Foggy Bottom Association chooses new leader

A neighborhood group changed leadership over the summer in a move that may alter the Foggy Bottom community’s relationship with GW.

Joy Howell was voted to be the Foggy Bottom Association’s new president in June, replacing Ron Cocome. The FBA under Cocome has continually fought the University’s expansion into the neighborhood.

The FBA president is elected by a nominating committee and association voters and serves for a three-year term.

“I got drafted,” Howell joked, explaining that she had never expressed specific interest in the presidency but was nominated after showing concern about issues such as the Whitehurst Freeway project.

Howell said her goals as president are to keep Foggy Bottom a historic neighborhood but to work with development projects that will enhance the quality of life for the community.

“Foggy Bottom is a really wonderful, historic and charming neighborhood,” Howell said. “I would like to preserve it with a balance of growth and development.”

Howell said that since becoming president, she has met with Michael Akin, GW’s director of Foggy Bottom/West End affairs.

Cocome said that he is supportive of the FBA’s new president and would be willing to advise her.

“I think she’s a great woman and will do a great job as president,” he said. “We’ve shared ideas and I’ve talked to her about it and I will continue to.”

-Katie Rooney

GW recognized for post-9/11 IT changes

CIO Magazine named GW’s Information Systems and Services department one of its 2005 Bold 100 award recipients for information technology. The magazine honored the University for its reexamination of recovery plans following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

CIO lauded GW’s efforts to ensure the availability of its information systems in the face of disaster. In order to make the University’s information technology more reliable and resilient, ISS oversaw the construction of a new data center on GW’s Ashburn, Va., campus as a mirrored backup to the primary center in Foggy Bottom.

“(Sept. 11) woke us up to some of the risks we had here at GW,” said Vice President and Chief Information Officer David Swartz. “If we had a certain type of disaster that brought down our systems, our goal was continuity of operations rather than disaster recovery, which could take days, weeks or months.”

GW was one of five higher education institutions to receive the annual CIO 100 award. The magazine honored its 2005 recipients for this year’s theme of boldness, defined on its Web site as “the willingness to assume big risks in the face of big rewards.”

Swartz said the University is honored to receive the award.

“It’s nice to let people know the extent of the work we go through to maintain the systems they rely on,” he said.

-Marissa Levy