Go ahead. Call Mike Uttendorfer (M.S. ’95) a geek. You won’t hurt his feelings. It’s a distinction the director of NYIT’s Center for Teaching and Learning with Technology (CTLT) acknowledges proudly. To “Dr. Mike,” as he is known to his students, technology, gizmos and gadgets are fun, and if having fun at work makes him a geek, then so be it. At the end of the day, he’s still smiling. “I have the best of both worlds,” he says. “I get to teach, and I get to play with all the new toys.” After 12 years as a high school math teacher, Mike became a computer consultant, a position that inspired him to create software of his own. He decided he needed to getup to speed on the industry quickly and enrolled in

NYIT’s Master of Science in Instructional Technology program. “NYIT was the right place for me. I thought I knew a lot about technology, but I learned much more.”

Two days after graduating in 1995, Mike accepted an offer to become an adjunct professor at the college and has been on the rise ever since.

Currently the director of the CTLT, Mike is charged with integrating innovative uses of technology into the college’s curriculum and spends half of his time trying out new technology and teaching faculty members how to use it.

For Mike, it is the application of the tools rather than the technology that is important. “New equipment is always being developed,” he says, “but it’s only as good as what we do with it.”

It should come as no surprise that technology upgrades are at the top of Mike’s list of the biggest changes he has witnessed during his tenure. He easily rattles off a dozen improvements, including distance learning programs, wireless campuses and, of course, the growing use of technology in the classroom.

Mike and his wife, Sue, have three children and four grandchildren, with three more on the way.


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