Employee Spotlight: Scarlet Bowen

At the Office of Information Technology (OIT), we value our team members and the phenomenal work they do for the university. Each team member is an important part of the organization to support and enhance the technology experience on the CU Anschutz and CU Denver campuses.

This employee spotlight is recognizing Scarlet Bowen, a Web Analytics Support Specialist within our Web Services team. As a Web Analytics Specialist, Scarlet “[provides data that empowers] people to decide how to refine their website to reach the university’s many objectives and diverse constituents.” Partnering with Web Services and Web Development, the results of the data and refinement are combined with accessibility and inclusion so that users have a great experience when they visit a CU website. Scarlet is a new team member to OIT but has been with the University of Colorado for over 16 years. She started her career with the university on the Boulder campus as an English and Women Gender Studies faculty member and grew into the Director role of the Gender and Sexuality Center. In 2023, she moved to the Anschutz Medical Campus and began her work with the Web Services team.

Transitioning from faculty and Director to Web Analytics Support Specialist was the perfect timing between re-skilling in data analytics and an “encouraging and inclusive job posting and interview process with the team.” This drew Scarlet to OIT because “the job posting was welcoming of candidates from varied backgrounds, and it emphasized traits such as curiosity and willingness to learn. As someone new to the field, I was looking for a position where I would be supported in continuing to develop my skills. I also felt during the interview process that I was being valued as a person who could contribute in many ways, in addition to my specific analytics skillset. Plus, everyone clearly enjoyed working with each other, and that made me excited to join the team!”

Now, six months into her new role, what Scarlet loves most about working with OIT is “being in a department where continuous learning takes place in service to diverse communities.” This is important to her because her position in web analytics allows her to contribute to this service. “In my role as a web analytics specialist, I get to learn about each department or school at both CU Denver and CU Anschutz, about who they want to engage through their website, and about what is important for them to showcase.”

What Scarlet identifies as the most impactful skill she’s learned since taking on this new role is about mindset. “One of my favorite quotes is ‘life is trying things to see if they work’ by the writer Ray Bradbury. There’s a mindset that folks in OIT have that I would characterize as a ‘collective tinkering’ mindset, like ‘let’s put our heads together and see what we can figure out.’ This mindset and a sense of humor are great way to approach just about anything!” Seeing that teamwork and collaboration are so essential to problem-solving in her position and this new mindset, Scarlet has identified the best way to connect with colleagues and accomplish this in a hybrid environment is virtual coffee meetings and joining the Belonging Committee. “When I first started in OIT, I reached out to people I would read or hear about who were working on something similar to me or who had a similar academic or career background. Big surprise—a lot of people in OIT majored in humanities! I scheduled zoom coffee meetings with different people, and everyone was very welcoming and willing to share insights and context to help me feel at home.”

With all the resources and learning she’s gained since joining OIT, every position has challenges. Scarlet’s biggest challenge in her new role is “getting the word out about our new analytics services, which everyone at CU-Denver or CU-Anschutz can benefit from.” If you are interested in learning more about what Scarlet and her team can offer when it comes to analytics, “[web analytics can help assess if the website is on the right track or requires some different optimization strategies]… whether the main goal for a website is attracting prospective students, garnering an international reputation for research, or recruiting a diverse employee applicant pool,” she encourages you to reach out to her to get started by submitting a ticket to: [email protected].