Appointment of Dr. Marc Hoit as Director of Design and Implementation of the PeopleSoft Student Systems

David R. Colburn, Provost

I am very pleased to announce that Dr. Marc Hoit will join this office as Director of Design and Implementation of the PeopleSoft Student Systems. Dr. Hoit also will be Academic Affairs’ senior representative to the PeopleSoft (UFBridges) project. To assure a smooth transition from his current duties as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs in the College of Engineering, he will begin his new role on a half-time basis starting March 15, 2004 and move to full-time on June 15, 2004. The first phase of the PeopleSoft project will go into production this summer. That is, the new PeopleSoft financials, payroll, and human resources modules will “go- live” July 1, 2004. Following that implementation, the next major focus will be on the student systems. The PeopleSoft student systems work groups have already begun design work. Dr. Hoit will join their efforts in March and lead completion of the design element as well as direct the implementation of new systems scheduled to come on-line in 2006-07.

Dr. Hoit comes to Academic Affairs with excellent academic experience and an outstanding record of scholarly and administrative achievement. Dr. Hoit has enjoyed substantial success as a research scholar, teacher and administrator. Specializing in the area of structural engineering analysis, Dr. Hoit’s research has been funded by federal, state and private agencies with awards cumulatively totaling more than $5M. He is best known for development of finite element analysis software and his structural engineering computer program called FB-pier. The FB-pier software is licensed to the Bridge Software Institute, which Dr. Hoit directs, and is distributed and utilized worldwide.

Most recently, Dr. Hoit has served in the College of Engineering as both Associate Dean for Research and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs. His academic expertise and his administrative experience make him a great fit for the tasks at hand. I look forward to his leadership during the next phase of the PeopleSoft project. I hope you will join with me in wishing Dr. Hoit well in this new assignment.