Education Leaders Program / Adam Smeets

"If there is a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, you must be the one to write it."

— Toni Morrison

Adam Smeets is the manager of Digital Media Services at Loyola University Chicago. In this role, Smeets manages the campus lab environments at the Lake Shore and Water Tower campuses and the full-time employees and undergraduate student advisors that support them.

Also known as digital media advisors, the student employees are the first level of support for digital media technology at Loyola. They provide one-to-one consultation and troubleshooting for students, faculty, and staff in lab locations. Digital media specialists, the full-time staff members, are the second level of support for advanced digital media questions and consultations. Smeets manages both the direction and scope of digital media projects in the lab locations. This includes technical support, development, training, and consultation.

The Digital Media Labs are select computing labs that feature hardware and software for digital media production. This includes an Equipment Loan Program (camcorders, audio mixers, laptops, and so on), training courses, online application and server development, and one-on-one consultations. Whether meeting with faculty to review curriculum and technology, with staff to discuss technology approaches for university business, or with students to evaluate and provide project support, Smeets enjoys teaching and collaborating.

He also plays multiple roles within Information Technology Services, ranging from creative support and interface design to programming and development guidance. Sample projects include implementing Adobe® Connect™ for webinars and online learning, as well as Adobe Flash® Media Server for the igNation streaming service. In the development realm, his recent projects include PHP-based equipment loan-management and equipment-reservation systems.

Smeets serves on multiple committees at Loyola, as well as teaching courses on technology, business, and application/web development. One of his courses, Computer Concepts and Business Applications, focuses on computer foundations, technology theory, and learning HTML. He customizes the content of this course each year based on the interests of the students enrolled.