Polley Ann McClure, vice president for information technology and communication and professor of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia, has been appointed by Provost Don M. Randel as Cornell University's new vice president for information technologies.

Her nomination was approved by the Cornell's Board of Trustees March 12, following President Hunter Rawlings' endorsement.

"I am delighted to report that we have hired a superb new vice president for information technologies," Rawlings told the trustees. "Polley McClure is one of the most respected administrators of information technologies in the United States and fills a critical position for us on campus."

Randel said: "Her work at the University of Virginia has focused on providing a solid, reliable base of technology to support teaching and research, and she will help us to maintain our leadership in that effort. Her background in the biological sciences will be particularly valuable as Cornell makes a major push to expand its work in genomics and computational biology."

McClure is expected to assume the post on or about May 1. She will succeed H. David Lambert, who left Cornell in December, 1997 to become vice president for information services and chief information officer at Georgetown University. Thomas R. Dyckman, the Ann Whitney Olin Professor of Accounting in the Johnson Graduate School of Management, has served as acting vice president since September, 1998.

McClure has pursued dual careers. She earned her Ph.D. in zoology, specializing in ecology, at the University of Texas at Austin in 1970. She joined the faculty at Indiana University in 1971 and in 1983 became a full professor. She has published numerous journal articles about animal population ecology, physiological and reproductive ecology, and evolutionary ecology and worked with dozens of graduate students.

Early in her work she became interested in computing as a research tool, and this led to a role in developing computing resources for other researchers at Indiana University and eventually to her appointment in 1987 as the university's dean for academic computing. Two years later she was appointed associate vice president of information resources, a position she held until she joined the University of Virginia in 1992.

At Virginia she has successfully merged academic computing, administrative computing and telecommunications and initiated a program of instructional technology support. A new high-speed network is in place and a program to modernize the personal computing environment will roll out this summer. She continues to publish articles about information technology in higher education, speaks at several conferences each year and consults about problems and issues facing colleges and universities in managing and organizing information technology. She has served as consultant to the University of Missouri system, the University of Florida, Vanderbilt University, Northwestern University and the University of Colorado-Boulder.

McClure has served as member and chair of the boards of directors of both Educom and CAUSE, organizations devoted to promoting the use of technology in education. She currently serves as chair of the board of EDUCAUSE, helping to lead the consolidation of Educom and CAUSE into that new organization. In 1993 she won the CAUSE/EFFECT magazine Contributor of the Year Award for her collaborative paper, "Administrative Workstation Project at Indiana University."

"Even when I was a biologist, I thought that Cornell was the best institution in the country because you have so many different facets of biology in so many different disciplines," McClure said. "Then when I began to pay more attention to information technology, I saw that Cornell over the years has probably been the best institution in terms of using technology for academic purposes. So I'm flattered and very excited to be working there."