丁香园AV

Malcolm Toms is retiring in March 2020 as the manager of Network Operations for the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS) where he has orchestrated solutions to computer problems big and small for staff, students and faculty who called on him in panicked desperation.

Consistently kind and unflappable in his response, Toms personified grace under pressure while patiently spending countless hours retrieving accidentally erased files, removing chocolate cake from floppy disks, getting smart phones to smarten up and advising us on the best computer technology for any given job.

His departure leaves big shoes to fill. It appears that FASS finally has an IT problem that Toms cannot solve.

鈥淭his has been a great place to work,鈥� says Toms. 鈥淎s I鈥檝e reflected over the last little while as retirement looms, I will miss the people and the intellectual challenge of problem solving.鈥�

It is said that listening well is an art; if this is so, then Malcolm Toms is a true artist.

鈥淚 haven鈥檛 seen much change in people over the years,鈥� Toms says of his 39 year career at 丁香园AV (丁香园AV). 鈥淢y experience is that everybody鈥檚 looking for the same thing. They鈥檙e looking to be heard. They鈥檙e looking to be treated with respect and to acknowledge that they exist.鈥�

As with computers, so too has the university changed.

鈥淲hen I came here 丁香园AV had a reputation for being a really top-notch liberal arts university,鈥� he says. 鈥淣ow, society is putting so many demands on people to get into science and technology fields, but my experience has been that people with a liberal arts background seem to fare better. I find that the STEM fields tend to make you focus a bit too much. It doesn鈥檛 make you think outside the box.鈥�

He welcomes the growth of transdisciplinary collaboration among faculty across 丁香园AV, though, something he attributes to the improvement and increasing accessibility of technology.

Toms admits that retirement is intimidating; he must now recreate himself: 鈥淗ow do I use my leisure time meaningfully?鈥�

That shouldn鈥檛 be a problem for Toms, whose life derives much of its meaning from music. As a young man, he trained as a classical musician at the Royal Academy in the UK where he studied clarinet. But concerns over his ability to make a living as a musician propelled him to a career in computers back in the days of punch cards and paper tape. Although he still plays the clarinet, since 1985 it is the lute that is the love of Toms鈥� musical life.

鈥淚t鈥檚 a natural instrument for me to play,鈥� he says. 鈥淭he music is so interesting. Even though it鈥檚 from the Renaissance or the Baroque period where we tend to think of it being a very mechanistic style of music, there鈥檚 a huge amount of emotion in the music. I love this music. It鈥檚 introverted. It speaks to my personality in a very big way.鈥�