Awards

E. Ross Bartley Award (2022)

Presenter: Pamela Whitten

About Cinda Haff

Cinda Haff is retired after serving at Indiana university for more than three decades. She served as program director for emergency management and continuity planning for University Information Technology Services (UITS) for the last 10 years. Haff started with IU as an entry-level Cobol programmer working on the financial systems development team in 1986. She held several positions in IT over her career and added emergency management and continuity program director responsibilities in 2012.

Haff helped IU avoid critical IT system failures and outages by having each service owner create and update disaster recovery plans and business continuity plans. In addition, Haff ran exercises for departments to help them prepare for emergencies. In December 2018, Haff ran a UITS-wide flu pandemic exercise in which participating staff were sent home and forced to figure out how to collaborate via Zoom, an exercise that proved prescient when the COVID-19 pandemic closed IU’s campuses 15 months later. As a result of this exercise, UITS had plans for how to pivot quickly to remote work and education and the systems necessary for a health-related emergency before they were needed.

Haff’s expertise in IT emergency management and continuity planning has been used beyond higher education. Haff and security staff from IU were awarded a grant by the Indiana Secretary of State to help prepare Indiana election officials to guard against physical and cyber threats that might impact the integrity of the 2020 election. Haff helped lead tabletop exercises that educated election officials on how to handle situations ranging from power outages to stolen laptops. Her work helped ensure that Indiana’s election was free, fair, and accurate.

In June, 2022, IU President Pamela Whitten presented Cinda Haff with the E. Ross Bartley award, the highest award which honors Indiana University staff members who demonstrate outstanding leadership, service, and professional accomplishments at the local, state, or national level.