Leading Open Source in the Community College

 

(editor's note: This article was re-published from Campus Technology News 10/06/2011)

A prolific innovator for 25 years at California's Delta College, Lee Belarmino may be most recognized nationally in higher education IT for a relatively recent accomplishment: the successful implementation of one of the first instances of the open source Kuali Financial System--a system the college helped develop as a founding partner alongside much larger and better-funded universities.

Lee Belarmino, the just-retired vice president of IT at San Joaquin Delta College in Stockton, CA, made such numerous and varied contributions during his tenure at the institution that the college's board named a new technology building on campus after him--the Lee Belarmino Sr. District Data Center.

But Belarmino, who retired Oct. 1, pointed to his institution's commitment to open source as its single most significant move under his leadership. It was just seven years ago when he and his president at the time, Raul Rodriguez, decided that in order for the college to best leverage technology to support the institution's mission, it should join with other leading institutions in the community source model.

A prolific innovator for 25 years at Delta College, Belarmino is most recognized nationally in higher education IT for a relatively recent accomplishment: the successful implementation of one of the first instances of the open source Kuali Financial System. Throughout the development of Kuali, Belarmino and his college's functional and technical staff were major contributors to KFS development. Working as a founding partner alongside Kuali Foundation institutions including Indiana University,Cornell University, the University of Hawaii, Michigan State University, and the University of Arizona, Delta College was the only community college developer.

Belarmino said he believes he's leaving his institution with a sustainable and affordable future with respect to technology to serve the institutional mission and said he thinks he has demonstrated the validity of open source in the community college environment, providing a model for other community colleges--a particularly timely contribution in the current challenging economic environment.

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