Shown Above: The sign outside the Jon T. Rickman Electronic Campus Support Center. The Center was renamed in honor of the Vice-President of Information Systems.

In recognition of Dr. Jon Rickman’s more than 30 years of service to Northwest, the Board of Regents recently approved a recommendation from President Dean L. Hubbard to rename the Electronic Campus Support Center in Rickman’s honor.

Rickman, who joined the Northwest faculty in 1976, served as director of computing services for 20 years before assuming his current position, vice president for information systems, in 1996.

Formerly called the Gateway Electronic Campus Support Center, the Center occupies the former National Guard armory on the corner of Memorial Drive and College Park Drive. The facility, which services and maintains all university-provided notebook computers, will now be known as the Jon T. Rickman Electronic Campus Support Center

"I consider it a real honor to have my name on the Electronic Campus Support Center," Rickman said. "Keeping the Electronic Campus operational, up-to-date and affordable for over 20 years has been an exciting and challenging journey."

During the 1980s, Rickman played the lead administrative role in the creation of the Electronic Campus, which was deployed in 1987. Groundbreaking in its day, the network was the subject of extensive national media coverage and grabbed headlines in The Washington Post and USA Today, because it provided networked terminal access to every faculty and administrative office, as well as, residence hall room.

In the decades since the Electronic Campus went live, Rickman has remained a significant player in maintaining Northwest’s national reputation for putting the latest information technology into the hands of all members of the Northwest campus community, especially students. Most recently, Rickman was the driving force behind the expansion and upgrading of Northwest’s notebook computer program, which with the start of the Fall 2009 trimester provides all students with a university-owned, wireless-ready notebook computer.