UW–Madison’s Brenda Spychalla has been honored with the UW-IT Professionals Lifetime Achievement Award.
The award recognizes the continued contributions of a UW–Madison community member whose body of work throughout their entire career has had a significant impact on the success of the university.
Spychalla currently serves as the Co-CIO of the School of Education and the co-director for MERIT, which provides library resources, instructional design, and technology support to the School.
A nomination letter for Spychalla, submitted by UW–Madison colleagues Anna Lewis and Sabrina Messer, lauded her “outstanding leadership, mentoring, coaching, and dedication to improving the IT landscape for students, faculty, and staff” throughout her 29-year career.
“In addition to the exceptional leadership and technical acumen,” they wrote, “this individual does it all with the highest degree of integrity, resiliency, and grace.”
Bruce Mass, the former CIO of UW–Madison, said that Spychalla was one of “very few IT leaders who never shied away from taking on tough and even controversial work.”
“The reason I trusted Brenda so much is because of her high level of personal integrity, and knowing not only did her word mean something, but I could count on [them] to tell me when I was veering off course,” he said.
Spychalla will retire from the university on July 1.