Laura Petty grew up in Muncie, specifically a mile away from Ball State’s campus. So, it only made sense that she would work her way to Ball State for her higher education. While finishing her college career, Petty started an on-campus job at the main campus computer lab as a student lab assistant. Little did Petty know, this campus job would continue into a lifetime career at Ball State.  

After Petty’s job as a student lab assistant, she moved on to another part of the IT department, working as a student programmer on the software development team. With these experiences under her belt, she quickly realized the value of working at Ball State and the ever-changing nature of working with technology, so when she was offered a full-time position, Petty did not hesitate to take the offer.  

“I enjoyed the work environment at the University and had a really good experience as a student employee working in IT,” Petty said. “With technology, things are always changing and there are new things to learn, which I enjoy.” 

While serving on the application development team, Petty’s title changed from programmer to programmer/analyst and then, eventually, senior programmer/analyst. Petty was responsible for consulting with clients, designing, coding, testing and managing computer software systems. 

Some of the key projects Petty worked on were managing the technology systems related to scheduling/grade processing, leading efforts to convert the campus systems to accommodate plus/minus grades and making the modifications necessary to program computers for the year 2000.  

As she excelled in her role as a programmer, she found she had a deep love for helping others understand and then use technology, so she made another move in IT into client support with the role of Technology HelpDesk coordinator. In this role, she oversaw the operations of the Technology HelpDesk.  

While in this position, Petty developed the concept for a support service that would help students specifically resolve their personal technology issues, deployed a “ticketing system” to manage all technology help requests and represented Ball State IT at many events to share IT updates with others. 

Moving her way through IT, Petty found herself at the beginning of Unified Technology Support (UTS). She started out as assistant director of UTS and is ending her career as the director of UTS. She has overseen, facilitated and managed UTS efforts of continuously creating better technology support for Ball State students and faculty, no matter the circumstances.  

“I was part of the team that was brought together when Unified Technology Support (UTS) was formed,” Petty said. “It was very rewarding to see the new focus placed on client services, including the dedicated Tech Center space in Bracken Library, which made these services much more visible and available to clients.” 

Beyond working in IT, Petty says she worked “adjunct to the Department of Technology” where she taught evening classes in addition to her day job. She also worked with many students in student employee and graduate assistant positions where she had the opportunity to help them learn and grow in the world of IT. 

To say that Petty has done a significant amount of work with Ball State IT would be an understatement, but when asked what some of her favorite memories are, she spoke not of her direct work but instead she spoke of students.  

“I really enjoy working with students, particularly hiring and then coaching and mentoring student employees and graduate assistants,” Petty said. “Seeing them succeed when they go into full-time jobs is very rewarding… I have had several former students reach out or visit me and thank me for everything I did to assist them while they were students.” 

After a bachelor’s, master’s, 39 years of different employment at Ball State, Petty leaves with excitement about retirement and some parting words of advice:  

“Find a job that you enjoy doing.  You will spend a lot of time working, so you should make sure you are doing something that you find rewarding and makes a positive difference to others.”