I met a wonderful woman last week at the SirsiDynix Executive Conference – Beth Unger, Vice Provost for Academic Services and Technology and Dean of Continuing Education, Professor of Computing and Information Sciences, Kansas State University . Rich Wiggins pointed me in her direction as a technology pioneer who influenced computing at Michigan State University and spoke at their 50th anniversary of computing. In fact, Beth is a mathematician and a computer scientist and as a young woman from 1959-1961 she worked with IBM on such projects as the first automation of the assembly line of Oldsmobile, resulting in a custom-built car every 13 seconds. She has been honoured for leadership in distance learning and instructional technology. One awesome lady! At the SirsiDynix Executive Conference, Beth talked about building learning communities on academic campuses and her slides are available.