned to work in the IT department and finished his degree during that time. In this interview he discusses campus life and Greek Life in particular during his undergraduate days and relates the trajectory of his career in the IT department at the university. Of particular interest is his description of how CSU's implementation of technology progressed as over time and how his department worked to address the issues caused by the PeopleSoft failure of the late 1990s.