Ms. Lisa Williams

Ms. Lisa Williams is the civic engagement coordinator and Upper School technology coordinator. She was born and raised in Chicago and has remained here throughout her life. Growing up, she went to Stephen K. Hayt School. After she graduated, she went to Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington, Illinois. After college, she moved back to Chicago and found herself a job working at the front desk of an insurance agency. She used to use Parker as a landmark to get off the bus to get to her cousin's house. Now she has been her workplace for twenty years.

Ms. Williams found out about Parker by seeing a help wanted ad in the newspaper. However, she didn’t start here working with technology. When she came to Parker, she started at the front desk. Around nine months after she started, the school noticed that Ms. Williams was very interested in technology and knew how to properly work with it. She’s been working with technology ever since. The school used to have a lab for the Upper School similar to the current Library Lab, which Ms. Williams oversaw.

In addition to her job as Upper School technology facilitator, Ms. Williams is also the Upper School civic engagement coordinator for Ms. Shanti Elliott. Ms. Williams also keeps track of the attendance records in the Upper School. She doesn't write in who isn’t there; she just has all the records for attendance. The dean of students gets an email saying who is and isn’t there. Ms. Williams not only works with students, she also works with parents. She explains how the website is set up and other technology for the school that parents need to access. During her day, she has to do a mix of things. In the morning, she is dealing with attendance and checking emails. In the afternoon, Ms. Williams is making plans for civic engagement, and she is handling tech-related issues all throughout the day. She delivers computers, helps set up projects for classes, and fixes computers and iPads. As Ms. Williams said, the most common issue with computers is when students have trouble printing. Even though there are a lot of challenges that Ms. Williams has to deal with, after interviewing her, we don't think there are many other jobs that she would rather do than this one.

Ms. Williams' favorite piece of technology is her phone. However, she was not always interested in technology. When she got her first computer in her freshman year of high school, she started to become more interested in it. Ms. Williams didn’t grow up around technology, so it was hard to know how to use it. There was also a lot of memorization related to instructions because there was no app showing you what to do. She loves her phone and her favorite part of fixing technology is helping people. Ms. Williams does not have Facebook *gasp*, but she does have Twitter. On Twitter, she has 20 followers and is proud of it. People find her posts interesting, even though they are mainly written to help herself. Ms. Williams also enjoys surfing the web and uses Twitter as a way to get links to tutorials on technology. She is not huge on social media, but she sure does know a lot about it!

One of Ms. Williams' many achievements in her long career at Parker that she is very proud of is when people ask her to step in as a substitute teacher because when people ask her to do that, she knows that they believe in her. Ms. Williams never accepts the offers, however, because she is not a teacher. She said that she does not really know how to teach and work with kids in that way, but we think she's just being modest.

The biggest tech problem that Ms. Williams has dealt with was in the summer of 2000. The school got 30 new computers, and Ms. Williams had to transfer all the data from the old computers onto the new ones. Another challenge she faces is when students misuse technology. When students misuse technology, the department has the ability to turn off their devices. Now most everyone has his or her own device, so that doesn't happen as much. Integrating different platforms for technology can be very confusing as well. It is a challenge for her to get everyone on the same page when they are using different devices. When asked what students can do to make Ms. Williams' job easier, she replied that students can tell her if they will be absent in advance.

Although Ms. Williams' free time is limited, she enjoys the time that she has. Though she says she does not have a big social life, it sounds like she does. One way that she spends her free time is by having fun and doing activities with her husband. Ms. Williams cares a lot about civil rights, carbon footprints, and immigrants' rights. Lately, she has been designing websites to help immigrants. Ms. Williams also fancies herself a photographer. She loves taking pictures to remember things. She also loves Star Trek. She designed a whole bulletin board of Star Trek memorabilia outside the registrar's office on the third floor, where she shares an office with Mr. Matt McCaw.

Ms. Williams works hard to keep everything running smoothly, and we are grateful to her for that. We also really appreciate her time and generosity in letting us interview her. Her favorite part of every day is saying, “Oh! It is so nice to see you!” to all the people that she passes in the hall or at the entrance, so make sure to greet her next time you see her around school!