Julie Ouska is the Vice Chancellor of Information Technology for the Colorado Community College System (CCCS). CCCS is the largest higher education system in Colorado with thirteen independently accredited colleges, 42 campuses and serving over 114,000 students each year. Julie has served in her role for eighteen years. CCCS is very centralized in terms of its enterprise technology and CCCS System Information Technology supports all the enterprise applications and technologies provided across the system for students, faculty and staff. A centralized environment such as CCCS requires a high degree of collaboration, transparency and shared decision making and governance at various levels in the organizations. The System IT team has a proven track record of successfully supporting and innovating in this complex environment. Her team supports Infrastructure, Business Technology/Project Management, Application Development and Institutional Research/Business Intelligence. In 2024, CCCS won a CIO100 award for the technology they developed for Colorado Online, CCCS’ organizational strategy for online education including a system-wide approach to course-sharing that improves opportunities for students to take needed courses online wherever they are in Colorado and regardless of which college they attend and ensures full participation in online teaching for Colorado’s rural community colleges. This approach to online education has increased online enrollment by over 9.7% from Fall semester 2023 to Fall semester 2024.

Julie has a BA in Fine Arts with Teacher Education and a BS in Management Information Services both from the University of Northern Colorado and a MS in Organizational Leadership from Mercy College in New York. She has over thirty years’ experience in information technology in local government, private sector and higher education.

In her free time, she lives in rural Elizabeth, Colorado, where she raises and shows Whippets.