 Who are you? I am Sophie White. I manage the showcase series at EDUCAUSE and I'm also the staff liaison to the EDUCAUSE Young Professionals Advisory Committee. Can you tell us about the showcase series? The showcase series started in 2021 and it's a series that EDUCAUSE created to provide curated resources for our members at institutions and the showcase series is tied to the EDUCAUSE Top 10. So these issues that we've identified as important to higher ed technology professionals in the showcase series, we curate these resources that help institutions tackle these issues at their own campuses. What's the best book you've read recently? I really like to read and the best one that keeps coming up for me is called Girl, Woman, Other. It's by Bernardine Everisto who won the Booker Prize a few years ago and it tells the stories of different black women in the UK and their experiences. I think it spans starting in the 1960s to modern day. So it's kind of an interesting poetic style that she writes in and I was just really drawn in for the whole thing. Who was your top music artist in 2023? I listened to a lot of Taylor Swift so she was my top music artist. I think I was the top 5% of listeners or something which was kind of shocking. What do you like about working at EDUCAUSE? I really love, on one hand, my great co-workers so the people who work at EDUCAUSE are very passionate about what they do. They're very well educated in terms of understanding the higher education landscape and passionate about doing the right thing, creating change in positive ways. And then I also get to work with a lot of really fantastic members at institutions and at companies as well who I think inspire me to come to work every day and do the best I can. What's something you wish more people knew about the showcase series? I understand that a lot of our EDUCAUSE members are very busy and have many tasks to do in their day-to-day jobs but the showcase series has a lot of great resources from the webinars that we create to talk to the community about these issues. We have a storyline that we use throughout the showcase pages and brings together the different resources around a specific theme. We have a go further section that brings together EDUCAUSE resources including professional learning opportunities, multimedia interviews with members of our community. So there's a lot going on in the showcases and I wish that people would take the time to access all the resources that can help them in their jobs. In 2024 we're also expanding our showcase shop talk series which is a YouTube conversation, informal conversation where we're talking to members of the community about the showcase topics. If people had infinite time I wish they would listen to all of those as well and we'll also be featuring some new solution spotlights in 2024 which provide examples from institutions of how they're tackling these issues. So I really hope people will check those out as well. What's something that inspires you about working in higher ed? I mention I get to work with a lot of really great folks from institutions, companies, also at EDUCAUSE. I love working with the next generation of higher education professionals. I do a lot of work with our young professionals through my work with the YPAC at EDUCAUSE and they just have such creative ideas. They want to change the world for the better. I leave all of their meetings just feeling inspired that we're in good hands moving forward. So I love working with them and can't wait to see what they do next.