Ed Meachen is an “academic native,” having spent his entire career in higher education. He received his Ph.D. in History and Literature from Emory University, where he focused on the history of ideas and how western civilization’s view of history radically changed in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. After teaching for a number of years, Ed went back to school to obtain a Masters in Library Science from University of Chicago. He worked for the Newberry Library, the great independent history library in Chicago, for several years, than became the library director at North Central College in Naperville, Illinois. In 1990, he became the Library Director at University of Wisconsin—Parkside, and in 1992 he “graduated” to CIO. In 1998, he became Associate Vice President and CIO at the University of Wisconsin System.

His responsibilities include the implementation and operation of large administrative and academic IT systems, long-range IT planning for the UW System, and managing the IT operations of UW System Administration. But his real love is improving the education of students through the creative use of technology. In 2000, he helped establish the Academic Advanced Distributed Learning Co-Lab and has chaired the governing board, the AADL Co-Lab Commission, since its inception. The mission of the Co-Lab, located in downtown Madison just off the Capitol Square, is to use technology to enhance student learning any time and anywhere.