Biography of CIO Sally Jackson

Professor Sally Jackson was named Chief Information Officer (CIO) and Associate Provost at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in May 2007. Prior to becoming CIO at Illinois, Professor Jackson served as Vice President for Learning and Information Technologies and as Chief Information Officer at the University of Arizona.

Her major accomplishments at Arizona include:

• Network Master Plan
• Technology Refresh Bank
• Several distance education projects
• Participation in Kuali (a collaboration among many universities to create Open Source business software for higher education)
• Establishment of the Office of Student Computing Resources
• Procuring a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant for the ADVANCE program for promoting "faculty diversity and the equitable treatment of faculty" in the science and technology fields

Professor Jackson has strong ties to Illinois, having earned bachelor’s, master’s, and doctorate degrees in Speech Communication here, in 1974, 1976, and 1980, respectively.

Professor Jackson's academic focus in the communications field has been in the area of argumentation, especially on design of discourse structures that promote competent and effective deliberation.

Among her recent publications are “Designing Countermoves to Questionable Argumentative Tactics,” with S. Jacobs (2006) in Contemporary Perspectives on Argumentation: Views from the Venice Argumentation Conference, F. H. van Eemeren, M. D. Hazen, P. Houtlosser & D. C. Williams (Eds.); “Derailments of Argumentation: It Takes Two To Tango,” with S. Jacobs (2006), in Considering Pragma-Dialectics, P. Houtlosser & A. van Rees (Eds.); “Technology, Design, and Interaction,” with M. Aackhus (2005), in Handbook of Language and Social Interaction, K. Fitch & R. E. Sanders (Eds.); “Designing Argumentation Protocols for the Classroom” (2002) in Advances in Pragma-Dialectics, F. H. van Eemerem (Ed.); “Creating a Context for Consensus,” with D. G. Brown, in Technology Enhanced Teaching and Learning: Leading and Supporting the Transformation on Your Campus, C. Barone & P. Hagner (Eds.).