Q&A: Kathy Kirchner
Kathy Kirchner, associate director of the support center, is one of the women featured as part of The Signal’s special #HawkHerStory issue, celebrating Women’s History Month. This special edition focuses on the stories and perspectives of the various women within the University of Houston-Clear Lake (UHCL) community.
Read The Signal’s Q&A with Kirchner below and see the other Q&A’s conducted with students, faculty, staff, administrators and alumni here.
Q: Can you tell us a bit about yourself, on both a personal and professional/educational level?
A: I started my career at UHCL in 1981 as a teaching assistant for Dr. Bill Staples (former UHCL President), and then worked for him full-time for a few years in the College of Business before moving on to University Computing and Telecommunications as a software trainer, primarily for the College of Business.
With that new system, I learned how to be a programmer, designer, and cable puller! I started the concept of an IT “help desk” at UHCL and later became lab manager for UHCL’s first computer labs. I was also the UCT newsletter editor, UHCL liaison for Apple and IBM, coordinator of two multi-vendor fairs on campus, and more recently, web content provider.
I also coordinated and taught software classes as well as taught the first Macintosh software classes at UHCL. With some training, I programmed and designed our first help desk ticketing system—which we used for about 11 years. I took over the duties as the help desk coordinator until finally taking over the day-to-day operation of the UCT Support Center—which merged the areas of Help Desk, Media Services, and WebCT in 2005. I am now the associate director for the UCT Support Center.
My husband, Robert, and I are high-school sweethearts, who married after my graduation from Central Michigan University with a Bachelor’s degree [in] Applied Arts in Business Education and moved to Texas. We have two grown children, Elyssa and Kelsey. We love to travel!
Q: Who are some women (real or fictional) you look up to most? Why?
A: I admire my mom most as she overcame many obstacles in her long life. Education farther than 10th grade was not an option for her during the depression. After raising 5 children, and then later, me (#6) she became a widow in her 40’s and had to earn a living with no education, just life experience, but she made it work.
Present day, I also admire Ellen DeGeneres, not because of her celebrity but because of how far she has come as a woman in both her personal and professional life. She is a very caring, compassionate, and generous woman, but also a strong woman who fights for what she believes in and who knows how to make people laugh. We need more kindness, empathy, and laughter in the world!
Q: What are three things you can’t live without?
A: My wonderful friends, love of my family, [and] a good latte!
Q: What are some problems you anticipate/have encountered as a woman in your field?
A: The biggest problem I’ve encountered in my career in IT is not being taken seriously. I’m not really a “technical person” which may seem odd for someone in an IT field. Aside from the secretarial staff, I was the first employee in UCT that did not have a computer science degree.
I’m big on customer service. I like to be proactive and keep our customers informed of upcoming issues that may affect them. I want the first-level support that my staff and I provide to our customers to be support that maybe resolves their issues without having to escalate it to the next level. I want the Support Center to be a place where our students, faculty and staff WANT to come to for help and where they are treated with respect and courtesy and be a place where they know we will try to solve most of their issues.
Sometimes that compassion and empathy for the customer’s needs get lost in the big picture. I think that being a non-technical woman in an IT department has somewhat hindered the chances for promotion in the latter part of my career as the skill sets I possess are not valued as much as my technically-inclined male counterparts.
Q: What advice would you give to the younger version of yourself?
A: Probably my advice would be to take more chances and not take the “safe route.” Believe in yourself. Don’t be afraid to fail. Everyone makes mistakes. Learn from them and move on!
Q: Is there anything you would like our readers to know?
Given my Business Education degree, past work experience, and my hatred for computer programming in college, I never imagined I’d be working in an IT department. When I stumbled upon UHCLC [University of Houston Clear Lake City] in the summer of 1981, looking for temporary work, I never imagined I’d have a boss and a true friend as wonderful at Dr. William A. Staples. He encouraged me to take a chance, leave my comfort zone, and take that job in IT. A job that I didn’t think I was really qualified for, but he believed in me. So, you never know what your future holds! I’ve worked at UHCL for over 37 years.
