Babson CIO Patty Patria on Leading in Technology and the AI Transformation
Mere months after Patty Patria arrived at Babson as chief information officer in 2022, the world of technology shifted dramatically with the release of ChatGPT accelerating the AI revolution. With 22 years in higher education in information technology and an MBA from Suffolk University, Patria had seen a lot. But this was different. “That was a game-changer,” she says.
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Over the past two years, Patria and her Information Technology Services Department team have made major advancements in the College’s infrastructure and risk mitigation to keep Babson ahead of the technological curve, especially on artificial intelligence.
And, yet, amid the rapid developments, one thing hasn’t changed for Patria. “The thing that motivates me is the students,” she says. “Everything that we do benefits students and benefits the next generation of learners.”
The Q&A
What do you most enjoy about your role as CIO?
“I love it when I can take technology and improve the business process that people are doing to make their lives better. Maybe we leverage technology to automate a process that might be causing hundreds of hours of manual work, or leverage technology like we’re doing with AI to be innovative and creative to do things that we couldn’t do six or 12 months ago. At the end of the day, it’s leveraging technology to improve someone’s day by improving business processes or giving them a different tool set to make their job easier and better.”
How has the role of CIO in higher education changed over the past decade?
“The role of CIO has evolved a lot. Traditionally, 20–25 years ago, people came from network or systems backgrounds, the heavy core technology side of the world, but the role has evolved so much, where it’s really about communication, managing projects, and managing people. So, if you don’t have the soft skills, along with the technology, the hard skills, it makes it really difficult to be a CIO. The world is changing so rapidly now that you have to be able to move quickly and pivot and shift priorities, along with the people management, the process management, the technology management.”
Over the past two years, you have led significant technological advances at Babson. Which are you most proud of?
“First and foremost, I am proud of my team. We’ve built a strong, high-performing team that is able to adjust quickly to the changing need of the institution, which I think is important. From a technology perspective, we really did a complete overhaul of infrastructure. There was a lot of deferred maintenance in the technology, and we needed to replace much of our network, server, and classroom infrastructure. By making the move to the cloud a year and a half ago, that positioned us really well for all of the innovative things we’re now doing with AI. Babson is so far ahead of the game compared to other institutions on AI that had we not put the proper physical and cloud infrastructure in place, I don’t think it would have been as easy for us to make the jump into AI. The other thing I’m really proud of is building a cloud-based data warehouse, so we have the proper technology to help us with data-driven decision making, which will also position us well going forward.”
“The thing that motivates me is the students. Everything that we do benefits students and benefits the next generation of learners.”
Patty Patria, chief information officer
What role is Babson playing as a leader in technology?
“Babson is really in the top 5% right now of the AI revolution in higher ed, and maybe it’s the top 1%. I speak with a lot of other higher ed CIOs, and Babson is one of the few places that has a comprehensive AI strategy that cuts across the academics, the student experience, and the administrative operations. From the academic perspective, the faculty leading The Generator (Babson’s interdisciplinary AI lab) are doing a fabulous job of engaging faculty, training them on AI techniques, and infusing AI into the curriculum and coursework. From the student perspective, there’s a student AI club that has more than 400 students now, and I meet with those students periodically to get an understanding of their needs. There’s a lot of cross-pollination going on in those environments, and the students are doing absolutely amazing things. From an operational perspective, we have almost 200 faculty and staff leveraging AI with M365 Copilot to improve productivity, idea generation or ideation, and we are planning other AI projects tied to our service desk and financial operations. Lastly, Babson has the desire to promote and achieve that holistic AI strategy at the highest level, with support from the President’s Council and the Board of Trustees. That’s really special and unique. I think there’s very few places that have that.”
How do you see AI transforming Babson and higher education?
“The way that our faculty teach is going to help our students get a huge leg up in the job market. Studies show that 50% of jobs in the next few years are going to require some type of AI skills, and so having our students gain those skills while they’re here is critical. Having the students experiment with things like the new AI grants program we rolled out this semester will also provide our students with the ability to experiment and infuse their entrepreneurial endeavors into the next generation of products or services. From the operational perspective, AI is going to be mostly around improvements to productivity and idea generation. The other thing that we as an institution are starting to look at is how to leverage AI to help both prospective learners, as well as existing students, understand what learning they might need to take, so I think the personalization of learning for students is going to start to transform higher ed.”
Two More for Patty
What does Babson mean to you?
“Babson, to me, is a community of hard-working, engaged, entrepreneurial people who want to make a difference. That’s what it means to me. And, to be in a community like that, and to be able to partner with like-minded people who want to make a difference, it’s a joy.”
Right now, what are you …
- Reading? “Elevate Your Team is one I finished a little while ago, which is about team dynamics. And, I am currently reading The Signals Are Talking by Amy Webb, which is about how to future-proof your business.”
- Watching? “I don’t really watch a lot of TV, but I just watched ‘The Gentlemen.’ That was really good. The other one I watched recently was ‘Emily in Paris.’ ”
- Listening to? Classic rock
- Doing in your free time? “I like to travel. I was in the countryside of France last year. I’ve been to Portugal, Iceland, the Azores, Montreal, most recently, and Colorado. I’m going to Aruba for the first time in December. When I’m not traveling, the other thing I love to do is paddleboard. That’s my activity in the summer, to get out on a lake or a pond and paddleboard.”
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