Kirk Laird

ITS Division: Customer Support & Student IT Enablement

Service Area: Student Technology/Classroom/AV Support Services

What services do you and your teammates provide to campus?

We manage all of the ITS computer labs and computer classrooms, which includes over 800 computers. We also offer student-run tech help in five locations: Cisco Lab in W.T. Young Library, King Library, Mechanical Engineering Lab, Nursing Building Lab, and the Grehan Journalism Lab.



The Media Depot is a specialized, student-run lab that we manage. Many students have a multimedia component in their coursework, and we guide those students to creating the content for those assignments. It can be anywhere from building a website to creating a video documentary. Many students also utilize the recording rooms in The Media Depot. There are two presentation rooms, two audio recording rooms, a green screen room, and a podcasting room. Students can reserve any of these rooms for their assignments, and over 1,000 students utilized these rooms last year.

What campus units do you collaborate with?

Many people across campus use our services. Last year, the Cisco Lab alone had 34,000 logins. I can’t think of anyone we don’t collaborate with. It ranges from the Medical Center, to Presentation U, to the College of Arts & Sciences.

What are your workplace values?

The students come first. They’re our major stakeholders. I want them to get what they need to be successful.

What is your favorite part of working in ITS and UK?

I graduated from UK with a telecommunications degree (now known as media arts). A lot of media arts students work with me now, and it feels like I’m able to pay it forward. We all run the labs together.