By Henry Indictor
Staff Reporter
For eighteen years, Leslie Roggen, both manager of Mobile Computing, and the managerial head of The Factory, has dedicated her time to helping out Sacred Heart University students with their technological issues.
At the Factory, many studets run into a variety of problems with their laptops, ranging from spilled beverages, cracked screens, dropped laptops, and viruses.
While assisting students with various technological mishaps, Roggen also likes to focus on the big picture in order to avoid any future laptop problems.
“Technology isn’t as easy as everyone thinks it is, and it’s not always perfect. The network can go down, and people can get viruses,” said Roggen. “And what that we would like to make people more aware of, is [the importance] of not opening up e-mails that you do not know, as well as not clicking on links when you have no clue of their context. There are so many people in the advanced world, and they put things out there to cause havoc. We need to become more aware of this issue.”
Roggen started working at Sacred Heart with the “laptop program,” but soon took over the “help desk” and customer service obligations of The Factory.
“99.9 percent of what we do here, is communicating with people to make them feel comfortable, and to have them know that we’re going to help them,” said Roggen.
Roggen says that her willingness and desire to help people, stems from morales she was taught in her early-childhood.
“We do support software on everyone’s computer. So, if a student comes in and they have a software issue, we have no problems helping them, in seeing what we can do,” said Roggen. “The students that work for us are trained as level 1 technicians. They can evaluate the issues, and sometimes they can fix the technological issues as well.”
According to Roggen, The Factory has four different locations in close proximity to Sacred Heart.
One is located in Stamford, Conn., and the other three are located on the main campus outside of 63’s, inside the Martire Center, and the newly built Center for Healthcare Education.
They employ 11 full time workers, 4 graduate assistants and around 30-32 graduate students.
In addition to managing The Factory, Roggen has other hobbies and part-time interests.
When she is not spending her time with technology, she likes to sing and takes cabaret classes.
A native of Brooklyn, NY, Roggen is also an avid sports fan and her favorite teams are the Yankees, the Giants, and the Knicks. She also spends a significant amount of time keeping up with current news and events.
“I like to know what’s going on in my world,” said Roggen. “It’s more the visual posts, than the paper. I read it online, and I watch news shows. I like to dabble between Fox News, MSNBC and the Huffington Post. And I do try to watch CNN when I watch the cable news because I feel like they do a good mix of liberal and conservative. It’s pretty split down the middle.”
She takes a lot of time to make her own decisions when it comes to current news.
“There are usually three sides of a story, one side, the other side, and the one thats right down the middle. I like to try to listen and come to my own conclusion,” said Roggen.
Although she had never worked in technology prior to working at Sacred Heart, Roggen has made the most of her skills.
“I would say that I’m not really a technician. I am really more of a businessperson and a manager,” said Roggen. “Because I think its important to have someone that isn’t so focused on technology and someone who can see the bigger picture. A lot of times when you are a technician, you are looking at the small issue in itself, rather than the bigger picture.”
