Director, Customer and Academic Support

As Director of Customer and Academic support, Paula Batton oversees OIT's front-end services to meet the computing needs of university faculty, students, and staff.  In Paula’s purview she has 3 teams, including Academic Support, Centralized Desktop and Services Support, and the OIT Service Desk.

The Service Desk is located at the Link within Perkins library, where support is provided via walk-up, as well as the Power House, where support is provided via phone and chat.

Academic Support aids Trinity faculty with technology support for over 3,000 devices across many academic units.  Similar in scope, Centralized Desktop and Services Support works with administrative IT departments across campus proving onsite and remote support for over 3,900 devices.

Paula started working at Duke in 2000 as an OIT service desk analyst. She became a desktop support analyst in 2005, team lead/project manager of the desktop support group in 2008, service desk manager in 2012, senior manager over both support units in 2013, director of customer and technical support in 2015, and in 2022 has had academic support added to her reporting structure.

Paula is a member of the IvyPlus Customer Support Directors Group and contributor for the HigherEd ITSMf group. Certifications include HDI Support Center Manager and Comptia Network+.