Darrell Smith named MSU Chief Information Officer
A proud Morehead State University Eagle who has served the University for over 30 years is taking on a new leadership role.
MSU has promoted Darrell Smith (Class of 1993) to the role of Chief Information Officer (CIO) for the University. Smith officially began his new role this past June.
Originally from the Ashland area, Smith has worked in various information technology roles since graduating with his bachelor's degree in business administration with a special emphasis in computer information systems. MSU initially hired Smith as an entry-level academic computing consultant in 1994.
Smith began taking on more responsibilities later as a senior academic computing consultant (1995-98) and senior academic consultant/web manager (1998-2003). It was during this time that Smith and others helped launch Morehead State's first website, built entirely in-house by IT. Later, Smith co-managed the move to an enterprise content management system (CMS) website as the University's web content architect from 2003 to 2005.
Smith next moved into administrative computing in 2005. "I've been in every part of IT except for the administrative side," Smith said. "I like a challenge and something new."
After serving as senior programmer analyst (2007-2010) and lead senior web shared services administrator (2010-11), Smith began taking on more leadership responsibilities in future roles. Between 2011 and 2013, he was interim co-director and later co-director for information technology application services before becoming an executive director, first of enterprise applications (2016-18) and later of infrastructure services (2018-2024). He later served as associate chief information officer for over a year before taking on his current role.
Many of the technological services, features, and amenities enjoyed by students, faculty, and staff on campus bear Smith's fingerprints and efforts. He helped spearhead efforts to help faculty incorporate more technology into the classroom, including the Blackboard course system and running the Bert T. Combs computer lab, where he occasionally served as an instructor. He helped develop the MyMoreheadState web system for easy, convenient access to online resources for the campus community.
"I've always been the kind of guy that if somebody is struggling with a technology or a solution, I love to try to find a way to help them do their job easier," Smith said.
Smith also had an active role in helping outfit Morehead State's eSports Lounge in 2022 and upgrading MSU's entire Wi-Fi network to 6E (the first campus in Kentucky to do so) in 2023. He would later assist with efforts to increase cybersecurity measures to fortify the University's technological infrastructure against cyberattacks.
In his new role, Smith said he plans to emphasize setting standards and practices, creating a sustainable service catalog for customers and using it to continue his passion for using technology to serve others.
"My passion with IT again is spending time with users and shadowing what someone is doing. Sometimes, they may not even know they are just doing something in an inefficient way. By knowing the service catalog, what we have and how we might be able to use our tools or our knowledge could transform the way they do business. That's what makes me excited and that's what's kept me doing this for all these years,” Smith said.
He said he wants to utilize the relationships he has built across campus over three decades to allow IT to be more proactive in addressing concerns and issues on campus. Smith also wants to ensure IT uses the University's technology budget wisely while keeping its technology current and fully operational.
In his current role, as in his prior positions, Smith said he does what he can to move MSU forward.
"What you begin to realize is the University has been doing business for (nearly) centuries now, and you realize you are a person at a given point in time that comes along and picks up the assisting of that business. It's just done differently than it was before," Smith said. "These people help build things over time and do the best they can while they are here, and then someone else comes along, picks up the baton and runs the next leg of the race."
For more information on MSU's Office of Information Technology, visit moreheadstate.edu/technology.
